The Mauryan Empire — Chandragupta to Ashoka, and What the Edicts Say

The Empire That Every Ancient India Question Comes Back To

Ancient India carries a large share of the general studies paper, and the Mauryan block alone supplies more questions than any other. The reason is simple: it is the first empire covering nearly the whole subcontinent, and it left written evidence carved in stone that still survives.

The timeline in three names:

• ›Chandragupta Maurya, from about 322 BCE — founder, overthrew the Nanda dynasty of Magadha with Kautilya's help.
• ›Bindusara, his son — the Greeks called him Amitrochates. He extended the empire southwards.
• ›Ashoka, about 268 to 232 BCE — the grandson, and the reason the dynasty is remembered.

The capital throughout was Pataliputra, today's Patna. The empire ended in 185 BCE.

Fix those five facts before anything else. Most Mauryan questions are testing whether you can attach the right person to the right decade, and that alone answers half of them.

1. Who deciphered the Brahmi script of Ashoka's inscriptions?

2. Which of Ashoka's inscriptions describes the Kalinga war and the king's remorse over it?

3. Megasthenes came to India as an ambassador of whom, and to whose court?

4. The Third Buddhist Council, held under Ashoka's patronage, took place at:

5. Who was the last Mauryan ruler, and who ended the dynasty in 185 BCE?

6. Most of Ashoka's edicts were composed in which language and written in which script?

7. India's State Emblem is adapted from which Mauryan monument?

8. The Arthashastra is best described as: