Mauryan Empire (ca. 323–185 B.C.)..
The expansion of two kingdoms in the northeast laid the groundwork for the emergence of India’s first empire, ruled by the Mauryan dynasty (ca. 321–185 B.C.). According to the writings of the Greek diplomat Megasthenes, Pataliputra, the capital—surrounded by a wooden wall pierced by 64 gates and 570 towers—rivaled the splendors of contemporaneous Persian sites such as Susa and Ecbatana. By 303 B.C., Chandragupta Maurya (known to the Greeks as Sandracotta) had gained control of an immense area ranging from Bengal in the east to Afghanistan in the west and as far south as the Narmada River. Much of his success is attributed to his prime minister and mentor, Kautilya (also known as Chanakya), author of the Arthashastra, a cold-blooded treatise on the acquisition and maintenance of power. His son, Bindusara, extended the empire into central and parts of southern India. The third Mauryan emperor, Ashoka (r. ca. 273–232 B.C.), is one of the most famous rulers in Indian history. His conversion to and support of
is often likened to the impact of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great’s acceptance of Christianity in 313 A.D. Beginning in 254 B.C., Ashoka had monumental edicts on Buddhism carved into rocks and caves throughout his empire. One records his sending of religious envoys—with no apparent results—to the Greek rulers of Syria, Egypt, Macedonia, Cyrene, and Epirus. Thirteen years later, he issued seven additional edicts carved into strategically placed polished sandstone pillars. One of the best preserved, at Lauriya Nandagarh in Bihar, stands thirty-two feet high and is capped by a seated lion. Ashoka is also credited with building 84,000 stupas to enshrine the relics of the Buddha and commemorate key events in the
, the founder of Buddhism.
The second Mauryan emperor, Bindusara, ruled for twenty-five years. He warred occasionally, reinforcing his nominal authority within India, and acquiring the title "Slayer of Enemies." Then in the year 273 BCE, he was succeeded by his son Ashoka, who in his first eight years of rule did what was expected of him: he looked after the affairs of state and extended his rule where he could.
Around the year 260 BCE, Ashoka fought great battles and imposed his rule on people southward along the eastern coast of India – an area called Kalinga. The sufferings created by the war disturbed Ashoka. He found relief in Buddhism and became an emperor with values that differed from those of his grandfather. He was a Buddhist lay member and went on a 256-day pilgrimage to Buddhist holy places in northern India. Buddhism benefited from the association with state power that Hinduism had enjoyed – and that Christianity would enjoy under Constantine the Great.
Like the Hebrew Jeroboam and other devout kings, Ashoka was no revolutionary. But there were changes. In the years to come, Ashoka mixed his Buddhism with material concerns that served the Buddha's original desire to see suffering among people mitigated: Ashoka had wells dug, irrigation canals and roads constructed. He had rest houses built along roads, hospitals built, public gardens planted and medicinal herbs grown. But Ashoka maintained his army, and he maintained the secret police and network of spies that he had inherited as a part of his extensive and powerful bureaucracy.
As was common among kings, Ashoka announced his intention to "look kindly" upon all his subjects. He kept his hold over Kalinga, and he did not allow the thousands of people abducted from Kalinga to return there. He offered the people of Kalinga a victor's conciliation, erecting a monument in Kalinga which read:
All men are my children, and I, the king, forgive what can be forgiven.
Ashoka converted his foreign policy from expansionism to that of coexistence and peace with his neighbors – the avoidance of additional conquests making his empire easier to administer. In keeping with his Buddhism he announced that he was determined to ensure the safety, peace of mind and happiness of all "animate beings" in his realm. He announced that he would now strive for conquest only in matters of the human spirit and the spread of "right conduct" among people. And he warned other powers that he was not only compassionate but also powerful.
Ashoka's wish for peace was undisturbed by famines or natural disasters. His rule did not suffer from onslaught by any great migration. During his reign, no neighboring kings tried to take some of his territory – perhaps because these kings were accustomed to fearing the Mauryan monarchs and thinking them strong.
The resulting peace helped extend economic prosperity. Ashoka relaxed the harsher laws of his grandfather, Chandragupta. He gave up the kingly pastime of hunting game, and in its place he went on religious pilgrimages. He began supporting philanthropies. He proselytized for Buddhism, advocating non-violence, vegetarianism, charity and tenderness to all living things.
Ashoka had edicts cut into rocks and pillars at strategic locations throughout his empire, edicts to communicate to passers-by the way of compassion, edicts such as "listen to your father and mother," and "be generous with your friends and relatives." In his edicts he spread hope in the survival of the soul after death and in good behavior leading to heavenly salvation. And in keeping with the change that was taking place in Buddhism, in at least one of his edicts Ashoka described Siddartha Gautama not merely as the teacher that Siddartha had thought of himself but as "the Lord Buddha."
Ashoka called upon his subjects to desist from eating meat and attending illicit and immoral meetings. He ordered his local agents of various ranks, including governors, to tour their jurisdictions regularly to witness that rules of right conduct were being followed. He commanded the public to recite his edicts on certain days of the year.
Ashoka's patronage of Buddhism gave it more respect, and in his empire Buddhism spread. More people became vegetarian, and perhaps there was some increase in compassion toward others. He was not championing the cause of a jealous god and was able to plead for tolerance toward Hindus and Jains. He must have realized harmony as benefitting his rule: he claimed that the Brahmin's creed deserved respect, and he included Brahmins among his officials.
Not all Brahmins returned Ashoka's kindness. They were displeased with Ashoka's campaign against their sacrificial slaughtering of living creatures. But Ashoka's opposition to such sacrifices did please the many among India's peasantry who had lost animals to local Hindu officials.
Ashoka sent missionaries to the kingdoms of southern India, to parts of Kashmir in the northwest, to Persia, Egypt and Greece, but, as Christians were to learn, old habits are not easily broken. Buddhism outside his kingdom took root only on the island of Lanka.
With Ashoka's Buddhism there was little change regarding work, taxation, class relations, government bureaucracy and village politics. Whether prostitution had ended is unknown. In religion, old habits continued among Buddhists, as they looked to Brahmins to conduct those rites associated with births, marriages and deaths. Ashoka attempted to resolve differences among the Buddhists – as the Christian emperor Constantine would among the Christians – but conflicts among the Buddhists remained and would grow.
In the final years of his reign, Ashoka withdrew from public life, and after thirty-seven years of rule, in the year 232, he died. Memory of his reign was to be kept alive by the sculpted pillars with his messages that he had spread across his domain.
During the reign of his heirs the empire began to split apart, including the breaking away of Kalinga. Why this happened is unknown. Buddhist writings suggest that decay had come before Ashoka's death. Some scholars attribute the decline to economic pressures: revenues from taxing agriculture and trade that were inadequate in maintaining the large military and army of bureaucrats. Perhaps palace politics reduced the ability of Ashoka's heirs to govern. Perhaps Ashoka's heirs inherited from Ashoka a pacifism that discouraged their using force in keeping the Maurya Empire together. Whatever the cause or causes, regions within the empire asserted their independence, and the empire disintegrated while the Maurya family, in Pataliputra, continued to rule.
In 185 BCE, the rule of the Maurya family ended when an army commander-in-chief, Pusyamitra Sunga, murdered the last Maurya king during a parade of his troops. Pusyamitra's rise to power has been described as a reaction by Brahmins to the Buddhism of the Maurya family. However accurate or inaccurate this description, Pusyamitra gave his support to orthodox Brahminism and appointed Brahmins to state offices. And, with Pusyamitra's rule, animal sacrifices and other outlawed activities returned, including the musical festivals and dances that had been outlawed.
The uncertainties that came with the collapse of India's great Maurya Empire may have inspired a new book of laws, called the Laws of Manu. These were books that combined Hinduism with sacred law that kings and commoners alike were obliged to follow. The Laws of Manu drew from the Vedas, where Manu was described as the world's first king, as the father of the human race and the one who had received the plans of the god of creation: Brahma. The Laws of Manuinclude Manu's story about Brahma's creation of the universe. Manu brought together, in the form of maxims, Brahma's commandments regarding ritual, custom, caste and other institutions.
Modern-day scholars have considered the Laws of Manu texts as a composite created across centuries, maybe between 200 BCE and CE 200. One scholar, Patrick Olivelle, has argued that the structure of the text suggests a single author. Nothing is known as to who this author might be, but authorship is believed to belong to one or more Brahmins with conservative leanings. The Laws of Manu expressed the values of the Brahmin priesthood. It claimed that authoritarian rule and class privilege were best for everyone. The Laws of Manu claimed that one should give no pain to any creature – not tightly consistent with the ritual sacrifice of early Hinduism. Another commandment held that in childhood a female had to be subject to the authority of her father. When she married she was to be under the authority of her husband. She was to remain cheerful, clever in the management of her household affairs, careful in using utensils, economical in spending, and to do nothing independent of male authority. As a widow or in old age she was to be under the authority of her sons. According to the Laws of Manu, if a female sought to separate herself from her father, husband or son, she made her family contemptible.
The Laws of Manu declared that rulers were obliged to be considerate in judging and punishing their subjects. It claimed that punishment kept the world in order, that punishment properly applied kept all people happy, but applied without consideration it destroyed everything. The Laws of Manu claimed that without punishment, inferior people would "take the place" of their superiors, that the castes would be corrupted by intermixture, that "all barriers" would fall and "men would rage against each other."
Invasions
Perhaps the collapse of the Maurya dynasty signaled to outsiders that India was now vulnerable. Invasions began roughly two years after Pusyamitra took power. The Greek king of Bactria since the year 200, Demetrius, followed the footsteps of Alexander through the Khyber Pass and in the year 180 extended his power into the northern Indus Valley, where he began what was to become a series of wars between the Greeks and the people of India.
The Greeks brought with them a better coin than was being used in India, which contributed to regional and inter-regional trade. They brought with them ideas in astronomy, architecture and art that spread through India, and with the new art came new depictions of Hindu gods and a new image of the Buddha.
The Greeks ruled in the northwest of India by the year 175. Demetrius' family lost control over Bactria to another Greek, and between the years 155 and 130 Greek rule in northwest India passed to a former general named Menander (known to the people of Indian as Milinda). He sent his army into the Ganges Valley as far as Magadha's capital, Pataliputra. But, failing to capture that city, he returned to his kingdom in the northwest. In Pataliputra the Sunga dynasty, created by Pusyamitra Sunga, continued its rule.
Like Ashoka, Menander converted to Buddhism. This conversion may have facilitated the passage of Buddhist ideas west to Bactria and from Bactria farther west. The road between India and Bactria had become a bridge to and from the West. To the Indus Valley came ideas from Zoroastrianism, and in India arose the belief in a savior who at the end of time would lead the forces of light and goodness in a final victory against the forces of darkness and evil.
Scythian and Parthian Invasions
Scythian Warriors archaeological find
Migrants and armies were on the march. From 141 to 128 BCE, Scythians from an area southeast of the Caspian Sea, expanded into Bactria against the Greeks there. Soon thereafter, the Kushans, an Indo-European speaking tribal people from Central Asia, took power in Bactria, driving the Scythians toward India's northwest. Then around 50 BCE, the Parthian empire, which in Persia had replaced the power of the Seleucid dynasty, invaded northwestern India.
The last of the Greek kings in the northwest of India, Hermaeus (reign 90-70 BCE), tried unsuccessfully to defend his rule from these attacks. In the Indus Valley, Greeks, Scythians and Parthians fought each other into the first century CE. The Scythians ended Greek rule in India but maintained the Indo-Greek culture, some of which they had acquired in Bactria. In India, the Scythians became known as Sakas. Like other conquerors, the Sakas kept local royalty as their subordinates. And Saka rulers became known as Satraps.
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