Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.s38.20

c11.s38.20

Dynastic empires depend for their continued existence on the supply of able monarchs in the line ; Aśoka was great in every way ; he was not only the greatest of the Mauryas, but one of the few truly great rulers of the world. There was evidently none among his children equal to the task of maintaining the unity of the vast empire, and the division which, according to legend, threatened the empire even at the accession of Aśoka, actually overtook it after the close of his reign. But in India the rise and fall of empires, important though they are as landmarks, do not touch the cultural life of the nation as deeply as in other lands. Indian imperialism was never a fully centralised form of administration; without exception an Indian empire was more or less a loose confederation of nearly independent units, kingdoms, cities, tribes and so on, held together by loyalty to the person of the emperor when he had the strength to dominate them; but under the strongest emperor, the local rulers and institutions continued as before; and the disruption of an empire or its division did not raise those difficult problems of reorganisation which would have come up with the decadence of a more centralized system. In the day of its prosperity an empire did enhance the glory of the race and its achievements in the various spheres of national life did excel greatly those of the smaller kingdoms which usually filled the political map of the country; but the disappearance of an empire led by no means to a relapse into chaos or barbarism. India's ancient culture was the achievement of Indian society, not of the Indian state; an empire led to the efflorescence of that culture.