Land of seven rivers: History of India's Geography (11 page)

When he had been consecrated
eight years, the Beloved of the Gods, king Piyadassi, conquered Kalinga. A
hundred and fifty thousand people were deported, a hundred thousand were killed,
and many times that number perished
²¹
. Afterwards, now that Kalinga is annexed, the Beloved of Gods very
earnestly practiced Dhamma, desired Dhamma, and taught Dhamma
²²
. On conquering Kalinga the Beloved of the Gods felt remorse, for when an
independent country is conquered the slaughter, death and deportation of the
people is extremely grievous to the Beloved of Gods and weighs heavily on his
mind …. Even those who were fortunate to have escaped and whose love
is undiminished suffer from the misfortunes of their friends, acquaintances,
colleagues and relatives. The participation
of all men in
suffering weighs heavily on the mind of the Beloved of the Gods’.

—Major Edict XIII.
Translated by Romila Thapar
²³

The Kalinga campaign was clearly
brutal, with 150,000 deported, a direct death toll of 100,000 and even larger
numbers dead from wounds and famine. India’s population at this stage
would have been around 65 million
²⁴
and casualties on such a scale would have been devastating for a small province
like Kalinga. Excavations at Kalinga’s capital of Tosali reveal structures
that still bear marks of a devastating assault. The large number of arrowheads found
embedded in a small section of the ramparts tell of a blizzard of arrows. Ashoka
appears to have regretted his decision because of the suffering it
caused—very unusual for any era and in stark contrast to the brutal rule
of the First Emperor of China at about the same time. Nonetheless, one should always
take statements made by politicians with a pinch of salt. The edicts are, after all,
what Ashoka wanted us to remember of him. Notice that Ashoka expresses regret but
does not offer to free Kalinga and its inhabitants.

Although the inscriptions are very
interesting, I think historians have focused too much attention on the noble
sentiments expressed in them and not enough on the overall impact of the pillars.
Around 40–50 feet high, the stone columns are impressive structures often
capped by a lion (or lions), an animal that was associated with the Mauryas since
Chandragupta’s time. In some of the pillars, the lions are accompanied
with the ‘chakra’ or wheel. Historians often associate this with
the Buddhist ‘dharma-chakra’ but, in my
view, they could just as well be interpreted to symbolize the
‘Chakravartin’ or Universal Monarch. The pillars and the lions
are a clear expression of imperial power. They were the Mauryan way of marking
territory.

Remember that Ashoka’s average
subject would have been illiterate and would have been unable to read the noble
sentiments in the inscription. He/she, however, would have been left in no doubt
about the real message regarding the power of the sovereign. The use of columns to
signal imperial might is not unique to the Mauryans or even to India. The ancient
Egyptians and the Romans used them as well. In India, the imperial successors of the
Mauryas would raise their own columns as well as insert their own inscriptions on
the Ashokan columns.

The Mauryan lions and pillars were
mostly made from sandstone quarried at Chunar, near Varanasi, where the Ganga nudges
the Vindhya range. We now know the exact location of the quarries to the south-west
of Chunar fort, close to the famous Durga temple. Stone is still quarried here, and
one can also see some of the ancient quarries as well as cylindrical blocks of
unfinished stone abandoned by the ancient stone-cutters. Some of them bear
inscriptions that identify the era when the stone was originally quarried.

It appears that the Mauryans rolled the
stones to the river and then transported them by boat to workshops near Varanasi, in
much the same manner as the ancient Egyptians transported stone blocks down the Nile
to construct their temples and pyramids. Although various irrigation projects these
days have drastically reduced the water-flow in the Ganga, it is still possible to
make the journey by boat from
Chunar to Varanasi. Archaeologists
have found remains of workshops along the river where this stone was carved and
polished.
²⁵
As the river turns, the ancient ghats of Varanasi come into sight and, for a
moment, one can imagine oneself as a Mauryan boatman transporting Chunar stone to
the imperial workshop.

The stone used to carve the Sarnath
lions, modern India’s national symbol, would have made this journey from
quarry to workshop and then to Sarnath. I found several stone-carvers who still work
the Chunar sandstone in and around Varanasi. Some of them were carving lions to
adorn homes and temples. Somehow, the new sculptures all have the characteristic
‘grin’ that one sees on the Mauryan lions. Is this conscious
choice or just the unconscious weight of history?

Later rulers understood the symbolic
meaning of the Mauryan columns and were always keen to appropriate them. This is why
the emperors of the Gupta and Mughal dynasties, went out of their way to put their
own inscriptions next to those of Ashoka. Feroze Shah Tughlaq, the
fourteenth-century sultan of Delhi, even had two of the pillars shipped to his newly
built palace complex. Therefore, it should not be surprising that, when India became
independent, Mauryan lions and the chakra became the country’s national
symbols. The founding fathers of the Indian Republic intuitively understood that the
lions and the wheel stood for the power of the State. Indeed, Ashoka himself may
have appropriated pre-existing symbolism. There are legends that associate
Ashoka’s grandfather with lions. Scholars like John Irwin argue that some
of the Ashokan columns may actually have been put up by his predecessors and that
Ashoka had merely added his inscriptions to them!
²⁶

Ashoka ruled till he died at the age of
seventy-two in 232
BC
. The Mauryan empire collapsed soon
after. Many arguments have been put forward to explain why the empire collapsed so
quickly after Ashoka. There are those who feel that the emperor’s growing
infatuation with Buddhist philosophy sapped the morale of the army and the
administration. It is very difficult to say what exactly happened, but there is
evidence that the empire had already begun to crumble in Ashoka’s later
years. There are many stories about intra-family intrigues and feuds that left the
ageing monarch increasingly powerless. In my view, the real problem was that Ashoka
held on to power for too long. Despite his protestations about following the path of
righteousness, he was unable to give up the trappings of power even when he was too
feeble to rule effectively. Contrast this with the attitude of his grandfather and
Chanakya, the founders of the empire. The problem of ageing rulers would haunt India
through the centuries.

By the time the Mauryan empire was
established, the second cycle of India’s urbanization had been underway
for a millennium. Taxila in the north-west was not just a vibrant city but an
important intellectual hub. In the east, Tamralipti was established as a major port;
it is likely that Emperor Ashoka sent his son Mahindra on a mission to Sri Lanka
from there. The site is located across the river from Kolkata and is not far from
the port of Haldia. The name ‘Tamralipta’ means ‘full
of copper’ and may have originally been linked to export
of copper goods. Archaeological excavations have revealed
punch-marked coins from this period. As we will see in the next chapter, the port
would evolve into an important international trading hub in subsequent
centuries.

The imperial capital of Pataliputra, of
course, was the most important city in the empire. Megasthenes,
²⁷
the Macedonian ambassador to Chandragupta, tells us that Pataliputra was
surrounded by massive wooden palisades with 64 gates and 570 watch-towers. The city
was shaped like a parallelogram 14.5 km in length and 2.5 km in breadth. Even if one
does not take the numbers literally, they imply a very large city. Tower-bases and
stockades found from excavations corroborate this. The main gates had wide
timber-floored walkways with bridges across a moat system. The moat system, fed by
the Son river, was almost 200 metres wide on the landward side. Along the Ganga,
wooden piles were sunk into the mud to protect against inundation. Brick and stone
were used to construct buildings inside the walls, especially for important
structures. However, wood was a common building material and fires were a major
hazard.
²⁸
Megasthenes tells us that he had seen all the great cities of the east,
including Susa and Ecbatana, but that Pataliputra was the greatest city in the
world. Unfortunately, further excavations have become increasingly difficult as the
growth of modern Patna has now covered the site.

What was it like to live in a Mauryan
city? Kautilya’s
Arthashastra
has a long list of municipal laws
that give us a good insight into the civic concerns of the times.
²⁹
For instance, there were traffic rules stating that bullock-carts were not
allowed to move without a driver. A child could only drive a
cart if accompanied by an adult. Reckless driving was punished except when the
nose-string of the bullock broke accidentally or if the animal had panicked.

The
Arthashastra
also contains
instructions for waste-disposal, building codes, the maintenance of public spaces
like parks and rules against encroachment into a neighbour’s property. We
know that Kautilya did not approve of nosy neighbours as there is even a rule
against interfering in the affairs of a neighbour. Very interestingly, there are
specific injunctions against urinating and defecating in public spaces. The
Arthashastra
specifies fines for urinating or defecating near a water
reservoir, a temple and a royal palace. One wonders why today’s Indian
cities do not enforce the ancient example.

The municipal laws specified in the
Arthashastra
clearly reflect a society that has a sophisticated
understanding of urban life. Was this all relearned in the Iron Age or do they
contain vestiges of the Harappan way of life? Of course, the majority of the people
in the Mauryan empire lived in villages and Kautilya attaches a great deal of
importance to agriculture, animal husbandry and land revenue. He also gives detailed
instruction on the management of forests, especially those that supplied elephants.
Summer was deemed a good time to catch elephants and twenty-year-olds were
considered of the ideal age. At the same time, the capture of pregnant or suckling
females and of cubs was strictly forbidden.

The establishment of the Mauryan empire
appears to have created a stable environment that encouraged internal and external
trade. There were major imperial highways crossing the country. The most important
of these imperial highways extended from Taxila to the port of Tamralipti in Bengal.
The
Mauryans were merely formalizing the Uttara Path that had
already existed for a thousand years. The Macedonian ambassador Megasthenes very
likely used it to visit the imperial capital of Pataliputra. As discussed earlier,
this highway survives as NH1 between Amritsar and Delhi and as NH2 between Delhi and
Kolkata. During Mauryan times, the section through Bihar would have taken a somewhat
northerly route through Patna in order to accommodate the imperial capital.

The Dakshina Path also remained an
important highway, especially given the extensive Mauryan conquests in the south.
However, it appears that the trajectory of the road had shifted somewhat eastwards
since the Iron Age. The new route passed through Vidisha and then made its way to
Pratishthana (modern Paithan in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra). It is likely
that. by the Mauryan period, a branch of the southern highway already connected
Ujjain to the ports of Gujarat although this route would become more important
during the Gupta period.

Meanwhile, the sea routes were gaining
in importance. We know that, by Mauryan times, there was coastal shipping between
Tamralipti in Bengal and Sri Lanka. Links with South East Asia were also being
established. It is likely that the ships initially hugged the coast but, as we will
discuss in the next chapter, nautical skills and shipbuilding technology were soon
advanced enough to allow merchants to directly cross the Arabian Sea and the Bay of
Bengal.

By the time the Mauryans created their
empire, Indian civilization was already well developed and conscious of itself.
It also had a developed sense of history as evidenced by the
long lists of kings preserved in the Puranas and elsewhere (this is a comment about
their intent, not necessarily their accuracy). The Mauryan empire was drawn from
this preexisting milieu and used its symbols—including the idea of the
Chakravartin or Universal Monarch. However, the Mauryans introduced an important
innovation—the use of columns and rock inscriptions to record their
presence. As already discussed, these were meant to mark territory and impress the
subjects but, I suspect, they were also meant to speak to us. Like monarchs around
the world, Ashoka wanted to be remembered. He wanted future generations to be
impressed by his power and to think well of him.

There is nothing wrong in this, it is
only human. What is interesting is that later rulers instinctively understood what
the Mauryans were trying to do. As we shall see in the following chapters, they not
only created their own edifices but also systematically tried to link themselves to
the Mauryans. Moreover, they continued to do this centuries after the Brahmi script
had been forgotten and the original edicts could no longer be read. It is remarkable
how this chain was deliberately sustained not just by Indian kings but also by
rulers of foreign origin. It is as if these kings were conscious that they were just
a moment in the history of a very ancient people and they wanted to record their
place in it.