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Maurya Empire Facts & Worksheets

The Maurya Empire, founded by Chandragupta Maurya, is considered the largest empire in India.

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The Maurya Empire was a geographically vast ancient Indian Iron Age historical empire in South Asia centered in Magadha, created by Chandragupta in 322 BCE and lasting until 185 BCE, loosely connectedly. The invasion of the Indo-Gangetic Plain consolidated the Maurya Empire, and Pataliputra served as its capital city (modern Patna). Outside the imperial core, the empire’s geographical extent got determined by the fidelity of military leaders who ruled the armed towns that dot it.

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Key Facts & Information

Background: Chanakya And Chandragupta Maurya

  • Alexander the Great established a Macedonian garrison and satrapies (vassal kingdoms) in modern-day Pakistan’s trans-Indus area, which was governed previously by monarchs Ambhi of Taxila and Porus of Pauravas (modern-day Jhelum).
  • Following Alexander’s conquest of Punjab, a brahmin named Chanakya (actual name Vishnugupt, also known as Kautilya) came to Magadha, a vast and militarily strong state dreaded by its neighbors. Nonetheless, its Nanda Dynasty ruler Dhana fired him.
  • The possibility of fighting Magadha prevented Alexander’s army from proceeding east: he retreated to Babylonia and re-deployed most of his forces west of the Indus.
  • When Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BCE, his empire disintegrated, and provincial rulers proclaimed their independence, leaving numerous minor satraps in disarray. Chandragupta Maurya overthrew Dhana.
  • The Greek generals Eudemus and Peithon governed until roughly 316 BCE when Chandragupta Maurya (aided by Chanakya, now his adviser) ambushed and conquered the Macedonians and established control of the province under his new seat of power in Magadha.
  • Chanakya backed Chandragupta and his soldiers to seize Magadha’s kingdom. Using his intelligence agency, Chandragupta recruited many young men from Magadha and other regions, individuals dissatisfied with the corrupt and repressive regime and the resources required for his army to combat a long series of conflicts.
  • Maurya devised a strategy to conquer Pataliputra. He declared a fight, and the Magadha force marched from the city to a faraway battlefield to meet Maurya’s men.
  • Meanwhile, Maurya’s general and spies bribed Nanda’s corrupt general. He also succeeded in instilling a sense of civil war throughout the country, culminating in the death of the throne’s heir.
  • Chanakya was able to sway popular opinion. Nanda eventually resigned, ceding authority to Chandragupta, went into exile, and vanished from history.
  • Chanakya visited the prime minister, Rakshasa, and convinced him that he owed a duty to Magadha rather than the Magadha dynasty, pressing on his continuation in office.
  • Chanakya further stated that opting to resist would precipitate a war that would devastate Magadha and cause destruction. Rakshasa accepted Chanakya’s logic, and Chandragupta Maurya has officially crowned Magadha’s new ruler. Rakshasa was appointed Chandragupta’s primary counselor, while Chanakya got elevated to elder statesman.

The Making Of India’s First Empire

  • Chandragupta attacked Punjab after becoming emperor of one of India’s most powerful empires. Peithon, the satrap of Media, one of Alexander’s wealthiest satraps, had attempted to form a coalition against him. Chandragupta conquered Taxila, the Punjab capital and a significant center of trading and Hellenistic culture, boosting his authority and consolidating his dominion.
  • When Seleucus I, king of the Seleucid Empire, attempted but failed to win back the northwestern sections of India during a war in 305 BCE, Chandragupta fought with the Greeks again.
  • Finally, the two monarchs reached an agreement: a marital contract (Epigamia), which implied either a marital union between the two royal lines or acceptance of matrimony among Greeks and Indians. Chandragupta earned the satrapies of Paropamisadae (Kamboja and Gandhara), Arachosia (Kandahar), and Gedrosia (Balochistan). Seleucus I obtained 500 war elephants that would play a decisive role in his victory over Hellenistic western kings at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BCE. Several Greeks, including historian Mega, established diplomatic relations.
  • At Pataliputra, as per Megasthenes, was “surrounded by a timber wall perforated by 64 gates and 570 towers—(and) equaled the splendors of contemporary Persian places such as Susa and Ecbatana,” Chandragupta formed a powerful centralized empire with a complicated bureaucracy.
  • Bindusara, Chandragupta’s son, expanded the Mauryan empire’s power to southern India. He also had a Greek envoy in his court, Deimachus (Strabo 1-70). Megasthenes depicted a disciplined multitude living simply, honestly, and without knowledge of writing under Chandragupta.

Bindusara

  • After governing for twenty-four years, Chandragupta died. Bindusara, known in Greek texts as Amitrochates (wrecker of adversaries), succeeded him around 298 BCE.
  • There is little information available about Bindusara. Nonetheless, others credit him for incorporating southern peninsular India. According to Jain’s belief, his mother was a lady named Durdhara.
  • The Puranas give him a twenty-five-year rule. He got associated with the Indian title Amitraghata (Enemy Slayer), which appears in Greek writings as Amitrochates.

Ashoka The Great

  • Contemporary historians regard Chandragupta’s grandson, Ashokavardhan Maurya, widely known as Ashoka (reign 273-232 BCE), as the best of Indian rulers, if not the world’s. H.G. Wells refers to him as the “greatest of kings.”
  • As a young ruler, Ashoka was a great commander who subdued rebellions in Ujjain and Taxila. As an ambitious and violent ruler, he re-established the empire’s dominance in southern and western India. However, his victory over Kalinga proved to be the defining event of his life.
  • Although Ashoka’s army defeated the Kalinga troops of the royal army and citizen groups, an estimated 100 million soldiers and civilians got killed in the fierce fighting, with over 10,000 of Ashoka’s men.
  • Hundreds of thousands of individuals got forced to flee their homes. Ashoka felt guilty when he watched the damage and screamed, “What have I done?” Despite annexing Kalinga, Ashoka adopted Gautama Buddha’s teachings and rejected war and bloodshed. It was a momentous achievement.
  • Following Ashoka’s decision to forego battle to gain territory, he formed good relations with the three Tamil kingdoms of Chola, Chera, and Pandya (recognized as Tamilakam or “Land of Tamils”) at India’s southernmost tip, the only province not immediately under his authority.
  • Ashoka put ahimsa teachings into practice by prohibiting hunts and violent sports and abolishing enslaved and forced labor. While maintaining a big and powerful army to maintain peace and control, Ashoka fostered amicable contacts with kingdoms throughout Asia and Europe, and he funded Buddhist missionaries.
  • He launched an extensive public works construction effort across the country. Ashoka became one of India’s most successful and well-known emperors after forty years of peace, harmony, and wealth. In modern India, he remains an admired figure of inspiration.
  • Discovered in stone throughout the Subcontinent are Ashoka’s Edicts. Ashoka’s edicts express his policies and accomplishments from as far west as Afghanistan and south as Andhra (Nellore District).
  • Although they got primarily written in Prakrit, they wrote two in Greek and another in Greek and Aramaic. The Greeks, Kambojas, and Gandharas mentioned in Ashoka’s edicts as peoples who constitute a border zone of his kingdom. They also allude to Ashoka sending envoys as far west as the Mediterranean to the Greek monarchs.
  • The edicts specifically mention each of the Hellenic world’s kings at the period, including Amtiyoko (Antiochus), the Tulamaya (Ptolemy), and Amtikini (Antigonos), Maka (Magas), and Alikasudaro (Alexander). The Edicts further pinpoint their area as “600 yojanas away” (approximately seven miles), which corresponds to the range between both the center of India and Greece (roughly 4,000 miles).

Administration

  • The empire has four provinces, with Pataliputra serving as the imperial capital. According to Ashokan edicts, the four regional capitals are Tosali (east), Ujjain (west), Suvarnagiri (south), and Taxila (central) (north).
  • The Kumara (royal prince), who controlled the provinces as the king’s representative, had been in charge of the provincial government. Mahamatyas and a ministerial council aided the kumara. The imperial level got replicated in the organizational structure, with the king and his Mantriparishad (Council of Ministers).
  • Historians believe that organized the empire in the same way that Kautilya described in the Arthashastra: a complex civil service oversaw everything from local sanitation to international trade. The empire’s development and defense were achieved by what seems to have been the enormous standing army of the period.
  • Megasthenes estimated the empire had 600,000 soldiers, 30,000 horses, and 9,000 war elephants. An extensive spy network gathered the information for both external and internal security. Despite his rejection of battle and expansionism, Ashoka maintained a sizable army to safeguard the empire and create stability and peace throughout West and South Asia.

Economy

  • Political unity and military stability enabled a single economic system and improved trade and commerce, resulting in higher agricultural output for the first time in South Asia.
  • The old system, which included hundreds of kingdoms, many tiny armies, solid regional chieftains, and infighting strife, gave place to a disciplined, centralized government. Farmers were liberated from regional rulers’ tax and crop collecting duties, instead paying to a centrally regulated and strict-but-fair taxation system recommended by the Arthashastra principles.
  • Chandragupta Maurya created a unified currency across India, a network of provincial governors and administrators, and a civil service that offered justice and security to traders, farmers, and traders. The Mauryan army destroyed many bands of robbers, provincial private armies, and strong chieftains who wanted to establish their own rule in local regions.
  • Although rigorous in revenue collection, Maurya supported numerous public works and rivers to boost productivity. Trading in India developed significantly due to newly discovered political unity and internal tranquility.

Religion

  • JAINISM: When Emperor Chandragupta Maurya accepted Jainism, a religious movement opposed by traditional Hindu priests who generally attended the imperial court, he became the first prominent Indian ruler to start a spiritual revolution at the highest level.
  • Chandragupta later resigned his kingdom and material belongings to join a traveling band of Jain monks. Acharya Bhadrabahu took Chandragupta as a student. At Shravan Belagola in Karnataka, he observed the arduous yet self-purifying Jain tradition of santhara, or fast till death. His successor, Emperor Bindusara, upheld Hindu traditions while rejecting Jain and Buddhist ideas. Samprati, Ashoka’s grandson, converted to Jainism as well.
  • BUDDHISM: When Ashoka converted to Buddhism during the Kalinga War, he rejected expansionism and violence, the harsher Arthashastra injunctions on the use of force, vigorous policing, and brutal means for collecting taxes and against rebels.
  • Ashoka despatched a mission to Sri Lanka, where king Tissa accepted Buddhist ideas and became Buddhism the national religion. Ashoka despatched many Buddhist missions to West Asia, Greece, and South East Asia, and he ordered the development of monasteries, schools, and the distribution of Buddhist literature across the empire. He erected up to 84,000 stupas in India and helped to popularize Buddhism in Afghanistan.
  • Ashoka assisted in convening the Third Buddhist Council of India and South Asia’s Buddhist organizations near his capital. This council did significant work of reform and growth the Buddhist faith.
  • HINDUISM: Despite being a Buddhist himself, Ashoka kept Hindu clergy and officials in his court, and he preserved religious freedom and acceptance even as the Buddhist faith expanded in prominence under his patronage. Indian culture grew to embrace the ahimsa principle, and due to rising affluence and more vigorous law enforcement, crime and internal disputes decreased drastically.
  • Due to the intrinsic anti-caste teachings and philosophy of Buddhism and Jainism, the caste system and ancient practice of discriminating among social groups went out of favor as Hinduism came to incorporate the goals and values of Jainism and Buddhist teachings. In a time of peace and prosperity, social freedom began to grow.

The Decline Of The Maurya Empire

  • For fifty years, Ashoka got followed by a succession of lesser monarchs. Brhadrata, the final monarch of the Mauryan dynasty, ruled over a territory that had reduced significantly since the reign of Emperor Ashoka, yet he maintained the Buddhist faith.

Sunga Coup (185 BCE)

  • Brhadrata was slain at a military parade in 185 BCE by the commanding officer of his guard, the Brahmin general Pusyamitra Sunga, who ascended to the throne and established the Sunga dynasty.
  • Buddhist chronicles, the Asokavadana, the killing of Brhadrata, and the creation of the Sunga dynasty resulted in a surge of oppression for Buddhists and a revival of Hinduism.
  • Although following Sunga monarchs appear to have been more sympathetic to Buddhism, Pusyamitra could have been the primary promoter of the persecutions. Other historians object to a lack of archaeological evidence to corroborate the idea of Buddhist persecution.

Establishment of the Indo-Greek Kingdom (180 BCE)

  • The collapse of the Mauryas left the Khyber Pass unprotected, resulting in a flood of invasions. Capitalizing on the division, the Greco-Bactrian ruler, Demetrius, invaded southern Afghanistan and Pakistan in approximately 180 BCE, establishing the Indo-Greek Kingdom.
  • For about a century, the Indo-Greeks ruled the trans-Indus area, waging expeditions into central India. Buddhism thrived under them, with one of their monarchs, Menander, a significant supporter of the religion. He founded the modern city of Sialkot as the new capital of Sagala.
  • The breadth of their realms and the duration of their rule are unknown. According to numismatic evidence, they dominated territory on the subcontinent until the start of the Common Era. The Scythian tribes, called Indo-Scythians, annihilated the Indo-Greeks in 70 BCE by capturing Mathura and Gujarat.

Maurya Empire Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle that includes everything you need to know about Maurya Empire across 20 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Maurya Empire worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about the Maurya Empire, founded by Chandragupta Maurya, which is considered the largest empire in India. It is known for its stupas and the Edicts of Ashoka as they embraced Buddhism as the empire’s major religion during the reign of Emperor Ashoka.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • The Maurya Empire
  • Maurya Empire Word Hunt
  • Fact or Bluff
  • A Glance at the Maurya Empire
  • Prominent Mauryan Leaders
  • Maurya’s Way of Life
  • Architectural Remains
  • The Fall of the Maurya Empire
  • Maurya Empire’s Legacy
  • Discover Maurya

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was the founder of the Maurya Empire?

The Maurya Empire was a geographically vast ancient Indian Iron Age historical empire in South Asia centered in Magadha, created by Chandragupta in 322 BCE

Who helped Chandragupta Maurya to defeat Nandas?

Chanakya backed Chandragupta and his soldiers to seize Magadha’s kingdom. Chanakya was able to sway popular opinion. Nanda eventually resigned, ceding authority to Chandragupta, went into exile, and vanished from history.

Who killed the last Mauryan king?

Brhadrata was slain at a military parade in 185 BCE by the commanding officer of his guard, the Brahmin general Pusyamitra Sunga.

Who was the greatest king of the Maurya Empire?

Ashokavardhan Maurya, widely known as Ashoka (reign 273-232 BCE), was the best of Indian rulers, if not the world. H.G. Wells refers to him as the “greatest of kings.” As a young ruler, Ashoka was a great commander who subdued rebellions in Ujjain and Taxila. As an ambitious and violent ruler, he re-established the empire’s dominance in southern and western India. 

How did Maurya Empire end?

Brhadrata was slain at a military parade in 185 BCE by the commanding officer of his guard, the Brahmin general Pusyamitra Sunga, who ascended to the throne and established the Sunga dynasty. Buddhist chronicles, the Asokavadana, the killing of Brhadrata, and the creation of the Sunga dynasty resulted in a surge of oppression for Buddhists and a revival of Hinduism.

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