History Mughal Empires

Indian History forms an
important part of the General
Awareness paper of Civil Ser-vices (Prelims) Examination.
Based on analysis of types of
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years, we have compiled this
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other topics.
The Maurya Empire
1. Chandragupta Mau-rya was the founder of the
empire. His family is identi-fied by some with the tribe
of  Moriya mentioned by
Greeks. According to one
tradition, the designation is
derived from  Mura, the
mother or grandmother of
Chandragupta, who was
wife of a Nanda king.
2. Buddhist writers rep-resent Chandragupta as
member of Kshatriya caste,
belonging to the ruling clan
of little  republic of Pip-phalivana, lying probably
between Rummindei in the
Nepalese Tarai and Kasai in
the Gorakhpur district.
3. Chandragupta is
referred to as  Sandrocottos
in the Greek accounts.
4. Chandragupta was
the protege of the Brahman,
Kautilya or Chanakya, who
was his guide and mentor,
both in acquirnig a throne
and in keeping it.
5. Chandragupta met
Chanakya in the forests of
Vindhya. Chandragupta had
been forced to flee to the for-est after having offended
Alexander, who had ordered
for him to be killed.
6. The  Seleucid pro-vinces of the trans-Indus,
which today would cover
part of Afghanistan, were
ceded to Chandragupta by
Seleucus Nikator, a prefect
of Alexander, in 303 B.C.
7. According to Jain
scriptures, Chandragupta
was converted to Jainism
towards the end of his life
and he abdicted in favour of
his son and became an
ascetic and passed his last
days at  Sravana Belgola in
Mysore.
8.  Chandragupta was
succeeded by his son
Bindusara in 297 B.C. To
Greeks Bindusara was
known as Amitrochates.
9. Tradition credits Bin-dusara with the suppression
of a revolt in Taxila.
10. The kingdom of
Kalinga  (modern day Oris-sa), is known to have been
independent during the
reign of Bindusara.
11. A Greek named
Deimachos was received as
Ambassador of Greece in
Bindusara’s court.
12.  Bindusara extended
Mauryan control in Deccan
as far south as Mysore.
13. After Bindusara’s
death in 272 B.C.,  Ashoka,
one of his many sons, seized
power after putting his
eldest brother to death.
14. During Bindusara’s
reign, Ashoka successively
held the important viceroy-alties of Taxila and Ujjain.
15. Ashoka is referred to
as  Devanampiya (the
beloved of gods)  Piyadassi
(of amiable appearance) in
inscriptions.
16. It was during
Ashoka’s reign that Kalinga
was captured and made part
of the Maurya empire. The
conquest of Kalinga result-ed in the Maurya empire
embracing the whole of non-Tamil India and a consider-able portion of Afghanistan.
The Mauryan empire under
Ashoka stretched from the
land of  Yonas, Kambojas
and Gandharas in the Kabul
valley and some adjoining
territory, to the country of
the  Andhras in the
Godavari-Krishna basin and
the district of  Isila in the
north of Mysore, and from
Sopara  and  Girnar in the
west to  Dhauli and  Jaugada
in the east.
17. As per some tradi-tional records, the domin-ions of Ashoka included the
secluded hill-regions of
Kashmir and Nepal, as well
as plains of Pundravardhana
(North Bengal) and Samata-ta (East Bengal). The discov-ery of inscriptions at
Mansehra in the Hazra dis-trict, at  Kalsi in the
Dehradun district, at  Nigali
Sagar and  Rummindei in
the Nepalese Tarai and at
Rampurva in the Cham-paran district of North Ben-gal are proofs to this.
18.  According to the
Kashmir chronicle of
Kalhana, Ashoka’s favourite
deity was Shiva.
19. The  Kalinga war
proved to be a turning point
in Ashoka’s career. The sight
of misery and bloodshed
awakened in him sincere
feelings of repentance and
sorrow, and made him
evolve a policy of  dharam-vijaya  (conquest by piety).
He also got deeply influ-enced by Buddhist teaching
and became a zealous devo-tee of Buddhism.
20. Ashoka claimed of
spiritual conquest of the
realms of his  Hellenistic,
Tamil and Ceylonese neigh-bours.
21. Hellenistic neigh-bours of Ashoka were: Anti-ochos II  (Theos of Syria),
Ptolemy II (Philadelphos of
Egypt),  Antigonos  (Gonatas
of Macedonia),  Magas (of
Cyrene) and  Alexander (of
Epirus)
22. After making deep
study of Buddhist scriptures
Ashoka started undertaking
dharam-yatras (tours of
morality) in course of which
he visited the people of his
country and instructed them
on  Dharma (morality and
piety).
23. It was during the
second  royal tour that
Ashoka visited the birth-place of  Sakya-muni and
that of a previous Buddha,
and worshipped at these
holy spots.
24. During Ashoka’s
reign the Buddhist church
underwent reorganization,
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Quick Revision Notes™
on Indian History
with the meeting of the third
Buddhist Council  at Patli-putra in 250 B.C.
25. The third Council of
Buddhists was the final
attempt of the more secretar-ian Buddhists, the  Therava-da school, to exclude both
dissidents and innovators
from the Buddhist Order.
Also, it was at this Council
that it was decided to send
missionaries to various parts
of the sub-continent and to
make Buddhism an actively
proselytizing religion—
which in later centuries led
to the propagation of Bud-dhism in south and east
Asia.
26. Ashoka  does not
refer to the third Council of
Buddhism in any of his
inscriptions, indicating that
he was careful to make a dis-tinction between his person-al belief in and support for
Buddhism, and his duty as
an emperor to remain unat-tached and unbiased in
favour of any religion.
27. Within two years of
his first tours, Ashoka requi-sitioned the services of
important officials like
Rajukas (district judges),
Pradesikas  (revenue offi-cials) and  Yuktas (clerks) to
publish rescripts on morality
and set out on tours every
five years to give instruction
in morality, as well as on
ordinary business. Later,
Ashoka appointed exclusive
officials, styled  Dharma-Mahamatras or high officers
in-charge of religion, to do
the work.  Ashoka himself
undertook the tours after a
gap of 10 years.
28.  The  capitals of the
Ashokan pillars bear a
remarkable similarity to
those of  Persepolis and it is
believed that these might
have been sculpted by crafts-men from the north-western
province.  The idea of making
rock-inscriptions seems to have
come to Ashoka after hearing
about those of Darius.
29. The Ashokan
inscriptions were in local
script. Those found in north-west, in the region of
Peshawar, are in the
Kharoshthi script (derived
from Aramaic script used in
Iran), near modern Kandhar,
the extreme west of empire,
these are in  Greek and Ara-maic, and elsewhere in India
these are in the  Brahmi
script.
30.  The  inscriptions of
Ashoka are of  two kinds.
The  smaller group consists
of declarations of the king as
a lay Buddhist, to his chirch,
the Buddhist  Sanga. These
describe his own acceptance
and relationship with the
Sangha.  The larger group of
inscriptions are known as
the  Major and minor Rock
Edicts inscribed in rock sur-faces, and the Pillar Edicts
inscribed on specially erect-ed pillars, all of which were
located in places where
crowds were likely to gather.
These were proclamations to
the public at large, explain-ing the idea of Dharma.
31. Dharma was aimed
at building up an attitude of
mind in which social respon-sibility, the behaviour of one
person towards another, was
considered of great rele-vance.  It was a plea for the
recognition of the dignity of
man, and for humanistic spirit
in the activities of society.
32. Ashoka’s son Prince
Mahendra visited Ceylon
(modern Sri Lanka) as a
Buddhist missionary and
convinced the ruler of the
island kingdom,  Deva-nampiya Tissa to convert to
Buddhism.
33. Ashoka ruled for 37
years and died in 232 B.C.
With his death a political
decline set in, and soon after
the empire broke up. The
Ganga valley remained
under  Mauryas for another
50 years. The north-western
areas were lost to Bactrian
Greeks by about 180 B.C.
34. As per the  Puranic
texts, the immediate succes-sor of Ashoka was his son
Kunala. The Chronicals of
Kashmir, however, mention
Jalauka as the son and suc-cessor.
35. Kunala was suc-ceeded by his sons, one of
whom,  Bandhupalita, is
known only in  Puranas, and
another,  Sampadi, is men-tioned by all traditional
authorities. Then there was
Dasratha who ruled Magad-ha shortly after Ashoka and
has left  three epigraphs in
the Nagarjuni Hills in Bihar,
recording the gift of caves to
the Ajivikas.
36. The last king of the
Maurya dynasty was  Bri-hadratha,  who was over-thrown by his commander-in-chief,  Pushyamitra,  who
laid the foundation of the
Sunga dynasty.
37. The secession of
Kashmir and possibly Berar
from the Maurya empire is
hinted at by  Kalhana,  the
historian of Kashmir, and
Kalidas, the author of the
Sanskrit play, the  Malavikag-nimitram, respectively.
38. The Maurya period
was the first time in Indian
history that an empire
extended from the  Hin-dukush to the valleys of
Godavari and Krishna.
39. A remarkable feature
of the period was association
of a prince of the blood or an
allied chieftain with the titu-lar or real head of the gov-ernment, as a co-ordinate
ruler. Such a prince was
called  yuvaraj (crown
prince). This type of rule is
known as  dvairajya or
diarchy.
40. The early Maurya
rulers had no contact with
China. Infact, China was
unknown to Indian epigra-phy before the  Nagarju-nikonda inscriptions.
41.  The king during the
Maurya period was assisted
by a council of advisers
styled the  Parishad  or the
Mantri Parishad. There
were also bodies of trained
officials (nikaya) who
looked after the ordinary
affairs of the realm.
42. In the inscriptions of
Ashoka there are references
to  Rajukas and  Pradesikas,
charged with the welfare of
Janapadas or country parts
and  Pradesas or districts.
Mahamatras were charged
with the administration of
cities (Nagala Viyohalaka)
and sundry other matters,
and a host of minor officials,
including clerks  (Yuta),
scribes  (Lipikar) and
reporters (Pativedaka).
43. The  Arthshastra
refers to the highest officers
as the  eighteen tirthas, the
chief among them were the
Mantrin (chief minister),
Purohit (high priest), Yuvra-ja (heir-apparent) and Sena-pati (commander-in-chief).
44. The  head of the
judiciary was the king him-self, but there were special
tribunals of justice, headed
by  Mahamatras and
Rajukas.
45. The protection of
Chandragupta Maurya was
entrusted to an amazonian
bodyguard of women.
46.  The fighting forces
during Chandragupta’s time
were under the supervision
of a governning body of thir-ty divided into six boards of
five members each.
47. The chief sources of
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revenue were the bhaga and
the  bali. The  bhaga was the
king’s share of the produce
of the soil, which was nor-mally fixed at one-sixth,
though in special cases it
was raised to one-fourth or
reduced to one-eighth.  Bali
was an extra impost levied
on special tracts for the sub-sistence of certain officials.
48. Taxes on the land
were collected by the
Agronomoi who measured
the land and superintended
the irrigation works.
49. In urban areas the
main sources of revenue
were birth and death taxes,
fines and tithes on sales.
50. Arthshastra refers to
certain high revenue func-tionaries styled the sama-harti and the sannidharti.
51. The most famous of
the irrigation works of the
early Maurya period is the
Sudarshan lake of Kathi-awar, constructed by
Pushyagupta the Vaisya, an
officer of Chandragupta
Maurya, and provided with
supplemental channels by
the  Yavanaraja Tushaspha
in the days of Ashoka.
52. The Mauryas divid-ed their dominions into
provinces subdivided into
districts called ahara, vishya
and pardesh.
53. The secret emissaries
who enquired into and
superintended all that went
in the empire were called
pativedakas.
54. Varna (caste) and
ashram (periods of stages of
religious discipline), the two
characteristic institutions of
the Hindu social polity,
reached a definite stage in
the Maurya period.
55.  The philosophers,
the husbandmen, the herds-men and hunters, the traders
and artisans, the soldiers, the
overseers and the council-lors constituted the  seven
castes  into which the popu-lation of India was divided
in the days of Megasthenes.
56. Slavery was an
established institution dur-ing the Maurya period.
57. Broach was a major
port during the Mauryan
period.
58. The copper coin of
eighty  ratis (146.4 grs) was
known as  Karshapana. The
name was also applied to sil-ver and gold coins, particu-larly in south.
59.  Three works, the
Kautiliya Arthshastra, the
Kalpasutra of Bhadrabahu
and the  Buddhist Katha
vatthu, are attributed to per-sonages who are said to have
flourished in the Maurya
period.
60.  With the fall of the
Mauryas, Indian history lost
its unity for sometime.
Hordes of foreign barbarians
poured through the north-western gates of the country
and established powerful
kingdoms in  Gandhara
(north-west Frontier),
Sakala (north-central Pun-jab) and other places.
61. In the south, the
Satavahanas came to power.
The founder of the family
was  Simuka, but the man
who raised it to eminence
was his son Satakarni-I.
62.  Sometimes after the
death of Satakarni-I, the
Satavahana power sub-merged beneath a wave of
Scythian invasion. But, the
lost glory was restored by
Gautamiputra Satkarni,
who built an empire that
extended from Malwa in the
north to the Kanarese coun-try in south.
63. Two cities of  Va i -jayanti (in north Kanara)
and  Amaravati (in the Gun-tur district) attained emi-nence in the  Satavahana
period.
64. Sri Yajana Satkarni
was the last great prince of
the line and after him the
empire fell to pieces.
65. The earlier  Satava-hana empire had a formida-ble rival in the kingdom of
Kalinga, which became
independent after the death
of Ashoka and rose to great-ness under Kharavela.
66. In the far south of
India, beyond the Venkata
Hills, known as  Dravida or
Tamil country, three impor-tant States that came into
being were  Chola,
Pandya and Kerala.
67. The  Cholas occu-pied the present Tanjore
and Trichinopoly districts
and  showed great military
activity.
68. The  Pandyas occu-pied the districts of Madura
and Tinnevelly with portions
of South Travancore.  They
excelled in trade and learning.
69. A Pandya king is
said to have sent an embassy
to the Roman empire in the
first century B.C.
70.  The  Kerala country
embraced Malabar, Cochin
and North Travancore.
71. The  political disin-tegration of India after the
fall of Maurya empire
renewed warlike activities
on the part of the Greeks of
Syria and Bactria.
72. The  last known
Greek king to rule any part
of India was Hermaicos.
73.  The  foreign con-querors who supplanted the
Greeks in north-west India
belong to three main groups,
namely,  Saka, Pahlava or
Parthian and  Yue-chi or
Kushan.
74. The  Sakas  were dis-placed from their home in
Central Asia by the  Yue-chi
and were forced to migrate
south. The territory they
occupied came to be known
as  Sakasthana, modern Sis-tan.
75. Kanishka is attrib-uted by many scholars to
have founded the  Saka era
in A.D. 78. He is the only
Scythian king known to
have established an era.
Strictly speaking, though, he
was a Kushan and not a Saka.
76.  According to  Hiuen
Tsang, the great empire over
which Kanishka exercised
his sway had its capital at
Purushapura  or Peshawar.
His territory extended from
Gandhara to Oudh and
Benaras.
77. Kanishka is known
for his patronage to the reli-gion of  Sakya-muni  and his
monuments.
78. In Buddhist history,
Kanishka’s name is hon-oured as that of a prince
who summoned a great
council  (fourth Buddhist
Council in Srinagar) to
examine the Buddhist scrip-tures and prepare commen-taries on them.
79.  Among the celebri-ties who graced Kanishka’s
court was  Asvaghosha, a
philosopher, poet and
dramatist, who wrote the
Buddha Charita.
80.  Kanishka’s rule last-ed 23 years. His immediate
successor was Vasishka, fol-lowed by Huvishka.
81. Mathura became the
great centre of Kushan pow-er under Huvishka.
82. Huvishka’s empire
was spread further west,
till  Wardak  to the west of
Kabul.
83. The last great
Kushan king was Vasudeva-I.
84. The decline of
Kushan power in the north-west was hastened by the
rise of the  Sassanian
dynasty in Persi  a.