WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MAURYAS

There has always been much excitement surrounding the Mauryan empire ever since its details were painstakingly put together by historians. After all, this was the first known ruling line to have commanded such an extensive realm—a feat that only the Mughals were able to parallel much later—and, to all appearances, with such admirable control. Beginning with Chandragupta, almost all of India was united under one yoke with one central administration. Communications, trade, urbanism and the economy grew in leaps and bounds. This was an astonishing achievement for the times—and the baton passed smoothly (in this regard, at least!) to Bindusara and Ashoka, worthy inheritors of the Maurya mantle. So why did the dynasty more or less fold up after Ashoka’s passing away? This question, it must be cautioned, remains as much of a puzzle as it was when first mooted.

Ironically, the principal factor behind the Mauryan glory is also blamed for its eclipse. Many fingers point to Ashoka as having pushed the empire towards oblivion through his policies. It has been suggested by Haraprasad Sastri, for instance, that the Shunga rise was, in fact, the manifestation of a rebellion by brahmanas who were sorely tried by the maverick emperor’s ostensibly anti-brahmana policies and his support of heterodox sects (the latter, incidentally, being something that he shared in common with his father and grandfather). Ashoka’s ban on animal sacrifices and his widescale appointment of dhamma-mahamatas are seen as the main offending factors: they chipped away at the brahmanas’ livelihood and their longstanding status as society’s moral conscience keepers, respectively.1

Viewing Pushyamitra Shunga as the restorer of Brahmanical authority ties in with this. He has been labelled a ‘violent anti-Buddhist’ for destroying several important Ashokan Buddhist sites, such as the Kukkutarama monastery (of the amalaka soup fame), Deorkothar, Bharhut and Sanchi.2 However, smashed sculptures and pillars could, equally, have been the handiwork of natural disasters and/or human interference. Also, ironically, the Sanchi stupa underwent a reconstruction in the second century BCE, following the end of the Mauryan dynasty and during the Shunga period: it was enlarged and encased in its present stone covering, and saw a virtual explosion in donations by a whole range of (mostly non-royal) people from near and far. The whole thing might have had something to do with the seesaw nature of patronage—either Pushyamitra or his successor, Agnimitra, reversed their policy to support Buddhism all over again. Several later Shunga rulers followed suit.

Yet here we can cite a piece of evidence that directly counters Sastri’s contention, which proves, for the hundredth time, how important it is to read a source carefully before you set about interpreting it and asserting your conclusions. To Sastri, Rock Edict 1 contains Ashoka’s boastful claim that he had revealed the brahmanas to be false gods. This promptly set the cat among the pigeons and it was a short step from here to branding Ashoka the culprit behind the empire’s downfall. If you mess with the religious equilibrium, then you only have yourself to blame, agreed fellow-adherents of this view. Not that this exonerated Pushyamitra Shunga’s murder of the last Mauryan king but there were clearly extenuating circumstances behind the act. As it turns out, though, Sastri’s reading of the pertinent sentence was wrong: it actually states that gods and men had come to the point of mingling, so to speak, and all due to Ashoka’s efforts. This, juxtaposed with his oft-repeated pleas to his subjects to respect brahmanas and shramanas, turns Sastri’s theory on its head. Quite clearly, therefore, the Mauryan dynasty did not end due to angry brahmanas revolting and/or taking revenge.3

Fingers point to Ashoka again but this time around for his pacifist policy. Enveloped in a glow of spiritual awakening and perpetually exhorting your subjects to refrain from violence sends out the best sort of message to rival powers: you eschew bloodshed of all kinds and are, by extension, weak—the perfect time, therefore, for them to launch an attack. Nevertheless, there is a single contrary fact—Ashoka did not disband his army, even in the immediate aftermath of his Kalinga trauma when his aversion to war was at its peak. He might have undergone a radical internal transformation but his core identity as the ruler of the mighty Mauryan empire remained the same—and he was very well aware of this. Practical considerations dictated that his army remain intact and so it did.4

Put this together with his veiled warnings in his edicts to recalcitrant tribal elements and the fact that he did not abolish capital punishment at any point in his reign, and you start to question the culpability of his policy of peace in the downfall of the empire. However, to be completely fair, Ashoka’s army was only involved in one major military campaign, that of Kalinga, and probably skulked around, thereafter, in a state of semi-preparedness while their ruler strove to direct his realm in another direction altogether. This was probably the reason behind the successful invasion of the Bactrian Greeks, at a later stage, which further weakened the empire.

Or could it be the partition theory proposed by Romila Thapar with the empire’s eastern part coming under Dasharatha and the western under Kunala due to which the Greeks could not be held off?5 The administration was generally crippled, too, as per this theory—the eastern part with Pataliputra continued much as before but the western part, which included the volatile province of Taxila and the northwest, had to hastily emulate the former, so its hands were full and its priorities were different. It is also likely that we need to look somewhere else altogether.

Perhaps the dhamma-mahamatas were the real culprits, probably assuming overweening powers in the waning years of Ashoka’s reign, and generally demanding favours from and harassing the public on account of their exalted status. A resentful public would, therefore, have welcomed a change, a respite. This applies to the officials at large, too. If they owed their loyalty to the king in question due to them being personally selected, any change at the helm would result in fresh recruitments—and resultant chaos.6 The first three rulers might have handpicked their assistants with care; the others might not have been as bothered.

A lot depends on how you choose to view the Mauryan empire. If it was a deeply centralised political system, then a weak ruler or one with suddenly altered priorities could, perhaps, be singled out as the reason for its decline. After all, when the pivot crumbles, it takes the system with it. However, as pointed out earlier, a lot of evidence has been cobbled together to show that the Mauryan empire was probably not as centralised as once believed and so, this theory does not really hold. There are other decline theories that have been proposed, such as the Mauryan empire having faced some sort of financial crisis or a generalised economic crisis, (centred on spiralling taxes, for one; extracting revenue from existing resources instead of creating new ones, for another) but the evidence, if any, is unsatisfactory, so these might not be credible.

Much of the problem is caused by our trying to solve the riddles of the past with the solutions of the present, as if one situation can be so easily extrapolated onto the other. Each period of history remains rooted in its own specific context with its own particular priorities and compulsions—and we are all very well aware of this—but still the tendency remains: an instinctive attempt to read elements of the present as also being relevant to the past. This might, of course, hold true but only to a limited extent. So, for instance, some of the other theories that have been put forward for the Mauryan decline, such as the absence of nationalism and the lack of popular representative institutions in the empire, do not really pertain to the ancient world. Moreover, to accuse the Mauryans of not being able to restructure the economies of the core and peripheral areas, and hold this responsible for their decline, is tantamount to accusing them of not having the planning and strategies of the modern-day world.7

The basic point is that the Mauryan empire was a colossal entity. Incorporating a huge territorial span, it also held, within it, diverse people and resources. Control over the realm was always going to be a daunting task but the first three rulers were able to hold it all together by dint of military mechanisms, the administrative structure and, later, a unifying ideology. However, all things have their limit and the Mauryan behemoth eventually began to crack under the strain—in the manner of all massive empires in the ancient landscape. Charisma and confidence are unquantifiable factors, so even if later rulers possessed them to the same degree as their three great predecessors (and the meagre evidence seems not to indicate this), it is unclear whether they could have just papered over the cracks and soldiered on.

And a collapsing centre meant the rise of distant provinces who broke away in search of autonomy. All this is mere conjecture, though—there is not much concrete evidence either way. But it is true that even before the rise of the Shungas, other local kingdoms had broken away after Ashoka’s death and the ensuing confusion; notably, the Satavahanas (south and west of Kalinga), who eventually became a power to reckon with across central and south India—and they were Buddhists or liked them anyway. Interestingly, though, Magadha continued as the focal point of large kingdoms in the Ganga plain even though the succeeding dynasties were unrelated to the Mauryas. Eventually, however, a series of invasions from the northwest led to a westward shift in the focus of political power away from the Magadha region.8

And so, the Mauryan empire went the way of all great empires—morphing into new ruling lines, new identities and new tales; living on in evidence, legend and hearsay; and holding its own special place in the narrative reconstruction of the Indian past. Also, importantly, its resonances are quite tangible in the present. The streets of Delhi, the national capital, for instance, are rife with Mauryan references. To begin with, we have Chanakyapuri (literally, the ‘city of Chanakya’), which houses embassies and diplomatic missions—no simple coincidence, this, but a deliberate choice of name! Admittedly, Chanakya/Kautilya might not have been the most diplomatic or tactful personage around given his levels of paranoic suspicion and general distrust of humans but his mastery of statecraft and political relations cannot be overstated. Therefore, the name Chanakyapuri for this ever-strategising community, otherwise called the Diplomatic Enclave, is very apposite indeed.

We also have Chandragupta Marg (or ‘road’) within this area that houses more overseas missions, a prominent school and a hospital, among other things. Not too far from it is Kautilya Marg that sports some high commissions and state buildings. And not much further than a stone’s throw away is Ashoka Road that leads into Connaught Place, one of the city’s commercial hubs. There is, too, the government-run Hotel Ashoka in Chanakyapuri and a street marked Ashoka Drive within the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) Villas’ complex in Greater Noida. Bindusara has not been earmarked for similar glory but now you probably understand this oversight a little better. Nor, predictably, have any of the Mauryan royal women: the gender bias also extends into the naming of streets and thoroughfares in urban landscapes, as you likely know.

Another, rather unexpected Mauryan bequest seems to have taken on literary contours. In recent years, there has been a rush of books in the Indian market that claim to provide ways of transacting business and living lives by using Kautilya’s dictums.9 We also have colourful and intensely dramatic reconstructions of his story, one of them, for instance, involving him being cursed and reborn with a generous dollop of hair-raising excitement in every line.10 The internet also bristles with Youtube videos on Chanakya Niti (loosely ‘Chanakya’s policy’), and sites and books offering to guide aspiring entrepreneurs using the principles of the Arthashastra. (Chanakya Speaks: The Seven Pillars of Business Success is the modest title of one of these offerings.)

Kautilya did speak profusely, albeit in prose, and did have an opinion on most things—and this rediscovery and resurrection of his ideas would have probably flattered the venerable fox. However, he might, equally, have been miffed at this repackaging of his ideas—these were not for everyone’s eyes, after all, but for the king alone to absorb and implement. He has also been immortalised on screen, notably by Chandraprakash Dwivedi, whose television series, of several decades vintage now, still has the capacity to enthrall viewers, chiefly due to his excellent rendition of the man himself. The confrontation scene with the Nandas, for instance, is perfectly enacted with a goosebump-raising quality of its own, particularly when the camera focuses on Kautilya’s hair hanging loose and his face suffused with fury.

The several ruling lines who came after the Mauryas have been acknowledged and analysed for their respective contributions but none so far have captured our imagination in the manner in which they have. There is something in their story that sets them apart—some intangible element of mystery and passion and adventure that makes you want to know more and to dive deeper into the layers that cloak them. We have a long way to go before their story is laid bare in its entirety but we can still look back on this part of our past with admiration—a bit of concrete proof that dreams and seemingly impractical notions can, if pursued hard enough, suddenly acquire shape and form and substance.

Thus is an empire born; thus is a genius—or many.