The mauryan Empire

1. The mauryan Empire BY Victoria Jackson

2. Rise of the empire • Chandragupta Maurya was the founder of the Mauryan Empire which was from 321-185 BCE • He was believed to be born around 340 BCE but not a lot is known about his childhood • Chandragupta was helped greatly by a teacher named Chanakya. Chanakya fixed him, guided him and taught him to rule as an emperor and helped him raise an army • Chandragupta had an awesome army. He was inspired by Alexander the great’s conquest so he trained his army of over 60,000 soldiers and used his army to end the previous empire, the Nanda Empire, which began the Mauryan Empire. • He was the first to unify a lot of the states of India together • His empire grew to have one of the most highly organized and highly structured government at the time.

3. Economy • The economy was fairly developed for this period of time. • Industry enterprises and business did begin to flourishbut they relied heavily on agriculture and it was even used as the income for the government and that helped the government expand. • They built an irrigation system and that was a big part of the agricultural system. - They built a dam across the river Girnar to create a larger lake and that supplied the neighboring areas with water • With all of this a system of taxation began to grow • Trade also began to grow and soon many things were imported and exported. They had relations with different countries like Syria and Egypt. - Imports: Wines, figs, clothes and beautiful vessels - Exports: Cloth, timber, ivory, wool and cloth, and stones • For transportation a lot of roads were built

4. culture • Farmers, herdsmen, soldiers, philosophers, councilors, and artisans were some of the major occupations in the society • Sculpture, poetry, painting were a big part of the arts. The period of stone started emerging as they transitioned from wood and brick • - Ashoka the great had huge pillars around the whole empire. Each one of them had Buddhists edicts and morals on inscribed on them • Taxila, Ujjayini and Varanasi were famous educational institutions at the time.

5. Religion There were two major religions during the Mauryan Empire: - Hinduism: When Chandragupta’s son Bindusara takes over he believed more in Hinduism - Buddhism: After Ashoka converted to Buddhism it turned into the main religion of the empire

6. When Chandragupta retired he converted into a Jainist monk. The goal of Jainism is to reach liberation and perfection.

7. The height of the mauryan empire When Chandragupta gave up his thrown to become a Janist monk he passed his thrown down to his son Bindusara and it eventually going down to his grandson Ashoka the great. Ashoka exceeded in anything and everything he did and he was a great military leader. Ashoka was the actual person who untied all of India. He was unlike many emperors. He respected and helped everyone even his neighbors and enemies, he believed in peace, he didn’t terrorize anyone, he banned slavery and he gave importance to education

9. decline • Once Ashoka died control over the central government loosened. • The empire started splitting into different territories each one being controlled by one of his heirs. Rebellions started occurring more often as well. • When Ashoka looked over the ruins and corpses of a battle he fought with the people of Kalinga he was very shocked and had a sense of “what have I done”. From then he converted into Buddhism and only believed in peace. • This caused many problems later when the rebellions started happening. Because Ashoka and his heirs were pacifists the army was getting weaker ad weaker and eventually could not withstand the rebellions. The empire collapsed fifty years after Ashoka passed away.

10. Significance • The significance of the Muaryan Empire is that it had a very centralized government that was really highly structured for that period of time. They had great territorial expansion which cause them to unite all of India, and they had a strong army.