50 Fun Facts About Maurya Empire

According to Jain tradition, how did Chandragupta Maurya die after giving up his throne to live as a monk?

Fasted to death is the Jain account: the old emperor is said to have starved himself in the rite of sallekhana at Shravanabelagola. The hill where he lived as an ascetic is called Chandragiri after him.

India's national emblem copies a Mauryan sculpture from Ashoka's reign showing four of which animals set back to back?

Lions, four of them, crown the pillar top carved for Ashoka. On the emblem only three can be seen, because the fourth is hidden at the back.

Legend says Chandragupta Maurya's minister secretly laced the emperor's food with small doses of what to protect him?

Poison in tiny doses was meant to make the emperor immune to assassins. In the tale his pregnant queen shared a meal by mistake, and the drop that touched her unborn son gave Bindusara his name.

Chandragupta Maurya sealed a peace treaty with a Macedonian rival by handing over 500 of which prized military assets?

War elephants were the price of peace, and they changed history far to the west. The herd played a key role in the Battle of Ipsus, fought in Anatolia a few years later.

Remorse over the bloodshed of conquering which east-coast kingdom led Ashoka to renounce war and turn toward Buddhism?

Kalinga, in modern Odisha, fell in the eighth year of Ashoka's reign. His own edict counts 100,000 killed and 150,000 carried off, and says the victor was filled with remorse.

Bindusara, father of Ashoka, asked a Greek king for sweet wine, dried figs and which third item, which was refused?

A sophist, a professional teacher of wisdom, was the one request Antiochus I turned down. He sent the wine and the figs but replied that Greek law forbade selling a scholar.

Buddhist tradition links the dynasty name Maurya to which bird, said to be abundant in the family's homeland?

Peacock is 'mora' in Pali, and the clan was known as the Moriyas, the people from the place of peacocks. A Jain account instead ties Chandragupta's family to keepers of the royal peacocks.

Max Weber said an Indian statecraft manual linked to the Mauryan court made which Italian writer's book look harmless?

Machiavelli's The Prince was harmless next to it, Weber said in 1919. The Indian text calmly covers spy networks, coded messages and the assassination of enemy leaders.

Which Bollywood superstar played the Mauryan emperor in the 2001 epic film Asoka, opposite Kareena Kapoor?

Shah Rukh Khan took the title role for director and co-writer Santosh Sivan. Tamil star Ajith Kumar made his Hindi film debut in a special appearance.

The Greek envoy's book Indica, written about Mauryan India, repeated a tall tale that which creatures dug up gold?

Ants as big as dogs or foxes were said to dig gold out of sandy ground. Herodotus had told the same story about India more than a century earlier.

Which symbol taken from Ashoka's Mauryan pillars sits in navy blue at the centre of India's national flag?

A spoked wheel, the Ashoka Chakra, sits on the flag's white band with 24 spokes. In 1947 it replaced the spinning wheel shown on pre-independence versions of the flag.

Which Mauryan capital, described by a Greek envoy as ringed by 570 towers and 64 gates, lies beneath modern Patna?

Pataliputra became one of the largest cities in the world during the Maurya period. The envoy also described a defensive ditch 600 feet across.

Which Brahmin strategist is credited in legend with guiding Chandragupta Maurya's rise to power from obscurity?

Chanakya is said to have served as chief adviser and prime minister to both the founder and his son. The diplomatic enclave of India's capital, Chanakyapuri, is named in his honour.

Ashoka's son Mahinda is credited with carrying Buddhism to which island nation as a missionary monk?

Sri Lanka's tradition makes Mahinda the first-born son of Ashoka and Queen Devi. He was sent to the Anuradhapura Kingdom, where the island's Buddhist history begins.

Plutarch wrote that Chandragupta Maurya, as a young man, saw which famous conqueror who had invaded north-west India?

Alexander the Great left India and assigned his conquests in the Indus Valley to Greek governors. After the conqueror's early death, Chandragupta attacked those governors and took the region.

The pillar-top sculpture on India's state emblem was raised by Ashoka at which site of the Buddha's first sermon?

Sarnath, near Varanasi, is where the sculpture was unearthed in the winter of 1904–05. It had topped a column put up after Ashoka's conversion, about two centuries after the sermon.

Ashoka's pillar marking the Buddha's birthplace at Lumbini, rediscovered in 1896, stands in which modern country?

Nepal's authorities dug around the pillar and found its inscription below ground, hidden from view. The text records that Ashoka visited the spot himself.

A 14th-century sultan of the Tughlaq dynasty had two of Ashoka's stone pillars moved to which city, his capital?

Delhi received both pillars in 1356. One came from Topra Kalan in Haryana and stands in the sultan's fortress; the other came from Meerut.

The personal name Ashoka, borne by the third Mauryan emperor, grandson of Chandragupta, has which literal meaning?

Without sorrow is the literal sense of 'A-shoka', yet most of the emperor's inscriptions never use the name. Only a few minor edicts, such as the one at Maski, call him Ashoka in person.

Which Greek ambassador lived at Chandragupta Maurya's court and wrote Indica, a now-lost account of the country?

Megasthenes survives only in fragments quoted by later authors. One of them, the geographer Strabo, called him a liar in whose writing no faith whatever could be placed.

Which Macedonian general, founder of a Syrian-based empire, gave up Indus lands in a treaty with Chandragupta Maurya?

Seleucus I crossed the Indus between 305 and 303 BCE and came away with a treaty instead of a conquest. Ancient writers add that the two rulers sealed it with a marriage alliance.

Chandragupta Maurya won his throne by toppling which dynasty, whose huge army had helped drive Greek invaders to mutiny?

Nanda power ended when its last king, Dhana Nanda, was overthrown. Greek writers put the kingdom's army at five times the size of the Macedonian force that turned back rather than face it.

Most of Ashoka's edicts are carved in which script, the ancestor of many writing systems used across Asia?

Brahmi was deciphered in the 1830s through a series of articles in a Calcutta society's journal. The edicts are its earliest securely dated and best-known inscriptions.

Ashoka's edicts usually call the Mauryan emperor Devanampriya, a royal title with which meaning?

Beloved of the Gods appears in the edicts far more often than any personal name. An inscription found at Maski in 1915 confirmed that the title belonged to Ashoka.

Ashoka's daughter, the nun Sanghamitta, sailed to Anuradhapura carrying which living gift from India?

A Bodhi tree sapling, taken from the tree of the Buddha's enlightenment, was planted in the city. It is described as the oldest living human-planted tree with a known planting date.

Which dynasty replaced the Mauryas after a general killed the last emperor, Brihadratha, during a military parade?

Shunga rule began with the general Pushyamitra, who struck down his own emperor in front of the troops. Buddhist texts say a wave of persecution followed.

Ashoka commissioned the original Great Stupa at which hilltop site in central India, near his wife Devi's home town?

Sanchi's Great Stupa began as a simple brick dome built over relics of the Buddha. The four carved gateways it is famous for were added about two centuries later.

A royal artery built on Chandragupta Maurya's orders was the forerunner of which famous Asian thoroughfare?

Grand Trunk Road follows the ancient Uttarapatha, or Northern Road. The Mauryan version is said to have been inspired by the Royal Road of the Persian kings.

At its peak under Ashoka, which region of the subcontinent stayed outside the Maurya Empire's control?

The deep south stayed with Tamil-country kingdoms such as the Cholas and the Pandyas. Ashoka's rock edicts list them as neighbours on his borders, not as subjects.

Which Sanskrit treatise on statecraft, traditionally tied to the Mauryan court, resurfaced in a Mysore library in 1905?

Arthashastra disappeared around the 12th century and was considered lost until a palm-leaf copy reached the library. Its librarian, Rudrapatna Shamasastry, identified the text and published it in 1909.

Which English scholar, an assay master at India's colonial mints, deciphered the script of Ashoka's edicts in the 1830s?

James Prinsep was the founding editor of the Asiatic Society of Bengal's journal, where the breakthrough appeared. He is also remembered for deciphering a second ancient Indian script.

Ashoka's bilingual rock edict near Kandahar pairs Greek with which language, once official across the Persian Empire?

Aramaic had been the official language of the Achaemenid Empire, which once ruled the region. The inscription lay under a metre of rubble until 1958 and uses no Indian language at all.

Which Mauryan-era caves in Bihar, the oldest surviving rock-cut caves in India, have mirror-polished granite walls?

Barabar's polished chambers are known for their echo effects. E. M. Forster put a fictional version of them, the Marabar Caves, into his novel A Passage to India.

Which fatalist sect, long since vanished, was given polished rock-cut caves by Ashoka and his grandson Dasharatha?

Ajivikas taught that fate preordains everything and that there is no free will. The school peaked under Ashoka's father Bindusara and lingered in parts of India into the 14th century.

Legends say Bindusara sent Prince Ashoka to deal with a revolt in which north-western city, a famed seat of learning?

Taxila, or Takshashila, greeted the prince peacefully in the legend. Its citizens said their rebellion was against evil ministers, not the emperor.

Ashoka's free-standing Mauryan pillars, each cut from a single block and polished to a shine, are made of which stone?

Sandstone polished to a glow fooled the English traveller Thomas Coryat, who first took one pillar for brass. Much of the stone was quarried at Chunar, near Varanasi.

In Buddhist legend, what happened to Ashoka's son and heir Kunala through the jealousy of his stepmother Tishyaraksha?

He was blinded at a young age, although he had been expected to inherit the empire. The cruel twist is in his name: Kunala can mean 'one with beautiful eyes'.

The Mauryan Empire's punch-marked coins, known as karshapanas, were struck mainly from which metal?

Silver bars were cut up and the pieces shaved to a standard weight, which is why the coins are irregular in shape. Each was then stamped with up to five or six separate symbols.

Which word did Ashoka's edicts use for the Mauryan emperor's code of non-violence, tolerance and respect for parents?

Dhamma, as the edicts use it, was a practical ethic that also covered generosity and the humane treatment of servants. Ashoka set up 'officers of the faith' across his lands to promote it.

Wary of palace plots, Chandragupta Maurya went on royal hunts ringed by which unusual group of protectors?

Female guards were presumed less likely to take part in a coup, so they surrounded the emperor on hunts. He is also reported to have changed bedrooms often to confuse conspirators.

Ashoka's edicts claim the Mauryan emperor's teachings reached a Greek king named Ptolemy, ruler of which African land?

Egypt's Ptolemy is one of five Greek kings the edicts name. Traffic ran both ways: Pliny the Elder records that Ptolemy II sent an ambassador called Dionysius to the Mauryan court.

Buddhist legend says Ashoka, in a past life as a small boy, offered the Buddha what as food?

Dirt was the boy's offering, made while he imagined it was a meal. The legend later blames the emperor's rough skin on that impure gift.

The Maurya Empire's power base was which ancient kingdom of eastern India, centred on what is now Bihar?

Magadha was one of sixteen great states of its age, and it conquered and absorbed its rivals. Its original territory matched the modern Patna and Gaya districts.

The Greek ambassador at Chandragupta Maurya's court claimed, wrongly, that which institution did not exist in India?

Slavery was banned by an ancient law, the ambassador reported. The geographer Strabo disputed the claim, citing an earlier Greek visitor's report.

Which Mughal emperor added his own 17th-century inscription to Ashoka's pillar at Allahabad, beside one by Samudragupta?

Jahangir's lines share the column with texts of two earlier emperors, Ashoka and Samudragupta. The pillar was re-erected in his time, in 1605, crowned by a globe and a cone.

Ashoka's rock edicts at Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra, in the Mauryan north-west, use which script, written right to left?

Kharosthi grew up in Gandhara, in present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan, and spread along the Silk Road. It may have lingered in Central Asian oasis towns after dying out in its homeland.

Which Sanskrit play by Vishakhadatta, written centuries later, dramatises Chandragupta Maurya's rise to power?

Mudrarakshasa means 'The Signet of the Minister', and its chief antagonist is a character named Rakshasa. Scholars date the play anywhere from the late 4th to the 8th century CE.

A Mauryan governor built the artificial Sudarshana Lake on the dry Kathiawar peninsula, in which modern Indian state?

Gujarat's reservoir outlived the Mauryas by centuries. A rock inscription of 150 CE records King Rudradaman renovating it after heavy rains breached the dam.

Ashoka's Indian-language edicts use archaic forms of which everyday tongue, so that commoners could follow them?

Prakrit appears in non-standardised, archaic forms across the edicts. Only in the far north-west did the scribes switch to foreign languages such as Greek.

The Mauryan capital city was founded at the confluence of the Son and which other river, sacred to Hindus?

Ganges water on one side and the Son on another made the city a 'water fort', a stronghold shielded by rivers. A third river, the Gandhaka, joined them nearby.