Step One:
Be born as Chandragupta Maurya in 340 BCE. Yes, this guy right here. The founder of an empire that was named after him.
Maurya’s early life, like that lot of ancient historical figures, is shrouded in mystery. Most accounts of his childhood give very inconsistent details. He was reportedly born in or around the city of Pataliputra in 340 BCE. And apart from that All I can say is that because nothing was written about Maurya before he began the early days of his empire, he probably hailed from very humble beginnings.
One part of Maurya’s life that we can be sure of, though, is that one day he met a man named Kautilya, a Jain statesman and philosopher. He took notice of Maurya’s talent as a natural leader, and the rest is history literally.
Step Two:
Become educated, especially in military arts. The bulk of Maurya’s instruction came from Kautilya who became his closest ally and mentor.
Kautilya is often credited with being the author of a governmental treatise known as the Arthashastra. Written with the rulers of the Mauryan Empire in mind, the treatise was a sort of handbook that talked about how to rule over a kingdom properly including advice on how to tax people, go about with trade and resources, and diplomacy.
With that, Maurya had received his education and he was ready to apply that in the real world.
Step Three:
The king in question was Dhana Nanda, ruler of the Nanda Empire, whose center of operations were based in the Magadha kingdom. In Kautilya’s eyes, Magadha,and the rest of the Nanda empire, was the only political entity that could lend itself into becoming an empire that encompassed all of India.
Magadhas’s military was second to none and because of that, it was one of the most stable kingdoms on the subcontinent. And its capital, Paliputra, was a great strategic location for trade and agriculture.
Kautilya is sometimes credited as the one who ultimately decided to dispose of Dhana Nanda because he believed that his dear student Maurya was a lot better suited as an empire's ruler.
On the other hand, tradition tells us that Kautilya’s decision had nothing to do with that Other texts, like this Jain one for example say it was a lot more personal.
According these sources, Dhana Nanda insulted Kautilya and Kautilya was so offended to the point where he said.
Step Four:
Ascend the throne by being more likable than the previous ruler. In both accounts of Dhana Nanda’s downfall, Kautilya did not like the guy at all. And he wasn’t the only one.
Historical accounts state that the entirety of the Nanda dynasty was unpopular but even more so with its last ruler.
So in 321 BCE Chandragupta Maurya ascended the throne pretty easily and gained all the territory that was previously the Nanda empire.
Step Five:
Expand the already acquired territory into an even larger empire. The common theme among rulers is that they’re never quite satisfied with any amount of land.
Maurya was no exception, so he continued to expand the Nanda Empire, now the Mauryan Empire, farther northwest until he ran into the Seleucid Empire which was under the reign of Seleuces I Nicator, Alexander the Great’s provincial governor for eastern territories.
As per Maurya’s aggressive expansion policy, in 301 BCE he went to with the Seleucid Empire in hopes of gaining that territory.
The result? Seleucid defeat and a treaty signed in which he had to give up not only a good chunk of territory, but also money and his daughter’s hand in marriage to Maurya. But you know, to soften the blow and keep a healthy relationship with his new neighbor of an empire, Maurya gave Seleucus 500 elephants in return.
With that Maurya continued to expand some more. Under his rule, the empire essentially covered the upper half of the Indian subcontinent, branching out to the east and west a bit too. To get to that point, he stayed true to the teachings of Kautilya and the Arthashastra, And later rulers would extend this territory until the empire encompassed the whole Indian subcontinent, with the exception of the southern tip.
Now that the Mauryan EMpire had been unified in a geographic sense, the next step was to unify the people. So how did Maurya and his successors go about doing this?
Let’s go back to the Arthashastra real quick. Every section of it relates to the theme of proper kingship. To Kautilya (or whoever the heck wrote it since its origins are still debated today), a proper king was someone who puts his people first. And Maurya making sure to carry this out to the best of his ability ran a textbook bureaucracy that he was the head of with his Council of Ministers, serving directly under him.
The center of administrative operations was the capital at Pataliputra. Along with that, the empire was divided into provinces led by royal princes with the help of regional prime ministers.
The Arthashastra also underlined the importance of espionage, so Maurya employed a huge network of spies, for both internal and external security, alongside a powerful standing army that’s believed to be the largest military force of its time.
With that the empire oversaw the government at every level which helped maintain political unity across its vast territory. That unity helped enhance trade, especially within the empire.
The Empire had monopolies over, mining, salt production, boat building, liquor, and coinage. Speaking of coinage, the Mauryan Empire established a singular currency across India which had never existed before that point.
Many public works were funded like roads, and irrigation networks in order to help out farmers, as agriculture was vital to the economy, and also to just help improve transportation for goods and people, bringing the previously fractured regions of India under the banner of the Mauryan empire. And that my friends, is how to unify the Indian subcontinent geographically, economically, socially, and, arguably most importantly, culturally.
Sources:
Chandragupta Maurya and His Times By Radhakumud Mookerji
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Chandragupta
https://www.ancient.eu/Mauryan_Empire/
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