Maurya Empire in 218 B.C.

Maurya Empire — 218 BC · The Later Mauryas.

The Maurya Empire — the master-power of the Indian world, ruling almost the whole subcontinent from the great city of Palibothra on the Ganges. Founded scarcely a hundred years past by Chandragupta, who overthrew the Nanda kings of Magadha and then won from Seleucus Nikator the lands beyond the Indus in exchange for five hundred war-elephants, the empire was carried to its height by his grandson Ashoka, who set the law of dharma on rock and pillar across the realm. In 218 BC the high tide has passed: the later Mauryas reign from Palibothra over a realm still vast but no longer taut, the satraps of the frontiers and the kings of the south testing the slack reins of a fading dynasty.

The Maurya is the largest dominion India has ever known, stretching from the mountains of the north-west to the forests of the south, bound by a great road and a vast bureaucracy ruling from Palibothra. But its finest day is behind it. Chandragupta built it, his son Bindusara held it, and Ashoka the Great filled it with the law of dharma; since Ashoka’s death some fifteen years past, lesser kings have followed in quick succession, and the grip of the centre has loosened. On the frontiers the Greek kings of Bactria press toward the Indus; in the south the Satavahana and the Tamil States go their own way. The machinery of empire still turns, the elephants still muster, the tax-grain still flows — but the reins are slack, and shrewd men feel the loosening.