Answer:
By employing a carefully organized bureaucratic system, the Maurya and Gupta Empires were able to maintain security and political unity across large parts of western and southern Asia.
This bureaucratic system included a common economic system that supported stable agriculture across vast land holdings and successful trade and commerce.
Through centralized authority, which included a powerful military, the rulers of these empires bound together the previously fractured regions of the Indian subcontinent.Before the Mauryan Empire, the Indian subcontinent was fragmented into hundreds of kingdoms that were ruled by powerful regional chiefs who engaged in warfare using their small armies.
In 327 BCE, Alexander of Macedon and his troops entered India and overran the existing kingdoms in the Punjab region. He left after only two years, but his destruction of the regional powers opened the opportunity for other groups to seize control. The first group, the kingdom of Magadha, used their military to gain control of trade routes through the Ganges valley and the sea routes to the Bay of Bengal.
Soon after, however, Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the Maurya Empire, successfully seized control of Magadha. He started on the outskirts and eventually made his way to the heart of the kingdom. Eventually, he gained control of northwestern India and Bactria—what is today Afghanistan and was at that time controlled by the Greeks. Chandragupta Maurya successfully unified the Indian subcontinent under an empire.
Chandragupta ruled from 324 to 297 BCE before voluntarily giving the throne up to his son, Bindusara, who ruled from 297 BCE until his death in 272 BCE. This led to a war in which Bindusara’s son, Ashoka, defeated his brother and rose to the throne in 268 BCE, eventually becoming the most successful and powerful ruler of the Maurya Dynasty.
The Mauryan Army, the largest standing military force of its time, supported the expansion and defense of the empire. According to scholars, the empire wielded 600,000 infantry, or foot soldiers, 30,000 cavalry, or soldiers on horseback, and 9,000 war elephants. A vast spy network collected intelligence for both internal and external security purposes. Although Emperor Ashoka renounced offensive warfare and expansionism after converting to Buddhism, he maintained this standing army to protect the empire from external threats and maintain stability and peace across Western and Southern Asia.
This extensive army was made possible partly through an intricate web of administration. One of Chandragupta’s advisors had instituted a series of detailed procedures which Ashoka inherited. Ashoka established a capital at the walled city of Pataliputra, which served as the centralized hub of the empire. Officials made decisions about how to collect taxes for the central treasury, which funded the military and other government jobs.Explanation:
