Chandragupta Maurya

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chandragupta Maurya († probably 297 BC), he was known to the Greeks as Sandrokottos (Latin Androcottus ), was the founder of the Maurya Empire . He is considered one of the great Indian rulers.

Life

Eastern satraps
Chandragupta defeated the last Macedonian domains with their satraps in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent; around 317 BC Chr.

His closest adviser was a Brahmin named Kautilya , the author of the famous work Arthashastra , a kind of political textbook, not unlike Il Principe Niccolò Machiavelli . We are better informed about Chandragupta than about other periods of early Indian history, both through the edicts of the Maurya king Ashoka and the works of Greek authors. The reports of Megasthenes ( Indicá ), an ambassador of the Seleucid king in Pataliputra (today Patna ), and also the summary of Arrian ( Indike ) who lived centuries later, are important sources for this time; But valuable information can also be found in the above-mentioned state manual and in Buddhist sources.

There are divergent reports about Chandragupta's origins. But he probably had to flee Pataliputra out of fear of the Nanda king and in the following years raised an army of adventurers. With this army he conquered around 322/21 BC. BC, shortly after the Indian campaign of Alexander the Great , Pataliputra, killed the last Nanda king and succeeded him as ruler of Magadha . According to Plutarch , Chandragupta is said to have even met Alexander and later declared that Alexander could easily have made himself lord of India, especially since the Nanda king was hated by the population (Plutarch, Alexander , 62.9); however, this anecdote is more likely a later invention. Chandragupta had fought against the Macedonian-Greek troops in Punjab , which had been left behind by Alexander and his successors, the Diadochi . However, after the death of Alexander, this region only played a marginal role for his power-struggling generals whose attention was directed to the west of the collapsing Alexander Empire.

After the death of Porus in 317 BC Chandragupta annexed his empire on the Indus . Soon he was controlling the northwest of the subcontinent. Some later ancient authors interpreted the rise of the Mauryan Empire as a kind of reaction to Alexander's attempts at conquest and foreign rule by the West. In any case, the Seleucid king Seleucus I fell in 305 BC. BC entered the Punjab with an army, but was forced to negotiate because of the superior strength of Chandragupta's armed force, which is said to have numbered 400,000 men. Seleukos ceded the areas west of the Indus, including Gandhara and Baluchistan , to the Maurya king, who married a daughter of Seleucus, and received 500 war elephants in return , which were to serve him well in the subsequent diadoch battles. Diplomatic contacts between the two empires continued in the period that followed (see Megasthenes and Daimachos ).

Soon afterwards, the Maurya Empire comprised the entire subcontinent except for the extreme south. The empire seems to have been organized quite tightly and efficiently and also to have had an effective secret service. Chanakya , Chandragupta's closest adviser, played an important role in building the empire .

Towards the end of his life, Chandragupta is said to have been converted to Jainism and fasted to death as a Jaina monk. His son Bindusara succeeded him to the throne.

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Σανδράκοττος
  2. ↑ Radhakumud Mookerji: Chandragupta Maurya and His Times. Motilal Banarsidass Publ., New Delhi 1966/1988, ISBN 81-208-0433-3 , pp. 16 f.
predecessor Office successor
Dhana King of Magadha
4th century BC Chr.
(Chronology) 		Bindusara
personal data
SURNAME Maurya, Chandragupta
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sandrocottos
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Indian ruler and founder of the Maurya Empire
DATE OF BIRTH 4th century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH around 297 BC Chr.