032: The Mauryan Empire of India

The Hellenistic Age Podcast

History

4.7 • 558 Ratings

🗓️ 7 October 2019

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Led by rulers such as Chandragupta and Ashoka the Great, the Mauryan Empire would be the largest empire ancient India had yet seen. Stretching across almost all of the Indian subcontinent into modern Afghanistan and Iran, the Maurya would develop close contacts with the Hellenistic world. We will look at the history and the inner workings of the empire, as recorded by the likes of Megasthenes and Chanakya, and see how this highly developed state managed to sustain itself from 320 to 185 B.C. Episode Notes: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.wordpress.com/2019/10/07/032-the-mauryan-empire-of-india/) Title Theme: Seikilos Epitapth with the Lyre of Apollo, played by Lina Palera (https://soundcloud.com/user-994392473) Social Media: Twitter (https://twitter.com/HellenisticPod) Facebook (www.facebook.com/hellenisticagepodcast/) Discord (https://discord.gg/VJcyUcN) Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/hellenisticagepodcast)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi there, you're listening to the Hellenistic Age podcast, Episode 32, the Morian Empire of India. Ten years being completed, King Pio Dacis showed piety to men, and from that time onwards he made men more
0:34.3	pious, and all things prosper throughout the whole world, and the king refraims
0:39.3	from eating living beings, and indeed other men and whosoever were the king's huntsmen and
0:44.8	fishermen have ceased from hunting, and those who are without control over themselves have ceased
0:50.1	as far as possible from their lack of self-control, and have become obedient to father and mother to elders, such as was not the case before.
0:59.0	And in future, doing all these things, they will live more agreeably and better than before.
1:05.0	Such is the royal inscription laid out in ancient Greek, carved upon the side of a mountain with
1:11.7	its parallel translation in Aramaic listed beneath it. This rather philosophical proclamation,
1:18.0	known as the Kandahar inscription, was found by scholars in the region of Kandahar in southeastern
1:23.1	Afghanistan, and is held up as a remarkable example of the cultural diversity in the region
1:28.3	during the 3rd century BC.
1:30.9	The most fascinating aspect of this inscription is that the philosophy espoused is distinctively
1:36.5	Buddhist, with the term piety, interchange from the complex idea of Dharma or Dharma.
1:42.8	And this carving is definitive proof that the ancient Greeks and
1:45.8	Macedonians were exposed to the teachings of the Buddha to some extent. But who ordered it
1:51.8	to be written, and why? The name mentioned, King Piodasis, is the Greek version of the Sanskrit
1:58.5	title Priya Darchin, literally translated as,
2:02.1	quote, he who looks with kindness upon with everything.
2:06.0	Given to Emperor Ashoka the Great, ruler of the Moria Empire of India between 273 and 232 BC.
2:14.5	Founded by Chandra Gupta Moria, the empire was almost unmatched in its extent by any of the later powers who dominated India up until the arrival of the Mughals during the 16th century AD.
2:25.3	At its height, it theoretically stretched into southeastern Afghanistan in Iran, covering Pakistan and almost all of India, except for the very southernmost tips
2:35.5	of the subcontinent, and with the population numbering roughly 50 to 70 million people.
	...

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