# The Mauryan Empire
**मौर्य साम्राज्य**

- Canonical page: https://indianepics.online/chapter/maurya/
- Track: evidence
- Span: 340 BCE to 180 BCE
- Boundary shown: maurya-260bce (approximate unless marked traced)

In the generation after Alexander's retreat from the Punjab, Chandragupta Maurya took Magadha and the north-west, in an order still argued over, and built the first state to span most of the subcontinent. His grandson Ashoka's rock and pillar edicts are the oldest deciphered, datable writing in India, and they speak in the emperor's own voice.

The map shows the empire near its greatest extent around 260 BCE. The outline is approximate: Mauryan control was a web of roads, garrisons and tribute rather than a surveyed border.

## Events (7)

- 326 BCE – 316 BCE (± 5 years) — [Taxila, crossroads of the north-west](https://indianepics.online/event/taxila-learning.md): Gandhara's chief city: once Persian, host to Alexander in 326 BCE, then a Mauryan provincial seat governed by a prince.
- 321 BCE (± 5 years) — [Chandragupta takes Magadha](https://indianepics.online/event/chandragupta-magadha.md): Chandragupta Maurya overthrows the Nanda king and rules from Pataliputra; later tradition credits his minister Chanakya with the plan.
- 305 BCE – 303 BCE (± 2 years) — [Treaty with Seleucus](https://indianepics.online/event/seleucid-treaty.md): Seleucus Nicator gives Chandragupta lands along the Indus under a marriage pact and receives five hundred war elephants.
- 268 BCE – 232 BCE (± 10 years) — [The Great Stupa at Sanchi](https://indianepics.online/event/sanchi-stupa.md): Ashoka's brick stupa, doubled in size and cased in stone in the 2nd century BCE, and given carved gateways around the turn of the era.
- 261 BCE (± 4 years) — [The Kalinga war](https://indianepics.online/event/kalinga-war.md): Ashoka conquers Kalinga; his Rock Edict XIII counts the dead and deported and records his remorse and turn to dhamma.
- 258 BCE – 242 BCE (± 3 years) — [The edicts of Ashoka](https://indianepics.online/event/ashoka-edicts.md): Rock and pillar edicts in Prakrit, Greek and Aramaic, from Kandahar to Karnataka; the oldest deciphered, datable writing from India.
- 185 BCE (± 5 years) — [Pushyamitra ends the dynasty](https://indianepics.online/event/maurya-fall.md): The general Pushyamitra kills the last Maurya, Brihadratha, at a review of the army and founds the Shunga dynasty.