Chapter 5 — The Rise of Empires

An emperor could conquer land with an army, but he could not hold it by force alone. Harmony had to be built. The ways emperors did this were:

1. Letting local kings rule their own areas. In return for tribute and loyalty, emperors generally allowed regional kings or chiefs to continue to govern. People kept their own rulers, language and customs — so they felt less "conquered".
2. A fair administration. Officials managed territories, collected taxes and maintained law and order. Aśhoka even ordered that men should never be imprisoned or tortured without good reason, and sent inspecting officers every five years.
3. Respecting all faiths and schools of thought. Aśhoka encouraged all sects to study and accept each other's best teachings, and appointed officers of Dhamma to look after Buddhists, brahmans, Ājīvikas and Jains alike.
4. Common laws, coins, weights and measures — so a trader from the north and one from the south could do business without confusion.
5. Roads, rest houses, wells and shade trees — connecting people and making travel safe, which mixed cultures peacefully.
6. Caring for people's welfare — granaries against famine, medical care for people and animals. Kauṭilya's rule: "In the happiness of his subjects lies the king's happiness."
7. Encouraging art, learning and religion — stūpas, pillars, universities and centres of learning gave people a shared pride.

• An ambition to 'rule the entire world' — and to be remembered by posterity (the generations to come).
• A wish to bring large areas under control and gain access to their resources to build economic and military strength.
• A desire for great wealth for himself and for the empire.

1. Security. A troublesome neighbour is dangerous. Conquering it removes the threat — "attack is the best defence".
2. Control of trade routes and rivers — this brings tax revenue and precious goods (see Fig. 5.4.4).
3. Access to strategic resources — iron ore, timber, elephants, fertile land, mines.
4. Ending constant warfare among many small kingdoms — one strong overlord can bring political unity and peace, as the Mauryas did.
5. Prestige and titles — samrāj, adhirāja, rājādhirāja ('king of kings').
6. Spreading a message or faith — Aśhoka later used his vast empire to spread the Buddha's teachings.
7. To be feared — a large empire discourages any other king from attacking.

War is costly. Clever rulers used many peaceful tools as well:

• Bullock carts and ox-drawn wagons — the workhorse of land trade (caravans of many carts together for safety).
• Pack animals — bullocks, donkeys, mules, camels (in the dry west), and elephants for heavy loads.
• Horses and horse-drawn chariots — for fast travel and for the army.
• Travel on foot — traders, monks, soldiers, messengers (couriers carried the king's messages).
• River boats and barges — down the Ganga to the sea.
• Sea-going ships — from the ports to distant lands.

1. Swords (long, straight blades)
2. Spears / lances carried by foot soldiers and riders
3. Bows and arrows (with quivers)
4. Shields (round, for defence)
5. Daggers / short knives at the waist
6. Axes / battle-axes

So about five to six types of weapons can be made out.

• Weapons — swords, spearheads, arrowheads, axes (lighter and sharper than bronze).
• Armour, helmets and shield-fittings — protection.
• Chariot and cart fittings — wheel rims, axles, nails.
• Tools — the iron plough that increased farm produce, and the smith's own tools (remember Ira's father, Kanhadas the ironsmith, who forged the soldiers' swords).
• Gates, bolts and fortification fittings of the besieged city.

The parasol is an ancient symbol of royalty and honour — it is held over kings. By placing it over the Buddha's relics, the sculptor is saying:

• The relics are being treated with the highest respect, as one would treat a king or a god.
• The Buddha is shown as a spiritual sovereign — a ruler greater than any king.
• It also shows the relics are sacred and protected — worth going to war over, which is exactly what the panel depicts.

Because of distance and slow communication. Think about it:

1. Alexander's empire spread over three continents. A message from the capital could take weeks or months to reach a far province — and the reply just as long.
2. So the emperor could not supervise a distant province day to day. He had to delegate almost complete authority to the satrap.
3. The satrap controlled the things that matter locally: the army in his province, tax collection, the treasury, law and justice. Whoever holds the soldiers and the money holds real power.
4. Local people obeyed the satrap because he was there and the emperor was not — he became the face of the empire.
5. The emperor was usually busy with new campaigns and needed the province to stay quiet, so he rarely interfered.

• Glory and fame forever. Like the emperors described in this chapter, he wanted to be remembered by posterity as the greatest conqueror in history.
• Revenge. His campaign began to avenge the earlier Persian invasions of Greece.
• Ambition and curiosity. He was eager to reach the "end of the world" — to see and own everything there was.
• Wealth and resources. Conquered lands meant gold, taxes, soldiers and trade routes.
• To spread Greek culture — cities named Alexandria, Greek art, language and ideas travelled with him.

Immense wealth, the largest empire in the world of his time, control of the trade route from the Mediterranean to India, and undying fame.

1. Scene 1 – The two camps. Porus's army on the east bank with elephants; Alexander's on the west. Scouts report the river is in flood.
2. Scene 2 – The night crossing. Thunder, rain; the Greeks cross upstream in silence.
3. Scene 3 – The battle. Elephants charge; cavalry clashes; both sides suffer.
4. Scene 4 – The meeting. The wounded Porus is brought before Alexander. The famous question and the proud answer — "Like a King."
5. Scene 5 – The decision. Alexander returns his kingdom and makes him satrap. Narrator closes: courage earned more than the battle could.

Because everything an empire needs comes out of the countryside. Recall the beginning of this chapter: maintaining an army is a costly affair — soldiers must be fed, clothed, paid and armed; elephants and horses fed; roads and ships built. Where does all of this come from?

• A contented countryside does not rebel. An oppressed one does — this is exactly what destroyed Dhana Nanda, who "oppressed and exploited his people".
• Embankments, road bridges and protection make farming reliable, so revenue is reliable.
• In Kauṭilya's saptānga, janapada (the territory with its people) is a limb of the state — the state literally cannot stand without it.

Kauṭilya's saptānga (seven limbs) is surprisingly close to how a modern country is organised:

• Welfare of the people first — modern India is a "welfare state"; our Constitution's Directive Principles say much the same thing.
• Rule of law and anti-corruption — Kauṭilya detailed laws against corruption and punishments; we have anti-corruption laws and courts.
• Care of the countryside — rural development, irrigation, MSP for farmers, food security schemes.
• Letting local bodies govern themselves — guilds and village councils then; panchayats and municipalities now.

• Then: power was inherited and absolute. Now: power is elected, limited by a Constitution and by fundamental rights.
• Then: territory was won by conquest and tribute. Now: borders are fixed and expansion by war is unlawful.
• Then: the king's word was final. Now: an independent judiciary can overrule the government.

Possible reasons — and each tells us something about the man:

1. Genuine remorse. Seeing the enormous death and destruction at Kalinga truly changed him. Confessing it was an act of honesty and repentance, not politics.
2. The story is the message. His change of heart only makes sense if people know what he changed from. "I did this terrible thing, and I turned away from it" is a far more powerful teaching of dharma than simply saying "be peaceful".
3. Credibility. Everybody in the empire already knew about the Kalinga war — hiding it would have made all his other claims look false. Admitting it made him believable.
4. A warning to future kings (including his own sons) — do not repeat my mistake. Some edicts say exactly this: conquest by dharma is the best conquest.
5. He was a 'great communicator'. He wanted his subjects to feel he spoke to them honestly, as "Devanampiya Piyadasi" — 'Beloved of the Gods', 'one who regards others with kindness'.
6. A note of caution (thinking like a historian): we need not take all of Aśhoka's claims literally — the edicts are also his own public image, carefully written.

Language = what you speak. Script = the set of letters you write it in. The same language can be written in different scripts, and one script can write many languages.

• When you type Hindi on a phone as "namaste" you are using the Hindi language in the Roman script.
• Shop signboards often show the same Hindi word in both Devanagari and Roman letters.
• Indian currency notes carry many languages in many scripts.

1. Written and engraved in public. Carved on rock and pillar, the rules could not be denied. Ordinary people could hear them read out — so the officials could be held to account by the very people they governed.
2. Regular inspection. The five-yearly tour was an early audit / inspection system. Knowing someone will check reduces misuse of power.
3. Fairness builds loyalty. An empire is held together by consent as much as by force. Impartial officers meant less resentment and fewer rebellions.
4. Protecting people from arbitrary arrest gave people trust in the state — the beginning of the idea of justice as a right.
5. It matched Kauṭilya's philosophy: the king's welfare lies in the welfare of his subjects.

• The empire was enormous; five years is a long gap, and a corrupt officer could do much harm in between.
• Everything depended on the officers' honesty and on the emperor's personal will — after Aśhoka's death, his successors could not hold the empire together.

These are punch-marked coins: a piece of silver was cut, and symbols were punched into it with small dies — often several different punches on one coin.

• Most people could not read — a picture could be recognised by everyone.
• Each punch was a guarantee: it told traders the coin's weight and silver purity were checked. Several punches = several authorities vouching for it.
• Coins are also propaganda: they carry the ruler's emblem into every hand in the empire.

The word 'empire' comes from the Latin imperium, meaning 'supreme power'. An empire is a collection of smaller kingdoms or territories over which a powerful ruler exerts authority — usually after waging war. The smaller kingdoms keep their own rulers, but they become tributaries (vassals) of the emperor, who rules the whole territory from a capital.

1. Army — maintained to keep tributary states under control, expand the empire and defend it from outside attack.
2. Administration — officials to manage the territories, collect taxes and maintain law and order.
3. Laws, currency, weights and measures — and regulation of trade.
4. Control over resources — mines, forests, agricultural produce and manpower.
5. Patronage of culture — art, literature, religions, schools of thought and centres of learning.
6. Communication networks — roads, river and sea navigation, and other infrastructure for administration, trade and people's welfare.

At the centre of all six: the emperor exerts central authority over the empire's tributary territories and kings.

1. He built one of the largest empires in world history — spread over three continents (Europe, Africa, Asia) — and did it in barely a decade, dying at only 32.
2. He defeated the mighty Persian Empire (334–331 BCE), the superpower of his age, in a campaign begun to avenge earlier Persian invasions of Greece.
3. He was a brilliant military commander — his tactics (like the surprise river crossing at the Hydaspes against Porus) are still studied.
4. He spread Greek culture across Asia — language, art, coins, city planning. Cities named Alexandria were founded along his route.
5. He opened the door to Indo-Greek cultural contact. His campaign in north-west India had limited political impact, but the exchange that followed — including the meeting of Greek and Indian thought (the Gymnosophists) — influenced art, coinage and ideas for centuries.
6. He connected East and West, linking trade routes from the Mediterranean to the Indus.
7. He is a lesson in the fragility of empires. The moment he died, his generals and satraps split his empire into their own kingdoms — showing how hard it is to hold what you conquer.

1. The first great pan-Indian empire. Founded by Chandragupta Maurya around 321 BCE, it absorbed the Nanda empire and grew to cover almost the entire Subcontinent (except the far south), including parts of present-day Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. It gave the Subcontinent political unity for the first time.
2. They drove out the Greek satraps left behind by Alexander in the north-west and integrated that region into India.
3. An elaborate system of administration. Officials, a taxation system, a strong treasury, well-planned cities, couriers carrying messages, granaries against famine (see the Sohagaura copper plate).
4. Statecraft: Kauṭilya's Arthaśhāstra — the "science of governance and economics", with the saptānga and the principle that the king's happiness lies in his subjects' happiness. It remains one of the world's great works on government.
5. Economy and trade. They strengthened trade routes, and made extensive use of punch-marked coins.
6. Aśhoka and dharma. After the horror of the Kalinga war, Aśhoka gave up violence, promoted peace, tolerance and welfare, and sent emissaries to Sri Lanka, Thailand and Central Asia — turning Buddhism into a world religion.
7. The edicts. Aśhoka the "great communicator" left messages engraved on rocks and pillars in Prakrit, in the Brahmi script — our earliest deciphered royal records, and a priceless historical source.
8. Art and architecture. The Sanchi stūpa, the highly polished stone pillars, the Dhauli elephant, and the Sarnath lion capital.
9. A living legacy. The Sarnath capital is India's national emblem (with satyameva jayate), and the dharmachakra is at the centre of our national flag.

Kauṭilya (also called Chāṇakya or Viṣhnugupta) was a teacher at Takṣhaśhilā university and the mentor of Chandragupta Maurya. His great work is the Arthaśhāstra — literally 'the science of governance and economics'.

1. The saptānga — the seven limbs that make up a state (see below).
2. The welfare of the people comes first. "In the happiness of his subjects lies the king's happiness; in their welfare his welfare."
3. Power comes from the countryside, the source of all economic activity — so the king must build embankments and road bridges, beautify and protect villages.
4. Law and order and a strong administration are essential.
5. Zero tolerance for corruption — he detailed laws against it and fixed punishments for anything that harmed the people's wellbeing.
6. Both war and peace are tools. A kingdom is maintained "through warfare and through alliances for peace, as the case may be."
7. Economics is the foundation of power — trade, agriculture, mines and a full treasury.
8. Let people organise themselves. An enlightened ruler should not interfere with guilds and village councils if they work well.

• A conqueror who chose peace. Almost every emperor in history expanded by war. Aśhoka, at the height of his power, saw the death and destruction at Kalinga and gave up violence — an almost unheard-of decision.
• He publicly admitted his own worst deed in his edicts, instead of hiding it.
• He spoke directly to his people. Historians call him a 'great communicator' — his edicts, engraved on rocks and pillars in Prakrit and Brahmi, are addressed to ordinary people, not to nobles.
• Religious tolerance. He encouraged all sects to study and respect one another's best teachings, and appointed officers of Dhamma for Buddhists, brahmans, Ājīvikas and Jains alike.
• Welfare of people and animals. He prohibited hunting and cruelty to animals, ordered medical treatment for both people and animals — even beyond his own borders — and built rest houses, wells and planted shade and fruit trees along the roads.
• Justice. He instructed that men should never be imprisoned or tortured without good reason, and sent inspecting officers every five years.
• He exported ideas, not armies — emissaries went to Sri Lanka, Thailand and Central Asia.

• The Sarnath lion capital is our national emblem, and the dharmachakra sits at the centre of our national flag. We chose them because they stand for power guided by dharma, not power for its own sake.
• The motto satyameva jayate — "truth alone triumphs" — from the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣhad.
• Religious tolerance and non-violence — ideas that run from Aśhoka through Gandhi into our Constitution's secularism.
• The idea of a welfare state whose ruler answers for the people's wellbeing.
• Our art and architecture inheritance — Sanchi, the polished pillars, the Dhauli elephant.

Yes — the edict shows he was remarkably tolerant. Here is the evidence, read like a historian:

1. He appointed officers for every sect, not only his own. Aśhoka himself embraced the Buddha's teachings — yet his officers of Dhamma were busy "among members of all sects", and he specifically names the Buddhist Order, brahmans, Ājīvikas and Jains. He used state resources to look after faiths that were not his.
2. He served both ascetics and householders — the religious and the ordinary — so tolerance was not just talk about doctrine; it was practical public service.
3. Elsewhere he goes further: the chapter tells us he encouraged all sects to accept each other's best teachings and study them. That is more than tolerance — it is mutual respect and learning.
4. His idea of dharma was inclusive. Dharma here means duty, law, truth, order and ethics — values that any sect could accept. He was not asking people to convert; he was asking them to be good.
5. "All men are my children." His edicts describe every subject, of every belief, as his own child.

• Draw a chart of a few Brahmi letters (𑀓 = ka, 𑀫 = ma…) and place today's Devanagari letter beside each one to show the family resemblance.
• Write your own name in Brahmi, and paste a picture of an Aśhokan pillar beside it.
• Add a small map (like Fig. 5.17) showing where Brahmi inscriptions have been found.
• End with one line: "Every time I write in Hindi, Tamil or Bengali, I am using a great-grandchild of Brahmi."

1. Start at Kauśhāmbī, a great trading city on the Yamuna.
2. Travel south-west to Ujjayinī / Vidiśhā and join the great southern highway, the Dakṣhiṇapatha (the yellow route on the map).
3. Cross the Deccan plateau via Pratiṣhṭhāna and Suvarnagiri.
4. Continue south to Kānchīpura, then east to the port of Kāverīpattanam on the Kaveri delta.

• Join a merchant caravan (a guild's caravan) — never travel alone. Safety in numbers against robbers and wild animals.
• Goods and family in bullock carts; some travellers on horseback, most walking beside the carts.
• Where a river runs the right way (e.g., the Yamuna at the start), use a boat — faster and cheaper.
• Halt each night at a village, rest house or caravan halt. Rest one day in every seven for the bullocks. Carry grain, water, and trade goods.
• Avoid the monsoon months — rivers flood and roads become mud. Travel in the cool, dry season.