NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 5 –115End-of-chapter exercise — Questions and activities

The six features of an empire, exactly as the chapter sets them out on page 88, with the emperor exerting central authority over the empire's tributary territories and kings:

How an empire differs from a kingdom:

The chapter groups them under four heads. Magadha is the worked example of all four.

1. Geography and natural resources

• Fertile plains giving a surplus of food grain — the Ganga plains, with two crops a year.
• Forests for timber, herbs and above all war elephants.
• Iron ore and minerals from nearby hills — iron ploughs raised the harvest, iron weapons strengthened the army.
• Rivers such as the Ganga and Son for irrigation and cheap transport.

2. Economy and trade

• Surplus food let more people work in arts and crafts, whose products were in demand inside and outside the empire.
• Control of trade routes raised the quantity and variety of goods traded — and therefore tax collections.
• Coinage: Mahāpadma Nanda began issuing coins as the economy thrived.
• Guilds (śhrenīs) organised traders and craftsmen, and worked with the ruler's blessing.

3. Military strength

• A large standing army — Greek accounts say the Nandas maintained one.
• Superior iron weapons, cavalry and elephants.
• Fortified settlements at strategic places such as the empire's borders (Fig. 5.4.2).

4. Leadership, strategy and opportunity

• Ambitious, capable rulers — Ajātaśhatru, Mahāpadma Nanda, Chandragupta Maurya.
• Skilled advisers: Kauṭilya, whose Arthaśhāstra covered defence, economics, administration, justice, urban planning, agriculture and people's welfare.
• Diplomacy — letting local kings continue to rule in return for tribute and loyalty.
• The weakness of a rival: Dhana Nanda, though very rich, oppressed and exploited his people and became highly unpopular, which paved the way for the Mauryas.

For four reasons — and it is worth saying at the start that ‘important’ is not the same as ‘good’.

1. The size of what he conquered, and the speed. Between 334 and 323 BCE — barely eleven years — he defeated the mighty Persian Empire and built an empire spreading over three continents, one of the largest in world history. He was still only 32 when he died.
2. He connected worlds that had been separate. The chapter says “the influence of Greek culture spread”. Greek, Persian, Egyptian, Central Asian and Indian worlds were brought into contact along one set of routes.
3. He opened the door to Indo-Greek contacts. After his defeat of the northwest satrapies and Chandragupta's reconquest of them, a diplomatic relationship followed: Megasthenes came to Chandragupta's court and wrote Indika, the first foreign written account of India. Greek records also give us details of the Nandas' army and of Indian society.
4. He became a story that shaped later ideas of kingship. His dialogue with the Gymnosophists, and his treatment of Porus, have been retold for over 2,000 years as examples of the meeting of power and wisdom.

Six reasons, in the order the chapter builds them.

1. They created India's first great empire. Founded by Chandragupta Maurya around 321 BCE, it absorbed the Nanda territories and stretched from the northern plains to the Deccan plateau; under Aśhoka it covered almost the entire Subcontinent except the far south, including parts of present-day Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. It brought political unity to a land of warring kingdoms.
2. They gave India a science of governance. Kauṭilya's Arthaśhāstra set out the saptānga, laws against corruption, and a philosophy that puts the people first: “In the happiness of his subjects lies the king's happiness.”
3. They built an administration that worked. Officials to manage territories, collect taxes and keep order; regional capitals; couriers; granaries against famine — the Sohagaura copper plate is one of India's earliest administrative records.
4. They strengthened the economy. Protected trade routes, widespread punch-marked coins, a well-organised taxation system, a strong treasury, and guilds free to govern their own affairs.
5. Aśhoka changed what a king could be. After Kalinga he gave up violence, promoted dharma, cared for people and animals, encouraged all sects, and sent emissaries abroad — making him one of the most unusual rulers in world history.
6. Their art and architecture still stand. Polished stone pillars, the Sarnath capital (now India's national emblem), the Great Stūpa at Sanchi, the Dhauli elephant, rock-cut caves in the Barabar Hills, and terracotta art — plus the spread of the Brahmi script, mother of India's regional scripts.

Kauṭilya's key ideas, from the Arthaśhāstra — ‘the science of governance and economics’:

1. The saptānga — a kingdom is made of seven parts that must work together: the king (swāmi), the councillors and ministers (amātya), the territory and its people (janapada), the fortified towns (durga), the treasury (koṣha), the forces of defence and law and order (daṇḍa) and the allies (mitra).
2. Welfare is the source of power. “A king shall increase his power by promoting the welfare of his people, for power comes from the countryside which is the source of all economic activity.”
3. The people come first. “In the happiness of his subjects lies the king's happiness; in their welfare his welfare. He shall not consider as good only that which pleases him but treat as beneficial to him whatever pleases his subjects.”
4. Law and order need a strong administration, with detailed laws against corruption and specified punishments for acts against the people's wellbeing.
5. Both war and peace are tools. A kingdom is maintained “both through warfare and through alliances for peace, as the case may be”.
6. Directives across every field — defence, economics, administration, justice, urban planning, agriculture and people's welfare.
7. Reward those who build public works — embankments, road bridges, the beautifying and protection of villages.

What we can still observe today:

Sample answer (about 250 words):

Most ancient kings recorded victories. Aśhoka recorded a regret. That is the first unusual thing about him. In his own edicts he describes the ferocious war he waged on Kalinga, and says that the death and destruction he saw there made him give up violence and, as far as possible, follow the path of peace and non-violence taught by the Buddha. A king who admits his worst act in writing, on stone, for future generations to read, is rare in any century.

The second unusual thing is how he governed afterwards. He called himself Devanampiya Piyadasi — ‘Beloved of the Gods’, ‘one who regards others with kindness’ — and told his city magistrates, “All men are my children.” He claimed to provide medical care for people and animals even outside his empire, prohibited hunting and cruelty to animals, planted fruit and shade trees, and dug wells and built rest houses along the main roads. He encouraged every sect to study and accept the best in the others' teachings, and he sent emissaries as far as Sri Lanka, Thailand and Central Asia.

The third is that he talked to his people at all. His edicts were carved in Prakrit, the popular language, in the Brahmi script — the mother of India's regional scripts — so that his subjects, and not only his court, could understand him.

What continues? The Sarnath lion capital is India's national emblem and the dharmachakra sits at the centre of our flag. But the deeper inheritance is an idea: that a ruler's duty is the welfare of the ruled, that different faiths deserve respect, and that non-violence is a strength rather than a weakness — ideas India chose again in the twentieth century.

Yes — and the edict shows something stronger than tolerance: active support.

The evidence inside the edict itself:

• He names several different sects — the Buddhist Order, brahmans, Ājīvikas, Jains, “and various sects” — and appoints officers for each. He does not name only his own.
• He includes both ascetics and householders, that is, both those who renounce the world and ordinary families. Nobody is left out.
• He puts state officers and state money behind this. Tolerance that costs nothing is easy; appointing a whole category of officials is a policy.
• The work is described as “matters of public benefit” — the sects are treated as part of the empire's welfare, not as a problem to be managed.

Evidence from the rest of the chapter: Aśhoka “claimed to encourage all sects — the different schools of thought present in his time — to accept each other's best teachings and study them.” That goes beyond leaving others alone; it asks them to learn from one another.

The fair objection, which a good answer raises: Aśhoka had himself embraced Buddhist teachings and sent emissaries to spread the Buddha's message. And this is his own edict — the chapter warns that “we need not take all of Aśhoka's claims literally”. So we are reading a ruler's own account of himself.

The balanced conclusion: even allowing for that, the edict is remarkable. He had every power to favour one sect and did the opposite in public, in writing, permanently, on stone. On the evidence available, he was genuinely tolerant, and more than tolerant — he made respect between faiths a duty of the state.

This is a project, so here is the method, what a good project must contain, and a model outline.

How to research it: use your school library, the NCERT Grade 6 chapter on India's cultural roots, and museum websites; ask your teacher to help you find a photograph of an Aśhokan edict. Fig. 5.18 on page 106 of your own book — a reproduction of part of the Girnar rock edict and a detail of the Topra pillar — is a real Brahmi sample to start from.

What a good project must contain:

Use the trade-route map, Fig. 5.5 on page 92. Kauśhāmbī sits on the Dakṣhiṇapatha — the great southern route — and Kāverīpattinam is a port on the far southeastern coast. So this is a journey of roughly 1,800–2,000 km down the length of the peninsula.

How I would travel: not alone. I would join a merchants' caravan organised by a guild (śhrenī), travelling with bullock carts for the baggage, walking or riding beside them, with armed guards for the forest stretches. I would set out after the monsoon, in the cool months, when the rivers are crossable and the tracks are firm.

Faster and slower versions: a lone royal courier on horseback, changing horses, could do it in perhaps 6–8 weeks. A heavy trading caravan stopping to buy and sell at every town could take six months. Part of the journey could also be done by sea — reach an east-coast port such as Tāmralipti or Kalinganagara and sail south with the winds — but that depends on the sailing season.