The Mauryan Empire and Ashoka's Dhamma

Prerequisites: Mahajanapadas, Buddhism and Jainism

The Hook: A Republic’s Emblem From an Emperor’s Pillar

The Core Concept

Sources

The rulers

Administration — the Arthashastra state

The Saptanga theory — the state has seven limbs: swami (king), amatya (ministers), janapada (territory and people), durga (fort), kosha (treasury), danda (army/justice), mitra (ally).

Central officials (adhyakshas and others)

Provinces were governed by princes (kumaras). Ashoka’s inscriptions name provincial centres at Taxila (north-west), Ujjain (Avanti), Tosali (Kalinga) and Suvarnagiri (south), with Pataliputra governing the core. Ashoka’s officials — the rajuka, pradeshika and yukta — were to tour their areas every five years (Major Rock Edict III).

Pataliputra (Megasthenes): the city was run by six committees of five members each — dealing with industrial arts, foreigners, registration of births and deaths, trade, sale of manufactured goods, and collection of a tax on sales. The army was similarly managed by six boards.

Espionage: the Arthashastra describes stationary (samstha) and wandering (sanchara) spies.

Economy: land revenue (bhaga, usually one-sixth of the produce); state monopoly over mines and much of the forest; crown farms (sita); silver punch-marked coins (pana or karshapana); roads such as the route from Pataliputra to Taxila.

Megasthenes’ observations: he described Indian society as divided into seven classes and claimed there was no slavery in India — a claim contradicted by Indian sources.

Ashoka — from Kalinga to Dhamma

Major Rock Edict XIII describes the Kalinga war: 150,000 people deported, 100,000 killed and many more who died later. Ashoka records his remorse and declares that the true conquest is conquest by Dhamma (dhamma-vijaya), not by arms.

What Dhamma was: not a sectarian creed but a code of social ethics drawn from many traditions:

• respect for parents, elders and teachers; kindness to slaves and servants;
• generosity to brahmanas and shramanas alike;
• non-violence to animals — a ban on certain animal sacrifices and festive gatherings (samaja) (Major Rock Edict I);
• tolerance — “honouring other sects” while restraining one’s speech (Major Rock Edict XII);
• welfare — medical care for humans and animals, wells and trees along roads (Major Rock Edict II);
• dhamma-yatras replacing royal hunting tours (Major Rock Edict VIII);
• Dhamma-mahamattas — special officers to spread Dhamma and look after all sects (Major Rock Edict V, appointed in the thirteenth year after consecration).

Ashoka also sent Buddhist missions abroad — his son Mahendra and daughter Sanghamitra to Sri Lanka, according to Sri Lankan tradition — and patronised the Third Buddhist Council at Pataliputra.

The edicts — what, where, which script

Language and script: mostly Prakrit in Brahmi; Kharosthi in the north-west (Shahbazgarhi, Mansehra); Greek and Aramaic at Kandahar (Afghanistan). James Prinsep deciphered Brahmi in 1837.

Firoz Shah Tughlaq moved the Topra and Meerut pillars to Delhi in the fourteenth century.

Mauryan art and architecture

The Sarnath Lion Capital: four Asiatic lions on a circular abacus carved with an elephant, a horse, a bull and a lion, separated by wheels, resting on an inverted lotus. The State Emblem shows three visible lions, the wheel, the bull and the horse, and omits the lotus.

Decline (after Ashoka)

graph TD
    A[Chandragupta: conquest and Arthashastra state] --> B[Bindusara: consolidation]
    B --> C[Ashoka: Kalinga war c. 261 BCE]
    C --> D[Dhamma: ethics, welfare, tolerance]
    D --> E[Edicts across the subcontinent]
    C --> F[Later Mauryas: decline]
    F --> G[Pushyamitra Shunga c. 185 BCE]

Memory Anchors

Saptanga: “Some Ambitious Jugglers Drop Knives During Mass” → Swami, Amatya, Janapada, Durga, Kosha, Danda, Mitra.

Name “Ashoka” appears: “My Great Ashoka” → Maski, Gujarra (also Nittur and Udegolam in Karnataka).

Edict numbers: I — no sacrifice · II — medicine · III — officials tour · V — Dhamma-mahamattas · XII — tolerance · XIII — Kalinga.

One-line Mains hook: Ashoka’s Major Rock Edict XII — honour another’s sect, for by doing so one strengthens one’s own — is among the earliest state statements of religious tolerance.

For Prelims

For Mains

• Dimensions: first pan-Indian state; welfare state ideas in the Arthashastra and the edicts; Dhamma as ethics vs politics; tolerance and pluralism; court art vs popular art; communication through public inscriptions.
• Keywords: Saptanga, dhamma-vijaya, Dhamma-mahamatta, anusamyana (tours), paternalism (“All men are my children”), polished monolithic pillars.
• Value-addition: the State Emblem from the Sarnath capital; the dharma chakra on the national flag (the Ashoka Chakra); Edict XII as an ancient statement of tolerance.

Common Traps

In the News

• July 2022 — the bronze national emblem for the roof of the new Parliament building was unveiled.

Practice

Prelims

Mains

Quick Revision

Key Takeaways

Related Topics

• Mahajanapadas, Buddhism and Jainism
• Mahajanapadas and the Mauryas — quick revision
• Mahajanapadas and the Mauryas — practice questions
• Post-Mauryan and Gupta Age
• Indian Art and Architecture