Chandragupta Maurya

Chandragupta Maurya founded the first empire to unify most of the Indian subcontinent. Born around 340 BC, his origins are disputed — Buddhist sources make him a member of the Moriya clan, Jain and Brahmanical ones give him a low or mixed birth, and the disagreement is itself evidence that he was not from an established royal line. He was found and educated by Chanakya, the Brahmin strategist, and the two set out to destroy the Nanda dynasty of Magadha, which ruled the Ganges plain and was widely resented for its taxation. Alexander invaded the Punjab in 327 BC and withdrew, and his death in 323 BC left the north-west in the hands of Macedonian garrisons. Chandragupta took the region, then overthrew the Nandas around 321 BC after a campaign that Plutarch's tradition says began with defeats and succeeded by attacking the frontiers first rather than the centre. He faced Seleucus I around 305 BC. The peace gave Chandragupta the eastern satrapies as far as the Hindu Kush and gave Seleucus five hundred war elephants, which decided Ipsus four years later. The Greek envoy Megasthenes lived at his capital Pataliputra and described a city of enormous size with a timber palisade, a standing army, and an administration of overseers — the earliest external account of Indian government. The Arthashastra, attributed to Chanakya, describes the machinery: espionage, taxation, mining, irrigation and famine reserves. Jain tradition holds that he abdicated, became a monk, and fasted to death at Shravanabelagola around 297 BC. His grandson Ashoka completed the conquest of the subcontinent and then renounced war.

• Lived: 340 BCE – 297 BCE
• Nationality: Indian
• Roles: ruler, general