Q&A
1. Question: How did the Mauryan Empire govern/organize/run India?
2. How did Buddhism and Hinduism influence the development of India?
3. What are the achievements of Indian culture relating to literature, arts, astronomy, math, and medicine?
4. Describe the land and sea trade networks and how this affected India.
5. What caused the decline/fall of this empire?
- The Mauryan Empire began in 321 B.C when Chandragupta Maurya overthrew the Nanda king in the powerful kingdom of Magadha and began his powerful ruling. Around 305 B.C, after Chandragupta had seized all of the land from Magadha to the Indus, he moved into battle with Seleucus I; one of Alexander the Great's generals. After Seleucus's defeat, the Mauryan Empire stretched more than 2,000 miles.
- The Mauryan government levied high taxes to pay for the vast army: 600,000 soldiers on food, 30,000 on horseback, and 9,000 elephants.
- Maurya relied on an adviser named Kautilya to help him run the empire. Kautilya went by the strict policies in his ruler's handbook, which included spying on the people and employing political assassination.
- Chandragupta made a highly bureaucratic government and divided the empire into 4 provinces, each led by a royal prince.
2. How did Buddhism and Hinduism influence the development of India?
- New trends in Buddhism sparked a change from an individually disciplined religion to one that could be adopted by the masses. Buddhism also inspired Indian art; artists carved huge statues of the Buddha, and were paid to create stupas: mounded stone structures built over holy relics.
- Hinduism also changed in response to the popularity of Buddhism. Many Indians began to devote themselves to the two main gods of the religion, and soon enough, Hinduism's popular appeal grew.
3. What are the achievements of Indian culture relating to literature, arts, astronomy, math, and medicine?
- Kalidasa was one of India's greatest writers. He wrote a famous play called Shakuntala, a tragic love story. More than 2,000 Tamil poems from southern India's rich literary traditions still exist.
- In addition to literature, drama was also very popular in Indian culture. Women and men took part in shows which combined drama and dance.
- The expansion of trade promoted the advance in sciences. Sailors used the stars to help them figure their positions at sea, and this helped the knowledge of astronomy increase.
- Indians also adapted western methods of keeping time, basing their calenders on the cycles of the sun, not the moon.
4. Describe the land and sea trade networks and how this affected India.
- In the Mauryan empire, the trade networks from India stretched as far as Africa and Sumeria.
- After Mauryan rule, groups who invaded helped expand India's trade from China to Western Asia, and then to Rome. Once Indians learnt about the Silk Roads, many became middlemen who began to trade with many people. Sea trade included routes around the Arabian Sea and up the Persian Gulf. India became a rich and developed country from the goods they received from China, Rome, and Africa.
5. What caused the decline/fall of this empire?
- Asoka's noble policies of toleration and nonviolence failed to hold the empire together after his death. Kings of each region challenged the government for authority, and soon gained independence. When the Mauryan empire came crashing down, the Andhra Dynasty took its place, as a flood of new people settled in Northern India.