Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c8.12

c8.12

The remaining four chapters in the volume are devoted to studies of different aspects of the culture of the period. Dr. U. N. Ghoshal describes the Industry, Trade and Currency of the times in a chapter (VIII) which is as well documented, as it is replete with significant facts culled from various sources and set forth with remarkable lucidity and cogency. A perusal of this chapter and portions of the chapter on Art which form an excellent supplement to it, may well set at rest the doubts, sometimes expressed by scholars, that the state of technical arts depicted in the pages of the Arthaśāstra appears to be too advanced for the age of the Mauryas; for relying only to a very little extent on the evidence of the Arthaśāstra, the writers of these chapters have sought to trace the trend of development from earlier epochs up to and beyond the Mauryan epoch, and to indicate clearly the place of that epoch in the course of this development.