Mauryan Empire

In a chain of invasions on India, the invasion of Alexander who was the king of Macedonia, was the most prominent one. At the time, when he invaded India, India was divided into many small states which were hostile towards each other. Alexander began his expedition of being emperor of the world and crossed Hindukush mountains to enter India in 326 BCE. He battled with King Porus on the bank of river Jhelum and defeated him. This situation alarmed a visionary teacher who wanted India to be united against the foreign invasion, he dreamt of a powerful ruler to unify the nation.

As per a scripture of Buddhism, ‘Anguttara Nikaya’, we find the description of 16 Mahajanapadas at that time. In those 16 Mahajanapadas, The Magadha was said to be the most prominent and powerful empire at that time. The west and central part of today’s Bihar can be estimated as the Magadha empire if it’s time.  

The history of the Magadha empire can be traced back in the fifth century BCE. The Haryanka dynasty is said to be the first known dynasty of the Magadha empire. The next important Dynasty in Magadha was the Shishunaga Dynasty in which king Kalashok was the most prominent one. 

After this, the Magadha empire was ruled by the Nanda dynasty which was founded by Mahapadmananda. His son Ghananada was ruling here at the time when Alexander invaded the west part of India in 325 BCE. King Ghananda was not a good ruler. Alexander had the dream to capture the whole India. He also had the ambition of conquest of Magadha. The spectacular and visionary polymath Acharya Chanakya wanted to save India from the invasion of Alexander. He trained his disciple Chandragupta Maurya and eventually made him the king of Magadha. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC. Chandragupta Maurya was enthroned as king of Magadha in 322 BC. The Mauryan empire was founded in 322 BCE by him.  Seleucus I Nicator was the successor of Alexander in Greece. He had the dream of conquest of Magadha. He battled with Chandragupta Maurya and was defeated badly. After this defeat, he gifted some areas of Heart, Kandahar and Kabul to Chandragupta Maurya. Also, the daughter of Seleucus married Chandragupta Maurya to prevent Chandragupta from attacking Seleucus in future. Chandragupta Maurya utterly destroyed Seleucus’ dream of conquest of Magadha. Chandragupta Maurya unified all regions under his control. He can be said to be the first emperor of the nation or the first emperor of India by whom the Magadha empire was founded in 322 BCE.

Chandragupta Maurya expanded his kingdom from Iran in the west to Bengal in east and from Kashmir in north to Karnataka in south. Chandragupta Maurya not only captured territories to enhance the areas of his kingdom but also won hearts of people by working for welfare of people. Acharya Chanakya, the prime minister and mentor of Chandragupta created a very efficient political, financial and military system which worked on a well-organized mechanism where everything was designed and done methodically. The book written by Acharya Chanakya -’ Arthashastra’ is considered a masterpiece and of utmost importance in the financial system. Acharya Chanakya is also known as ‘Kautilya’.

The Magadha empire which was founded in 322 BCE faced a large-scale famine in the last few years of the regime of Chandragupta Maurya. In his sadness, he converted into Jainism to find solace and shifted to Mysore leaving the throne for his son Bindusara.

Bindusara was the successor of Chandragupta Maurya. Deimachus came to India as an ambassador of the king of Syria, Antiochus. Another ambassador Dionysius came at the time of Bindusara from Egypt. These both came here to know and understand the Mauryan empire. 

Ashoka was the son of the king of Bindusara. Ashoka was crowned in 269 BCE. As per the book ‘Rajatarangini’ of Kalhan, Ashoka was the devotee of Lord Shiva, he founded the city ‘Srinagar’ near the river Vitasta (now Jhelum) in Kashmir. In 261 BCE, Ashoka invaded the ‘Kalinga’. Kalinga was a famous region for elephants. He won the war after mass destruction in the Kalinga war. This destruction disturbed him very much and he adopted Buddhism for the peace of his inner conscience. He promoted Buddhism on a wide scale. 

Conclusion

Here, we see that the Mauryan empire emerged as the first empire which unified India as a nation in which most of the kingdoms were under this. It was founded in 322 BCE. Acharya Chanakya dreamt of building a great nation at the time when India was under attack of foreign invaders. He not only succeeded in making India as a nation but also constructed a robust fulcrum of managing financial, political and military affairs in future.