Editing History of Pakistan (section)

=== Mauryan Empire ===
{{Main|Maurya Empire|Greco-Bactrian Kingdom|Greco-Buddhism}}
[[File:Upper_Boulder_with_Inscriptions_-_Mansehra_Rock_Edicts.jpg|left|thumb|[[Mansehra Rock Edicts]], one of the [[edicts]] of the [[Mauryan]] emperor [[Ashoka]]]]
The Maurya Empire was a geographically extensive [[Iron Age]] [[list of ancient great powers|historical power]] in [[South Asia]] based in [[Magadha (Mahajanapada)|Magadha]], having been founded by [[Chandragupta Maurya]] in 322 BCE, and existing in loose-knit fashion until 185 BCE.<ref name="Dyson2018-lead-maurya">
{{citation
|last=Dyson|first=Tim|title=A Population History of India: From the First Modern People to the Present Day|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3TRtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA16|year=2018|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-882905-8|pages=16–17}} Quote: "Magadha power came to extend over the main cities and communication routes of the Ganges basin. Then, under Chandragupta Maurya (c.321–297 bce), and subsequently Ashoka his grandson, Pataliputra became the centre of the loose-knit Mauryan 'Empire' which during Ashoka's reign (c.268–232 bce) briefly had a presence throughout the main urban centres and arteries of the subcontinent, except for the extreme south."</ref> The Maurya Empire was centralized by the conquest of the [[Indo-Gangetic Plain]], and its capital city was located at [[Pataliputra]] (modern [[Patna]]). Outside this imperial centre, the empire's geographical extent was dependent on the loyalty of military commanders who controlled the armed cities sprinkling it.<ref name="Ludden2013-lead-maurya">
{{citation
|last=Ludden
|first=David|title=India and South Asia: A Short History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EbFHAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA29|year=2013|publisher=Oneworld Publications|isbn=978-1-78074-108-6|pages=29–30}} |quote=The geography of the Mauryan Empire resembled a spider with a small dense body and long spindly legs. The highest echelons of imperial society lived in the inner circle composed of the ruler, his immediate family, other relatives, and close allies, who formed a dynastic core. Outside the core, empire travelled stringy routes dotted with armed cities. Outside the palace, in the capital cities, the highest ranks in the imperial elite were held by military commanders whose active loyalty and success in war determined imperial fortunes. Wherever these men failed or rebelled, dynastic power crumbled. ... Imperial society flourished where elites mingled; they were its backbone, its strength was theirs. Kautilya's ''Arthasastra'' indicates that imperial power was concentrated in its original heartland, in old ''Magadha'', where key institutions seem to have survived for about seven hundred years, down to the age of the Guptas. Here, Mauryan officials ruled local society, but not elsewhere. In provincial towns and cities, officials formed a top layer of royalty; under them, old conquered royal families were not removed, but rather subordinated. In most ''janapadas'', the Mauryan Empire consisted of strategic urban sites connected loosely to vast hinterlands through lineages and local elites who were there when the Mauryas arrived and were still in control when they left.</ref>{{sfn|Hermann Kulke|2004|pp=xii, 448}}<ref>{{cite book | first1=Romila | last1=Thapar | title=A History of India, Volume 1 | publisher=Penguin Books | author-link=Romila Thapar | year=1990 | page=384 | isbn=0-14-013835-8}}</ref> During [[Ashoka]]'s rule (ca. 268–232 BCE) the empire briefly controlled the major urban hubs and arteries of the [[Indian subcontinent]] excepting the deep south.<ref name="Dyson2018-lead-maurya"/> It declined for about 50&nbsp;years after Ashoka's rule, and dissolved in 185&nbsp;BCE with the assassination of Brihadratha by [[Pushyamitra Shunga]] and foundation of the [[Shunga Empire]] in Magadha.

Chandragupta Maurya raised an army, with the assistance of [[Chanakya]], author of [[Arthasastra]],<ref>{{Cite book|title=India: A History|last=Keay|first=John|publisher=Grove Press|year=2000|isbn=978-0-8021-3797-5|pages=82}}</ref> and overthrew the [[Nanda Empire]] in {{circa|322 BCE}}. Chandragupta rapidly expanded his power westwards across central and western India by conquering the [[satrap]]s left by [[Alexander the Great]], and by 317 BCE the empire had fully occupied northwestern India.{{sfn|R. K. Mookerji|1966|p=31}} The Mauryan Empire then defeated [[Seleucus I Nicator|Seleucus I]], a [[Diadochi|diadochus]] and founder of the [[Seleucid Empire]], during the [[Seleucid–Mauryan war]], thus acquiring territory west of the Indus River.<ref>[[Seleucus I]] ceded the territories of [[Arachosia]] (modern Kandahar), [[Gedrosia]] (modern [[Balochistan]]), and [[Paropamisadae]] (or [[Gandhara]]). [[Aria (satrapy)|Aria]] (modern [[Herat]]) "has been wrongly included in the list of ceded satrapies by some scholars ... on the basis of wrong assessments of the passage of Strabo ... and a statement by Pliny" (Raychaudhuri & Mukherjee 1996, p. 594).</ref>{{sfn|John D Grainger|2014|p=109|ps=: Seleucus "must ... have held Aria", and furthermore, his "son [[Antiochus I Soter|Antiochos]] was active there fifteen years later".}}

Under the Mauryas, internal and external trade, agriculture, and economic activities thrived and expanded across South Asia due to the creation of a single and efficient system of finance, administration, and security. The Maurya dynasty built a precursor of the [[Grand Trunk Road]] from Patliputra to Taxila.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://roadsandkingdoms.com/2016/dinner-on-the-grand-trunk-road/|title=Dinner on the Grand Trunk Road|last=Bhandari|first=Shirin|date=2016-01-05|publisher=Roads & Kingdoms|language=en-US|access-date=2016-07-19}}</ref> After the [[Kalinga War]], the Empire experienced nearly half a century of centralized rule under Ashoka. Ashoka's embrace of [[Buddhism]] and sponsorship of Buddhist missionaries allowed for the expansion of that faith into [[Sri Lanka]], northwest India, and Central Asia.{{sfn|Hermann Kulke|2004|p=67}}

The population of South Asia during the Mauryan period has been estimated to be between 15 and 30 million.<ref name="Dyson2018-lead-maurya-4">
{{citation
|last=Dyson|first=Tim|title=A Population History of India: From the First Modern People to the Present Day|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3TRtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA24|year=2018|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-882905-8|page=24}} Quote: "Yet Sumit Guha considers that 20 million is an upper limit. This is because the demographic growth experienced in core areas is likely to have been less than that experienced in areas that were more lightly settled in the early historic period. The position taken here is that the population in Mauryan times (320–220 BCE) was between 15 and 30 million—although it may have been a little more, or it may have been a little less."</ref> 
The empire's period of dominion was marked by exceptional creativity in art, architecture, inscriptions and produced texts.<ref name="Ludden2013-lead-4">
{{citation
|last=Ludden
|first=David|title=India and South Asia: A Short History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EbFHAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA28|year=2013|publisher=Oneworld Publications|isbn=978-1-78074-108-6|pages=28–29}}Quote: "A creative explosion in all the arts was a most remarkable feature of this ancient transformation, a permanent cultural legacy. Mauryan territory was created in its day by awesome armies and dreadful war, but future generations would cherish its beautiful pillars, inscriptions, coins, sculptures, buildings, ceremonies, and texts, particularly later Buddhist writers."
</ref>