The+Mauryan+Empire

Chandragupta Maurya 321BCE-297BCE
The Mauryan empire was unknown to historians and archaeologists until the early 1800's, when British and Indian historians began to uncover records that allowed them to do some comparative dating.

The first king of the Mauryan Empire appears to have been Chandragupta, who probably began his fight to become ruler between 326 (when Alexander's Macedonian/Greek army arrived). Chandragupta was not of the ruling Kshatriya caste. He did have an excellent adviser in the form of a man we now call Kautilya.

 Kautilya is a historical figure from the same period to which we have been able to date the life of Chandragupta. Beyond that. little is really known about him. He is said to have been a brahmin expelled from the court of the kingdom of Nanda. Some current theories suggest that he was the mastermind behind Chandragupta's enthronement.

 Chandragupta conquered a large chunk of Northern India and ruled from the Nanda capitol at Pataliputra until about 297 BCE, when he retired to a Jain community, and eventually starved himself to death there, in the way of the Jain saints. The Jains still tell stories about Chandragupta's piety and dedication.



Ashoka 268 BCE
 Chandragupta left his kingdom to his son, Bindusara. Little is known about him. He probably took the throne in a controlled way, with his father having made sure of the succession. His name itself means "Slayer of Foes." He may, therefore, have been a conqueror in his own right. Most Indians at this time accepted the idea that one's life was an endless round of life and death (//samsara//) and that there were several possible ways to escape this cycle. It is no surprise, then, and really not at all inconsistent that though Chandragupta was a Jain, his son Bindusara followed the Ajivika ideals, and //his// son Ashoka became a Buddhist.

 It is likely that Bindusara expanded the size of the empire to some extent. The expansion, and his relatively long life gave his son Ashoka time to learn to rule as governer of two different provinces (one in present-day Pakistan/Sind, the other slightly to the south of that). Here Ashoka was able to gain experience. Ashoka apparently proved himself capable, because he was able, after his own father died in 272 BCE, to secure the throne for himself despite fierce competition from other potential heirs. Though we only know the names of four brothers of Ashoka, Indian tradition suggests there were at least one hundred male children of Bindusara. Ashoka was not the eldest, and he may have fought his way to the top by poisoning and murdering his rivals. One brother that we know of apparently joined a Buddhist monastery and renounced all claim to the throne. He is the only one for whom we have even a hint of survival.

 In any case, after 4 years during which the ruler was undecided, Ashoka became Emperor in 268 BCE. He immediately began to lead a large conquering army. He expanded the size of the empire to its largest before the modern state of India that formed in 1947. Ashoka's empire ranged from Nepal to The Sind and the Indus Delta, from Kandahar in modern Afghanistan to the Deccan Plateau in southern India. Economically, politically, legally, it was an integrated, centralized state that was governed by a complex and powerful bureaucracy.

 Like the Roman empire, and the Han empire, the Mauryan state, especially under Ashoka was able to standardize weights, measures, transportation systems, and laws, and attempted a standardization of behavior. Ashoka demanded that roads be straight, paved, and usable, and lined by shade trees to protect the weary traveller. He caused more than thirty monuments (some carved and polished pillars, some huge rocks, others parts of cliffs) to be carved with the law, and with behaviors that he sought to promote as healthy for the society. These "stelae" are virtually identical wherever in india they are found.

 Ashoka himself is said to have converted to Buddhism after learning the results of the Battle of Kalinga, in which, as the story on some of the pillars goes, he was brought to tears and mourning for the people on both sides who died, lost loved ones, or were hurt in the conflict and forced to leave their homes. Ashoka, who had apparently been familiar with Buddhism for some time, is said to have decided on the spot that a principle of kindness should be the ruling concept of his empire, and from that time on, many historians have said, he renounced war altogether.

 The picture that is now emerging based on the most recent historical research shows Ashoka to have been a complex figure. He never mentioned in the stelaeor anywhere else that we can find anything about Siddhartha Gautama - the Buddha, nor anything about his Four Noble Truths or Sacred Eightfold Path. Ashoka thus appears to be less a theological Buddhist than a behavior modifier. His stone pillars, rock edicts, etc., make it plain that he expected all his subjects to behave according to his principle of //dhamma//. While he did spend time and money on a kind of evangelical Buddhism, and we know he sent one of his sons to Ceylon as a missionary, rather than as a governor, his primary interest appears to have been an extension of the creation of law and other standards - a promotion of consistent, humane behavior patterns. This looks more like government than religion, and during his lifetime, Ashoka never gave up his army, or even reduced it in size. It thus functioned as an effective deterrent against international aggression should any appear. His stelae never mention directly a conversion to Buddhism specifically, but deal only with the principle of //dhamma//. In other areas, his willingness to leave his subjects to their own faiths and ideologies is remarkably tolerant. Ashoka was developing a civil society ruled by principles consistent with Buddhism, but he may not have been attempting to spread Buddhism to all Indians. Rather, he was trying to create an effective government.

 As with the Roman Empire then, Ashoka's primary contribution to Indian history was to create a vast collective space, a group of societies and villages unified by one law, one written language, one set of imperial roads, one group of rules for trade, and even, as your text also makes clear, in a parallel with the Roman emperor Constantine, a religious leader for the rejuvenation of the masses and to create a single, unified faith through which a more integrated legal system based on a single moral code, could be administered by a central government more easily than taking into account the legal beliefs of various groups when making decisions.

The Gupta Empire and the Silk Route
In roughly 320 CE the heir to the throne of a small Magadhan kingdom, (no relation to the Chandragupta who founded the Maurya empire) began his rise to prominence by defeating several local warlords, and creating marriage alliances to others. He eventually created a state that controlled the entire Gangetic region of India, and was the foundation of what has come to be known as the. This period on Indian History, from 320 to 550, is often thought of as India's classical age. Expansion by Chandra Gupta's descendants, especially his son, Samudra Gupta (335-376), and Grandson, Chandra Gupta II (376-415), was accompanied by many cultural and social achievements. Among those were the plays and poems of, India's Shakespeare (or perhaps, chronologically speaking, Shakespeare was England's Kalidasa). <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">Also appearing in the Gupta era was a government that was as organized as the Maurya, but less draconian in its implementation of law and taxation, and a resurgence of spiritual thought that resulted in the classical formulation of Hindu practise. In this same period, Buddhism made its way further from the India of its birth than ever before, but was ironically subsumed back into the newly reformulated Hinduism at home. The Guptas also kept steppe nomads, including the Huna, or White Huns, at arm's length until 550, and were thus able to protect classical Indian culture, art, and thought until they were both mature and popular enough to survive on their own. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">A bit earlier than all this, in about 220-221, China's great achievement, the Han dynasty, finally collapsed, and the Roman Empire would fall in the West by 468. This period of chaos saw the Gupta empire rise and fall, and was a period when Indian thought and social organization, as well as Indian literature, provided much inspiration for the world beyond the Gupta borders. The rise of Hindus, for example, under Gupta state sponsorship, led to a kind of duallism that is reflected in, and may have influenced, western notions of reality. At the same time, Buddhism travelled from Northern India along the into  and China, and from there to Korea and Japan. Likewise the Theravada style of Buddhism travelled from Ceylon to Southeast Asia, along with Hindu ideals, and was adapted into sophisiticated cultural systems by the Khmer, Balinese, and in Malaysia and Indonesia. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">The Silk Route (also known as the Silk Road), by which these ideas travelled, was probably in use from very early in the history of civilized societies. It was always difficult and treacherous, but prior to Indian and Chinese development of viable oceangoing vessels, there was no alternative for trade. The earliest documented use of the Silk Route extant, however, dates from the Han Dynasty. Emperor Wu-Ti (140-87 BCE), known as the Martial Emperor because of his military successes, expanded his control into what is now Xinjiang - the western area of China in and around the Taklimak Desert. At the very edge of that desert, Wu-Ti erected the Jade Gate, and finished the great wall at that point. This combination of geographical location, the Great Wall and the Jade Gate made Han policy clear. In fact, they look very much like an arrow pointing the way to Central Asia and the riches of trade. The Han were clearly interested in promoting trade, and in gaining more control in the western part of Asia. This is clear from the effort and cost required to extend the Great Wall, the permanent garrison at the Jade Gate in Xinjiang, and the protection, both de facto and official, of trade caravans heading across the Taklimakan Desert.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">The Jade Gate (Jiayuguan) in Western China (The gate has been reconstructed)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">The Silk Route was the means by which caravans carried precious goods for trade from East to West. In the case of both India and China, there was no perceived need for any of the products that the Romans and their barbarian challengers could offer that were superior to, or served a purpose better than. What could be had in Asia. The Silk Route was also, however, a highway of trade between these two great societies, and in this trade the goods they exchanged were many. China supplied the world with silk, white porcelain, and other prized products. India provided nutmeg, pepper, and cotton, among others. The trade in these commodities was, at the time, the most extensive and valuable trade in the world. Of course, the Silk Route is famous for another reason as well. It is one of the most difficult passages in the world. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">Long treks over extremely harsh and dangerous terrain characterized the route for most of its history. The journey along the Taklimakan section, for example, required that nearly 3/4 of the weight carried by a caravan be in water and food, because of the hostility of the environment. This left precious little space for cargo, which thus had to fetch a great price to make the journey profitable. Even today, in some sections in the, a caravan of camels can travel faster and farther than well-prepared four-wheel drive vehicles. Along the Himalayas, the Pamirs, and the Hindu Kush there are still passes that are impassable by motor vehicle. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">This is, of course, in both eras a matter of economics. If, today, trade was as valuable as it was during the Han and later dynasties, ways would be found to make the journey possible. Then, the journey could not be made more comfortable, but it was worth the risk of disease, bandits, dehydration, and worse to get the profit that came from sales along the route. Rarely, however, did anyone make the full journey to or from the West before the Mongol conquest of China in 1279. For most of history, the territory of Central Asia has been controlled by various groups of steppe nomads, and small principalities. Many of these lived on the revenues secured from the Silk Route trade. Those revenues could come from the existence of markets for goods in towns and cities, or from cash paid to local chiefs of princes for safe passage across their section of the route. In either case, the result was similar - the route was usually divided along the lines of the borders of these various territories, and goods made their way along it from buyer to seller - accumulating value along the way. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">Renowned Asianist and expert on the Mongols Owen Lattimore has related that this activity still continued in the early 20th century, when he worked for a trading company in China. Buying wool, he learned, was a very complex process, because each buyer/seller along the route from Central Asia would dampen the wool with a sticky mixture, then sprinkle dust on it to increase its weight (since weight was the unit by which wool was purchased). The trick, Lattimore relates, was to add just enough dust to make it undectable, but add to the weight. This was acknowledged in Lattimore's time as a kind of art among wool traders. During the Mongol Empire, conquest of which began in the 12th century, the Mongols themselves took over the policing functions of the Silk Route, and this helped them to claim special taxes and require bribes along the way. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">Nevertheless, the control by Mongols of the entire route between China and Iran necessarily limited the number of times merchants would be required to pay a bribe, and provided for continuous protection, making it possible for traders to go the whole route, and back. It was during this time that Marco Polo may have used the Silk Route on his way to the East. There are a few travel diaries and descriptions of places along the route from this period. It was still extremely difficult to travel, and the average journey lasted between 6 and 16 years round trip. Even with Mongol policing, this was a difficult trip, and the goods carried had to be extremely expensive luxury items that were also small and/or light just to make the trip possible. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">In the south, Indian and Chinese goods also travelled by the more treacherous sea-borne route. This was the only way for pepper, one of the most expensive commodities in the world before 1488, to get anywhere, since the only source of the spice anywhere was the Moluccas, and the only market where pepper growers would sell their spice was in India. The sailors along this route, the ancestors of Indians from Mysore, Ceylon, and of Malays, Indonesians, Balinese, and Chinese, developed sophisticated semi-triangular sails that could be turned and manipulated to help sail with the wind, or to tack upwind. These sails became the basis for later Arab sail designs that would become known as lateen sails. The dead-reckoning and star-sight navigation techniques became the models for later Arab and Chinese sailors, and would eventually lead to the creation of maps, and the development of technologies such as the magnetic compass, which was invented in China, and quickly adopted by sailors along the southern route. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">The key importance of both the Silk Route and the Southern Route is not in the goods that travelled along them, but the ideas and information. By these routes, people from China to Europe to Ceylon came to know each other, at least to some extent, and were able to share technology and philosophical, political, and religious thought. Three of the most important ideas to travel these routes, were Buddhism, which began moving out of India and into the rest of Asia in the first century CE, Nestorian Christianity, which also began to spread eastwards in the first century CE, and Islam, which spread most quickly after 1000CE. In all cases, these faiths, and the cultures that carried them, had significant impact on the people who would be receiving, and adapting, them. Neither the receiving cultures, nor the religions themselves would remain unchanged by these influences.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Buddhism in China
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">The period of fastest growth for Buddhism in China was between 220 and 581. During this time, Chinese Buddhists modified Buddhist ideas and added to the systems of thought represented in what has become known as Mahayana Buddhism. Buddhism eventually became an expedient political tool for the Emperors, since as a non-Chinese religion, it could embrace both Chinese and Barbarians, making moral ideas universal and transferrable, and providing a cultural and philosophical base from which to launch foreign relations ventures. To the lower classes of Chinese society, it was a social equalizer, providing equal chance for salvation. Buddhism stressed equality, kindness, charity, the value of human life and required only faith and devotion for salvation. Moreover, it was a satisfying answer to the need for a personal salvation, as opposed to the public worship of state deities, and the secularism of Confucianism, which offered no personal salvation or moral code beyond rules for proper civic behavior. Following Buddha's death, a number of different ideas about how to follow the Noble Eightfold Path had grown into serious doctrinal disputes among the Buddha's disciples. Those separate schools formally broke with each other and spread into different parts of India and eventually to different regions of Asia. The Mahayana interpretation spread primarily to what is known as East Asia - China, Japan, and Korea. This branch came to recognize certain successful Buddhists who, it was thought, delayed their entry into nirvana in order to be teachers and shepherds for other Buddhists still searching for enlightenment. They became known as bodhisattva, and were often the focus of elaborate rituals and even became like saints, with statues built in their names to focus the efforts of their followers. The Theravada branch went primarily to Southeast Asia. This school of thought maintained that enlightenment was primarily achieved through individual devotion to the eightfold path, and that understanding that path for each individual required meditation and teaching from those more advanced in the search for enlightenment. Tantric Buddhism was the combiniation of Theravada ideas with pre-Aryan spiritualism that deified the earth as a mother goddess and practiced numerous fertility rituals. This form spread to Tibet, parts of Southeast Asia, and some of China. As is noted above, Chinese Buddhism came to focus primarily on the branch known as Mahayana Buddhism. This system of thought involved the assumption that bodhisattva assisted believers toward nirvana. This idea is more flexible, and has more appeal, than the idea that salvation is entirely up to the individual, and takes time and meditation, that was the focus of Theravada Buddhism. The reality was that most Chinese of any given class were unable to devote a majority of their time to meditation and the search for salvation. Even if they were well enough off to have the free time, which most were not, there were the strictures of Confucianism, which was by this time culturally entrenched in China. Confucianism demanded that each person in society be useful, and work hard at his/her role in this world. So, financially and culturally, the Theravada idea seemed unworkable to most Chinese. Mahayana offered more opportunities to reach salvation with less intensive study.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;"> The first of the systems of Mahayana thought to become common in China was esoteric Buddhism, primarily Tien Tai (in Japan, Tendai) an esoteric sect with secret rituals, and a magical element. This kind of Buddhism limited those who could join to those who were literate, so that they could understand the secret knowledge and ceremonies. Tien Tai devotees also had to have time and money to spend on ceremonies. Thus, the majority of Chinese still could not participate, even though the ritualization of Buddhism in this system sharply limited the amount of time one might need to meditate to find salvation. Instead, participation in ceremonies, and devotion to the idea of Buddhism, and support of Tien Tai monasteries financially, led one toward salvation.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">To answer the needs of common Chinese, however, who had neither the money nor the time for esoteric Buddhism, certain monks began to theorize in a way that made Buddhism popularly accessible. One of the major sects that this thought led to came to be known as Pure Land Buddhism. This sect had much more mass appeal, because it took less time and effort, and suggested anyone could be saved. Doctrinally, Pure Land Buddhism required study of Buddhist thought, and meditation when possible. Ultimately, however, it required only a simple invocation, repeated often, and with sincerity. If one appealed regularly to a bodhisattva known as Amitabha, (Amida Buddha in Japanese) then Amitabha would come to collect one's soul at death and transport one into nirvana. In some instances the image went so far as to suggest that the mode of transportation would be on a cloud, or a ray of light. Nirvana in this style of Buddhism is characterized much more like a place than a state of existence/non-existence as was the goal for Siddhartha Gautama, based on his Upanishadic and Jain tradition. The goal here seems much more like heaven, with Amida as the savior and souls brought to nirvana as individuals. A later sect, True Pure Land Buddhism, was even more universal. In this sect, it was assumed that a single, sincere invocation of the name of Amitabha was enough to bring salvation. Repetition was unnecessary as long as the invocation was sincere. This kind of popularization, of course, made it possible for anyone to adopt Buddhism at any time, from any walk of life, and thus gave hope of personal salvation, and a sense of equality, at least in spiritual matters, to any and all who might consider Buddhism.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Monasticism
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px;">Buddhism also served purposes other than religion in China, Japan, and Korea. The development of monasteries as quiet places where Buddhists could study and meditate also created locations of culture and safety which facilitated trade and learning. Since the Silk Route and other trade routes were also the pathways along which Buddhism spread, many monasteries were established along the trade routes. These monasteries became essentially banks, where Buddhist traders would pay a minimal fee to store their goods for later sale, and where money might be exchanged or kept safe. Monasteries also became way stations, sort of Inns, along trade routes, and routinely provided safe shelter for wearly travellers. They became places to get news, to trade goods, and to enjoy the company of others. They also became power centers, as wealthy individuals, hoping for eventual salvation, retired to monasteries, donated the bulk of their wealth to the monastery, or both, and continued to exercise influence from their new surroundings. One T'ang era emperor, for example, tried three times to abdicate and join a monastery (his advisors brought him back each time), showing how much powerful people were drawn to this new faith.