Mahajanapadas
The Mahājanapadas were sixteen kingdoms or oligarchic republics that existed in ancient India from the sixth to fourth centuries BCE. Two of them were most ganatantras and others had forms of monarchy. Ancient Buddhist texts like the Anguttara Nikaya make frequent reference to sixteen great kingdoms and republics which had evolved and flourished in a belt stretching from Gandhara in the northwest to Anga in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent and included parts of the trans-Vindhyan region, prior to the rise of Buddhism in India; the 6th–5th century BCE is regarded as a major turning point in early Indian history. Archaeologically, this period corresponds in part to the Northern Black Polished Ware culture; the term "Janapada" means the foothold of a tribe. The fact that Janapada is derived from Jana points to an early stage of land-taking by the Jana tribe for a settled way of life; this process of first settlement on land had completed its final stage prior to the times of the Buddha and Pāṇini.
The Pre-Buddhist north-west region of the Indian sub-continent was divided into several Janapadas demarcated from each other by boundaries. In Pāṇini's "Ashtadhyayi", Janapada stands for Janapadin for its citizenry; each of these Janapadas was named after the Kshatriya tribe. Buddhist and other texts only incidentally refer to sixteen great nations which were in existence before the time of the Buddha, they do not give any connected history except in the case of Magadha. The Buddhist Anguttara Nikaya, at several places, gives a list of sixteen great nations: Another Buddhist text, the Digha Nikaya, mentions only twelve Mahajanapadas from the above list and omits four of them. Chulla-Niddesa, another ancient text of the Buddhist canon, adds Kalinga to the list and substitutes Yona for Gandhara, thus listing the Kamboja and the Yona as the only Mahajanapadas from Uttarapatha; the Vyākhyāprajñapti, a sutra of Jainism, gives a different list of sixteen Mahajanapadas: The author of the Bhagavati Sutra has a focus on the countries of Madhydesa and of the far east and south only.
He omits the nations from Uttarapatha like the Gandhara. The more extended horizon of the Bhagvati and the omission of all countries from Uttarapatha "clearly shows that the Bhagvati list is of origin and therefore less reliable." The first reference to the Angas is found in the Atharva-Veda where they find mention along with the Magadhas and the Mujavats as a despised people. The Jaina Prajnapana ranks Vangas in the first group of Aryan people, it mentions the principal cities of ancient India. It was a great center of trade and commerce and its merchants sailed to distant Suvarnabhumi. Anga was annexed by Magadha in the time of Bimbisara; this was the one and only conquest of Bimbisara. The country of Assaka or the Ashmaka tribe was located in southern India. In Buddha's time, many of the Assakas were located on the banks of the river Godavari; the capital of the Assakas was Potali, which corresponds to Paudanya of Mahabharata. The Ashmakas are mentioned by Pāṇini, they are placed in the north-west in the Brhat Samhita.
The river Godavari separated the country of the Assakas from that of the Mulakas. The commentator of Kautiliya's Arthashastra identifies Ashmaka with Maharashtra; the country of Assaka lay outside the pale of Madhyadesa. It was located on the Dakshinapatha. At one time, Assaka abutted Avanti; the country of the Avantis was an important kingdom of western India and was one of the four great monarchies in India in the post era of Mahavira and Buddha, the other three being Kosala and Magadha. Avanti was divided into south by the river Narmada. Mahishamati was the capital of Southern Avanti, Ujjaini was of northern Avanti, but at the times of Mahavira and Buddha, Ujjaini was the capital of integrated Avanti; the country of Avanti corresponded to modern Malwa and adjoining parts of today's Madhya Pradesh. Both Mahishmati and Ujjaini stood on the southern high road called Dakshinapatha which extended from Rajagriha to Pratishthana. Avanti was an important centre of Buddhism and some of the leading theras and theris were born and resided there.
King Nandivardhana of Avanti was defeated by king Shishunaga of Magadha. Avanti became part of the Magadhan empire; the Chedis, Chetis or Chetyas had two distinct settlements of which one was in the mountains of Nepal and the other in Bundelkhand near Kausambi. According to old authorities, Chedis lay near Yamuna midway between the kingdom of Vatsas. In the mediaeval period, the southern frontiers of Chedi extended to the banks of the river Narmada. Sotthivatnagara, the Sukti or Suktimati of Mahabharata, was the capital of Chedi; the Chedis were an ancient people of India and are mentioned in the Rigveda, with their king Kashu Chaidya. The location of the capital city, has not been established with certainty. Historian Hem Chandra Raychaudhuri and F. E. Pargiter believed that it was in the vicinity of Banda, Uttar Pradesh. Archaeologist Dilip Kumar Chakrabarti has proposed that Suktimati can be iden
Humayun
Nasir-ud-Din Muḥammad, better known by his regnal name, was the second emperor of the Mughal Empire, who ruled over territory in what is now Afghanistan, Northern India and Bangladesh from 1530–1540 and again from 1555–1556. Like his father, Babur, he lost his kingdom early but regained it with the aid of the Safavid dynasty of Persia, with additional territory. At the time of his death in 1556, the Mughal Empire spanned one million square kilometres. In December 1530, Humayun succeeded his father to the throne of Delhi as ruler of the Mughal territories in the Indian subcontinent. At the age of 22, Humayun was an inexperienced ruler, his half-brother Kamran Mirza inherited Kabul and Kandahar, the northernmost parts of their father's empire. Mirza was to become a bitter rival of Humayun. Humayun lost Mughal territories to Sher Shah Suri, but regained them 15 years with Safavid aid. Humayun's return from Persia was accompanied by a large retinue of Persian noblemen and signalled an important change in Mughal court culture.
The Central Asian origins of the dynasty were overshadowed by the influences of Persian art, architecture and literature. There are many stone carvings and thousands of Persian manuscripts in India dating from the time of Humayun. Subsequently, Humayun further expanded the Empire in a short time, leaving a substantial legacy for his son, Akbar; the decision of Babur to divide the territories of his empire between two of his sons was unusual in India, although it had been a common Central Asian practice since the time of Genghis Khan. Unlike most monarchies, which practised primogeniture, the Timurids followed the example of Genghis and did not leave an entire kingdom to the eldest son. Although under that system only a could claim sovereignty and khanal authority, any male Chinggisid within a given sub-branch had an equal right to the throne. While Genghis Khan's Empire had been peacefully divided between his sons upon his death every Chinggisid succession since had resulted in fratricide. Timur himself had divided his territories among Pir Muhammad, Miran Shah, Khalil Sultan and Shah Rukh, which resulted in inter-family warfare.
Upon Babur's death, Humayun's territories were the least secure. He had ruled only four years, not all umarah viewed Humayun as the rightful ruler. Indeed, when Babur had become ill, some of the nobles had tried to install his Brother-in-law, Mahdi Khwaja, as ruler. Although this attempt failed, it was a sign of problems to come; when Humayun came to the throne of the Mughal Empire, several of his brothers revolted against him. Another brother Khalil Mirza was assassinated; the Emperor commenced construction of a tomb for his brother in 1538, but this was not yet finished when Humayun was forced to flee to Persia. Sher Shah destroyed no further work was done on it after Humayun's restoration. Humayun had two major rivals for his lands: Sultan Bahadur of Gujarat to the southwest and Sher Shah Suri settled along the river Ganges in Bihar to the east. Humayun's first campaign was to confront Sher Shah Suri. Halfway through this offensive Humayun had to abandon it and concentrate on Gujarat, where a threat from Ahmed Shah had to be met.
Humayun was victorious annexing Gujarat, Malwa and the great fort of Mandu. During the first five years of Humayun's reign and Sher Khan extended their rule, although Sultan Bahadur faced pressure in the east from sporadic conflicts with the Portuguese. While the Mughals had obtained firearms via the Ottoman Empire, Bahadur's Gujarat had acquired them through a series of contracts drawn up with the Portuguese, allowing the Portuguese to establish a strategic foothold in north western India. In 1535 Humayun was made aware that the Sultan of Gujarat was planning an assault on the Mughal territories with Portuguese aid. Humayun marched on Bahadur. Within a month he had captured the forts of Champaner. However, instead of pressing his attack, Humayun ceased the campaign and consolidated his newly conquered territory. Sultan Bahadur, meanwhile took up refuge with the Portuguese. Shortly after Humayun had marched on Gujarat, Sher Shah Suri saw an opportunity to wrest control of Agra from the Mughals.
He began to gather his army together hoping for a decisive siege of the Mughal capital. Upon hearing this alarming news, Humayun marched his troops back to Agra allowing Bahadur to regain control of the territories Humayun had taken. In February 1537, Bahadur was killed when a botched plan to kidnap the Portuguese viceroy ended in a fire-fight that the Sultan lost. Whilst Humayun succeeded in protecting Agra from Sher Shah, the second city of the Empire, Gaur the capital of the vilayat of Bengal, was sacked. Humayun's troops had been delayed while trying to take Chunar, a fort occupied by Sher Shah's son, in order to protect his troops from an attack from the rear; the stores of grain at Gauri, the largest in the empire, were emptied, Humayun arrived to see corpses littering the roads. The vast wealth of Bengal was brought East, giving Sher Shah a substantial war chest. Sher Shah withdrew to the east, but Humayun did not follow: instead he "shut himself up for a considerable time in his Harem, indulged himself in every kind of luxury."
Hindal, Humayun's 19-year-old brother, had agreed to aid him in this battle and protect the rear from attack, but he abandoned his position and withdrew to Agra, where he decreed himself acting emperor. When Huma
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology, is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, biofacts or ecofacts and cultural landscapes. Archaeology can be considered a branch of the humanities. In North America archaeology is a sub-field of anthropology, while in Europe it is viewed as either a discipline in its own right or a sub-field of other disciplines. Archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology is distinct from palaeontology, the study of fossil remains, it is important for learning about prehistoric societies, for whom there may be no written records to study. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies across the world. Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time.
The discipline involves surveying and analysis of data collected to learn more about the past. In broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research, it draws upon anthropology, art history, ethnology, geology, literary history, semiology, textual criticism, information sciences, statistics, paleography, paleontology and paleobotany. Archaeology developed out of antiquarianism in Europe during the 19th century, has since become a discipline practiced across the world. Archaeology has been used by nation-states to create particular visions of the past. Since its early development, various specific sub-disciplines of archaeology have developed, including maritime archaeology, feminist archaeology and archaeoastronomy, numerous different scientific techniques have been developed to aid archaeological investigation. Nonetheless, archaeologists face many problems, such as dealing with pseudoarchaeology, the looting of artifacts, a lack of public interest, opposition to the excavation of human remains.
The science of archaeology grew out of the older multi-disciplinary study known as antiquarianism. Antiquarians studied history with particular attention to ancient artifacts and manuscripts, as well as historical sites. Antiquarianism focused on the empirical evidence that existed for the understanding of the past, encapsulated in the motto of the 18th-century antiquary, Sir Richard Colt Hoare, "We speak from facts not theory". Tentative steps towards the systematization of archaeology as a science took place during the Enlightenment era in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. In Europe, philosophical interest in the remains of Greco-Roman civilization and the rediscovery of classical culture began in the late Middle Age. Flavio Biondo, an Italian Renaissance humanist historian, created a systematic guide to the ruins and topography of ancient Rome in the early 15th century, for which he has been called an early founder of archaeology. Antiquarians of the 16th century, including John Leland and William Camden, conducted surveys of the English countryside, drawing and interpreting the monuments that they encountered.
One of the first sites to undergo archaeological excavation was Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments in England. John Aubrey was a pioneer archaeologist who recorded numerous megalithic and other field monuments in southern England, he was ahead of his time in the analysis of his findings. He attempted to chart the chronological stylistic evolution of handwriting, medieval architecture and shield-shapes. Excavations were carried out by the Spanish military engineer Roque Joaquín de Alcubierre in the ancient towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, both of, covered by ash during the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79; these excavations began in 1748 in Pompeii, while in Herculaneum they began in 1738. The discovery of entire towns, complete with utensils and human shapes, as well the unearthing of frescos, had a big impact throughout Europe. However, prior to the development of modern techniques, excavations tended to be haphazard; the father of archaeological excavation was William Cunnington. He undertook excavations in Wiltshire from around 1798.
Cunnington made meticulous recordings of Neolithic and Bronze Age barrows, the terms he used to categorize and describe them are still used by archaeologists today. One of the major achievements of 19th-century archaeology was the development of stratigraphy; the idea of overlapping strata tracing back to successive periods was borrowed from the new geological and paleontological work of scholars like William Smith, James Hutton and Charles Lyell. The application of stratigraphy to archaeology first took place with the excavations of prehistorical and Bronze Age sites. In the third and fourth decades of the 19th-century, archaeologists like Jacques Boucher de Perthes and Christian Jürgensen Thomsen began to put the artifacts they had found in chronological order. A major figure in the development of archaeology into a rigorous science was the army officer and ethnologist, Augustus Pitt Rivers, who began excavations on his land in England in the 1880s, his approach was methodical by the standards of the time, he is regarded as the first scientific archaeologist.
He arranged his artifacts by type or "typologically, within types by date or "chronologically"
Indian Administrative Service
The Indian Administrative Service abbreviated to I. A. S. or IAS, is the administrative arm of the All India Services. Considered the premier civil service of India, the IAS is one of the three arms of the All India Services along with the Indian Police Service and the Indian Forest Service. Members of these three services serve the Government of India as well as the individual states. IAS officers may be deployed to various public sector undertakings; as with other countries following the Westminster parliamentary system of government, the IAS is a part of the permanent bureaucracy of the nation, is an inseparable part of the executive of the Government of India. As such, the bureaucracy remains politically neutral and guarantees administrative continuity to the ruling party or coalition. Upon confirmation of service, an IAS officer serves a probationary period as a sub-divisional magistrate. Completion of this probation is followed by an executive administrative role in a district as a district magistrate and collector which lasts several years, as long as sixteen years in some states.
After this tenure, an officer may be promoted to head a whole state division, as a divisional commissioner. On attaining the higher scales of the pay matrix, IAS officers may lead government departments or ministries. In these roles, IAS officers represent the country at the international level in bilateral and multilateral negotiations. If serving on a deputation, they may be employed in intergovernmental organisations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Asian Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, or the United Nations, or its agencies. IAS officers are involved in the conduct of elections in India as mandated by the Election Commission of India. During the occupation of India by the East India Company, the civil services were classified into three – covenanted and special civil services; the covenanted civil service, or the East India Company's Civil Service, as it was called comprised British civil servants occupying the senior posts in the government.
The uncovenanted civil service was introduced to facilitate the entry of Indians onto the lower rung of the administration. The special service comprised specialised departments, such as the Indian Forest Service, the Imperial Police and the Indian Political Service, whose ranks were drawn from either the covenanted civil service or the British Indian Army; the Imperial Police included many British Indian Army officers among its members, although after 1893 an annual exam was used to select its officers. In 1858 the HEICCS was replaced by the Indian Civil Service, which became the highest civil service in the British Raj between 1858 and 1947; the last British appointments to the ICS were made in 1942. With the passing of the Government of India Act 1919 by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the Indian civil services—under the general oversight of the Secretary of State for India—were split into two arms, the All India Services and the Central Services; the Indian Civil Service was one of the ten All India Services.
In 1946 at the Premier's Conference, the Central Cabinet decided to form the Indian Administrative Service, based on the Indian Civil Service. There is no alternative to this administrative system... The Union will go, you will not have a united India if you do not have good All-India Service which has the independence to speak out its mind, which has sense of security that you will standby your work... If you do not adopt this course do not follow the present Constitution. Substitute something else... these people are the instrument. Remove them and I see nothing but a picture of chaos all over the country; when India was partitioned following the departure of the British in 1947, the Indian Civil Service was divided between the new dominions of India and Pakistan. The Indian remnant of the ICS was named the Indian Administrative Service, while the Pakistani remnant was named the Pakistan Administrative Service; the modern Indian Administrative Service was created under Article 312 in part XIV of the Constitution of India, the All India Services Act, 1951.
There are three modes of recruitment into the Indian Administrative Service. IAS officers may enter the IAS by passing the Civil Services Examination, conducted by the Union Public Service Commission. Officers recruited; some IAS officers are recruited from the state civil services, and, in rare cases, selected from non-state civil service. The ratio between direct recruits and promotees is fixed at 2:1. All IAS officers, regardless of the mode of entry, are appointed by the President of India. Only about 180 candidates out of over 1 million applicants, who apply through the Civil Services Examination, are successful, a success rate of less than 0.01 per cent. As a result, the members of the service are referred as "heaven-born". Unlike candidates appointed to other civil services, a successful IAS candidate is rendered ineligible to re-enter the Civil Services Examination. From 1951 to 1979, an IAS candidate was required to submit two additional papers, as well as three optional papers to be eligible for the Indian Administrative Service or the Indian Foreign Service.
The two additional papers were postgraduate level submissions, compared to the graduate level of the optional papers, it was this distinction that resulted in a higher status for the IAS and IFS. The two postgraduate level submissions were removed, but this has not changed the perceived higher status of the IAS and IFS. After the selection process, the su
Chandragupta II
Chandragupta II known by his title Vikramaditya, was one of the most powerful emperors of the Gupta Empire in northern India. Chandragupta continued the expansionist policy of his father Samudragupta: historical evidence suggests that he defeated the Western Kshatrapas, extended the Gupta empire from the Indus River in the west to the Bengal region in the east, from the Himalayan foothills in the north to the Narmada River in the south, his daughter Prabhavatigupta was a queen of the southern Vakataka kingdom, he may have had influence in the Vakataka territory during her regency. The Gupta empire reached its zenith during the rule of Chandragupta. Chinese pilgrim Faxian, who visited India during his reign, suggests that he ruled over a peaceful and prosperous kingdom; the legendary figure of Vikramaditya is based on Chandragupta II, the noted Sanskrit poet Kalidasa may have been his court poet. Chandragupta II was the second ruler of the dynasty to bear the name "Chandragupta", the first being his grandfather Chandragupta I.
He was simply known as "Chandra", as attested by his coins. The Sanchi inscription of his officer Amrakardava states that he was known as Deva-raja; the records of his daughter Prabhavatigupta, issued as a Vakataka queen, call him Chandragupta as well as Deva-gupta. Deva-shri is another variation of this name; the Delhi iron pillar inscription states that king Chandra was known as "Dhava": if this king Chandra is identified with Chandragupta, it appears that "Dhava" was another name for the king. Another possibility is that "dhava" is a mistake for a common noun "bhava", although this is unlikely, as the rest of the inscription does not contain any errors. A passage in the Vishnu Purana suggests that major parts of the eastern coast of India - Kosala, Odra and Puri - were ruled by the Devarakshitas around the same time as the Guptas. Since it seems unlikely that an obscure dynasty named Devarakshita was powerful enough to control substantial territory during the Gupta period, some scholars, such as Dasharatha Sharma, theorize that "Deva-rakshita" was another name for Chandragupta II.
Others, such as D. K. Ganguly, oppose this theory, aarguing that this identification is quite arbitrary, cannot be explained satisfactorily. Chandragupta assumed the titles Bhattaraka and Maharajadhiraja, bore the epithet Apratiratha; the Supiya stone pillar inscription, issued during the reign of his descendant Skandagupta calls him "Vikramaditya". Chandragupta was a son of queen Dattadevi, as attested by his own inscriptions. According to the official Gupta genealogy, succeeded his father on the Gupta throne; the Sanskrit play Devichandraguptam, combined with other evidence, suggests that he had an elder brother named Ramagupta, who preceded him on the throne. In the play, Ramagupta decides to surrender his queen Dhruvadevi to a Shaka enemy when besieged, but Chandragupta goes to the enemy camp disguised as the queen and kills the enemy. Sometime Chandragupta dethrones Ramagupta, becomes the new king; the historicity of this narrative is debated among modern historians, with some believing it to be based on true historical events, while others dismissing it as a work of fiction.
The Mathura pillar inscription of Chandragupta II mention two dates: several historians have assumed that one of these dates denotes the king's regnal year, while the other date denotes the year of the Gupta calendar era. However, more Indologist Harry Falk has theorized that the date understood to be the regnal year by the earlier scholars is a date of the kālānuvarttamāna system. According to Falk, the kālānuvarttamāna system is a continuation of the Kushana calendar era established by emperor Kanishka, whose coronation Falk dates to 127 CE; the Kushana era restarts counting after a hundred years. The date portion of the Mathura inscription reads: candragupta-sya vijarajya-saṃvatsa... kālānuvarttamāna-saṃvatsare ekaṣaṣṭhe 60... thame śukla-divase paṃcāmyaṃThe letters before the words kālānuvarttamāna-saṃvatsare are abraded in the inscription, but historian D. R. Bhandarkar reconstructed them as gupta, translated the term gupta-kālānuvarttamāna-saṃvatsare as "year following the Gupta era".
He translated the entire sentence as: "In the... year of... Chandragupta... on the fifth of the bright half of the first of the year 61 following the Gupta era". Historian D. C. Sircar restored the missing letters as "cāme", concluded that the inscription was dated to the Chandragupta's fifth regnal year; the missing letters have alternatively been read as "prathame". According to these interpretations, the inscription is thus dated in year 61 of the Gupta era, either the first or the fifth regnal year of Chandragupta. Assuming that the Gupta era starts around 319-320 CE, the beginning of Chandragupta's reign can be dated to either 376-377 CE or 380-381 CE. Falk agrees that the missing letters denote a numerical year, but dismisses Sircar's reading as "mere imagination", pointing out that the missing letters are "abraded beyond recovery". In support of his Kushana era theory, Falk presents four Gupta inscriptions that mention the term kālānuvarttamāna-saṃvatsare: Falk notes that the "dynastic year" in the table above appears to be a year of the Gupta era.
The kālānuvarttamāna year cannot be regnal year, because Chandragupta I is not known to have ruled for as long as 61 years. If we assume "61" of the Mathura pillar inscription denotes a year of the Gupta era (as assumed by Bhandarkar
Maurya Empire
The Maurya Empire was a geographically-extensive Iron Age historical power based in Magadha and founded by Chandragupta Maurya which dominated the Indian subcontinent between 322 and 187 BCE. Comprising the majority of South Asia, the Maurya Empire was centralized by the conquest of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, its capital city was located at Pataliputra; the empire was the largest political entity to have existed in the Indian subcontinent, spanning over 5 million square kilometres at its zenith under Ashoka. Chandragupta Maurya raised an army, with the assistance of Chanakya, overthrew the Nanda Empire in c. 322 BCE. Chandragupta expanded his power westwards across central and western India by conquering the satraps left by Alexander the Great, by 317 BCE the empire had occupied northwestern India; the Mauryan Empire defeated Seleucus I, a diadochus and founder of the Seleucid Empire during the Seleucid–Mauryan war, thus acquiring territory west of the Indus River. At its greatest extent, the empire stretched along the natural boundary of the Himalayas, to the east into Assam, to the west into Balochistan and the Hindu Kush mountains of what is now eastern Afghanistan.
The dynasty expanded into India's southern regions by the reign of the emperors Chandragupta and Bindusara, but it excluded Kalinga, until it was conquered by Ashoka. It declined for about 50 years after Ashoka's rule, dissolved in 185 BCE with the foundation of the Shunga dynasty in Magadha. Under Chandragupta Maurya and his successors and external trade and economic activities all thrived and expanded across South Asia due to the creation of a single and efficient system of finance and security; the Maurya dynasty built the Grand Trunk Road, one of Asia's oldest and longest trade networks, connecting the Indian subcontinent with Central Asia. After the Kalinga War, the Empire experienced nearly half a century of centralized rule under Ashoka. Chandragupta Maurya's embrace of Jainism increased socio-religious reform across South Asia, while Ashoka's embrace of Buddhism and sponsorship of Buddhist missionaries allowed for the expansion of that faith into Sri Lanka, northwest India, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and Hellenistic Europe.
The population of the empire has been estimated to be about 50–60 million, making the Mauryan Empire one of the most populous empires of antiquity. Archaeologically, the period of Mauryan rule in South Asia falls into the era of Northern Black Polished Ware; the Arthashastra and the Edicts of Ashoka are the primary sources of written records of Mauryan times. The Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath is the national emblem of the modern Republic of India; the name "Maurya" does not occur in Ashoka's inscriptions, or the contemporary Greek accounts such as Megasthenes's Indica, but it is attested by the following sources: The Junagadh rock inscription of Rudradaman prefixes "Maurya" to the names Chandragupta and Ashoka. The Puranas use Maurya as a dynastic appellation; the Buddhist texts state that Chandragupta belonged to the "Moriya" clan of the Shakyas, the tribe to which Gautama Buddha belonged. The Jain texts state. According to the Buddhist tradition, the ancestors of the Maurya kings had settled in a region where peacocks were abundant.
Therefore, they came to be known as "Moriyas" "belonging to the place of peacocks". According to another Buddhist account, these ancestors built a city called Moriya-nagara, so called, because it was built with the "bricks coloured like peacocks' necks"; the dynasty's connection to the peacocks, as mentioned in the Buddhist and Jain traditions, seems to be corroborated by archaeological evidence. For example, peacock figures are found on the Ashoka pillar at Nandangarh and several sculptures on the Great Stupa of Sanchi. Based on this eviedence, modern scholars theorize that the peacock may have been the dynasty's emblem. According to Dhundiraja, a commentator on the Vishnu Purana, the word "Maurya" is derived from Mura, the name of the wife of a Nanda king and the mother of the first Maurya king. However, the Puranas themselves make no mention of Mura and do not talk of any relation between the Nanda and the Maurya dynasties. Dhundiraja's derivation of the word seems to be his own invention: according to the Sanskrit rules, the derivative of the feminine name Mura would be "Maureya".
The Maurya Empire was founded by Chandragupta Maurya, with help from Chanakya, at Takshashila, a noted center of learning. According to several legends, Chanakya travelled to Magadha, a kingdom, large and militarily powerful and feared by its neighbours, but was insulted by its king Dhana Nanda, of the Nanda dynasty. Chanakya vowed to destroy the Nanda Empire. Meanwhile, the conquering armies of Alexander the Great refused to cross the Beas River and advance further eastward, deterred by the prospect of battling Magadha. Alexander re-deployed most of his troops west of the Indus River. Soon after Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BCE, his empire fragmented into independent kingdoms led by his generals; the Greek generals Eudemus and Peithon ruled in the Indus Valley until around 317 BCE, when Chandragupta Maurya orchestrated a rebellion to drive out the Greek governors, subsequently brought the Indus Valley under the control of his new seat of power in Magadha. Chandragupta Maurya's rise to power is s
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populous state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world, it was created on 1 April 1937 as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh during British rule, was renamed Uttar Pradesh in 1950. The state is divided into 75 districts with the capital being Lucknow; the main ethnic group is the Hindavi people. On 9 November 2000, a new state, was carved out from the state's Himalayan hill region; the two major rivers of the state, the Ganga and Yamuna, join at Allahabad and flow as the Ganga further east. Hindi is the most spoken language and is the official language of the state; the state is bordered by Rajasthan to the west, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi to the northwest and Nepal to the north, Bihar to the east, Madhya Pradesh to the south, touches the states of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh to the southeast. It covers 243,290 square kilometres, equal to 7.33% of the total area of India, is the fourth-largest Indian state by area.
The economy of Uttar Pradesh is the fourth-largest state economy in India with ₹15.79 lakh crore in gross domestic product and a per capita GDP of ₹57,480. Agriculture and service industries are the largest parts of the state's economy; the service sector comprises travel and tourism, hotel industry, real estate and financial consultancies. President's rule has been imposed in Uttar Pradesh ten times since 1968, for different reasons and for a total of 1,700 days; the natives of the state are called Uttar Bhartiya, or more either Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Bundeli, Kannauji, or Rohilkhandi depending upon their region of origin. Hinduism is practised by more than three-fourths of the population, with Islam being the next largest religious group. Uttar Pradesh was home to powerful empires of medieval India; the state has several historical and religious tourist destinations, such as Agra, Vrindavan and Allahabad. Modern human hunter-gatherers have been in Uttar Pradesh since between around 85,000 and 72,000 years ago.
There have been prehistorical finds in Uttar Pradesh from the Middle and Upper Paleolithic dated to 21,000–31,000 years old and Mesolithic/Microlithic hunter-gatherer settlement, near Pratapgarh, from around 10550–9550 BC. Villages with domesticated cattle and goats and evidence of agriculture began as early as 6000 BC, developed between c. 4000 and 1500 BC beginning with the Indus Valley Civilisation and Harappa Culture to the Vedic period and extending into the Iron Age. The kingdom of Kosala, in the Mahajanapada era, was located within the regional boundaries of modern-day Uttar Pradesh. According to Hindu legend, the divine king Rama of the Ramayana epic reigned in Ayodhya, the capital of Kosala. Krishna, another divine king of Hindu legend, who plays a key role in the Mahabharata epic and is revered as the eighth reincarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, is said to have been born in the city of Mathura, in Uttar Pradesh; the aftermath of the Mahabharata yuddh is believed to have taken place in the area between the Upper Doab and Delhi, during the reign of the Pandava king Yudhishthira.
The kingdom of the Kurus corresponds to the Black and Red Ware and Painted Gray Ware culture and the beginning of the Iron Age in northwest India, around 1000 BC. Control over Gangetic plains region was of vital importance to the power and stability of all of India's major empires, including the Maurya, Kushan and Gurjara-Pratihara empires. Following the Huns' invasions that broke the Gupta empire, the Ganges-Yamuna Doab saw the rise of Kannauj. During the reign of Harshavardhana, the Kannauj empire reached its zenith, it spanned from Punjab in the north and Gujarat in the west to Bengal in the east and Odisha in the south. It included parts of central India, north of the Narmada River and it encompassed the entire Indo-Gangetic plain. Many communities in various parts of India claim descent from the migrants of Kannauj. Soon after Harshavardhana's death, his empire disintegrated into many kingdoms, which were invaded and ruled by the Gurjara-Pratihara empire, which challenged Bengal's Pala Empire for control of the region.
Kannauj was several times invaded by the south Indian Rashtrakuta Dynasty, from the 8th century to the 10th century. After fall of Pala empire, the Chero dynasty ruled from 12th century to 18th century. Parts or all of Uttar Pradesh were ruled by the Delhi Sultanate for 320 years. Five dynasties ruled over the Delhi Sultanate sequentially: the Mamluk dynasty, the Khalji dynasty, the Tughlaq dynasty, the Sayyid dynasty, the Lodi dynasty. In the 16th century, Babur, a Timurid descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan from Fergana Valley, swept across the Khyber Pass and founded the Mughal Empire, covering India, along with modern-day Afghanistan and Bangladesh; the Mughals were descended from Persianised Central Asian Turks. In the Mughal era, Uttar Pradesh became the heartland of the empire. Mughal emperors Humayun ruled from Delhi. In 1540 an Afghan, Sher Shah Suri, took over the reins of Uttar Pradesh after defeating the Mughal king Humanyun. Sher Shah and his son Islam Shah ruled Uttar Pradesh from their capital at Gwalior.
After the death of Islam Shah Suri, his prime minister Hemu became the de facto ruler of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, th
Definitions from Wiktionary
Media from Wikimedia Commons
News from Wikinews
Quotations from Wikiquote
Texts from Wikisource
Textbooks from Wikibooks
Resources from Wikiversity
Fatehpur district
