Indian History Before British MHT

Chandragupta II
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Chandragupta II The Great (Vikramaditya)
Gupta Emperor
Coin of the Gupta king Chandragupta II
Reign
375415 CE
Predecessor
Ramagupta
Successor
Kumara Gupta I
Consort
Dhruvuswamini
Royal House
Gupta dynasty
Father
Samudragupta
Mother
Datta Devi
Religious beliefs
Hinduism
Chandragupta II The Great (Sanskrit: ; chandragupta vikramditya) was one of the most powerful emperors
of the Gupta empire in northern India. His rule spanned c. 380413/415 CE, during which the Gupta Empire achieved its zenith, art,
architecture, and sculpture flourished, and the cultural development of ancient Indiareached its climax.[1] The period of prominence
of the Gupta dynasty is very often referred to as the Golden Age of India. Chandragupta II was the son of the previous
ruler,Samudragupta the Great. He attained success by pursuing both a favorable marital alliance and an aggressive expansionist
policy in this which his father and grandfather (Chandragupta I) set the precedent. Samudragupta set the stage for the emergence of
classical art, which occurred under the rule of Chandragupta II. Chandragupta II gave great support to the arts. Artists were so
highly valued under his rule that they were paid for their work a rare phenomenon in ancient civilizations.[2]
From 388 to 409 he subjugated Gujarat, the region north of Mumbai, Saurashtra, in western India, and Malwa, with its capital at
Ujjain.[3] Culturally, the reign of Chandragupta II marked a Golden Age. This is evidenced by later reports of the presence of a circle
of poets known as the Nine Gems in his court. The greatest among them was Kalidasa, who authored numerous immortal pieces of
literature including Abhijnakuntalam. The others included Sanskrit grammarian Amara Sinha and the astronomermathematicianVarahamihira.[citation needed]
Contents
[hide]
1 Mentions in literature
2 Biography
2.1 Early life and coronation
2.2 Vakataka-Gupta Age
2.3 Visit of Fa-hein
2.4 Campaigns against foreign tribes
2.5 End of Chandragupta II
3 Religion
4 Coinage
5 Iron pillar of Delhi
6 Vikram-Samvat Calendar
7 Notes
8 References
9 External links
10 See also
[edit]Mentions
in literature
Not much is known about the personal details of Chandragupta II. The most widely accepted details have been built upon the plot of
the play Devi-chandraguptam by Vishakadatta. The play is now lost, but fragments have been preserved in other works (such as
Abhinava-bharati, Sringara-prakasha, Natya-darpana, Nataka-lakshana Ratna-kosha). There even exists an Arabic work, written
in Persia near the Indian subcontinent, Mojmal al-tawarikh (12th century CE) which tells a similar tale of a king whose name
appears to be a corruption of 'Vikramaditya'. The name 'Vikramaditya' holds a semi-mythical status in India. India has many
interesting stories about King Vikramaditya, his guru Manva-Patwa and his queens. It is widely believed that the great poet
in Sanskrit, Kalidasa was one of the jewels of Vikramaditya's royal court.
[edit]Biography
[edit]Early
life and coronation
Coin of Vikramadytia Chandragupta II with the name of the king in Brahmi script, 380415 CE.
Chandragupta II's mother, Datta Devi, was the chief queen of Samudragupta the Great. After Samudragupta's death his elder
son, Ramagupta, took over the throne and married Chandragupta II's fiance Dhruvaswamini by force. The fragment
from Vishakadatta's "Natya-darpana" mentions the king Ramagupta, the elder brother of Chandragupta II, deciding to surrender his
queen Dhruvaswamini to the Saka ruler of the Western KshatrapasRudrasimha III (r. 388 - 395 CE), after a defeat at the Saka ruler's
hands. To avoid the ignominy the Guptas decide to send Madhavasena, a courtesan and a beloved of Chandragupta II, disguised as
the queen Dhruvaswamini. Chandragupta II changes the plan and himself goes to Rudrasimha III disguised as the queen. He then
assassinates Rudrasimha III and later his brother Ramagupta. Dhruvaswamini is then married to Chandragupta II.
Historians still don't know what liberties the author Vishakadatta took with the incidents, but Dhruvadevi was indeed Chandragupta
II's Chief Queen as seen in the Vaisali Terracotta Seal that calls her "Mahadevi" (Chief Queen) Dhruvasvamini. The Bilsad Pillar
Inscription of their son Kumaragupta I (r. 414455 CE) also refers to her as "Mahadevi Dhruvadevi". Certain "Ramagupta" too is
mentioned in inscriptions on Jain figures in the District Archaeological Museum, Vidisha and some copper coins found at Vidisha.
The fact that Chandragupta II and Dhruvadevi are the protagonists of Vishakadatta's play indicates that marrying his widowed
sister-in-law was not given any significance by the playwright. Later Hindus did not view such a marriage with favour and some
censure of the act is found in the Sanjan Copper Plate Inscription of Rashtrakuta ruler Amoghavarsha I (r. 814-878 CE) and in the
Sangali and Cambay Plates of the Govinda IV (r. 930-936 CE).
[edit]Vakataka-Gupta
Age
The Allahabad Pillar Inscription mentions the marriage of Chandragupta II with a Naga princess Kuberanaga. A pillar
from Mathurareferring to Chandragupta II has recently been dated to 388 CE.[4]
Chandragupta II's daughter, Prabhavatigupta, by his Naga queen Kuberanaga was married to the powerful Vakataka dynasty ruler
Rudrasena II (r.380-385 CE).
Gold coins of Chandragupta II the Great. The one on the left is the obverse of a so-called "Chhatra" type of Chandragupta II, while the one on the
right is the obverse of a so-called "Archer" type of Chandragupta II.
His greatest victory was his victory over the Shaka-Kshatrapa dynasty and annexation of their kingdom in Gujarat, by defeating
their last rulerRudrasimha III.
Chandragupta II's son-in-law, the Vakataka ruler Rudrasena II, died fortuitously after a very short reign in 385 CE, following which
Queen Prabhavati Gupta (r. 385-405) ruled the Vakataka kingdom as a regent on behalf of her two sons. During this twenty-year
period the Vakataka realm was practically a part of the Gupta empire. The geographical location of the Vakataka kingdom allowed
Chandragupta II to take the opportunity to defeat the Western Kshatrapas once for all. Many historians refer to this period as the
Vakataka-Gupta Age.
Chandragupta II controlled a vast empire, from the mouth of the Gangesto the mouth of the Indus River and from what is now
North Pakistandown to the mouth of the Narmada. Pataliputra continued to be the capital of his huge empire but Ujjain too became
a sort of second capital. The large number of beautiful gold coins issued by the Gupta dynasty are a testament to the imperial
grandeur of that age. Chandragupta II also started producing silver coins in the Saka tradition.
[edit]Visit
of Fa-hein
Fa-hein (337 c. 422 CE) was the first of three great Chinese pilgrims who visited India from the fifth to the seventh centuries CE,
in search of knowledge, manuscripts and relics. Faxian arrived during the reign of Chandragupta II and gave a general description of
North India at that time. Among the other things, he reported about the absence of capital punishment, the lack of a poll-tax and
land tax. Most citizens did not consume onions, garlic, meat, and wine. [citation needed]
[edit]Campaigns
against foreign tribes
Vikramaditya goes forth to war
4th century CE Sanskrit poet Kalidasa, credits Chandragupta Vikramaditya with having conquered about twenty one kingdoms,
both in and outside India. After finishing his campaign in the East and West India, Vikramaditya (Chandra Gupta II) proceeded
northwards, subjugated the Parasikas (Persians), then the Hunasand the Kambojas tribes located in the west and east Oxus valleys
respectively. Thereafter, the king proceeds across the Himalaya and reduced the Kinnaras,Kiratas etc. and lands into India
proper.[5] The Brihatkathamanjari of the Kashmiriwriter Kshmendra states, king Vikramaditya (Chandra Gupta II) had "unburdened
the sacred earth of the Barbarians like the Sakas, Mlecchas, Kambojas, Yavanas,Tusharas, Parasikas, Hunas, etc. by annihilating
these sinful Mlecchascompletely".[6][7][8]
[edit]End
of Chandragupta II
Chandragupta II was succeeded by his second son Kumaragupta I, born of Mahadevi Dhruvasvamini.[9]
[edit]Religion
From Chandragupta II kings of Gupta dynasty are known as Parama Bhagavatas or Bhagavata Vaishnavas.
The Bhagavata Purana entails the fully developed tenets and philosophy of the Bhagavata tradition wherein Krishna gets fused
withVasudeva and transcends Vedic Vishnu and cosmic Hari to be turned into the ultimate object of bhakti.[10]
[edit]Coinage
Silver coin of Chandragupta II the Great, minted in his Western territories, in the style of the Western Satraps.
Obv:Bust of king, with corrupted Greek legend "OOIHU".[11][12]
Rev: Legend in Brahmi, "Chandragupta Vikramaditya, King of Kings, and a devotee of Vishnu", around Garuda, the mythic eagle and dynastic
symbol of the Guptas.
15mm, 2.1 grams. Mitchiner 4821-4823.
Chandragupta continued issuing most of the gold coin types introduced by his father Samudragupta, such as the Sceptre type (rare
for Chandragupta II), the Archer type, and the Tiger-Slayer type. However, Chandragupta II also introduced several new types, such
as the Horseman type and the Lion-slayer type, both of which were used by his son Kumaragupta I.
In addition, Chandragupta II was the first Gupta king to issue silver coins, such as the one illustrated at right. These coins were
intended to replace the silver coinage of the Western Kshatrapas after Chandragupta II defeated them, and were modeled on the
Kshatrapa coinage. The main difference was to replace the dynastic symbol of the Kshatrapas (the three-arched hill) by the dynastic
symbol of the Guptas (the mythic eagleGaruda). Further, Chandragupta also issued lead coins based on Kshatrapa prototypes and
rare copper coins probably inspired by the coins of another tribe he defeated, the Nagas.
Gold Dinar 7.75g Archer Type
Gold Dinar 7.59g Horseman Type
Gold Dinar 7.8g Chattra (Parasol or Royal Umbrella) Type
[edit]Iron
pillar of Delhi
Main article: Iron pillar of Delhi
The iron pillar of Delhi, erected by Chandragupta II the Great
Close to the Qutub Minar is one of Delhi's most curious structures, an iron pillar, dating back to 4th century CE. The pillar bears an
inscription which states that it was erected as a flagstaff in honour of the Hindu god Vishnu, and in the memory of Chandragupta II
(A derivation of "Natya-darpana" by Vishakadata states that the pillar had been put up by Chandragupta II himself after defeating
Vahilakas. And after this great feat, he put up this pillar as a memory of the victory). The pillar also highlights ancient India's
achievements in metallurgy. The pillar is made of 98% wrought iron and has stood more than 1,600 years without rusting or
decomposing. This iron pillar is similar to the pillars of ashoka.
[edit]Vikram-Samvat
Calendar
Main article: Vikram Samvat

The next day after the Hindu festival Diwali is called Padwa or Varshapratipada, which marks the coronation of King Vikramaditya.
He was a Hindu king who ruled in first century BCE. The title 'Vikramaditya' was later used by Gupta king Chandragupta II and
16th century Hindu king Samrat Hem Chandra Vikramaditya as well. Vikram-Samvat calendar starts from 57 BCE.
The Hindu Vikram-Samvat calendar is celebrated as New Year's Day in Nepal where Vikram Sambat is the official calendar.
[edit]Notes
1.
^ <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/92493/Chandra-Gupta-II>.
2.
^ AUTHOR ushistory.org TITLE OF PAGE The Gupta Period of India TITLE OF

PROGRAM Ancient Civilizations Online Textbook URL OF
PAGE http://www.ushistory.org/civ/8e.asp DATE OF ACCESS Thursday, November 10,
2011 COPYRIGHT 2011
3.
^ <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/92493/Chandra-Gupta-II>.
4.
^ Falk, Harry. (2004) "The Kanika era in Gupta Records." Silk Road Art and
Archaeology 10. Kamakura: The Institute of Silk Road Studies, pp. 167-176.
5.
^ Raghu Vamsa v 4.6075
6.
^ ata shrivikramadityo helya nirjitakhilah Mlechchana Kamboja. Yavanan neechan Hunan

Sabarbran Tushara. Parsikaanshcha tayakatacharan vishrankhalan hatya
bhrubhangamatreyanah bhuvo bharamavarayate (Brahata Katha, 10/1/285-86, Kshmendra).
7.
^ Kathasritsagara 18.1.7678
8.
^ Cf:"In the story contained in Kathasarit-sagara, king Vikarmaditya is said to have

destroyed all the barbarous tribes such as the Kambojas, Yavanas, Hunas, Tokharas and the
Persians "(See: Ref: Reappraising the Gupta History, 1992, p 169, B. C. Chhabra, Sri Ram;
Cf also: Vikrama Volume, 1948, p xxv, Vikramditya akri; cf: Anatomii a i fiziologiia
selskokhozia stvennykh zhivotnykh, 1946, p 264, Arthur John Arberry, Louis Renou, B. K.
Hindse, A. V. Leontovich, National Council of Teachers of English Committee on
Recreational Reading Sanskrit language.
9.
^ Agarwal, Ashvini (1989). Rise and Fall of the Imperial Guptas, Delhi:Motilal
Banarsidass, ISBN 81-208-0592-5, pp.191200
10. ^ Kalyan Kumar Ganguli: (1988). Sraddh njali, Studies in Ancient Indian History: D.C.
Sircar Commemoration: Puranic tradition of Krishna. Sundeep Prakashan. ISBN 81-8506710-4.p.36
11. ^ "The conquest is indicated by the issue of the new Gupta silver coinage modelled on the
previous Saka coinage showing on observe the King's head, Greek script, and dates as on
Saka coins" in Early history of Jammu region: pre-historic to 6th century A.D. by Raj
Kumar p.511
12. ^ "Evidence of the conquest of Saurastra during the reign of Chandragupta II is to be seen in
his rare silver coins which are more directly imitated from those of the Western Satraps...
they retain some traces of the old inscriptions in Greek characters, while on the reverse, they
substitute the Gupta type (a peacock) for the chaitya with crescent and star." in Rapson "A
catalogue of Indian coins in the British Museum. The Andhras etc...", p.cli. Most people
now realize that Rapson was mistaken in identifying the central bird as a peacock; rather, it
is the mythic eagle Garuda, the dynastic symbol of the Guptas. For example, A.S. Altekar
says: "... the three-arched hill in the cntre is replaced by Garuda, which was the imperial
insignia of the Guptas. The view of earlier writers ... that the bird is a peacock is clearly
untenable." in Altekar: The Coinage of the Gupta Empire,Varanasi: Banaras Hindu
University, 1957, p. 151.
[edit]References
R. K. Mookerji, The Gupta Empire, 4th edition. Motilal Banarsidass, 1959.
R. C. Majumdar, Ancient India, 6th revised edition. Motilal Banarsidass, 1971.
Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund, A History of India, 2nd edition. Rupa and Co,
1991.
[edit]External
[edit]See
links
Coins of Chandragupta II
Vikramditya
List of people known as The Great
also
Regnal titles
Preceded by
Samudragupta the Great
Gupta Emperor
375414
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Ashoka
Asoka
Maurya Samrat
A "Chakravartin" ruler, 1st century BCE/CE. Andhra Pradesh, Amaravati.

Preserved at Musee Guimet
Reign
268232 BCE
Coronation
268 BCE
Born
304 BCE
Birthplace
Pataliputra, Patna
Died
232 BCE (aged 72)
Place of
Pataliputra, Patna
death
Buried
Ashes immersed in the GangesRiver, possibly
at Varanasi,Cremated 232 BCE, less than 24 hours after

death
Predecessor
Bindusara
Successor
Dasaratha
Wives
Kaurwaki
Devi
Padmavati
Tishyaraksha
Royal House
Mauryan dynasty
Father
Bindusara
Mother
Maharani Dharma or Shubhadrangi
Children
Mahendra, Sanghamitra, Tivala,Kunala,

Jaluka, Charumati
Religious
Buddhism
beliefs
Ashoka Maurya (304232 BCE) commonly known as Ashoka and also as Ashoka the Great, was an Indian emperor
of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent from ca. 269 BCE to 232 BCE.[1] One of India's
greatest emperors, Ashoka reigned over most of present-day India after a number of military conquests. His empire
stretched from the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan to present-day Bangladesh and the Indian state of Assam in
the east, and as far south as northern Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.The empire had Taxila, Ujjain and Pataliputra as its
capital. In about 260 BCE Ashoka waged a bitterly destructive war against the states of Kalinga (modern Odisha).[2]He
conquered Kalinga, which none of his ancestors starting from Chandragupta Mauryahad conquered. His reign was
headquartered in Magadha (present-day Bihar). He embraced Buddhism after witnessing the mass deaths of
the Kalinga War, which he himself had waged out of a desire for conquest. "Ashoka reflected on the war in Kalinga,
which reportedly had resulted in more than 100,000 deaths and 150,000 deportations."[3]Ashoka converted gradually to
Buddhism beginning about 263 BCE at the latest.[2] He was later dedicated to the propagation of Buddhism across Asia
and established monuments marking several significant sites in the life of Gautama Buddha. "Ashoka regarded
Buddhism as a doctrine that could serve as a cultural foundation for political unity."[4]Ashoka is often remembered in
history as a philanthropic administrator. In the Kalinga edicts, he addresses his people as his "children" and mentions
that as a father he desires their good.
In the history of India, Ashoka is referred to as Samraat Chakravartin Ashoka the "Emperor of Emperors Ashoka." His
name "aoka" means "painless, without sorrow" inSanskrit (the a privativum and oka "pain, distress"). In his edicts, he
is referred to asDevnmpriya (Pali Devnapiya or "The Beloved of the Gods"), and Priyadarin (PaliPiyadas or "He
who regards everyone with affection"). His fondness for his name's connection to the Saraca asoca tree, or the "Asoka
tree" is also referenced in theAshokavadana.
H.G. Wells wrote of Ashoka in A Short History of the World (H. G. Wells):
In the history of the world there have been thousands of kings and emperors who called themselves "Their
Highnesses," "Their Majesties," "Their Exalted Majesties," and so on. They shone for a brief moment, and as quickly
disappeared. But Ashoka shines and shines brightly like a bright star, even unto this day.
Along with the Edicts of Ashoka, his legend is related in the later 2nd-centuryAshokavadana ("Narrative of Asoka," a
part of Divyavadana), and in the Sri Lankan textMahavamsa ("Great Chronicle").
Ashoka played a critical role in helping make Buddhism a world religion. [5] The emblem of the modern Republic of India
is an adaptation of the Lion Capital of Ashoka.
Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Early life
1.2 Rise to power
1.3 Early life as Emperor
2 Conquest of Kalinga
2.1 Buddhist conversion
2.2 Death and legacy
2.2.1 Buddhist kingship
3 Historical sources
4 Perceptions
4.1 Foci of Debate

5 Contributions
5.1 Global spread of Buddhism
5.2 As administrator
5.3 Ashoka Chakra
5.4 Pillars of Ashoka (Ashokstambha)
5.5 Lion Capital of Asoka (Ashokmudra)
5.6 Constructions credited to Ashoka
6 In art, film and literature
7 See also
8 References
9 Works cited
10 External links
[edit]Biography
[edit]Early
life
Ashoka was born to the Mauryan emperor Bindusara and a relatively lower ranked wife of his, Dharm [or Dhamm].
He was the grandson of Chandragupta Maurya, founder of Mauryan dynasty. The Avadana texts mention that his
mother was queen Subhadrang. According to Ashokavadana, she was the daughter of a Brahmin from the city of
Champa.[6]:205 Empress Subhadrang was a Brahmin of the Ajivika sect,[7] and was found to be a suitable match for
Emperor Bindusara. Though a palace intrigue kept her away from the emperor, this eventually ended, and she bore a
son. It is from her exclamation "I am now without sorrow," that Ashoka got his name. The Divyvadna tells a similar
story, but gives the name of the queen as Janapadakalyn.[8][9]
Ashoka had several elder siblings, all of whom were his half-brothers from other wives of Bindusara. He had been given
the royal military training knowledge which was greatly apparent as he was known as a fearsome hunter, and according
to a legend, killed a lion with just a wooden rod. He was very adventurous and a trained fighter, who was known for his
skills with the sword. Because of his reputation as a frightening warrior and a heartless general, he was sent to curb the
riots in the Avanti province of the Mauryan empire.[10]
[edit]Rise
to power
Maurya Empire at the age of Ashoka. The empire stretched from Afghanistan to Bangladesh/Assam and from Central Asia
(Afghanistan) to Tamil Nadu/South India.
The Buddhist text Divyavadana describes Ashoka putting down a revolt due to activities of wicked ministers. This may
have been an incident in Bindusara's times. Taranatha's account states that Chanakya, one of Bindusara's great lords,
destroyed the nobles and kings of 16 towns and made himself the master of all territory between the eastern and the
western seas. Some historians consider this as an indication of Bindusara's conquest of the Deccan while others
consider it as suppression of a revolt. Following this, Ashoka was stationed at Ujjayini as governor. [9]
Bindusara's death in 273 BCE led to a war over succession. According to Divyavandana, Bindusara wanted his son
Sushim to succeed him but Ashoka was supported by his father's ministers, who found Sushim to be arrogant and
disrespectful towards them.[11] A minister named Radhagupta seems to have played an important role in Ashoka's rise
to the throne. The Ashokavadana recounts Radhagupta's offering of an old royal elephant to Ashoka for him to ride to
the Garden of the Gold Pavilion where King Bindasura would determine his successor. Ashoka later got rid of the
legitimate heir to the throne by tricking him into entering a pit filled with live coals. Radhagupta, according to the
Ashokavadana, would later be appointed prime minister by Ashoka once he had gained the throne.
The Dipavansa and Mahavansa refer to Ashoka's killing 99 of his brothers, sparing only one, named Tissa,[9] although
there is no clear proof about this incident (many such accounts are saturated with mythological elements).
The coronation happened in 269 BCE, four years after his succession to the throne.
[edit]Early
life as Emperor
An imaginary painting of Asoka's Queen by Abanindranath Tagore (18711951)
Buddhist legends state that Ashoka was of a wicked nature and bad temper. He submitted his ministers to a test of
loyalty and had 500 of them killed. He also kept a harem of around 500 women. When a few of these women insulted
him for his "rough skin" after he fondly compared himself with the beauty of the Asoka tree (which according to the
Ashokavadana, the women defiled by plucking off all of the flowers), he had the whole lot of them burnt to death. He
also built an elaborate torture chamber, deemed the "Paradisal Hell" because of its beautiful exterior contrasted with the
acts carried out inside by his appointed executioner Girikaa,[12] which earned him the name of "ana Ashoka" or
"Chandaashoka," meaning "Ashoka the Fierce" in Sanskrit. Professor Charles Drekmeier cautions that the Buddhist
legends intend to dramatise the change resulting from the Buddhist change, and therefore, exaggerate Ashoka's past
wickedness and his piousness after the conversion.[13]
Ascending the throne, Ashoka expanded his empire over the next eight years, from the present-day boundaries and
regions of BurmaBangladesh and the state of Assam in India in the east to the territory of present-day Iran / Persia
and Afghanistan in the west; from the Pamir Knots in the north almost to the peninsular of southern India (i.e. Tamil
Nadu / Andhra Pradesh).[9]
[edit]Conquest
of Kalinga
While the early part of Ashoka's reign was apparently quite bloodthirsty, he became a follower of the Buddha's
teachings after his conquest of Kalinga on the east coast of India in the present-day states of Odisha and North
Coastal Andhra Pradesh. Kalinga was a state that prided itself on its sovereignty and democracy. With its monarchical
parliamentary democracy it was quite an exception in ancient Bharata where there existed the concept of Rajdharma.
Rajdharma means the duty of the rulers, which was intrinsically entwined with the concept of bravery and dharma. The
Kalinga War happened eight years after his coronation. From his 13th inscription, we come to know that the battle was
a massive one and caused the deaths of more than 100,000 soldiers and many civilians who rose up in defence; over
150,000 were deported.[14] When he was walking through the grounds of Kalinga after his conquest, rejoicing in his
victory, he was moved by the number of bodies strewn there and the wails of the kith and kin of the dead.
[edit]Buddhist
conversion
A similar four "Indian lion" Lion Capital of Ashoka atop an intact Ashoka Pillar at Wat U Mong near Chiang Mai, Thailand showing
another larger Dharma Chakra / Ashoka Chakra atop the four lions thought to be missing in the Lion Capital of Ashoka atSarnath
Museum which has been adopted as the National Emblem of India.
Edict 13 on the Edicts of Ashoka Rock Inscriptions reflect the great remorse the king felt after observing the destruction
of Kalinga:
His Majesty feels remorse on account of the conquest of the Kalingaa because, during the subjugation of a previously
unconquered country, slaughter, death, and taking away captive of the people necesarrily occur, wherest His Majesty
feels profound sorrow and regret.
The Edict goes on to address the even greater degree of sorrow and regret garnered by Ashoka's understanding that
the lives of the friends and families of deceased would cause great living suffering as well, as Ashoka perceived the
overarching misery that resulted from mass slaughter of the Kalinga people. [15]
Legend says that one day after the war was over, Ashoka ventured out to roam the city and all he could see were burnt
houses and scattered corpses. This sight made him sick and he cried the famous monologue: [16][dubious discuss]
What have I done? If this is a victory, what's a defeat then? Is this a victory or a defeat? Is this justice or injustice? Is it
gallantry or a rout? Is it valor to kill innocent children and women? Did I do it to widen the empire and for prosperity or to
destroy the other's kingdom and splendor? One has lost her husband, someone else a father, someone a child,
someone an unborn infant.... What's this debris of the corpses? Are these marks of victory or defeat? Are these
vultures, crows, eagles the messengers of death or evil?
The brutality of the conquest led him to adopt Buddhism and place great emphasis on pietyin his Edicts, and he used
his position to propagate the relatively new religion to new heights. He made Buddhism his state religion around 260
BCE, propagating and preaching it within his domain and worldwide from about 250 BCE. [17] He can be thus credited
with the first serious attempt to develop a Buddhist policy. Prominent in this cause were his son Mahinda (Mahendra)
and daughter Sanghamitra (whose name means "friend of the Sangha"), who established Buddhism in Ceylon (now Sri
Lanka).
Ashokan Pillar at Vaishali
[edit]Death
and legacy
Ashoka's Major Rock Edict at Junagadhcontains inscriptions by Ashoka (fourteen of the Edicts of Ashoka), Rudradamanna
I andSkandagupta.
Ashoka ruled for an estimated forty years. After his death, the Mauryan dynasty lasted just fifty more years. Ashoka had
many wives and children, but many of their names are lost to time. Mahindra and Sanghamitra were twins born by his
first wife, Devi, in the city of Ujjain. He had entrusted to them the job of making his state religion, Buddhism, more
popular across the known and the unknown world. Mahindra and Sanghamitra went into Sri Lanka and converted the
King, the Queen and their people to Buddhism.
In his old age, he seems to have come under the spell of his youngest wife Tishyaraksha. It is said that she had got
Ashoka's son Kunala, the regent in Takshashila and the heir presumptive to the throne, blinded by a wily stratagem.
The official executioners spared Kunala and he became a wandering singer accompanied by his favourite
wife Kanchanmala. In Pataliputra, Ashoka hears Kunala's song, and realises that Kunala's misfortune may have been a
punishment for some past sin of the emperor himself and condemns Tishyaraksha to death, restoring Kunala to the
court. In the Ashokavadana, Kunala is portrayed as forgiving Tishyaraksha, having obtained enlightenment through
Buddhist practice. While he urges Ashoka to forgive her as well, Ashoka does not respond with the same
forgiveness.[12]Kunala was succeeded by his son, Samprati, but his rule did not last long after Ashoka's death.
The reign of Ashoka Mauryan could easily have disappeared into history as the ages passed by, would he not have left
behind a record of his trials. The testimony of this wise king was discovered in the form of magnificently sculpted pillars
and boulders with a variety of actions and teachings he wished to be published etched into the stone. What Ashoka left
behind was the first written language in India since the ancient city of Harappa. The language used for inscription was
the then current spoken form called Prakrit.
In the year 185 BCE, about fifty years after Ashoka's death, the last Maurya ruler,Brhadratha, was assassinated by the
commander-in-chief of the Mauryan armed forces,Pusyamitra Sunga, while he was taking the Guard of Honor of his
forces. Pusyamitra Sunga founded the Sunga dynasty (185 BCE-78 BCE) and ruled just a fragmented part of the
Mauryan Empire. Many of the northwestern territories of the Mauryan Empire (modern-day Afghanistan and Northern
Pakistan) became the Indo-Greek Kingdom.
In 1992, Ashoka was ranked No. 53 on Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history. In 2001, a semifictionalized portrayal of Ashoka's life was produced as a motion picture under the title Asoka. King Ashoka, the third
monarch of the Indian Mauryan dynasty, has come to be regarded as one of the most exemplary rulers in world history.
[edit]Buddhist kingship
Main articles: History of Buddhism and History of Buddhism in India
Further information: Buddhism in Sri Lanka and Buddhism in Burma
One of the more enduring legacies of Ashoka Maurya was the model that he provided for the relationship between
Buddhism and the state. Throughout Theravada Southeastern Asia, the model of rulership embodied by Ashoka
replaced the notion of divine kingship that had previously dominated (in the Angkor kingdom, for instance). Under this
model of 'Buddhist kingship', the king sought to legitimise his rule not through descent from a divine source, but by
supporting and earning the approval of the Buddhist sangha. Following Ashoka's example, kings established
monasteries, funded the construction of stupas, and supported the ordination of monks in their kingdom. Many rulers
also took an active role in resolving disputes over the status and regulation of the sangha, as Ashoka had in calling a
conclave to settle a number of contentious issues during his reign. This development ultimately lead to a close
association in many Southeast Asian countries between the monarchy and the religious hierarchy, an association that
can still be seen today in the state-supported Buddhism of Thailand and the traditional role of the Thai king as both a
religious and secular leader. Ashoka also said that all his courtiers always governed the people in a moral manner.
Asoka was not non-violent after adopting Buddhism, as evident by a couple of incidents mentioned in the 2nd-century
CE textAshokavadana. In one instance, a non-Buddhist in Pundravardhana drew a picture showing the Buddha bowing
at the feet of Nirgrantha Jnatiputra (identified with Mahavira, the founder of Jainism). On complaint from a Buddhist
devotee, Asoka issued an order to arrest him, and subsequently, another order to kill all the Ajivikas in Pundravardhana.
Around 18,000 followers of the Ajivika sect were executed as a result of this order.[6][18] Sometime later, another
Nirgrantha follower in Pataliputra drew a similar picture. Asoka burnt him and his entire family alive in their house. [18] He
also announced an award of one dinara (silver coin) to anyone who brought him the head of a Nirgrantha heretic.
According to Ashokavadana, as a result of this order, his own brother was mistaken for a heretic and killed by a
cowherd.[6]
[edit]Historical
sources
Main articles: Edicts of Ashoka, Ashokavadana, Mahavamsa, and Dipavamsa

Ashoka was almost forgotten by the historians of the early British India, but James Prinsep contributed in the revelation
of historical sources. Another important historian was British archaeologist John Hubert Marshall, who was directorGeneral of the Archaeological Survey of India. His main interests
were Sanchi and Sarnath besides Harappa and Mohenjodaro. Sir Alexander Cunningham, a British archaeologist and
army engineer and often known as the father of the Archaeological Survey of India, unveiled heritage sites like
theBharhut Stupa, Sarnath, Sanchi, and the Mahabodhi Temple; thus, his contribution is recognisable in realms of
historical sources.Mortimer Wheeler, a British archaeologist, also exposed Ashokan historical sources, especially
the Taxila.
Bilingual inscription (in Greek andAramaic) by King Ashoka, discovered atKandahar (National Museum of Afghanistan).
Information about the life and reign of Ashoka primarily comes from a relatively small number of Buddhist sources. In
particular, the Sanskrit Ashokavadana ('Story of Ashoka'), written in the 2nd century, and the two Pli chronicles of Sri
Lanka (the Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa) provide most of the currently known information about Ashoka. Additional
information is contributed by the Edicts of Asoka, whose authorship was finally attributed to the Ashoka of Buddhist
legend after the discovery of dynastic lists that gave the name used in the edicts (Priyadarsi 'He who regards
everyone with affection') as a title or additional name of Ashoka Mauriya. Architectural remains of his period have been
found at Kumhrar, Patna, which include an 80-pillar hypostyle hall.
Edicts of Ashoka -The Edicts of Ashoka are a collection of 33 inscriptions on the Pillars of Ashoka, as well as boulders
and cave walls, made by the Emperor Ashoka of the Mauryan dynasty during his reign from 272 to 231 BCE. These
inscriptions are dispersed throughout the areas of modern-day Pakistan and India, and represent the first tangible
evidence of Buddhism. The edicts describe in detail the first wide expansion of Buddhism through the sponsorship of
one of the most powerful kings of Indian history, offering more information about Ashoka's proselytism, Moral precepts,
Religious precepts, Social and animal welfare.[19]
Ashokavadana The Ashokavadana is a 2nd-century CE text related to the legend of the Maurya Emperor Ashoka.
The legend was translated into Chinese by Fa Hien in 300 CE. It is essentially a Hinayana text and its world is that of
Mathura and North-west India. The emphasis of this little known text is on exploring the relationship between the king
and the community of monks (the Sangha) and setting up an ideal of religious life for the laity (the common man) by
telling appealing stories about religious exploits. The most startling feature is that Ashokas conversion has nothing to
do with the Kalinga war, which is not even mentioned, nor is there a word about his belonging to the Maurya dynasty.
Equally surprising is the record of his use of state power to spread Buddhism in an uncompromising fashion. The
legend of Veetashoka provides insights into Ashokas character that are not available in the widely known Pali
records.[12]
Mahavamsa -The Mahavamsa ("Great Chronicle") is a historical poem written in the Pali language, of the kings of Sri
Lanka. It covers the period from the coming of King Vijaya of Kalinga (ancient Odisha) in 543 BCE to the reign of King
Mahasena (334361). As it often refers to the royal dynasties of India, the Mahavamsa is also valuable for historians
who wish to date and relate contemporary royal dynasties in the Indian subcontinent. It is very important in dating the
consecration of the Maurya emperor Ashoka.
Dipavamsa -The Dipavamsa, or "Deepavamsa", (i.e., Chronicle of the Island, in Pali) is the oldest historical record of Sri
Lanka. The chronicle is believe to be compiled from Atthakatha and other sources around the 3rd or 4th century; King
Dhatusena (4th century CE) had ordered that the Dipavamsa be recited at the Mahinda (son to Ashoka) festival held
annually in Anuradhapura.
[edit]Perceptions
The use of Buddhist sources in reconstructing the life of Ashoka has had a strong influence on perceptions of Ashoka,
as well as the interpretations of his Edicts. Building on traditional accounts, early scholars regarded Ashoka as a
primarily Buddhist monarch who underwent a conversion to Buddhism and was actively engaged in sponsoring and
supporting the Buddhist monastic institution. Some scholars have tended to question this assessment. The only source
of information not attributable to Buddhist sources are the Ashokan Edicts, and these do not explicitly state that Ashoka
was a Buddhist. In his edicts, Ashoka expresses support for all the major religions of his
time: Buddhism, Brahmanism, Jainism, and Ajivikaism, and his edicts addressed to the population at large (there are
some addressed specifically to Buddhists; this is not the case for the other religions) generally focus on moral themes
members of all the religions would accept.
However, there is strong evidence in the edicts alone that he was a Buddhist. In one edict he belittles rituals, and he
banned Vedic animal sacrifices; these strongly suggest that he at least did not look to the Vedic tradition for guidance.
Furthermore, there are many edicts expressed to Buddhists alone; in one, Ashoka declares himself to be an "upasaka",
and in another he demonstrates a close familiarity with Buddhist texts. He erected rock pillars at Buddhist holy sites, but
did not do so for the sites of other religions. He also used the word "dhamma" to refer to qualities of the heart that
underlie moral action; this was an exclusively Buddhist use of the word. Finally, the ideals he promotes correspond to
the first three steps of the Buddha's graduated discourse.[20]
Interestingly, the Ashokavadana presents an alternate view of the faimilar Ashoka; one in which his conversion does not
have anything to do with the Kalinga war or about his descent from the Maurya dynasty. Instead, Ashoka's reason for
adopting non-violence appears much more personal. The Ashokavadana shows that the main source of Ashoka's
conversion and the acts of welfare that followed are rooted instead in intense personal anguish at its core, from a
wellspring inside himself (not so much necessarily spurned by a specific event). It thereby illuminates Ashoka as more
humanly ambitious and passionate, with both greatness and flaws. ThisAshoka is very different from the "shadowy dogooder" of later Pali chronicles.[12]
Much of the knowledge about Ashoka comes from the several inscriptions that he had carved on pillars and rocks
throughout the empire. All his inscriptions present him as compassionate loving. In the Kalinga rock edits, he addresses
his people as his "children" and mentions that as a father he desires their good. [21] These inscriptions promoted
Buddhist morality and encouraged nonviolence and adherence to dharma (duty or proper behaviour), and they talk of
his fame and conquered lands as well as the neighbouring kingdoms holding up his might. One also gets some primary
information about the Kalinga War and Ashoka's allies plus some useful knowledge on the civil administration. The
Ashoka Pillar at Sarnath is the most notable of the relics left by Ashoka. Made of sandstone, this pillar records the visit
of the emperor to Sarnath, in the 3rd century BCE. It has a four-lion capital (four lions standing back to back) which was
adopted as the emblem of the modern Indian republic. The lion symbolises both Ashoka's imperial rule and the kingship
of theBuddha. In translating these monuments, historians learn the bulk of what is assumed to have been true fact of
the Mauryan Empire. It is difficult to determine whether or not some actual events ever happened, but the stone
etchings clearly depict how Ashoka wanted to be thought of and remembered.
[edit]Foci
of Debate
Recently scholarly analysis has determined that the three major foci of debate regarding Ashoka involve the nature of
the Maurya empire; the extent and impact of Ashoka's pacifism, and what is referred to in the Inscriptions
as dhamma or dharma, which connotes goodness, virtue, and charity. Some historians [who?] have argued that Ashoka's
pacifism undermined the "military backbone" of the Maurya empire, while others have suggested that the extent and
impact of his pacifism have been "grossly exaggerated. The dhammaof the Edicts has been understood as concurrently
a Buddhist lay ethic, a set of politico-moral ideas, a "sort of universal religion," or as an Ashokan innovation. On the
other hand, it has also been interpreted as an essentially political ideology that sought to knit together a vast and
diverse empire. Scholars are still attempting to analyse and both the expressed and implied political ideas of the Edicts
(particularly in regard to imperial vision), and make inferences pertaining to how that vision was grappling with problems
and political realities of a "virtually subcontinental, and culturally and economically highly variegated, 3rd century BCE
Indian empire. Nonetheless, it remains clear that Ashoka's Inscriptions represent the earliest corpus of royal inscriptions
in the Indian subcontinent, and therefore prove to be a very important innovation in royal practices.[19]
[edit]Contributions
[edit]Global
spread of Buddhism
Stupa of Sanchi.
As a Buddhist emperor, Ashoka believed that Buddhism is beneficial for all human beings as well as animals and
plants, so he built a number of stupas, Sangharama, viharas, chaitya, and residences for Buddhist monks all over South
Asia and Central Asia. He gave donations to viharas and mathas. He sent his only daughter Sanghamitra and
son Mahindra to spread Buddhism in Sri Lanka (then known as Tamraparni). Ashoka also sent many prominent
Buddhist monks (bhikshus) Sthaviras like Madhyamik Sthavira to modern Kashmir and Afghanistan; Maharaskshit
Sthavira to Syria, Persia / Iran, Egypt, Greece, Italy and Turkey; Massim Sthavira to Nepal, Bhutan, China and
Mongolia; Sohn Uttar Sthavira to modern Cambodia, Laos, Burma (old name Suvarnabhumi for Burma and Thailand),
Thailand and Vietnam; Mahadhhamarakhhita stahvira to Maharashtra (old name Maharatthha); Maharakhhit Sthavira
and Yavandhammarakhhita Sthavira to South India.
Ashoka also invited Buddhists and non-Buddhists for religious conferences. He inspired the Buddhist monks to
compose the sacred religious texts, and also gave all types of help to that end. Ashoka also helped to develop viharas
(intellectual hubs) such as Nalandaand Taxila. Ashoka helped to construct Sanchi and Mahabodhi Temple. Ashoka also
gave donations to non-Buddhists. As his reign continued his even-handedness was replaced with special inclination
towards Buddhism.[22] Ashoka helped and respected both Sramans (Buddhists monks) and Brahmins (Vedic monks).
Ashoka also helped to organise the Third Buddhist council (c. 250 BCE) at Pataliputra (today's Patna). It was conducted
by the monk Moggaliputta-Tissa who was the spiritual teacher of the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka.
It is well-known that Ashoka sent dtas or emissaries to convey messages or letters, written or oral (rather both), to
various people. The VIth Rock Edict about "oral orders" reveals this. It was later confirmed that it was not unusual to
add oral messages to written ones, and the content of Ashoka's messages can be inferred likewise from the XIIIth Rock
Edict: They were meant to spread hisdhammavijaya, which he considered the highest victory and which he wished to
propagate everywhere (including far beyond India). There is obvious and undeniable trace of cultural contact through
the adoption of the Kharosthi script, and the idea of installing inscriptions might have travelled with this script,
as Achaemenid influence is seem in some of the formulations used by Ashoka in his inscriptions. This indicates to us
that Ashoka was indeed in contact with other cultures, and was an active part in mingling and spreading new cultural
ideas beyond his own immediate walls.[23]
In his edicts, Ashoka mentions some of the people living in Hellenic countries as converts to Buddhism, although no
Hellenic historical record of this event remain:
Now it is conquest by Dhamma that Beloved-of-the-Gods considers to be the best conquest. And it (conquest by
Dhamma) has been won here, on the borders, even six hundred yojanas away, where the Greek king Antiochos rules,
beyond there where the four kings named Ptolemy, Antigonos, Magas and Alexander rule, likewise in the south among
the Cholas, the Pandyas, and as far as Tamraparni. Here in the king's domain among the Greeks, the Kambojas, the
Nabhakas, the Nabhapamkits, the Bhojas, the Pitinikas, the Andhras and the Palidas, everywhere people are following
Beloved-of-the-Gods' instructions in Dhamma. Even where Beloved-of-the-Gods' envoys have not been, these people
too, having heard of the practice of Dhamma and the ordinances and instructions in Dhamma given by Beloved-of-theGods, are following it and will continue to do so.
Edicts of Ashoka, Rock Edict (S. Dhammika)[24]
It is not too farfetched to imagine, however, that Ashoka received letters from Greek rulers and was acquainted with the
Hellenistic royal orders in the same way as he perhaps knew of the inscriptions of the Achaemenid kings, given the
presence of ambassadors of Hellenistic kings in India (as well as the dtas sent by Ashoka himself).[23]
The Greeks in India even seem to have played an active role in the propagation of Buddhism, as some of the
emissaries of Ashoka, such as Dharmaraksita, are described in Pali sources as leading Greek (Yona) Buddhist monks,
active in spreading Buddhism (theMahavamsa, XII[25]).
[edit]As
administrator
Mauryan ringstone, with standing goddess. Northwest Pakistan. 3rd century BCE. British Museum.
Ashoka's military power was strong, but after his conversion to Buddhism, he maintained friendly relations with
kingdoms in the South like Cholas, Pandya, Keralaputra, the post Alexandrian empire, Tamraparni, and Suvarnabhumi.
His edicts state that he made provisions for medical treatment of humans and animals in his own kingdom as well as in
these neighbouring states. He also had wells dug and trees planted along the roads for the benefit of the common
people.[21]
Ashoka banned the slaughter and eating of the common cattle, and also imposed restrictions on fishing and fisheating.[26] He also abolished the royal hunting of animals and restricted the slaying of animals for food in the royal
residence.[27] Because he banned hunting, created many veterinary clinics and eliminated meat eating on many
holidays, the Mauryan Empire under Ashoka has been described as "one of the very few instances in world history of a
government treating its animals as citizens who are as deserving of its protection as the human residents." [28]
[edit]Ashoka
Chakra
Main article: Ashoka Chakra
The Ashoka Chakra, "the wheel of Righteousness" (Dharma in Sanskrit or Dhamma in Pali)"
The Ashoka Chakra (the wheel of Ashoka) is a depiction of the Dharmachakra (seeDharmacakra) or Dhammachakka
in Pali, the Wheel of Dharma (Sanskrit: Chakra means wheel). The wheel has 24 spokes which represent the 12 Laws
of Dependent Origination and the 12 Laws of Dependent Termination. The Ashoka Chakra has been widely inscribed
on many relics of the Mauryan Emperor, most prominent among which is the Lion Capital ofSarnath and The Ashoka
Pillar. The most visible use of the Ashoka Chakra today is at the centre of the National flag of the Republic of India
(adopted on 22 July 1947), where it is rendered in a Navy-blue color on a White background, by replacing the symbol of
Charkha (Spinning wheel) of the pre-independence versions of the flag. The Ashoka Chakra can also been seen on the
base of Lion Capital of Ashoka which has been adopted as the National Emblem of India.
The Ashoka Chakra was built by Ashoka during his reign. Chakra is a Sanskrit word which also means "cycle" or "selfrepeating process." The process it signifies is the cycle of time- as in how the world changes with time.
A few days before India became independent on August 1947, the specially formedConstituent Assembly decided that
the flag of India must be acceptable to all parties and communities.[29] A flag with three colours, Saffron, White and
Green with the Ashoka Chakra was selected.
[edit]Pillars
of Ashoka (Ashokstambha)
Main article: Pillars of Ashoka

The pillars of Ashoka are a series of columns dispersed throughout the northern Indian subcontinent, and erected by
Ashoka during his reign in the 3rd century BCE. Originally, there must have been many pillars of Ashoka although only
ten with inscriptions still survive. Averaging between forty and fifty feet in height, and weighing up to fifty tons each, all
the pillars were quarried at Chunar, just south of Varanasi and dragged, sometimes hundreds of miles, to where they
were erected. The first Pillar of Ashoka was found in the 16th century by Thomas Coryat in the ruins of ancient Delhi.
The wheel represents the sun time and Buddhist law, while the swastika stands for the cosmic dance around a fixed
center and guards against evil. There is no evidence of a swastika, or manji, on the pillars.
The Asokan pillar at Lumbini, Nepal
[edit]Lion
Capital of Asoka (Ashokmudra)
Main article: Lion Capital of Asoka

The Lion capital of Ashoka is a sculpture of four "Indian lions" standing back to back. It was originally placed atop the
Aoka pillar at Sarnath, now in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. The pillar, sometimes called the Aoka Column is still
in its original location, but the Lion Capital is now in the Sarnath Museum. This Lion Capital of Ashoka from Sarnath has
been adopted as the National Emblem of India and the wheel "Ashoka Chakra" from its base was placed onto the
center of the National Flag of India.
The capital contains four lions (Indian / Asiatic Lions), standing back to back, mounted on an abacus, with a frieze
carrying sculptures in high relief of an elephant, a galloping horse, a bull, and a lion, separated by intervening spoked
chariot-wheels over a bell-shaped lotus. Carved out of a single block of polished sandstone, the capital was believed to
be crowned by a 'Wheel of Dharma' (Dharmachakra popularly known in India as the "Ashoka Chakra").
The Ashoka Lion capital or the Sarnath lion capital is also known as the national symbol of India. The Sarnath pillar
bears one of the Edicts of Ashoka, an inscription against division within the Buddhist community, which reads, "No one
shall cause division in the order of monks." The Sarnath pillar is a column surmounted by a capital, which consists of a
canopy representing an inverted bell-shaped lotus flower, a short cylindrical abacus with four 24-spoked Dharma
wheels with four animals (an elephant, a bull, a horse, a lion).
The four animals in the Sarnath capital are believed to symbolise different steps of Lord Buddha's life.
The Elephant represents the Buddha's idea in reference to the dream of Queen
Maya of a white elephant entering her womb.
The Bull represents desire during the life of the Buddha as a prince.
The Horse represents Buddha's departure from palatial life.
The Lion represents the accomplishment of Buddha.
Besides the religious interpretations, there are some non-religious interpretations also about the symbolism of the
Ashoka capital pillar at Sarnath. According to them, the four lions symbolise Ashoka's rule over the four directions, the
wheels as symbols of his enlightened rule (Chakravartin) and the four animals as symbols of four adjoining territories of
India.
[edit]Constructions
credited to Ashoka
Mahabodhi Temple, constructed by Ashoka the Great, approximately 250 BCE;restoration by the British and India post independence
The British restoration was done by under guidance from Ven.Weligama Sri Sumangala [citation needed]
Sanchi, Madhya Pradesh, India
Dhamek Stupa, Sarnath, Uttar Pradesh, India
Mahabodhi Temple, Bihar, India
Barabar Caves, Bihar, India
Nalanda University (Vishwaviddyalaya), (some portions like Sariputta Stupa), Bihar,

India
Taxila University (Vishwaviddyalaya), (some portions like Dharmarajika Stupa and

Kunala Stupa), Taxila, Pakistan
[edit]In
Bhir Mound, (reconstructed), Taxila, Pakistan
Bharhut stupa, Madhya Pradesh, India
Deorkothar Stupa, Madhya Pradesh, India
Butkara Stupa, Swat, Pakistan
Sannati Stupa, Karnataka, India: The only known sculptural depiction of Ashoka
art, film and literature
One of the most famous figures in modern Hindi literature, Jaishankar Prasad,
composedAshoka ki chinta (in English: Anxiety of Ashoka), a famous Hindi verse.
The poem portrays Ashokas heart during the war of Kalinga.
Uttar-Priyadarshi (The Final Beatitude) a verse-play written by poet Agyeya,

depicting his redemption, was adapted to stage in 1996 by theatre director, Ratan
Thiyam and has since been performed in many parts of the world.[30][31]
In Piers Anthonys series of space opera novels, the main character mentions
Asoka as a model for administrators to strive for.
Asoka is a 2001 epic Bollywood historical drama. It is a largely fictional version of

the life of the Indian emperor Ashoka. The film was directed by Santosh Sivan and
stars Shahrukh Khan as Ashoka and Kareena Kapoor as Kaurwaki, a princess of
Kalinga. The film ends with Asoka renouncing the sword and embracing Buddhism.
The final narrative describes how Asoka not only built a large empire, but spread
Buddhism and the winds of peace through it.
The Legend of Kunal is an upcoming film based on the life of Kunal, the son of the
Indian emperor Ashoka. The movie will be directed by Chandraprakash Dwivedi.
In 1973, Amar Chitra Katha released a graphic novel based on the life of Ashoka.
In 2002, Mason Jennings released the song "Emperor Ashoka" on his Living in the
Moment EP. It is based on the life of Ashoka.
[edit]See
also
Arthashastra
Ashoka's Major Rock Edict
Ashokavadana
Edicts of Ashoka
Kalinga War
Lion Capital of Ashoka
Magadha
Maurya Empire
Sisupalgarh
Buddhism
[edit]References
1.
^ Thapur (1973), p. 51.
2.
a b
Jerry Bentley, Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges
in Pre-Modern Times (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 44.

3.
^ Jerry Bentley, Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in

Pre-Modern Times (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 45.
4.
^ Jerry Bentley, Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in

Pre-Modern Times (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 46.
5.
^ Bruce Rich. To Uphold The World Author Discussion
6.
a b c
John S. Strong (1989). The Legend of King Aoka: A Study and Translation
of the Aokvadna. Motilal Banarsidass Publ.. pp. 232. ISBN 978-81-208-0616-0.

Retrieved 30 October 2012.
7.
^ History And Doctrines of the Ajivikas A Vanished Indian Religion By A. L. Basham
8.
^ K. T. S. Sarao (2007). A text book of the history of Theravda Buddhism (2 ed.).

Department of Buddhist Studies, University of Delhi. p. 89. ISBN 978-81-86700-662.
9.
a b c d
Upinder Singh (2008). A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From
the Stone Age to the 12th century. Pearson Education. ISBN 978-81-317-1677-9.
10. ^ Prachin bharoter itihas by Sunil Chatterjee
11. ^ Gyan Swarup Gupta (1 January 1999). India: From Indus Valley Civlization to
Mauryas. Concept Publishing Company. pp. 268. ISBN 978-81-7022-763-2.
Retrieved 30 October 2012.
12. ^
a b c d
Pradip Bhattacharya (2002). "The Unknown Ashoka". Boloji.com. Retrieved
30 November 2012.
13. ^ Charles Drekmeier (1962). Kingship and Community in Early India. Stanford
University Press. pp. 173. ISBN 978-0-8047-0114-3. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
14. ^ prachin bharater itihas by sunil chattopadhyay
15. ^ Smith, Vincent A. (1901). Rulers of India: Asoka: The Buddhist Emperor of India.
Oxford at the Clarendon Press. pp. 130.
16. ^ Kamath, Prabhakar. "How Ashoka the Great Gave Brahmins A Song With Which
They Conquered India". Nirmukta.
17. ^ Buckley, Edmund. Universal Religion. The University Association.
18. ^
a b
Beni Madhab Barua (5 May 2010). The Ajivikas. General Books. pp. 68
69. ISBN 978-1-152-74433-2. Retrieved 30 October 2012.

19. ^
a b
Upinder Singh (2012). "Governing the State and the Self: Political Philosophy
and Practice in the Edicts of Asoka". South Asian Studies (Routledge) (28.2).
20. ^ Richard Robinson, Willard Johnson, and Thanissaro Bhikkhu,Buddhist Religions,
fifth ed., Wadsworth 2005, page 59.
21. ^
a b
The Edicts of King Ashoka, English translation (1993) by Ven. S.
Dhammika. ISBN 955-24-0104-6. Retrieved on: 2009-02-21

22. ^ N.V. Isaeva, Shankara and Indian philosophy. SUNY Press, 1993, page 24.
23. ^
a b
Oskar von Hinber (2010). "Did Hellenistic Kings Send Letters to
Asoka?". Journal of the American Oriental Society(Freiburg) (130.2): 262265.

24. ^ The Edicts of King Asoka: an English rendering by Ven. S. Dhammika. Access to
Insight: Readings in Theravda Buddhism. Last accessed 01 Sep 2011.
25. ^ Full text of the Mahavamsa Click chapter XII
26. ^ Frederick J. Simoons (15 December 1994). Eat Not This Flesh, 2Nd Edition: Food
Avoidances From Prehistory To The Present. Univ of Wisconsin Press. pp. 108 and
288.ISBN 978-0-299-14254-4. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
27. ^ Gerald Irving A. Dare Draper; Michael A. Meyer; H. McCoubrey
(1998). Reflections on Law and Armed Conflicts: The Selected Works on the Laws
of War by the Late Professor Colonel G.I.A.D. Draper, Obe. Martinus Nijhoff
Publishers. p. 44.ISBN 978-90-411-0557-8. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
28. ^ Phelps, Norm (2007). The Longest Struggle: Animal Advocacy from Pythagoras
to Peta. Lantern Books.ISBN 1590561066.
29. ^ Heimer, eljko (2 July 2006). "India". Flags of the World.Archived from the
original on 18 October 2006. Retrieved 2006-10-11.
30. ^ Margo Jefferson (27 October 2000). "Next Wave Festival Review; In Stirring
Ritual Steps, Past and Present Unfold".New York Times.
31. ^ Review: Uttarpriyadarshi by Renee Renouf, ballet magazine, December 2000,
[edit]Works
cited
Ahir, D. C. (1995). Asoka the Great. Delhi: B. R. Publishing.
Bhandarkar, D.R. (1969). Aoka (4th ed.). Calcutta: Calcutta University Press.
Bongard-Levin, G. M. Mauryan India (Stosius Inc/Advent Books Division May

1986) ISBN 0-86590-826-5
Chauhan, Gian Chand (2004). Origin and Growth of Feudalism in Early India: From
the Mauryas to AD 650. Munshiram Manoharlal, Delhi. ISBN 978-81-215-1028-8
Durant, Will (1935). Our Oriental Heritage. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Falk, Harry. Asokan Sites and Artefacts A Source-book with Bibliography (Mainz :
Philipp von Zabern, [2006]) ISBN 978-3-8053-3712-0
Gokhale, Balkrishna Govind (1996). Asoka Maurya (Twayne Publishers) ISBN 9780-8290-1735-9
Hultzsch, Eugene (1914). The Date of Asoka, The Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society of Great Britain and Ireland (Oct. 1914), pp. 943951. Article stable URL.
Keay, John. India: A History (Grove Press; 1 Grove Pr edition 10 May 2001) ISBN
0-8021-3797-0
Mookerji, Radhakumud (1962). Aoka (3rd ed.). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas.
Nikam, N. A.; McKeon, Richard (1959). The Edicts of Aoka. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Sastri, K. A. Nilakanta (1967). Age of the Nandas and Mauryas. Reprint: 1996,
Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi. ISBN 978-81-208-0466-1
Singh, Upinder (2012). "Governing the State and the Self: Political Philosophy and
Practice in the Edicts of Aoka," South Asian Studies, 28:2 (University of Delhi:
2012), pp. 131145. Article stable URL.
Swearer, Donald. Buddhism and Society in Southeast Asia (Chambersburg,

Pennsylvania: Anima Books, 1981) ISBN 0-89012-023-4
Thapar, Romila. (1973). Aoka and the decline of the Mauryas. 2nd Edition. Oxford
University Press, Reprint, 1980. SBN 19-660379 6.
von Hinber, Oskar. (2010). "Did Hellenistic Kings Send Letters to Aoka?" Journal
of the American Oriental Society, 130:2 (Freiburg: 2010), pp. 261266.
[edit]External
links
Wikisource has the text of

the1911 Encyclopdia
Britannicaarticle Asoka.
Ashoka at the Open Directory Project

Media related to Ashoka at Wikimedia Commons
Quotations related to Ashoka at Wikiquote
International Vegetarian Union: King Asoka of India
Reclaiming Ashoka An Iron Age Interfaith Exemplar
The Unknown Ashoka
How Ashoka The Great Gave Brahmins A Song With Which They Conquered India
Ashoka
Mauryan dynasty
Born: 304 BCE Died: 232 BCE
Preceded by
Bindusara
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272232 BCE
Dasaratha
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Chandragupta Maurya
Chandragupta Maurya
Samraat (Emperor)
Titles
Samraat Chakravartin
Born
340 BC
Birthplace
Pataliputra (Patna), Bihar, India
Died
298 BC
Place of death
Sravana Belgola, Karnataka, India[1]
Predecessor
Dhanananda of Nanda Dynasty
Successor
Bindusara
Consort
Durdhara
Offspring
Bindusara
Royal House
Mauryan dynasty
Mother
Mura
Religious beliefs Hinduism, gave up his throne and became a Jain monk
Chandragupta Maurya (340 BC 298 BC) was the founder of the Mauryan Empire and the first emperor to
unify India into one state. He ruled from from 322 BC until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favour of his
son Bindusara in 298 BC.[2][3][4]
Chandragupta Maurya is a pivotal figure in the history of India. Prior to his consolidation of power, most of South
Asia was ruled by small states, while the Nanda Dynasty dominated the Gangetic Plains.[5] Chandragupta succeeded in
conquering and subjugating almost all of the Indian subcontinent by the end of his reign.[nb 1] His empire extended
from Bengaland Assam in the east, to Afghanistan and Balochistan, eastern and south-east Iran in the west,
to Kashmir and Nepal in the north, and to the Deccan Plateau in the south. It was the largest empire yet seen in Indian
history.[6][7]
After unifying India, Chandragupta and his chief advisor Chanakya passed a series of major economic and political
reforms. He established a strong central administration patterned after that of the Persian Achaemenid dynasty and
after Chanakyas text on politics, theArthashastra. Mauryan India was characterised by an efficient and highly organised
bureaucratic structure with a large civil service. Due its unified structure, the empire developed a strong economy, with
internal and external trade thriving and agriculture flourishing. In both art and architecture, the Mauryan empire
constitued a landmark. There was a growth in culture which derived its inspiration from the Achaemenids and
theHellenistic world.[8] Chandragupta's reign was a time of great social and religious reform in India. The religious reform
movements ofBuddhism and Jainism became increasingly prominent.
In foreign Greek and Latin accounts, Chandragupta is known as Sandrokottos and Androcottus.[9] He became well
known in the Hellenistic world for conquering Alexander the Great's easternmost satrapies, and for defeating the most
powerful of Alexander's successors, Seleucus I Nicator, in battle. Chandragupta subsequently married Seleucus's
daughter to formalize an alliance and established a policy of friendship with the Hellenistic kingdoms, which stimulated
India's trade and contact with the western world. The Greek diplomat Megasthenes is an important source of Mauryan
history.
Taditionally, Chandragupta, who was a Hindu, was influenced to accept Jainism by the sage Bhadrabahu; he abdicated
his throne to spend his last days at the Shravana Belgola, a famous religious site in southwest India, where he fasted to
death. Along with his grandson, Ashoka, Chandragupta Maurya is one of the most celebrated rulers in the history of
India. He has played a crucial role in shaping the national identity of modern India, and has been lionised as a model
ruler and as a national hero.
Contents
[hide]
1 Early life
2 Foundation of the Maurya Empire
2.1 Nanda army
2.2 Conquest of the Nanda Empire
2.3 Conquest of Macedonian territories in India
3 Expansion
3.1 Conquest of Seleucus' eastern territories
3.2 Southern conquest
4 Jainism and Sallekhana
5 Successors
6 In popular culture
7 See also
8 References
8.1 Notes
8.2 Footnotes
9 Further reading
10 External links
[edit]Early
life
Very little is known about Chandragupta's youth. What is known is rathered from later classical Sanskrit literature, as
well as classicalGreek and Latin sources which refer to Chandragupta by the names "Sandracottos" or "Andracottus."[10]
Plutarch reports that he met with Alexander the Great, probably around Takshasila in the northwest, and that he viewed
the rulingNanda Empire in a negative light:
Androcottus, when he was a stripling, saw Alexander himself, and we are told that he often said in later times that
Alexander narrowly missed making himself master of the country, since its king was hated and despised on account of
his baseness and low birth.
Plutarch, Parallel Lives: Life of Alexander 62.9
According to this text, the encounter would have happened around 326 BCE, suggesting a birth date for Chandragupta
around 340 BCE. Plutarch and other Greco-Roman historians appreciated the gravity of Chandragupta Maurya's
conquests. Justin describes the humble origins of Chandragupta, and explains how he later led a popular uprising
against the Nanda king.[11]
Many Indian literary traditions connect him with the Nanda Dynasty in modern day Bihar in eastern India. More than half
a millennium later, the Sanskrit drama Mudrarakshasa calls him a "Nandanvaya" i.e. the descendant of Nanda (Act IV).
Again more than a millennium later, Dhundiraja, a commentator of 18th century on Mudrarakshasa states that
Chandragupta was the son of the Nanda king Sarvarthasiddhi by a wife named Mura, daughter of a Vrishala (Shudra).
Mudrarakshasa uses terms like kula-hina and Vrishala for Chandragupta's lineage. This reinforces Justin's contention
that Chandragupta had a humble origin.[12][13] On the other hand, the same play describes the Nandas as of Prathitakula, i.e. illustrious, lineage. The medieval commentator on the Vishnu Purana informs us that Chandragupta was the
son of a Nanda prince and a Hindi: dasi (English: maid) named Mura. The poets Kshmendra and Somadeva call him
Purvananda-suta, son of the genuine Nanda, as opposed to Yoga-Nanda, i.e. pseudo-Nanda. The Nanda dynasty was
started byMahapadma Nanda, who is considered the first Shudra king of Magadha.[citation needed]
The Buddhist text the Mahavamsa calls Chandragupt a member of a division of the Khattiya (Kshatriya) clan called the
Moriya (Maurya). Divyvadna calls Bindusara, son of Chandragupt, an anointed Kshatriya, Kshatriya
Murdhabhishikata, and in the same work King Ashoka, son of Bindusara, is also styled a Kshatriya.
The Mahaparinibbana Sutta states that the Moriyas (Mauryas) belonged to the Kshatriya community of Pippalivana.
These traditions indicate that Chandragupt came from a Kshatriya lineage. TheMahavamshatika connects him with
the Shakya clan of the Buddha, a clan which also belongs to the race of dityas.[citation needed]
A medieval inscription represents the Maurya clan as belonging to the solar race of Kshatriyas. It is stated that the
Maurya line sprang from Suryavamsi Mandhatri, son of prince Yuvanashva of the solar race. [citation needed] Chandragupta
was a student of Chanakya.
[edit]Foundation
of the Maurya Empire
Further information: Magadha and Maurya Empire
Silver punch mark coin of the Maurya empire, with symbols of wheel and elephant. 3rd century BCE.
Chandragupta Maurya, with the help of Chanakya/kautilya, defeated the Magadha king and the army of the
Chandravanshi clan. Following his victory, the defeated generals of Alexander settled in Gandhara
(the Kamboja kingdom), today'sAfghanistan. At the time of Alexander's invasion, Chanakya was a teacher inTakshasila.
The king of Takshasila and Gandhara, Ambhi (also known as Taxiles), made a peace treaty with Alexander. Chanakya,
however, planned to defeat the foreign invasion and sought help from other kings to unite and fight Alexander.
Parvateshwara (Porus), a king of Punjab, was the only local king who was able to challenge Alexander at the Battle of
the Hydaspes River, but he was defeated.
Chanakya then went further east to Magadha, to seek the help of Dhana Nanda, who ruled the vast Nanda
Empire which extended from Bihar and Bengal in the east to Punjab and Sindh in the west,[11] but Dhana Nanda refused
to help him. After this incident, Chanakya began to persuade his disciple Chandragupta of the need to build an empire
that could protect Indian territories from foreign invasion.
[edit]Nanda
army
The Nanda Empire at its greatest extent under Dhana Nanda circa 323 BCE.
Main article: Nanda Dynasty

According to Plutarch, at the time of the Battle of the Hydaspes River, the Nanda Empire's army numbered
200,000 infantry, 80,000 cavalry, 8,000 chariots, and 7,000 war elephants, which discouraged Alexander's men and
prevented their further progress into India:
"As for the Macedonians, however, their struggle with Porus blunted their courage and stayed their further
advance into India. For having had all they could do to repulse an enemy who mustered only twenty thousand
infantry and two thousand horse, they violently opposed Alexander when he insisted on crossing the river
Ganges also, the width of which, as they learned, was thirty-two furlongs, its depth a hundred fathoms, while
its banks on the further side were covered with multitudes of men-at-arms and horsemen and elephants. For
they were told that the kings of the Ganderites and Praesii were awaiting them with eighty thousand horsemen,
two hundred thousand footmen, eight thousand chariots, and six thousand fighting elephants. And there was no
boasting in these reports. For Androcottus, who reigned there not long afterwards, made a present to Seleucus
of five hundred elephants, and with an army of six hundred thousand men overran and subdued all India."
Plutarch, Parallel Lives, "Life of Alexander" 62.1-4
In order to defeat the powerful Nanda army, Chandragupta needed to raise a formidable army of his own. [11]
[edit]Conquest
of the Nanda Empire
Further information: Nanda Dynasty

Main article: Nanda War
Chandragupta's empire when he founded it c. 320 BCE, by the time he was about 20 years old.
Chanakya had trained and guided Chandragupta and together they planned the destruction of Dhana Nanda.
The Mudrarakshasa of Visakhadutta as well as the Jainwork Parisishtaparvan talk of Chandragupta's alliance with the
Himalayan king Parvatka, sometimes identified with Porus.[14]
It is noted in the Chandraguptakatha that Chandragupta and Chanakya were initially rebuffed by the Nanda forces.
Regardless, in the ensuing war, Chandragupta faced off against Bhadrasala, the commander of Dhana Nanda's armies.
He was eventually able to defeat Bhadrasala and Dhana Nanda in a series of battles, culminating in the siege of the
capital city Pataliputra[11] and the conquest of the Nanda Empire around 321 BCE,[11] thus founding the powerful Maurya
Empire in Northern India by the time he was about 20 years old.
[edit]Conquest
of Macedonian territories in India
Main article: SeleucidMauryan war
Chandragupta had defeated the remainingMacedonian satrapies in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent by 317 BCE.
After Alexander's death in 323 BCE, Chandragupta, turned his attention to Northwestern India (modern Pakistan),
where he defeated the satrapies (described as "prefects" in classical Western sources) left in place by Alexander
(according to Justin), and may have assassinated two of his governors, Nicanor and Philip.[3][11] The satrapies he fought
may have included Eudemus, ruler in western Punjab until his departure in 317 BCE; and Peithon, son of Agenor, ruler
of the Greek colonies along the Indus until his departure for Babylon in 316 BCE. The Roman historian Justindescribed
how Sandrocottus (Greek version of Chandragupta's name) conquered the northwest:
"Some time after, as he was going to war with the generals of Alexander, a wild elephant of great bulk
presented itself before him of its own accord, and, as if tamed down to gentleness, took him on its back, and
became his guide in the war, and conspicuous in fields of battle. Sandrocottus, having thus acquired a throne,
was in possession of India, when Seleucus was laying the foundations of his future greatness; who, after
making a league with him, and settling his affairs in the east, proceeded to join in the war against Antigonus.
As soon as the forces, therefore, of all the confederates were united, a battle was fought, in which Antigonus
was slain, and his son Demetrius put to flight. "
Justin, Historiarum Philippicarum libri XLIV, XV.4.19
[edit]Expansion
By the time he was only about 20 years old, Chandragupta, who had succeeded in defeating the Macedonian satrapies
in India and conquering the Nanda Empire, had founded a vast empire that extended from the Bay of Bengal in the
east, to the Indus River in the west. In later years he would expand this empire.
[edit]Conquest
of Seleucus' eastern territories
Silver coin of Seleucus I Nicator, who fought Chandragupta Maurya, and later made an alliance with him.
Chandragupta extended the borders of his empire towards Seleucid Persia after his conflict with Seleucus c. 305 BCE.
Seleucus I Nicator, a Macedonian satrap of Alexander, reconquered most of Alexander's former empire and put under
his own authority the eastern territories as far as Bactria and the Indus (Appian, History of Rome, The Syrian Wars 55),
until in 305 BCE he entered into conflict with Chandragupta:
Always lying in wait for the neighboring nations, strong in arms and persuasive in council, he acquired Mesopotamia,
Armenia, 'Seleucid' Cappadocia, Persis, Parthia, Bactria, Arabia, Tapouria, Sogdia, Arachosia, Hyrcania, and other
adjacent peoples that had been subdued by Alexander, as far as the river Indus, so that the boundaries of his empire
were the most extensive in Asia after that of Alexander. The whole region from Phrygia to the Indus was subject to
Seleucus. He crossed the Indus and waged war with Sandrocottus [Maurya], king of the Indians, who dwelt on the
banks of that stream, until they came to an understanding with each other and contracted a marriage relationship. Some
of these exploits were performed before the death of Antigonus and some afterward.
Appian, History of Rome, The Syrian Wars 55
The exact details of engagement are not known. As noted by scholars such as R. C. Majumdar and D. D. Kosambi,
Seleucus appears to have fared poorly, having ceded large territories west of the Indus to Chandragupta. Due to his
defeat, Seleucus surrendered Arachosia, Gedrosia, Paropamisadae, and Aria.[15]
Mainstream scholarship asserts that Chandragupta received vast territory west of the Indus, including the Hindu Kush,
modern day Afghanistan, and the Balochistanprovince of Pakistan.[16][17] Archaeologically, concrete indications of
Mauryan rule, such as the inscriptions of the Edicts of Ashoka, are known as far as Kandhahar in southern Afghanistan.
After having made a treaty with him [Sandrakotos] and put in order the Orient situation, Seleucos went to war
against Antigonus.
Junianus Justinus, Historiarum Philippicarum libri XLIV, XV.4.15
It is generally thought that Chandragupta married Seleucus's daughter to formalize an alliance. In a return gesture,
Chandragupta sent 500 war-elephants,[15][18][19][20][21][22]a military asset which would play a decisive role at the Battle of
Ipsus in 302 BCE. In addition to this treaty, Seleucus dispatched an ambassador, Megasthenes, to Chandragupta, and
later Deimakos to his son Bindusara, at the Mauryan court at Pataliputra (modern Patna in Bihar state). Later Ptolemy II
Philadelphus, the ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt and contemporary of Ashoka the Great, is also recorded by Pliny the
Elder as having sent an ambassador named Dionysius to the Mauryan court.[23]
Classical sources have also recorded that following their treaty, Chandragupta and Seleucus exchanged presents, such
as when Chandragupta sent various aphrodisiacs to Seleucus:
And Theophrastus says that some contrivances are of wondrous efficacy in such matters [as to make people more
amorous]. And Phylarchus confirms him, by reference to some of the presents which Sandrakottus, the king of the
Indians, sent to Seleucus; which were to act like charms in producing a wonderful degree of affection, while some, on
the contrary, were to banish love.
Athenaeus of Naucratis, Deipnosophistae, I.32
[edit]Southern
conquest
After annexing Seleucus' eastern Persian provinces, Chandragupta had a vast empire extending across the northern
parts of Indian Sub-continent, from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea. Chandragupta then began expanding his
empire further south beyond the barrier of the Vindhya Range and into the Deccan Plateau except the Tamil regions
(Pandya, Chera, Chola and Satyaputra) and Kalinga(modern day Odisha).[11] By the time his conquests were complete,
Chandragupta had succeeded in unifying most of Southern Asia. Megasthenes later recorded the size of
Chandragupta's army as 400,000 soldiers, according to Strabo:
Megasthenes was in the camp of Sandrocottus, which consisted of 400,000 men.
Strabo, Geographica, 15.1.53
On the other hand, Pliny, who also drew from Megasthenes' work, gives even larger numbers of 600,000 infantry,
30,000 cavalry, and 9,000 war elephants:
But the Prasii surpass in power and glory every other people, not only in this quarter, but one may say in all India, their
capital Palibothra, a very large and wealthy city, after which some call the people itself the Palibothri,--nay even the
whole tract along the Ganges. Their king has in his pay a standing army of 600,000-foot-soldiers, 30,000 cavalry, and
9,000 elephants: whence may be formed some conjecture as to the vastness of his resources.
Pliny, Natural History VI, 22.4
[edit]Jainism
and Sallekhana
Purportedly the mark of Chandragupta's footprints in Karnataka, India, not far from the cave where he starved himself to death in
accordance with Jain beliefs.
Chandragupt gave up his throne in 298 BCE, when he was 42 years old, and became an ascetic under the Jain
saint Acharya Bhadrabahu, migrating south with them and ending his days in "sallekhana" at ravaa Begoa in
present day Karnataka, though fifth-century inscriptions in the area support the concept of a larger southern migration
around that time.[24] A small temple marks the cave (Bhadrabahu Cave) where he is said to have died by fasting.
There are two hills in ravaa Begoa, Chandragiri (Chikkabetta) and Vindyagiri. The last shruta-kevali, Bhadrabahu
and his pupil Chandragupta Maurya, are believed to have meditated there. Chandragupta Basadi, which was dedicated
to Chandragupta Maurya, was originally built there by Emperor Ashoka in the third century BCE.
[edit]Successors
Main article: Maurya Empire

Chandragupta Maurya renounced his throne to his son, Bindusara, who became the new Mauryan
Emperor. Bindusara's son Ashoka the Great became one of the most influential kings in India's history due to his
important role in the history of Buddhism.
[edit]In
popular culture
Chanakya's role in formation of the Mauryan Empire is the essence of a historical/spiritual novel The Courtesan and the
Sadhu by Dr. Mysore N. Prakash.[25]
Santosh Sivan's 2001 epic Hindi language film Asoka. The sword of Chandragupt plays an important role in the film.
The television series Chanakya is an account of the life and times of Chanakya, based on the play "Mudra Rakshasa"
(The Signet Ring of "Rakshasa").
Also there is a television series on Imagine TV called Chandragupt Maurya[26]
The Indian Postal Service issued a commemorative postage stamp honoring Chandragupta Maurya in 2001.[27]
[edit]See
also
History portal
India portal
Bhagrathi community (Western UP)
Ancient Macedonian army
Arthashastra
Ashoka
Bindusara
Chanakya
Dasaratha Maurya
Samprati
Greco-Bactrian
Gupta
Indo-Greek Kingdom
List of Indian monarchs
List of people known as The Great
Mauryan art
Sulehria
[edit]References
[edit]Notes
1.
^ The conquest of the south is a matter of conjecture. Either Chandragupta or his

son and successor Bindusara established Mauryan rule over southern parts of
India. Old Jaina tets report that Chandragupta was a follower of that religion and
ended his life in Karnataka by fasting unto death. If this report is true,
Chandragupta must have started the conquest of the south.
[2]
[edit]Footnotes
1.
^ Chandragupta Maurya and his times By Radha Kumud Mookerji, 4th ed. 1966,
p.40. ISBN 81-208-0405-8; 81-208-0433-3
2.
a b
Kulke, Hermann; Rothermund, Dietmar (1998) [1986]. A History of India (Third
ed.). London: Routledge. p. 59-64.ISBN 0-415-15481-2.

3.
a b
Boesche, Roger (January 2003). "Kautilya's Arthastra on War and
Diplomacy in Ancient India". The Journal of Military History 67 (1): 9

37. doi:10.1353/jmh.2003.0006. ISSN 0899-3718.
4.
^ William Smith (ed), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology,
1870, Vol 3 p. 705-6
5.
^ Shastri, Nilakantha (1967). Age of the Nandas and Mauryas. Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass. p. 26. ISBN 81-208-0465-1.
6.
^ Vaughn, Bruce (2004). "Indian Geopolitics, the United States and Evolving
Correlates of Power in Asia". Geopolitics 9 (2): 440459
[442]. doi:10.1080/14650040490442944.
7.
^ Goetz, H. (1955). "Early Indian Sculptures from Nepal". Artibus Asiae 18 (1): 61
74. doi:10.2307/3248838.
8.
^ Sen, S. N. (1999). Ancient Indian History And Civilization. New Age International.
p. 165. ISBN 978-8122411980.
9.
^ William Smith (ed), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology,
1870, Vol 3 p. 705-6
10. ^ Romila Thapar; Early India: From the Origins to Ad 1300. University of California
Press. 2004. ISBN 978-0520242258. p. 177.
11. ^
a b c d e f g
Radhakumud Mookerji; Chandragupta Maurya And His Times. Motilal
Banarsidass Publ. 1966. ISBN 978-8120804050. p. 6.
12. ^ "He (Seleucus) next made an expedition into India, which, after the death of
Alexander, had shaken, as it were, the yoke of servitude from its neck, and put his
governors to death. The author of this liberation was Sandrocottus, who afterwards,
however, turned their semblance of liberty into slavery; for, making himself king, he
oppressed the people whom he had delivered from a foreign power, with a cruel
tyranny. This man was of mean origin, but was stimulated to aspire to regal power
by supernatural encouragement; for, having offended Alexander by his boldness of
speech, and orders being given to kill him, he saved himself by swiftness of foot;
and while he was lying asleep, after his fatigue, a lion of great size having come up
to him, licked off with his tongue the sweat that was running from him, and after
gently waking him, left him. Being first prompted by this prodigy to conceive hopes
of royal dignity, he drew together a band of robbers, and solicited the Indians to
support his new sovereignty. Some time after, as he was going to war with the
generals of Alexander, a wild elephant of great bulk presented itself before him of
its own accord, and, as if tamed down to gentleness, took him on its back, and
became his guide in the war, and conspicuous in fields of battle. Sandrocottus,
having thus acquired a throne, was in possession of India" (Justin "Epitome of the
Philippic History" XV-4)
13. ^ There is a controversy about Justin's account. Justin actually refers to a
name Nandrum, which many scholars believe is reference to Nanda (Dhana Nanda
of Magadha), while others say that it refers to Alexandrum, i.e., Alexander. It makes
some difference which version one believes
14. ^ John Marshall Taxila, p. 18, and al.
15. ^
a b
Ramesh Chandra Majumdar; Ancient India. Motilal Banarsidass Publ.
1977. ISBN 81-208-0436-8.

16. ^ Vincent A. Smith (1998). Asoka. Asian Educational Services.ISBN 81-206-13031.
17. ^ Walter Eugene, Clark (1919). "The Importance of Hellenism from the Point of
View of Indic-Philology". Classical Philology 14(4): 297313. doi:10.1086/360246.
18. ^ Ancient India, (Kachroo ,p.196)
19. ^ The Imperial Gazetteer of India, (Hunter,p.167)
20. ^ The evolution of man and society, (Darlington ,p.223)
21. ^ Tarn, W. W. (1940). "Two Notes on Seleucid History: 1. Seleucus' 500 Elephants,
2. Tarmita". The Journal of Hellenic Studies 60: 8494. doi:10.2307/626263.
22. ^ Partha Sarathi Bose (2003). Alexander the Great's Art of Strategy. Gotham
Books. ISBN 1-59240-053-1.
23. ^ Pliny the Elder, "The Natural History", Chap. 21
24. ^ Digambaras, Overview of World Religions, accessed 9 September 2007
25. ^ The Courtesan and the Sadhu, A Novel about Maya, Dharma, and God, October
2008, Dharma Vision LLC., ISBN 978-0-9818237-0-6, Library of Congress Control
Number: 2008934274
26. ^ TV, Imagine. "Channel". TV Channel.
27. ^ COMMEMORATIVE POSTAGE STAMP ON CHANDRAGUPTA MAURYA, Press
Information Bureau, Govt. of India
[edit]Further
reading
Kosambi, D.D. An Introduction to the Study of Indian History, Bombay: Popular

Prakashan, 1985
Bhargava, P.L. Chandragupta Maurya, New Delhi:D.K. Printworld, 160 pp., 2002.
Habib, Irfan. and Jha, Vivekanand. Mauryan India: A People's History of India,New
Delhi:Tulika Books, 2004; 189pp
Swearer, Donald. Buddhism and Society in Southeast Asia (Chambersburg,

Pennsylvania: Anima Books, 1981) ISBN 0-89012-023-4
Nilakanta Sastri, K. A. Age of the Nandas and Mauryas (Delhi : Motilal Banarsidass,
[1967] c1952) ISBN 0-89684-167-7
Bongard-Levin, G. M. Mauryan India (Stosius Inc/Advent Books Division May

1986) ISBN 0-86590-826-5
Chand Chauhan, Gian. Origin and Growth of Feudalism in Early India: From the
Mauryas to AD 650 (Munshiram Manoharlal January 2004) ISBN 81-215-1028-7
Keay, John. India: A History (Grove Press; 1 Grove Pr edition May 10, 2001) ISBN
0-8021-3797-0
Radha Kumud Mukherji. Chandragupta Maurya aur Uska Kaal (Rajkamal

Prakashan, Re Print 1990) ISBN-81-7171-088-1
[edit]External
links
Shepherd boy Chandragupta Maurya
1911encyclopedia.org article on Chandragupta Maurya
Chandragupta Maurya by Purushottam Lal Bhargava (BTM format)
Chandragupta Maurya mentioned in Bhagavata Purana
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Mauryan Emperor
322298 BC
Nanda Dynasty
Succeeded by
Bindusara
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Cont
Delhi Sultanate
Sultanate of Delhi
12061526
Delhi Sultanate under various dynasties.
Capital
Delhi
(12061327)
Daulatabad
(13271334)
Delhi
(13341506)
Agra
(15061526)
Languages
Persian (official)[1]
Religion
Sunni Islam
Government
Monarchy
Sultan
- 12061210
Qutb-ud-din Aibak (first)
- 15171526
Ibrahim Lodi (last)
Historical era
Late Medieval
- Established
1206
- Disestablished
1526
History of the Turks

Pre-14th century
Turkic Khaganate 552744
Western Turkic
Eastern Turkic
Khazar Khaganate 6181048
Turgesh Khaganate 699766
Uyghur Khaganate 744840
Kara-Khanid Khanate 8401212

Western Kara-Khanid
Eastern Kara-Khanid
Pecheneg Khanates Kimek Khanate
8601091
7431035
Kipchak Khanates
10671239
Oghuz Yabgu State

7501055
Shatuo Dynasties 923979

Later Tang Dynasty
Later Jin Dynasty
Later Han Dynasty (Northern Han)
Ghaznavid Empire 9631186
Seljuq Empire 10371194
Khwarezmian Empire 10771231
Seljuq Sultanate of Rum 10921307
Delhi Sultanate 12061526

Mamluk Dynasty
Khilji Dynasty
Tughlaq Dynasty
Cairo Sultanate 12501517

Bahri Dynasty
Other Turkic Dynasties [show]
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Outline of South Asian history

History of Indian subcontinent
Stone age (70003000 BC)[show]

Bronze age (30001300 BC)[show]
Iron age (120026 BC)[show]
Classical period (11279 AD)[show]
Late medieval age (12061596 AD)[show]
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Other states (11021947 AD)[show]
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The Delhi Sultanate is a term used to cover five short-lived dynasties, Delhi based kingdoms or sultanates, mostly
of Turkic and Pashtun (Afghan) origin in medieval India. The sultanates ruled from Delhi between 1206 and 1526, when
the last was replaced by the Mughal dynasty. The five dynasties were the Mamluk dynasty(120690); the Khilji
dynasty (12901320); the Tughlaq dynasty (13201414); theSayyid dynasty (141451); and the Afghan Lodi
dynasty (14511526).
Qutb-ud-din Aibak, a former slave (Mamluk) of Muhammad of Ghor, was the firstsultan of Delhi and his dynasty
managed to conquer large areas of northern India. Afterwards the Khalji dynasty was also able to conquer most of
central India, but both failed to unite the Indian subcontinent. The sultanate are also noted for being one of the few
states to repeatedly defeat the Mongol Empire.[2]
The Sultanate ushered in a period of Indian cultural renaissance. The resulting "Indo-Muslim" fusion of cultures left
lasting syncretic monuments in architecture,music, literature, religion and clothing. It is surmised that the Urdu language
(literally meaning "horde" or "camp" in various Turkic dialects) was born during this period as a result of the
intermingling of the local speakers of Sanskritic Prakritswith immigrants speaking Persian, Turkic and Arabic under the
Muslim rulers. The Delhi Sultanate is the only Indo-Islamic empire to have enthroned one of the few female rulers in
India, Razia Sultana (12361240). In 1526 the Delhi Sultanate was absorbed by the emerging Mughal Empire.
Contents
[hide]
1 Dynasties
1.1 Mamluk
1.2 Khilji
1.3 Tughlaq
1.4 Sayyid
1.5 Lodi
2 Monetary system
3 Mongol invasion and the fall of the Sultanate
4 Sultans
4.1 Mamluk/Slave dynasty
4.2 Khilji dynasty
4.3 Khusro Khan
4.4 Tughlaq dynasty
4.5 Sayyid dynasty
4.6 Lodi dynasty
5 See also
6 References
7 Notes
[edit]Dynasties
[edit]Mamluk
Main article: Mamluk Sultanate (Delhi)
Muhammad Ghori (d. 1206) had extended his state southwards at the expense of the Ghaznavidsas far as Lahore and
much of Rajasthan and the Punjab and appointed Qutub-ud-din Aibak asgovernor of this part of his realm. A slave
of Cuman-Kipchak origin, he proclaimed independence after the death of his patron and ruled from Delhi.[3] His line is
therefore known as the Slave (Mamluk) Dynasty on account of his origin. Aibak began the construction of Qutub Minar,
which was completed by Iltutmish, his successor and son-in-law. Aibak's legitimate successor was his son Aramshah,
but the nobles preferred Iltutmish, the Subedar of Badaun. Iltutmish was the most able ruler of the Mamluk Sultanate.
He trebled the exchequer during his reign. He was followed by Razia Sultana, his daughter, who was a good
administrator and the first female sovereign in India. Her rumored relationship with a Sidi adviser, Jamal-ud-Din Yaqut,
as he continued to rise in rank, forced her nobles to revolt against her. After Yaqut was killed and Razia imprisoned, she
later wedded Altunia (the Governor of Bhatinda), but she was killed by her nobles after 3 and half
years. Balban succeeded her and ruled until 1286 CE. A great Sultan, he was a Sufi devotee and highly regarded their
Saints; many a Sufi mystic settled in his sultanate, though only one of them rose to full ascendancy over him. [citation
needed]
Faced with revolts by conquered territories and rival families in the turmoil for succession after his death, the
Mamluk dynasty came to an end in 1290.
[edit]Khilji
Main article: Khilji dynasty
The Khilji dynasty were the second Muslim dynasty to rule the Delhi Sultanate. The slave rulers laid a firm foundation to
the Delhi Sultanate. Naturally Muslims from territories bordering to western northern India migrated to join other Muslim
settlers.
The first ruler of this dynasty was Jalal-ud-din firoz Khalji . he was a weak ruler and adopted a lenient policy towards the
Mongols . He got one of his daughters married to Ulugh Khan , the Mongol leader . He was suceeded by his nephew Ali
Gurshap , who took the title of Ala-ud-din .He became the Sultan of Delhi in AD 1296.He brought Gujarat and Malwa
under his rule. He was the most able ruler in the Khilji dynasty.He had a firm hold over his administration. He introduced
a free market policy in which he decreased the price of all essential items needed in daily life. The customs policies of
Ala-ud-din Khalji helped double the exchequer. According to Zia-ud-din Barani, a scholar in the sultan's court said that '
no gold, silver, tankas, jitals, on any superflous commodities, which are the causes of a rebellion , are to be found in the
houses of Hindus.' They were even deprived of the common luxury of chewing betel. [citation needed] After Ala-ud-din's death,
there was a war of succession amongst his sons .The last Khilji ruler was Khusrau Malik. He was weak and thus, the
Tughluqs captured the throne of Delhi.
[edit]Tughlaq
Main article: Tughlaq dynasty
The Tughlaq dynasty lasted for close to a hundred years. During this period, many parts of India, such as the states in
southern India became independent. It produced two powerful Sultans, Muhammad-Bin Tughlaq and Firoz Shah
Tughlaq. Ghias-ud-din Tughlaq (13201325), an efficient military commander, was the first ruler of the dynasty. He was
succeeded by Jauna Khan, who took the title of Muhammad bin Tughlaq, who was the most able ruler of the Tughluq
dynasty.He became the Sultan in AD 1325.His Empire covered the regions from Peshwar in the North to Madhurai in
the South and from Sindh in the west to Assam in the East.Muhammad made attempts at improving the administration
of his vast empire.He tried to reform the currency. He minted new copper coins. He ordered that copper coins should be
used in place of the gold and silver coins.However, there was no control over the minting of the copper coins. This
created a lot of confussion in the transactions. Therefore, Muhammad made arrangements for exchanging gold and
silver coins against copper coins. This put a tremendous strain on the govt. treasury. He had to take back this scheme.
He refused to accept the title of Emperor though he expanded his rule to the peninsula. He doubled the exchequer and
shifted his capital in 1326 from Delhi to Daulatabad.He was man of ideas, but he lacked the skill required for putting into
pratice. That was why, though his ideas were good, they proved unsuccessful.The last few years of his reign witnessed
turmoil and rebellions everywhere. His empire began to disintegrate during his own life-time. He died in AD 1351 He
was succeeded by Firoz Shah Tughlaq (13511388) who was very successful as a reformer.
[edit]Sayyid
Main article: Sayyid dynasty

The Sayyid dynasty ruled Delhi Sultanate in India from 1414 to 1451. They succeeded the Tughlaq dynasty and ruled
the Sultanate until they were displaced by the Lodi dynasty.
[edit]Lodi
Main article: Lodi dynasty
The Lodi Dynasty was a Pashtun dynasty that was the last Delhi Sultanate. The dynasty founded by Bahlul Khan
Lodi ruled from 1451 to 1526. The last ruler of this dynasty, Ibrahim Lodi was defeated and killed by Babur in the
first Battle of Panipat on April 20, 1526.
[edit]Monetary
system
A coin of Muhammad bin Tughlaq
In the first half of the 14th century, the Sultanate introduced a monetary economy in the provinces (sarkars) and districts
(parganas) that had been established and founded a network of market centers, through which the traditional village
economies were both exploited and stimulated to be drawn into the wider culture. State revenues remained based on a
successful agriculture, which induced Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq(132551) to have village wells dug, to offer seed
to the peasants, and to encourage cash crops like sugarcane.[4]
[edit]Mongol
invasion and the fall of the Sultanate
Main article: Mongol invasions of India

Perhaps the greatest contribution of the Sultanate was its temporary success in insulating the subcontinent from the
potential devastation of the Mongol invasion from Central Asia in the thirteenth century. However, the invasion
of Timur in 1398 significantly weakened the Delhi Sultanate. It revived briefly under the Lodis before it was conquered
by the Mughal emperor Babur in 1526.
The mausoleum of Qutub ud Din Aibak in Anarkali,Lahore, Pakistan.
The last Lodi ruler, Ibrahim Lodi, was greatly disliked by his court and subjects. Upon the death of his father Sikander
Lodi, he quashed a brief rebellion led by some of his nobles who wanted his younger brother Jalal Khan to be the
Sultan. After seizing the throne, by having Jalal Khan murdered, he never really did succeed in pacifying his nobles.
Subsequently Daulat Khan, the governor of Punjab and Alam Khan, his uncle, sent an invitation to Babur, the ruler
of Kabul to invade Delhi.
By way of superior generalship, vast experience in warfare, effective strategy and appropriate use of
artillery, Babur won the first Battle of Panipat (April 1526), in which Ibrahim Lodi was killed on the battlefield. Babur
subsequently occupied Agra and Delhi and the new Mughal dynasty was to rule Delhi until 1857.
[edit]Sultans
Map of Delhi Sultanate.
[edit]Mamluk/Slave
dynasty
Qutb-ud-din Aibak (12061210), appointed Naib us Sultanat by Muhammad of

Ghor, first Muslim Sultan of India, ruled with Delhi as capital
Aram Shah (12101211)
Shams ud din Iltutmish (12111236), son-in-law of Qut-bud-din Aibak
Rukn ud din Firuz (1236), son of Iltutmish
Raziyyat-ud-din Sultana (12361240), daughter of Iltutmish
Muiz ud din Bahram (12401242), son of Iltutmish
Ala ud din Masud (12421246), son of Ruk-nud-din
Nasir ud din Mahmud (12461266), son of Iltutmish
Ghiyas ud din Balban (12661286), ex-slave, son-in-law of Sultan Nasir ud din

Mahmud
[edit]Khilji
Muiz ud din Qaiqabad (12861290), grandson of Balban and Nasir-ud-din
Jalal ud din Firoz Khilji (12901296)
Alauddin Khilji (12961316)
Qutb ud din Mubarak Shah (13161320)
Khusro Khan (1320)
dynasty
[edit]Khusro
Khan
[edit]Tughlaq
dynasty
Delhi Sultanate under Tughluq dynasty.
Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq (13201325)[5]
Muhammad bin Tughluq (13251351)
Mahmud Ibn Muhammad (March 1351)
Firuz Shah Tughluq (13511388)
Ghiyas-ud-Din Tughluq II (13881389)
Abu Bakr Shah (13891390)
Nasir ud din Muhammad Shah III (13901393)
Sikander Shah I (March - April 1393)
Nasir uddin Mahmud Shah (Sultan Mahmud II) at Delhi (13931413), son of Nasir
uddin Muhammad, controlled the east from Delhi
Nasir uddin Nusrat Shah (13941398), grandson of Firuz Shah Tughluq, controlled
the west from Firozabad
[edit]Sayyid
[edit]Lodi
dynasty
Khizr Khan (14141421)
Mubarak Shah (14211434)
Muhammad Shah (14341445)
Alam Shah (14451451)
dynasty
Delhi Sultanate during Babur's invasion.
Bahlul Lodi (14511489)
Sikandar Lodi (14891517)
Ibrahim Lodi (15171526), killed by Babur in the First Battle of Panipat on April 20,
1526
[edit]See
also
Persianate states
History of Delhi
Delhi Sultanate literature
[edit]References
1.
^ "Arabic and Persian Epigraphical Studies - Archaeological Survey of India".

Asi.nic.in. Retrieved 2010-11-14.
2.
^ The state at war in South Asia By Pradeep Barua, pg. 29
3.
^ Bruce R. Gordon. "Nomads of the Steppe". My.raex.com. Retrieved 2012-01-20.
4.
^ Braudel 1984, pp 96f, 512ff
5.
^ Tughlaq Shahi Kings of Delhi: Chart The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1909, v.
2, p. 369..
[edit]Notes
Elliot, H. M. (Henry Miers), Sir; John Dowson. "15. Trkh-i Froz Shh, of Ziauddin
Barani". The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians. The Muhammadan
Period (Vol 3.). London : Trbner & Co..
Srivastava, Ashirvadi Lal (1929). The Sultanate Of Delhi 711-1526 A D. Shiva Lal
Agarwala & Company.
Khan, Mohd. Adul Wali (1974). Gold And Silver Coins Of Sultans Of Delhi.
Government of Andhra Pradesh.
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British Raj
"British Empire in India" redirects here. For other uses, see British India (disambiguation).
"Indian Empire" redirects here. For other Indian empires, see History of India.
India
Indian Empire
Colony of the United Kingdom
18581947
Flag
Star of India
Anthem
God Save the King/Queen
The British Indian Empire in 1936

Capital
Calcutta (18581912)
New Delhi (19121947)
Simla (Summer)
Languages
English, Hindustani andmany

local languages
Government
Constitutional Monarchy
Emperor/Empress(1876
1947)
1
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Today part of
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British Indian rupee
India
Pakistan
Bangladesh
Burma
1: Reigned as Empress of India from 1 May 1876,

before that as Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland.
2: Viceroy and Governor-General of India
Colonial India
Imperial Entities of India

Dutch India
16041825
Danish India
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17591954
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Company rule in India
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British Raj
1858
17651947/48
Partition of India
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The British Raj (rj, lit. "reign" in Sanskrit)[1] was British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and
1947.[2] The term can also refer to the period of dominion.[2][3] The region under British control,
commonly called India in contemporary usage, included areas directly administered by the United
Kingdom[4] (contemporaneously British India), as well as the princely states ruled by individual rulers
under the paramountcy of the British Crown. The region was less commonly also called the Indian
Empire by the British.[5] As "India", it was afounding member of the League of Nations, and a participating
nation in theSummer Olympics in 1900, 1920, 1928, 1932, and 1936.
The system of governance was instituted in 1858, when the rule of the British East India Company was
transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria[6](who in 1876 was proclaimed Empress of India),
and lasted until 1947, when the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two sovereign dominion states,
the Union of India (later the Republic of India) and the Dominion of Pakistan (later the Islamic Republic of
Pakistan, the eastern half of which, still later, became the People's Republic of Bangladesh). At the
inception of the Raj in 1858, Lower Burma was already a part of British India; Upper Burma was added in
1886, and the resulting union, Burma, was administered as a province until 1937, when it became a
separate British colony which gained its own independence in 1948.
The budget of the Raj covered municipal affairs, the police, the small but highly trained Indian Civil
Service that ran government operations, and the Indian Army. It was paid entirely by Indians through taxes,
especially on farmland and on salt. The large, well-trained Indian Army played major roles in both World
Wars; the rest of the time it trained to fight off a possible Russian invasion through Afghanistan. The
great majority of the Indian people were very poor farmers; economic growth at 1% a year was
neutralized by population growth of 1%.
Contents
[hide]
1 Geographical extent
2 British India and the Native States
2.1 Major provinces
2.2 Minor provinces
2.3 Princely states
2.4 Organization
3 Timeline of notable events
4 History 1858 to 1914
4.1 Aftermath of the Indian rebellion of 1857
4.2 Legal modernization
4.3 Education
4.4 Economic history
4.4.1 Industry
4.4.2 Railways
4.4.3 Policies
4.5 New middle class, Indian National Congress, 1860s1890s
4.6 Social Reformers, Moderates vs. the Extremists: 1870s1907
4.7 Partition of Bengal: 19051911
4.8 Muslim League: 1906
4.9 Minto-Morley Reforms: 19091915
5 History 19141947
5.1 First World War, Lucknow Pact: 19141918
5.2 Satyagraha, Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms: 19171919
5.2.1 Jallianwala Bagh Massacre
5.3 Noncooperation, Khilafat, Simon Commission, Jinnah's fourteen points: 1920s
5.4 Demand for complete independence, Salt March: 19291931
5.5 Government of India Act: 19311937
5.6 World War II, Muslim League's Lahore Resolution: 19381941
5.7 Army expansion
5.7.1 INA
5.8 Cripps Mission, Quit India Resolution: 19421945
5.9 Elections, Cabinet Mission, Direct Action Day: 1946
5.10 The Plan for Partition: 1947
5.11 Violence, Partition, Independence: 1947
6 Ideological impact
7 Economic impact
8 Famines, epidemics, and public health
9 See also
10 Notes
11 Further reading
11.1 Surveys
11.2 Specialized topics
11.3 Economic history
11.4 Gazetteers, statistics and primary sources
[edit]Geographical
extent
The British Raj extended over almost all present-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, with exceptions
such as Goa and Puducherry. In addition, at various times, it includedAden (from 1858 to 1937),[7] Lower
Burma (from
1858 to 1937), Upper Burma (from 1886 to 1937), British Somaliland (briefly from 1884 to
1898), and Singapore (briefly from 1858 to 1867). Burma was separated from India and directly
administered by the British Crown from 1937 until its independence in 1948. The Trucial States of the
Persian Gulf were theoretically princely states of British India until 1946 and used therupee as their unit of
currency.
Among other countries in the region, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) was ceded to Britain in 1802 under the Treaty
of Amiens. Ceylon was a British crown colony but not part of British India. The kingdoms
of Nepal and Bhutan, having fought wars with the British, subsequently signed treaties with them and
were recognised by the British as independent states.[8][9] The Kingdom of Sikkim was established as a
princely state after the Anglo-Sikkimese Treaty of 1861; however, the issue of sovereignty was left
undefined.[10] The Maldive Islands were a British protectorate from 1887 to 1965 but not part of British India.
[edit]British
India and the Native States
Main articles: Presidencies and provinces of British India and Princely state
The British Indian Empire in 1893

India during the British Raj was made up of two types of territory: British India and the Native
States (or Princely States).[11] In its Interpretation Act 1889, the British Parliament adopted the following
definitions:
(4.) The expression "British India" shall mean all territories and places within Her Majesty's dominions
which are for the time being governed by Her Majesty through the Governor-General of India or through
any governor or other officer subordinate to the Governor-General of India.
(5.) The expression "India" shall mean British India together with any territories of any native prince or
chief under the suzerainty of Her Majesty exercised through the Governor-General of India, or through
any governor or other officer subordinate to the Governor-General of India.[12]
In general the term "British India" had been used (and is still used) to also refer to the regions under the
rule of the British East India Company in India from 1600 to 1858.[13] The term has also been used to refer to
the "British in India".[14]
The terms "Indian Empire" "Empire of India" (like the term "British Empire") was not used in
legislation. The monarch was known as Empress or Emperor of India and the term was often used in
Queen Victoria's Queen's Speeches and Prorogation Speeches. The passports issued by British India
government, have the words Indian Empire on the cover and on the inside and Empire of India on the
inside.[15] In addition, an order of knighthood the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire was set up in 1878.
Suzerainty over
175 princely states, some of the largest and most important, was exercised (in the name
of the British Crown) by the central government of British India under the Viceroy; the remaining
approximately 500 states were dependents of the provincial governments of British India under a
Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, or Chief Commissioner (as the case might have been).[16] A clear
distinction between "dominion" and "suzerainty" was supplied by the jurisdiction of the courts of law:
the law of British India rested upon the laws passed by the British Parliament and the legislative powers
those laws vested in the various governments of British India, both central and local; in contrast, the
courts of the Princely States existed under the authority of the respective rulers of those states.[16]
[edit]Major
provinces
Main article: Presidencies and provinces of British India

At the turn of the 20th century, British India consisted of eight provinces that were administered either
by a Governor or a Lieutenant-Governor. The following table lists their areas and populations (but does
not include those of the dependent Native States) circa 1907:[17]
Population in
Chief
1901 (in
Administrative
millions)
Officer
Province of British India[17]
Area
Burma
170,000 square
miles
(440,000 km2)
LieutenantGovernor
151,000 square
miles
(390,000 km2)
75
LieutenantGovernor
142,000 square
miles
(370,000 km2)
38
Governor-inCouncil
123,000 square
miles
(320,000 km2)
19
Governor-inCouncil
107,000 square
miles
(280,000 km2)
48
LieutenantGovernor
104,000 square
miles
(270,000 km2)
13
Chief
Commissioner
20
Lieutenant-
Bengal (including present-day Bangladesh and

present-day Indian states of West
Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa)
the
Madras (including the present-day Indian state of Tamil

Nadu and parts of the present-day Indian states
of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka)
Bombay (including present-day Sindh,
Pakistan and
parts of the present-day Indian states
of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka)
United Provinces (including the present-day Indian

of Uttar Pradesh andUttarakhand)
states
Central Provinces (including the present-day Indian

states of Madhya Pradesh andChhattisgarh)
Punjab (including present-day Punjab

province and Islamabad Capital Territory in Pakistan
and the
97,000 square
miles
present-day Indian states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal

Pradesh,Chandigarh and the National Capital Territory of
Delhi)
(250,000 km2)
49,000 square
miles
(130,000 km2)
Assam
Governor
Chief
Commissioner
During the partition of Bengal (19051911), a new province, Assam and East Bengal was created as a
Lieutenant-Governorship. In 1911, East Bengal was reunited with Bengal, and the new provinces in the
east became: Assam, Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.[17]
[edit]Minor
provinces
In addition, there were a few minor provinces that were administered by a Chief Commissioner:[18]
Population (in
thousands of
inhabitants)
Chief Administrative Officer
Minor Province
Area
North West Frontier

Province
16,000 square miles

(41,000 km2)
2,125
Chief Commissioner
British Baluchistan (British

and Administered territory)
46,000 square miles

(120,000 km2)
308
British Political Agent in

Baluchistan served asexofficio Chief Commissioner
Coorg
1,600 square miles

(4,100 km2)
181
British Resident in Mysore served

as ex-officioChief Commissioner
Ajmer-Merwara
2,700 square miles

(7,000 km2)
477
British Political Agent in Rajputana

served as ex-officio Chief
Commissioner
Andaman and Nicobar

Islands
3,000 square miles

(7,800 km2)
25
Chief Commissioner
[edit]Princely
states
Main articles: Princely states of India and Princely state
1909 Map of the British Indian Empire, showing British India in two shades of pink and the princely
states in yellow.
A Princely State, also called a Native State or an Indian State, was a nominally sovereign entity with an
indigenous Indian ruler, subject to asubsidiary alliance. There were 565 princely states when India and
Pakistan became independent from Britain in August 1947. The princely states did not form a part
of British India (i.e. the presidencies and provinces), as they were not directly under British rule. The
larger ones had treaties with Britain that specified which rights the princes had; in the smaller ones the
princes had few rights. Within the princely states external affairs, defence and most communications
were under British control. The British also exercised a general influence over the states' internal
politics, in part through the granting or withholding of recognition of individual rulers. Although there
were nearly 600 princely states, the great majority were very small and contracted out the business of
government to the British. Some two hundred of the states had an area of less than 25 square kilometres
(10 square miles).[19]
[edit]Organization
Sir Charles Wood (18001885)
was President of the Board of Control of the East India Companyfrom 1852 to 1855; he
shaped British education policy in India, and was Secretary of State for India 185966
Lord Salisbury was
Lord Canning,
Secretary of State for India 187478
the lastGovernor-General of Indiaunder Company rule and the first Viceroy of India under Crown rule.
Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857 (usually called the Indian Mutiny by the British), the Government of
India Act 1858 made changes in the governance of India at three levels:
1. in the imperial government in London,
2. in the central government in Calcutta, and
3. in the provincial governments in the presidencies (and later in the provinces).[20]
In London, it provided for a cabinet-level Secretary of State for India and a fifteen-member Council of India,
whose members were required, as one prerequisite of membership, to have spent at least ten years in
India and to have done so no more than ten years before.[21] Although the Secretary of State formulated
the policy instructions to be communicated to India, he was required in most instances to consult the
Council, but especially so in matters relating to spending of Indian revenues. The Act envisaged a
system of "double government" in which the Council ideally served both as a check on excesses in
imperial policy-making and as a body of up-to-date expertise on India. However, the Secretary of State
also had special emergency powers that allowed him to make unilateral decisions, and, in reality, the
Council's expertise was sometimes outdated.[22] From 1858 until 1947, twenty seven individuals served
as Secretary of State for India and directed the India Office; these included: Sir Charles Wood (1859
1866), Marquess of Salisbury (18741878) (later Prime Minister of Britain),John Morley (19051910)
(initiator of the Minto-Morley Reforms), E. S. Montagu (19171922) (an architect of the Montagu-Chelmsford
reforms), and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence (19451947) (head of the 1946 Cabinet Mission to India). The size of
the advisory Council was reduced over the next half-century, but its powers remained unchanged. In
1907, for the first time, two Indians were appointed to the Council.[23] They were K.G. Gupta and Syed
Hussain Bilgrami.
In Calcutta, the Governor-General remained head of the Government of India and now was more
commonly called the Viceroy on account of his secondary role as the Crown's representative to the
nominally sovereign princely states; he was, however, now responsible to the Secretary of State in
London and through him to Parliament. A system of "double government" had already been in place
during the Company's rule in India from the time of Pitt's India Act of 1784. The Governor-General in the
capital, Calcutta, and the Governor in a subordinate presidency (Madras or Bombay) was each required to
consult his advisory council; executive orders in Calcutta, for example, were issued in the name of
"Governor-General-in-Council" (i.e. the Governor-General with the advice of the Council). The
Company's system of "double government" had its critics, since, from the time of the system's inception,
there had been intermittent feuding between the Governor-General and his Council; still, the Act of 1858
made no major changes in governance.[24] However, in the years immediately thereafter, which were also
the years of post-rebellion reconstruction, the Viceroy Lord Canning found the collective decision-making
of the Council to be too time-consuming for the pressing tasks ahead, so he requested the "portfolio
system" of an Executive Council in which the business of each government department (the "portfolio")
was assigned to and became the responsibility of a single Council member.[23] Routine departmental
decisions were made exclusively by the member; however, important decisions required the consent of
the Governor-General and, in the absence of such consent, required discussion by the entire Executive
Council. This innovation in Indian governance was promulgated in the Indian Councils Act 1861.
If the Government of India needed to enact new laws, the Councils Act allowed for a Legislative
Councilan expansion of the Executive Council by up to twelve additional members, each appointed to
a two-year termwith half the members consisting of British officials of the government
(termed official) and allowed to vote, and the other half, comprising Indians and domiciled Britons in
India (termed non-official) and serving only in an advisory capacity.[25] All laws enacted by Legislative
Councils in India, whether by the Imperial Legislative Council in Calcutta or by the provincial ones in
Madras and Bombay, required the final assent of the Secretary of State in London; this prompted Sir
Charles Wood, the second Secretary of State, to describe the Government of India as "a despotism
controlled from home".[23] Moreover, although the appointment of Indians to the Legislative Council was
a response to calls after the 1857 rebellion, most notably by Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, for more consultation
with Indians, the Indians so appointed were from the landed aristocracy, often chosen for their loyalty,
and far from representative.[26] Even so, the "... tiny advances in the practise of representative
government were intended to provide safety valves for the expression of public opinion which had been
so badly misjudged before the rebellion".[27] Indian affairs now also came to be more closely examined in
the British Parliament and more widely discussed in the British press.[28]
[edit]Timeline
Viceroy
The Viscount
Canning[29]
of notable events
Period
of
Tenure
Events/Accomplishments
1858 reorganisation of British Indian Army (contemporaneously and hereafter

Indian Army)
1 Nov Construction begins (1860): University of Bombay, University of Madras,
and University of Calcutta
1858
21 Mar Indian Penal Code passed into law in 1860.
Upper Doab famine of 18601861
1862
Indian Councils Act 1861
Establishment of Archaeological Survey of India in 1861
James Wilson, financial member of Council of India reorganises customs,
imposes income tax, createspaper currency.
Indian Police Act of 1861, creation of Imperial Police later known as Indian Police
Service.
The Earl of Elgin
21 Mar
1862
Dies prematurely in Dharamsala
20 Nov
1863
Anglo-Bhutan Duar War (18641865)

Orissa famine of 1866
Rajputana famine of 1869
Sir John
Lawrence, Bt[30]
12 Jan
1864
12 Jan
1869
The Earl of
Mayo[31]
12 Jan
1869
8 Feb
1872
Creation of Department of Agriculture (now Ministry of Agriculture)

Major extension of railways, roads, and canals
Indian Councils Act of 1870
Creation of Andaman and Nicobar Islands as a Chief Commissionership (1872).
Assassination of Lord Mayo in the Andamans.
The Lord
Northbrook[31]
3 May
1872
12 Apr
1876
Mortalities in Bihar famine of 187374 prevented by importation of rice from

Burma.
Gaikwad of Baroda dethroned for misgovernment; dominions continued to a
child ruler.
Indian Councils Act of 1874
Visit of the Prince of Wales, future Edward VII in 187576.
The Lord Lytton
The Marquess of
Ripon[32]
12 Apr
1876
8 Jun
1880
8 Jun
1880
13 Dec
Creation of Department of Irrigation.

Creation of Imperial Forestry Service in 1867 (now Indian Forest Service).
"Nicobar Islands annexed and incorporated into India 1869"
Baluchistan established as a Chief Commissionership

Queen Victoria (in absentia) proclaimed Empress of India at Delhi Durbar of 1877.
Great Famine of 187678: 5.25 million dead; reduced relief offered at expense
of Rs. 8 crore.
Creation of Famine Commission of 187880 under Sir Richard Strachey.
Indian Forest Act of 1878

Second Anglo-Afghan War.
End of Second Anglo-Afghan War.

Repeal of Vernacular Press Act of 1878. Compromise on the Ilbert Bill.
Local Government Acts extend self-government from towns to country.
University of Punjab established in Lahore in 1882
1884
The Earl of
Dufferin[33][34]
The Marquess of
Lansdowne[35]
The Earl of Elgin
The Lord Curzon

of Kedleston[36][37]
Famine Code promulgated in 1883 by the Government of India.

Creation of the Education Commission. Creation of indigenous schools,
especially for Muslims.
Repeal of import duties on cotton and of most tariffs. Railway extension.
13 Dec
1884
10 Dec
1888
Passage of Bengal Tenancy Bill

Third Anglo-Burmese War.
Joint Anglo-Russian Boundary Commission appointed for the Afghan
frontier. Russian attack on Afghans at Panjdeh (1885). The Great Game in full
play.
Report of Public Services Commission of 188687, creation of Imperial Civil
Service (later Indian Civil Service (ICS), and today Indian Administrative Service)
University of Allahabad established in 1887
Queen Victoria's Jubilee, 1887.
10 Dec
1888
11 Oct
1894
Strengthening of NW Frontier defence. Creation of Imperial Service

Troops consisting of regiments contributed by the princely states.
Gilgit Agency leased in 1899
British Parliament passes Indian Councils Act 1892, opening the Imperial Legislative
Council to Indians.
Revolution in princely state of Manipur and subsequent reinstatement of ruler.
High point of The Great Game. Establishment of the Durand Line between British
India and Afghanistan,
Railways, roads, and irrigation works begun in Burma. Border between
Burma and Siam finalised in 1893.
Fall of the Rupee, resulting from the steady depreciation of silver currency
worldwide (187393).
Indian Prisons Act of 1894
11 Oct
1894
6 Jan
1899
Reorganisation of Indian Army (from Presidency System to the four

Commands).
Pamir agreement Russia, 1895
The Chitral Campaign (1895), the Tirah Campaign (189697)
Indian famine of 189697 beginning in Bundelkhand.
Bubonic plague in Bombay (1896), Bubonic plague in Calcutta (1898); riots
in wake of plague prevention measures.
Establishment of Provincial Legislative Councils in Burma and Punjab; the
former a new Lieutenant Governorship.
6 Jan
1899
Creation of the North West Frontier Province) under a Chief Commissioner (1901).
Indian famine of 18991900.
18 Nov Return of the bubonic plague, 1 million deaths

1905
Financial Reform Act of 1899; Gold Reserve Fund created for India.
Punjab Land Alienation Act
Inauguration of Department (now Ministry) of Commerce and Industry.
Death of Queen Victoria (1901); dedication of the Victoria Memorial
Hall, Calcutta as a national gallery of Indian antiquities, art, and history.
Coronation Durbar in Delhi (1903); Edward VII (in absentia) proclaimed Emperor of
India.
Francis Younghusband's British expedition to Tibet (190304)
North-Western Provinces (previously Ceded and Conquered Provinces)
and Oudh renamed United Provinces in 1904
Reorganisation of Indian Universities Act (1904).
Systemization of preservation and restoration of ancient monuments
by Archaeological Survey of Indiawith Indian Ancient Monument Preservation
Act.
Inauguration of agricultural banking with Cooperative Credit Societies Act of
1904
Partition of Bengal (1905); new province of East Bengal and Assam under a
Lieutenant-Governor.
Census of 1901 gives the total population at 294 million, including 62 million
in the princely states and 232 million in British India.[38] About 170,000 are
Europeans. 15 million men and 1 million women are literate. Of those schoolaged, 25% of the boys and 3% of the girls attend. There are 207 million
Hindus, and 63x million Muslims, along with 9 million Buddhists (in
Burma), 3 million Christians, 2 million Sikhs, 1 million Jains, and 8.4 million
who practise animism.[39]
Creation of the Railway Board
The Earl of
Minto[40]
18 Nov
1905
23 Nov
1910
The Lord
Hardinge of
Penshurst
Visit of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911: commemoration as Emperor and
Empress of India at last Delhi Durbar
King George V announces creation of new city of New Delhi to
replace Calcutta as capital of India.
23 Nov
Indian High Courts Act of 1911
1910
Indian Factories Act of 1911
4 Apr
Construction of New Delhi, 19121929
1916
World War I, Indian Army in: Western Front, Belgium, 1914; German East Africa (Battle
of Tanga, 1914); Mesopotamian Campaign (Battle of Ctesiphon, 1915; Siege of Kut, 1915
16); Battle of Galliopoli, 191516
Passage of Defence of India Act 1915
Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907

Indian Councils Act 1909 (also Minto-Morley Reforms)
Appointment of Indian Factories Commission in 1909.

Establishment of Department of Education in 1910 (now Ministry of Education)
Indian Army in: Mesopotamian Campaign (Fall of Baghdad, 1917); Sinai and Palestine
Campaign(Battle of Megiddo, 1918)
Passage of Rowlatt Act, 1919
Government of India Act 1919 (also Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms)
Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, 1919
Third Anglo-Afghan War, 1919
University of Rangoon established in 1920.
The Lord
Chelmsford
4 Apr
1916
2 Apr
1921
The Earl of
Reading
2 Apr
1921
3 Apr
1926
The Lord Irwin
3 Apr
1926
18 Apr
1931
Indian Trade Unions Act of 1926, Indian Forest Act, 1927

Appointment of Royal Commission of Indian Labour, 1929
Indian Constitutional Round Table Conferences, London, 193032, Gandhi-Irwin Pact,
1931.
18 Apr
1931
18 Apr
1936
New Delhi inaugurated as capital of India, 1931.

Indian Workmen's Compensation Act of 1933
Indian Factories Act of 1934
Royal Indian Air Force created in 1932.
Indian Military Academy established in 1932.
The Earl of
Willingdon
The Marquess of
Linlithgow
18 Apr
1936
1 Oct
1943
University of Delhi established
in 1922.
Indian Workers Compensation Act of 1923
Government of India Act 1935

Creation of Reserve Bank of India
Indian Payment of Wages Act of 1936

Burma administered independently after 1937 with creation of new cabinet
position Secretary of State for India and Burma, and with the Burma Office separated
off from the India Office
Indian Provincial Elections of 1937
Cripps' mission to India, 1942.
Indian Army in Mediterranean, Middle East and African theatres of World War II (North
African campaign: (Operation Compass, Operation Crusader, First Battle of El
Alamein, Second Battle of El Alamein. East African campaign, 1940, Anglo-Iraqi War,
1941, Syria-Lebanon campaign, 1941, Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran, 1941)
Indian Army in Battle of Hong Kong, Battle of Malaya, Battle of Singapore
Burma Campaign of World War II begins in 1942.
Indian Army becomes,
at 2.5 million men, the largest all-volunteer force in
history.
The Viscount
Wavell
1 Oct
1943
21 Feb
1947
World War II: Burma Campaign, 194345 (Battle of Kohima, Battle of Imphal)
Bengal famine of 1943
Indian Army in Italian campaign (Battle of Monte Cassino)
British Labour Party wins UK General Election of 1945 with Clement Attlee as
prime
minister.
1946 Cabinet Mission to India
Indian Elections of 1946.

The Viscount
Mountbatten of
21 Feb
Indian Independence Act 1947 of the
British Parliament enacted on 18 July 1947.
Burma
[edit]History
1947
Radcliffe Award, August 1947
15 Aug Partition of India
India Office and position of Secretary of State for India abolished; ministerial
1947
responsibility within the United Kingdom for British relations with India and
Pakistan is transferred to the Commonwealth Relations Office.
1858 to 1914
Main article: History of the British Raj

[edit]Aftermath
of the Indian rebellion of 1857
Shaken by the events of the Indian rebellion of 1857, Britain dissolved the East India Company and
transferred ruling power over India to the Crown. The princely states were mostly kept intact, though
they lost their private armies and were more closely watched. The all-British units were doubled in
number. After the rebellion, the British became more circumspect regarding rapid modernisation. Much
thought was devoted to the causes of the rebellion, and from it three main lessons were drawn. At a
more practical level, it was felt that there needed to be more communication and camaraderie between
the British and Indiansnot just between British army officers and their Indian staff but in civilian life
as well. The Indian army was completely reorganised: units composed of the Muslims and Brahmins of
the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, who had formed the core of the rebellion, were disbanded.[41] New
regiments, like the Sikhs and Baluchis, composed of Indians who, in British estimation, had
demonstrated steadfastness, were formed. The Indian units lost their artillery. From then on, the Indian
army was to remain unchanged in its organisation until 1947.[42] The 1861 Census had revealed that the
British population in India was 125,945. Of these only about 41,862 were civilians as compared with
about 84,083 European officers and men of the Army.[43] In 1880, the standing Indian Army consisted of
66,000 British soldiers, 130,000 Natives, and 350,000 soldiers in the princely armies.[44]
Viceroy Lord Canning meets MaharajaRanbir Singh of Jammu & Kashmir, 9 March 1860.
Administrative control of India came under the prestigious Indian Civil Service which had administrative
control over all districts outside the princely states. At first all-British, it included increasing proportions
of Indians, and totalled about 1000 men. They were very well organised, well-educated and professional,
and avoided the bribes and inside deals that had made for great wealth among the officials of the defunct
East India Company.[45]
The British decided that both the princes and the large land-holders, by not joining the rebellion, had
proved to be, in Lord Canning's words, "breakwaters in a storm".[41] They too were rewarded in the new
British Raj by being officially recognised in the treaties each state now signed with the Crown.[42] At the
same time, it was felt that the peasants, for whose benefit the large land-reforms of the United Provinces
had been undertaken, had shown disloyalty, by, in many cases, fighting for their former landlords
against the British. Consequently, no more land reforms were implemented for the next 90 years: Bengal
and Bihar were to remain the realms of large land holdings (unlike the Punjab and Uttar Pradesh).[42]
[edit]Legal
modernization
Singha argues that after 1857 the colonial government strengthened and expanded its infrastructure via
the court system, legal procedures, and statutes. New legislation merged the Crown and the old East
India Company courts and introduced a new penal code as well as new codes of civil and criminal
procedure, based largely on English law. In the 1860s1880s the Raj set up compulsory registration of
births, deaths, and marriages, as well as adoptions, property deeds, and wills. The goal was to create a
stable, usable public record and verifiable identities. However there was opposition from both Muslim
and Hindu elements who complained that the new procedures for census-taking and registration
threatened to uncover female privacy. Purdah rules prohibited women from saying their husband's name
or having their photograph taken. An all-India census was conducted between 1868 and 1871, often
using total numbers of females in a household rather than individual names. Select groups which the Raj
reformers wanted to monitor statistically included those reputed to practice female infanticide,
prostitutes, lepers, and eunuchs.[46]
Increasingly officials discovered that traditions and customs in India were too strong and too rigid to be
changed easily. There were few new social interventions, especially not in matters dealing with religion,
even when the British felt very strongly about the issue (as in the instance of the remarriage of Hindu
child widows).[42] Indeed, Murshid argues that women were in some ways more restricted by the
modernisation of the laws. They remained tied to the strictures of their religion, caste, and customs, but
now with an overlay of British Victorian attitudes. Their inheritance rights to own and manage property
were curtailed; the new English laws were somewhat harsher. Court rulings restricted the rights of
second wives and their children regarding inheritance. A woman had to belong to either a father or a
husband to have any rights.[47]
[edit]Education
Main article: History of education in the Indian subcontinent#Colonial Era
During the time of the East India Company, Thomas Babington Macaulay had made schooling a priority for
the Raj in his famous minute of February 1835 and succeeded in implementing ideas previously put
forward by Lord William Bentinck (the governor general between 1828 and 1835). Bentinck favoured the
replacement of Persian by English as the official language, the use of English as the medium of
instruction, and the training of English-speaking Indians as teachers. He was inspired by utilitarian ideas
and called for "useful learning." However, Bentinck's proposals were rejected by London
officials.[48][49] Under Macaulay, thousands of elementary and secondary schools were opened though they
usually had an all-male student body. Universities in Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras were established in
1857, just before the Rebellion. By 1890 some 60,000 Indians had matriculated, chiefly in the liberal
arts or law. About a third entered public administration, and another third became lawyers. The result
was a very well educated professional state bureaucracy. By 1887 of 21,000 mid-level civil service
appointments, 45% were held by Hindus, 7% by Muslims, 19% by Eurasians (European father and
Indian mother), and 29% by Europeans. Of the 1000 top -level positions, almost all were held by
Britons, typically with an Oxbridge degree.[50] The government, often working with local philanthropists,
opened 186 universities and colleges of higher education by 1911; they enrolled 36,000 students (over
90% men). By 1939 the number of institutions had doubled and enrolment reached 145,000. The
curriculum followed classical British standards of the sort set by Oxford and Cambridge and stressed
English literature and European history. Nevertheless by the 1920s the student bodies had become
hotbeds of Indian nationalism.[51]
[edit]Economic
history
The Indian economy grew at about 1% per year from 1880 to 1920, and the population also grew at
1%.[52] The result was, on average, no long-term change in per capita income levels, though cost of living
had grown higher. Agriculture was still dominant, with most peasants at the subsistence level. Extensive
irrigation systems were built, providing an impetus for switching to cash crops for export and for raw
materials for Indian industry, especially jute, cotton, sugarcane, coffee and tea.[53] India's global share of
GDP fell drastically from above 20% to less than 5% in the colonial period.[54] Fact also remains that
India has "third world" status after decolonizing, compared to the way its riches and trade attracted
European and Middle Eastern invaders and traders in 18th century. Historians have been bitterly divided
on issues of economic history, with the Nationalist school (following Nehru) arguing that India was
poorer at the end of British rule than at the beginning and that impoverishment occurred because of the
British.[55]
[edit]Industry
The entrepreneur Jamsetji Tata (18391904) began his industrial career in 1877 with the Central India
Spinning, Weaving, and Manufacturing Company in Bombay. While other Indian mills produced cheap
coarse yarn (and later cloth) using local short-staple cotton and cheap machinery imported from Britain,
Tata did much better by importing expensive longer-stapled cotton from Egypt and buying more
complex ring-spindle machinery from the United States to spin finer yarn that could compete with
imports from Britain.[56]
In the 1890s, he launched plans to move into heavy industry using Indian funding. The Raj did not
provide capital, but aware of Britain's declining position against the U.S. and Germany in the steel
industry, it wanted steel mills in India so it is did promise to purchase any surplus steel Tata could not
otherwise sell.[57] The Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO), now headed by his son Dorabji Tata (1859
1932), opened its plant at Jamshedpur in Bihar in 1908. It used American technology, not British[58] and
became the leading iron and steel producer in India, with 120,000 employees in 1945. TISCO became
India's proud symbol of technical skill, managerial competence, entrepreneurial flair, and high pay for
industrial workers.[59] The Tata family, like most of India's big businessmen, were Indian nationalists but
did not trust the Congress because it seemed too aggressively hostile to the Raj, too socialist, and too
supportive of trade unions.[60]
[edit]Railways
Main article: History of rail transport in India
Extent of Great Indian Peninsular Railwaynetwork in 1870. The GIPR was one of the largest rail companies at
that time.
The railway network in 1909, when it was the fourth largest railway network in the world.
India built a modern railway system in the late 19th century which was the fourth largest in the world.
The railways at first were privately owned and operated. It was run by British administrators, engineers
and craftsmen. At first, only the unskilled workers were Indians.[61]
The East India Company (and later the colonial government) encouraged new railway companies backed
by private investors under a scheme that would provide land and guarantee an annual return of up to five
percent during the initial years of operation. The companies were to build and operate the lines under a
99 year lease, with the government having the option to buy them earlier.[62]
Two new railway companies, Great Indian Peninsular Railway (GIPR) and East Indian Railway (EIR) began in
185354 to construct and operate lines near Bombay and Calcutta. The first passenger railway line in
North India between Allahabad and Kanpur opened in 1859.
In 1854 Governor-General Lord Dalhousie formulated a plan to construct a network of trunk lines
connecting the principal regions of India. Encouraged by the government guarantees, investment flowed
in and a series of new rail companies were established, leading to rapid expansion of the rail system in
India.[63] Soon several large princely states built their own rail systems and the network spread to the
regions that became the modern-day states of Assam, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. The route mileage of
this network increased from 1,349 kilometres (838 mi) in 1860 to 25,495 kilometres (15,842 mi) in 1880
mostly radiating inland from the three major port cities of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta.[64] Most of the
railway construction was done by Indian companies supervised by British engineers. The system was
heavily built, using a wide gauge, sturdy tracks and strong bridges. By 1900 India had a full range of rail
services with diverse ownership and management, operating on broad, metre and narrow gauge
networks. In 1900 the government took over the GIPR network, while the company continued to
manage it. In the First World War, the railways were used to transport troops and grains to the ports of
Bombay and Karachi en route to Britain, Mesopotamia, and East Africa. With shipments of equipment
and parts from Britain curtailed, maintenance became much more difficult; critical workers entered the
army; workshops were converted to making artillery; some locomotives and cars were shipped to the
Middle East. The railways could barely keep up with the increased demand.[65] By the end of the war, the
railways had deteriorated for lack of maintenance and were not profitable. In 1923, both GIPR and EIR
were nationalised.
"The most magnificent railway station in the world." Victoria Terminus, Bombay, was completed in 1888.
Headrick shows that until the 1930s, both the Raj lines and the private companies hired only European
supervisors, civil engineers, and even operating personnel, such as locomotive engineers. The
government's Stores Policy required that bids on railway contracts be made to the India Office in
London, shutting out most Indian firms. The railway companies purchased most of their hardware and
parts in Britain. There were railway maintenance workshops in India, but they were rarely allowed to
manufacture or repair locomotives. TISCO steel could not obtain orders for rails until the war
emergency.[66]
The Second World War severely crippled the railways as rolling stock was diverted to the Middle East,
and the railway workshops were converted into munitions workshops.[67] After independence in 1947,
forty-two separate railway systems, including thirty-two lines owned by the former Indian princely
states, were amalgamated to form a single nationalised unit named the Indian Railways.
India provides an example of the British Empire pouring its money and expertise into a very well built
system designed for military reasons (after the Mutiny of 1857), and with the hope that it would
stimulate industry. The system was overbuilt and too expensive for the small amount of freight traffic it
carried. However, it did capture the imagination of the Indians, who saw their railways as the symbol of
an industrial modernitybut one that was not realised until after Independence. Christensen (1996)
looks at of colonial purpose, local needs, capital, service, and private-versus-public interests. He
concludes that making the railways a creature of the state hindered success because railway expenses
had to go through the same time-consuming and political budgeting process as did all other state
expenses. Railway costs could therefore not be tailored to the timely needs of the railways or their
passengers.[68]
[edit]Policies
In the second half of the 19th century, both the direct administration of India by the British crown and the
technological change ushered in by the industrial revolution had the effect of closely intertwining the
economies of India and Great Britain.[69] In fact many of the major changes in transport and
communications (that are typically associated with Crown Rule of India) had already begun before the
Mutiny. Since Dalhousie had embraced the technological revolution underway in Britain, India too saw
rapid development of all those technologies. Railways, roads, canals, and bridges were rapidly built in
India and telegraph links equally rapidly established in order that raw materials, such as cotton, from
India's hinterland could be transported more efficiently to ports, such as Bombay, for subsequent export
to England.[70] Likewise, finished goods from England, were transported back, just as efficiently, for sale
in the burgeoning Indian markets. Massive railway projects were begun in earnest and government
railway jobs and pensions attracted a large number of upper caste Hindus into the civil service for the
first time. The Indian Civil Service was prestigious and paid well, but it remained politically
neutral.[71] Imports of British cotton covered 55% of the Indian market by 1875.[72] Industrial production
as it developed in European factories was unknown until the 1850s when the first cotton mills were
opened in Bombay, posing a challenge to the cottage-based home production system based on family
labour.[73]
The Queen's Own Madras Sappers and Miners, 1896

Taxes in India decreased during the colonial period for most of India's population; with the land tax
revenue claiming 15% of India's national income during Mogul times compared with 1% at the end of
the colonial period. The percentage of national income for the village economy increased from 44%
during Mogul times to 54% by the end of colonial period. India's per capita GDP decreased from $550
in 1700 to $520 by 1857, although it later increased to $618, by 1947[74]
[edit]New
middle class, Indian National Congress, 1860s1890s
By 1880 a new middle class had arisen in India and spread thinly across the country.[75]Moreover, there
was a growing solidarity among its members, created by the "joint stimuli of encouragement and
irritation."[75] The encouragement felt by this class came from its success in education and its ability to
avail itself of the benefits of that education such as employment in the Indian Civil Service.[76] It came too
from Queen Victoria's proclamation of 1858 in which she had declared, "We hold ourselves bound to the
natives of our Indian territories by the same obligation of duty which bind us to all our other
subjects."[77] Indians were especially encouraged when Canada was granted dominion status in 1867 and
established an autonomous democratic constitution.[77] Lastly, the encouragement came from the work of
contemporaneous Oriental scholars like Monier Monier-Williams and Max Mller, who in their works had been
presenting ancient India as a great civilisation.[75]Irritation, on the other hand, came not just from
incidents of racial discrimination at the hands of the British in India, but also from governmental actions
like the use of Indian troops in imperial campaigns (e.g. in the Second Anglo-Afghan War) and the attempts
to control the vernacular press (e.g. in the Vernacular Press Act of 1878).[75]
It was, however, Viceroy Lord Ripon's partial reversal of the Ilbert Bill (1883), a legislative measure that had
proposed putting Indian judges in the Bengal Presidency on equal footing with British ones, that
transformed the discontent into political action.[76] On 28 December 1885, professionals and intellectuals
from this middle-classmany educated at the new British-founded universities in Bombay, Calcutta,
and Madras, and familiar with the ideas of British political philosophers, especially
the utilitarians assembled in Bombay. The seventy men founded the Indian National Congress; Womesh
Chandra Bonerjee was
elected the first president. The membership comprised a westernised elite, and no
effort was made at this time to broaden the base.
During its first twenty years, the Congress primarily debated British policy toward India; however, its
debates created a new Indian outlook that held Great Britain responsible for draining India of its wealth.
Britain did this, the nationalists claimed, by unfair trade, by the restraint on indigenous Indian industry,
and by the use of Indian taxes to pay the high salaries of the British civil servants in India.[78]
[edit]Social
Reformers, Moderates vs. the Extremists: 1870s1907
Gopal Krishna Gokhale,
a constitutional social reformer and moderate nationalist, was elected president of the
Indian National Congress in 1905.
Social reform was in the air by the 1880s. For example, Pandita Ramabai, poet, Sanskrit scholar, and a
champion of the emancipation of Indian women, took up the cause of widow remarriage, especially of
Brahamin widows, later converted to Christianity.[79] By 1900 reform movements had taken root within
the Indian National Congress. Congress member Gopal Krishna Gokhale founded the Servants of India
Society, which lobbied for legislative reform (for example, for a law to permit the remarriage of Hindu
child widows), and whose members took vows of poverty, and worked among the untouchable
community.[80]
Congress "extremist" Bal Gangadhar Tilakspeaking in 1907 as the party split into the Moderates and the
Extremists. Seated at the table is Aurobindo Ghosh and to his right (in the chair) is Lala Lajpat Rai, both allies of
Tilak.
By 1905 a deep gulf opened between the moderates, led by Gokhale, who downplayed public agitation,
and the new "extremists" who not only advocated agitation, but also regarded the pursuit of social
reform as a distraction from nationalism. Prominent among the extremists was Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who
attempted to mobilise Indians by appealing to an explicitly Hindu political identity, displayed, for
example, in the annual public Ganapati festivals that he inaugurated in western India.[81]
[edit]Partition
of Bengal: 19051911
The viceroy Lord Curzon (18991905) was unusually energetic in pursuit of efficiency and reform.[82] His
agenda included the creation of the North-West Frontier Province; small changes in the Civil Service;
speeding up the operations of the secretariat; setting up a gold standard to ensure a stable currency;
creation of a Railway Board; irrigation reform; reduction of peasant debts; lowering the cost of
telegrams; archaeological research and the preservation of antiquities; improvements in the universities;
police reforms; upgrading the roles of the Native States; a new Commerce and Industry Department;
promotion of industry; revised land revenue policies; lowering taxes; setting up agricultural banks;
creating an Agricultural Department; sponsoring agricultural research; establishing an Imperial Library;
creating an Imperial Cadet Corps; new famine codes; and, indeed, reducing the smoke nuisance in
Calcutta.[83]
Viceroy Curzon, (18991905); he promoted many reforms but his partitioning of Bengal into Muslim and
Hindu states outraged Hindus
Trouble emerged for Curzon when he divided the largest administrative subdivision in British India,
the Bengal Presidency, into the Muslim-majority province of East Bengal and Assam and the Hindumajority province ofWest Bengal (present-day Indian states of West Bengal,Bihr, and Orissa). Curzon's
act, the Partition of Bengalwhich some considered administratively felicitous, communally charged,
sowed the seeds of division among Indians and, which had been contemplated by various colonial
administrations since the time of Lord William Bentinck, but never acted uponwas to transform nationalist
politics as nothing else before it. The Hindu elite of Bengal, among them many who owned land in East
Bengal that was leased out to Muslim peasants, protested fervidly.[84]
Sir Surendranath Banerjee, a Congress moderate, who led the opposition to the partition of Bengal with
the Swadeshimovement to buy Indian-made cloth
The large Bengali Hindu middle-class (the Bhadralok), upset at the prospect of Bengalis being
outnumbered in the new Bengal province by Biharis and Oriyas, felt that Curzon's act was punishment
for their political assertiveness. The pervasive protests against Curzon's decision took the form
predominantly of theSwadeshi ("buy Indian") campaign led by two-time Congress president, Surendranath
Banerjee, and involved boycott of British goods.[85]
Cover of a 1909 issue of the Tamil magazine, Vijaya showing "Mother India" with her diverse progeny
and the rallying cry "Vande Mataram"
The rallying cry for both types of protest was the slogan Bande Mataram ("Hail to the Mother"), which
invoked a mother goddess, who stood variously for Bengal, India, and the Hindu goddess Kali. Sri
Aurobindo never went beyond the law when he edited the Bande Mataram magazine; it preached
freedom but within the bounds of peace as far as possible. Its goal was Passive Resistance.[86] The unrest
spread from Calcutta to the surrounding regions of Bengal when students returned home to their villages
and towns. Some engaged in robbery to fund terrorist activities such as bombing public buildings, but
the conspiracies generally failed in the face of intense police work.[87]
In 1906 the civil police (completely separate from the Army) comprised 29,000 officers and 138,000
men.[88] Arnold shows that in the Madras presidency the armed police were divided into the district
reserves and the striking forces. Armed with seven-foot metal tipped lathis and smoothbore muskets, and
tear gas after 1940, they repressed the disturbances of 193033. Special striking forces included the
Malabar Special Police, armed with Enfield rifles. It was established to handle the Moplah rebellion of
1921 and was used throughout the presidency. The Presidency General Reserve was established in
1931.[89]
The Swadeshi boycott movement cut imports of British textiles by 25%. The swadeshi cloth, although
more expensive and somewhat less comfortable than its Lancashire competitor, was worn as a mark of
national pride by people all over India.[90]
[edit]Muslim
League: 1906
Main article: All-India Muslim League
1909 Prevailing Religions, Map of British India, 1909, showing the prevailing majority religions based
on the Census of 1901
The Hindu protests against the partition of Bengal led the Muslim elite in India to organise in 1906
the All India Muslim League. The League favoured the partition of Bengal, since it gave them a Muslim
majority in the eastern half. In 1905, when Tilak and Lajpat Rai attempted to rise to leadership positions
in the Congress, and the Congress itself rallied around symbolism of Kali, Muslim fears increased. The
Muslim elite, including Dacca Nawab andKhwaja Salimullah, expected that a new province with a Muslim
majority would directly benefit Muslims aspiring to political power.[91]
Hakim Ajmal Khan,
a founder of the Muslim League, became the president of the Indian National Congress
in 1921.
[edit]Minto-Morley
Reforms: 19091915
Lord Minto, the Conservative viceroy met with the Muslim delegation in June 1906. TheMinto-Morley
Reforms of 1909 called for separate Muslim electorates.
The first steps were taken toward self-government in British India in the late 19th century with the
appointment of Indian counsellors to advise the British viceroy and the establishment of provincial
councils with Indian members; the British subsequently widened participation in legislative councils
with the Indian Councils Act of 1892. Municipal Corporations and District Boards were created for local
administration; they included elected Indian members.
The Indian Councils Act 1909, known as the Morley-Minto Reforms (John Morley was the secretary of state
for India, and Minto was viceroy) gave Indians limited roles in the central and provincial legislatures.
Upper class Indians, rich lanndowners and businessmen were favoured. The Moslem community was
made a separate electorate and granted double representation. The goals were quite conservative but
they did advance the elective principle.[40]
The partition of Bengal was rescinded in 1911 and announced at the Delhi Durbar at which King George
V came in person and was crowned Emperor of India. He announced the capital would be moved from
Calcutta to Delhi, a Moslem stronghold. Morley was especially vigilant in crushing revolutionary groups[92]
[edit]History
[edit]First
19141947
World War, Lucknow Pact: 19141918
The First World War would
prove to be a watershed in the imperial relationship between Britain and India.
Some 1.4 million Indian and British soldiers of the British Indian Army took part in the war, primarily in
Iraq and the Middle East. Their participation had a wider cultural fallout as news spread how bravely
soldiers fought and died alongside British soldiers, as well as soldiers from dominions like Canada and
Australia.[93] India's international profile rose during the 1920s, as it became a founding member of
the League of Nations in 1920 and participated, under the name, "Les Indes Anglaises" (British India), in
the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp.[94] Back in India, especially among the leaders of the Indian National
Congress, the war led to calls for greater self-government for Indians.[93]
After the 1906 split between the moderates and the extremists, organised political activity by the
Congress had remained fragmented until 1914, when Bal Gangadhar Tilak was released from prison and
began to sound out other Congress leaders about possible re-unification. That, however, had to wait until
the demise of Tilak's principal moderate opponents, Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Pherozeshah Mehta, in 1915,
whereupon an agreement was reached for Tilak's ousted group to re-enter the Congress.[93] In the 1916
Lucknow session of the Congress, Tilak's supporters were able to push through a more radical resolution
which asked for the British to declare that it was their, "aim and intention ... to confer self-government
on India at an early date."[93] Soon, other such rumblings began to appear in public pronouncements: in
1917, in the Imperial Legislative Council, Madan Mohan Malaviya spoke of the expectations the war had
generated in India, "I venture to say that the war has put the clock ... fifty years forward ... (The) reforms
after the war will have to be such, ... as will satisfy the aspirations of her (India's) people to take their
legitimate part in the administration of their own country."[93]
The 1916 Lucknow Session of the Congress was also the venue of an unanticipated mutual effort by the
Congress and the Muslim League, the occasion for which was provided by the wartime partnership
between Germany and Turkey. Since the Turkish Sultan, or Khalifah, had also sporadically claimed
guardianship of the Islamic holy sites of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem, and since the British and their
allies were now in conflict with Turkey, doubts began to increase among some Indian Muslims about the
"religious neutrality" of the British, doubts that had already surfaced as a result of the reunification of
Bengal in 1911, a decision that was seen as ill-disposed to Muslims.[95] In the Lucknow Pact, the League
joined the Congress in the proposal for greater self-government that was campaigned for by Tilak and
his supporters; in return, the Congress accepted separate electorates for Muslims in the provincial
legislatures as well as the Imperial Legislative Council. In 1916, the Muslim League had anywhere
between 500 and 800 members and did not yet have its wider following among Indian Muslims of later
years; in the League itself, the pact did not have unanimous backing, having largely been negotiated by a
group of "Young Party" Muslims from the United Provinces (UP), most prominently, two
brothers Mohammad and Shaukat Ali, who had embraced the Pan-Islamic cause;[95] however, it did have the
support of a young lawyer from Bombay, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who was later to rise to leadership roles
in both the League and the Indian freedom movement. In later years, as the full ramifications of the pact
unfolded, it was seen as benefiting the Muslim minority lites of provinces like UP and Bihar more than
the Muslim majorities of Punjab and Bengal, nonetheless, at the time, the "Lucknow Pact," was an
important milestone in nationalistic agitation and was seen so by the British.[95]
During 1916, two Home Rule Leagues were founded within the Indian National Congress by Tilak
and Annie Besant, respectively, to promote Home Rule among Indians, and also to elevate the stature of the
founders within the Congress itself.[96] Mrs. Besant, for her part, was also keen to demonstrate the
superiority of this new form of organised agitation, which had achieved some success in theIrish home rule
movement, to the political violence that had intermittently plagued the subcontinent during the years
19071914.[96] The two Leagues focused their attention on complementary geographical regions: Tilak's
in western India, in the southern Bombay presidency, and Mrs. Besant's in the rest of the country, but
especially in the Madras Presidency and in regions like Sind and Gujaratthat had hitherto been considered
politically dormant by the Congress.[96] Both leagues rapidly acquired new members approximately
thirty thousand each in a little over a year and began to publish inexpensive newspapers. Their
propaganda also turned to posters, pamphlets, and political-religious songs, and later to mass meetings,
which not only attracted greater numbers than in earlier Congress sessions, but also entirely new social
groups such as non-Brahmins, traders, farmers, students, and lower-level government
workers.[96] Although they did not achieve the magnitude or character of a nation-wide mass movement,
the Home Rule leagues both deepened and widened organised political agitation for self-rule in India.
The British authorities reacted by imposing restrictions on the Leagues, including shutting out students
from meetings and banning the two leaders from travelling to certain provinces.[96]
The year 1915 also saw the return of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to India. Already known in India as a
result of his civil liberties protests on behalf of the Indians in South Africa, Gandhi followed the advice
of his mentor Gopal Krishna Gokhale and chose not to make any public pronouncements during the first
year of his return, but instead spent the year travelling, observing the country first-hand, and
writing.[97] Earlier, during his South Africa sojourn, Gandhi, a lawyer by profession, had represented an
Indian community, which, although small, was sufficiently diverse to be a microcosm of India itself. In
tackling the challenge of holding this community together and simultaneously confronting the colonial
authority, he had created a technique of non-violent resistance, which he labelledSatyagraha (or, Striving
for Truth).[98] For Gandhi, Satyagraha was different from "passive resistance", by then a familiar technique
of social protest, which he regarded as a practical strategy adopted by the weak in the face of superior
force; Satyagraha, on the other hand, was for him the "last resort of those strong enough in their
commitment to truth to undergo suffering in its cause."[98] Ahimsa or "non-violence," which formed the
underpinning of Satyagraha, came to represent the twin pillar, with Truth, of Gandhi's unorthodox
religious outlook on life.[98] During the years 19071914, Gandhi tested the technique of Satyagraha in a
number of protests on behalf of the Indian community in South Africa against the unjust racial laws. [98]
Also, during his time in South Africa, in his essay, Hind Swaraj, (1909), Gandhi formulated his vision
of Swaraj, or "self-rule" for India based on three vital ingredients: solidarity between Indians of different
faiths, but most of all between Hindus and Muslims; the removal of untouchability from Indian society;
and the exercise of swadeshi the boycott of manufactured foreign goods and the revival of Indiancottage
industry.[97] The first two, he felt, were essential for India to be an egalitarian and tolerant society, one
befitting the principles of Truth and Ahimsa, while the last, by making Indians more self-reliant, would
break the cycle of dependence that was not only perpetrating the direction and tenor of the British rule in
India, but also the British commitment to it.[97] At least until 1920, the British presence itself, was not a
stumbling block in Gandhi's conception of swaraj; rather, it was the inability of Indians to create a
modern society.[97]
Indian medical orderlies attending to wounded soldiers with theMesopotamian Expeditionary

Force inMesopotamia duringWorld War I.
Sepoy Khudadad Khan, the first Indian to be awarded the Victoria Cross, the British Empire's highest wartime medal for gallantry. Khan, who hailed from Chakwal District, Punjab, in present-day Pakistan, died in
1971.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
(seated in carriage, on the right, eyes downcast, with black flat-top hat)
receives a big welcome in Karachi in 1916 after his return to India from South Africa.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah,
seated, third from the left, was a supporter of the Lucknow Pact, which, in 1916,
ended the three-way rift between the Extremists, the Moderates and the League.
[edit]Satyagraha,
Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms: 19171919
Gandhi made his political debut in India in 1917 in Champaran district in Bihar, near the Nepal border,
where he was invited by a group of disgruntled tenant farmers who, for many years, had been forced into
planting indigo (for dyes) on a portion of their land and then selling it at below-market prices to the
British planters who had leased them the land.[99] Upon his arrival in the district, Gandhi was joined by
other agitators, including a young Congress leader, Rajendra Prasad, from Bihar, who would become a
become a loyal supporter of Gandhi and go on to play a prominent role in the Indian freedom
movement. When Gandhi was ordered to leave by the local British authorities, he refused on moral
grounds, setting up his refusal as a form of individual Satyagraha. Soon, under pressure from the Viceroy
in Delhi who was anxious to maintain domestic peace during war-time, the provincial government
rescinded Gandhi's expulsion order, and later agreed to an official enquiry into the case. Although, the
British planters eventually gave in, they were not won over to the farmers' cause, and thereby did not
produce the optimal outcome of a Satyagraha that Gandhi had hoped for; similarly, the farmers
themselves, although pleased at the resolution, responded less than enthusiastically to the concurrent
projects of rural empowerment and education that Gandhi had inaugurated in keeping with his ideal
of swaraj. The following year Gandhi launched two more Satyagrahas both in his native Gujarat one in
the rural Kaira district where land-owning farmers were protesting increased land-revenue and the other
in the city of Ahmedabad, where workers in an Indian-owned textile mill were distressed about their low
wages. The satyagraha in Ahmedabad took the form of Gandhi fasting and supporting the workers in a
strike, which eventually led to a settlement. In Kaira, in contrast, although the farmers' cause received
publicity from Gandhi's presence, the satyagraha itself, which consisted of the farmers' collective
decision to withhold payment, was not immediately successful, as the British authorities refused to back
down. The agitation in Kaira gained for Gandhi another lifelong lieutenant in Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel,
who had organised the farmers, and who too would go on to play a leadership role in the Indian freedom
movement.[100] Champaran, Kaira, and Ahmedabad were important milestones in the history of Gandhi's
new methods of social protest in India.
In 1916, in the face of new strength demonstrated by the nationalists with the signing of the Lucknow
Pact and the founding of theHome Rule leagues, and the realisation, after the disaster in the Mesopotamian
campaign,
that the war would likely last longer, the new Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, cautioned that the
Government of India needed to be more responsive to Indian opinion.[101] Towards the end of the year,
after discussions with the government in London, he suggested that the British demonstrate their good
faith in light of the Indian war role through a number of public actions, including awards of titles and
honours to princes, granting of commissions in the army to Indians, and removal of the much-reviled
cotton excise duty, but, most importantly, an announcement of Britain's future plans for India and an
indication of some concrete steps. After more discussion, in August 1917, the new Liberal Secretary of
State for India,Edwin Montagu, announced the British aim of "increasing association of Indians in every
branch of the administration, and the gradual development of self-governing institutions, with a view to
the progressive realisation of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British
Empire."[101] Although the plan envisioned limited self-government at first only in the provinces with
India emphatically within the British Empire it represented the first British proposal for any form of
representative government in a non-white colony.
Earlier, at the onset of World War I, the reassignment of most of the British army in India to Europe
and Mesopotamia, had led the previous Viceroy, Lord Harding, to worry about the "risks involved in
denuding India of troops."[93] Revolutionary violence had already been a concern in British India;
consequently, in 1915, to strengthen its powers during what it saw was a time of increased vulnerability,
the Government of India passed the Defence of India Act, which allowed it to intern politically dangerous
dissidents without due process, and added to the power it already had under the 1910 Press Act both
to imprison journalists without trial and to censor the press.[102] It was under the Defence of India act that
the Ali brothers were imprisoned in 1916, and Annie Besant, a European woman, and ordinarily more
problematic to imprison, in 1917.[102] Now, as constitutional reform began to be discussed in earnest, the
British began to consider how new moderate Indians could be brought into the fold of constitutional
politics and, simultaneously, how the hand of established constitutionalists could be strengthened.
However, since the Government of India wanted to ensure against any sabotage of the reform process by
extremists, and since its reform plan was devised during a time when extremist violence had ebbed as a
result of increased governmental control, it also began to consider how some of its war-time powers
could be extended into peace time.[102]
Consequently, in 1917, even as Edwin Montagu, announced the new constitutional reforms, a committee
chaired by a British judge, Mr. S. A. T. Rowlatt, was tasked with investigating "revolutionary
conspiracies," with the unstated goal of extending the government's war-time powers.[101] The Rowlatt
committee presented its report in July 1918 and identified three regions of conspiratorial
insurgency:Bengal, the Bombay presidency, and the Punjab.[101] To combat subversive acts in these regions,
the committee recommended that the government use emergency powers akin to its war-time authority,
which included the ability to try cases of sedition by a panel of three judges and without juries, exaction
of securities from suspects, governmental overseeing of residences of suspects,[101] and the power for
provincial governments to arrest and detain suspects in short-term detention facilities and without
trial.[103]
With the end of World War I, there was also a change in the economic climate. By year's end 1919, 1.5
million Indians had served in the armed services in either combatant or non-combatant roles, and India
had provided 146 million in revenue for the war.[104] The increased taxes coupled with disruptions in
both domestic and international trade had the effect of approximately doubling the index of overall
prices in India between 1914 and 1920.[104] Returning war veterans, especially in the Punjab, created a
growing unemployment crisis,[105] and post-war inflation led to food riots in Bombay, Madras, and
Bengal provinces,[105] a situation that was made only worse by the failure of the 191819 monsoon and
by profiteering and speculation.[104] The global influenza epidemic and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917
added to the general jitters; the former among the population already experiencing economic
woes,[105] and the latter among government officials, fearing a similar revolution in India.[106]
To combat what it saw as a coming crisis, the government now drafted the Rowlatt committee's
recommendations into two Rowlatt Bills.[103] Although the bills were authorised for legislative
consideration by Edwin Montagu, they were done so unwillingly, with the accompanying declaration, "I
loathe the suggestion at first sight of preserving the Defence of India Act in peace time to such an extent
as Rowlatt and his friends think necessary."[101] In the ensuing discussion and vote in the Imperial
Legislative Council, all Indian members voiced opposition to the bills. The Government of India was,
nevertheless, able to use of its "official majority" to ensure passage of the bills early in
1919.[101] However, what it passed, in deference to the Indian opposition, was a lesser version of the first
bill, which now allowed extrajudicial powers, but for a period of exactly three years and for the
prosecution solely of "anarchical and revolutionary movements," dropping entirely the second bill
involving modification the Indian Penal Code.[101] Even so, when it was passed, the new Rowlatt Act aroused
widespread indignation throughout India, and brought Gandhi to the forefront of the nationalist
movement.[103]
Meanwhile, Montagu and Chelmsford themselves finally presented their report in July 1918 after a long
fact-finding trip through India the previous winter.[107] After more discussion by the government and
parliament in Britain, and another tour by the Franchise and Functions Committee for the purpose of
identifying who among the Indian population could vote in future elections, the Government of India Act
1919 (also known as the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms) was passed in December 1919.[107] The new Act
enlarged both the provincial and Imperial legislative councils and repealed the Government of India's
recourse to the "official majority" in unfavourable votes.[107] Although departments like defence, foreign
affairs, criminal law, communications, and income-tax were retained by theViceroy and the central
government in New Delhi, other departments like public health, education, land-revenue, local selfgovernment were transferred to the provinces.[107] The provinces themselves were now to be administered
under a new dyarchical system, whereby some areas like education, agriculture, infrastructure
development, and local self-government became the preserve of Indian ministers and legislatures, and
ultimately the Indian electorates, while others like irrigation, land-revenue, police, prisons, and control
of media remained within the purview of the British governor and his executive council.[107] The new Act
also made it easier for Indians to be admitted into the civil service and the army officer corps.
A greater number of Indians were now enfranchised, although, for voting at the national level, they
constituted only 10% of the total adult male population, many of whom were still illiterate.[107] In the
provincial legislatures, the British continued to exercise some control by setting aside seats for special
interests they considered cooperative or useful. In particular, rural candidates, generally sympathetic to
British rule and less confrontational, were assigned more seats than their urban counterparts.[107] Seats
were also reserved for non-Brahmins, landowners, businessmen, and college graduates. The principal of
"communal representation," an integral part of the Minto-Morley reforms, and more recently of the
Congress-Muslim League Lucknow Pact, was reaffirmed, with seats being reserved for
Muslims, Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians, and domiciled Europeans, in both provincial and Imperial
legislative councils.[107] The Montagu-Chelmsford reforms offered Indians the most significant
opportunity yet for exercising legislative power, especially at the provincial level; however, that
opportunity was also restricted by the still limited number of eligible voters, by the small budgets
available to provincial legislatures, and by the presence of rural and special interest seats that were seen
as instruments of British control.[107]Its scope was unsatisfactory to the Indian political leadership,
famously expressed by Annie Beasant as something "unworthy of England to offer and India to
accept".[108][citation not found]
[edit]Jallianwala Bagh Massacre
The Jallianwala Bagh massacre or "Amritsar massacre", took place in the Jallianwala Bagh public garden in
the predominantly Sikh northern city of Amritsar. After days of unrest Brigadier-General Reginald E.H.
Dyer forbade
public meetings and on Sunday 13 April 1919 fifty British Indian Army soldiers
commanded by Dyer began shooting at an unarmed gathering of thousands of men, women, and children
without warning. Casualty estimates vary widely, with the Government of India reporting 379 dead,
with 1,100 wounded.[109] TheIndian National Congress estimated three times the number of dead. Dyer was
removed from duty but he became a celebrated hero in Britain among people with connections to the
Raj.[110] Historians consider the episode was a decisive step towards the end of British rule in India.[111]
Raghaven argues that the massacre caused a reevaluation the Army's role, to make it more pragmatic
and nuanced rather than rely on brute force to overawe or punish the natives. The new policy became
minimum force. The army was retrained and developed suitable tactics such as crowd control.[112]
Gandhi at the time of the Kheda Satyagraha, 1918.
Edwin Montagu,
left, theSecretary of State for India, whose report, led to theGovernment of India Act 1919, also
known as the Montford Reforms or the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms.
Headlines about the Rowlatt Bills (1919) from a nationalist newspaper in India. Although all nonofficial Indians on the Legislative Council voted against the Rowlatt Bills, the government was able to
[103]
force their passage by using its majority.
The Jallianwalla Bagh in 1919, a few months after the massacre which had occurred on 13 April.
[edit]Noncooperation,
Khilafat, Simon Commission, Jinnah's fourteen points:
1920s
In 1920, after the British government refused to back down, Gandhi began his campaign
of noncooperation, prompting many Indians to return British awards and honours, to resign from civil
service, and to again boycott British goods. In addition, Gandhi reorganised the Congress, transforming
it into a mass movement and opening its membership to even the poorest Indians. Although Gandhi
halted the noncooperation movement in 1922 after the violent incident at Chauri Chaura, the movement
revived again, in the mid-1920s.
The visit, in 1928, of the British Simon Commission, charged with instituting constitutional reform in
India, resulted in widespread protests throughout the country.[113] Earlier, in 1925, non-violent protests of
the Congress had resumed too, this time in Gujarat, and led by Patel, who organised farmers to refuse
payment of increased land taxes; the success of this protest, the Bardoli Satyagraha, brought Gandhi back
into the fold of active politics.[113]
Mahatma Gandhi with
Dr.Annie Besant en route to a meeting in Madras in September, 1921. Earlier,

in Madurai, on 21 September 1921, Gandhi had adopted the loin-clothfor the first time as a symbol of his
identification with India's poor.
An early 1920s poster advertising a Congress non-cooperation "Public Meeting" and a "Bonfire of
Foreign Clothes" in Bombay, and expressing support for the "Karachi Khilafat Conference."
Hindus and Muslims, displaying the flags of both the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League,
collecting clothes to be later burnt as a part of the non-cooperation movement initiated by Gandhi.
Photograph of the staff and students of the National College, Lahore, founded in 1921 by Lala Lajpat Raifor
students preparing for the non-cooperation movement. Standing, fourth from the right, is future
revolutionary Bhagat Singh.
[edit]Demand
for complete independence, Salt March: 19291931
At midnight on 31 December 1929, during its annual session in Lahore, the Indian National Congress,
under the presidency ofJawaharlal Nehru, raised the flag of independent India for the first time, and
afterwards issued a demand for Purna Swaraj (Sanskrit: "complete independence"), which Nehru was to
later refer to as "a tryst with destiny." The declaration was drafted by the Congress Working Committee, which
included Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, and Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari. Gandhi subsequently led an expanded
movement of civil disobedience, culminating in 1930 with the Salt Satyagraha, in which thousands of
Indians defied the tax on salt, by marching to the sea and making their own salt by evaporating seawater.
Although, many, including Gandhi, were arrested, the British government eventually gave in, and in
1931 Gandhi travelled to London to negotiate new reform at the Round Table Conferences.
In local terms British control rested on the Indian Civil Service, but it faced growing difficulties. Fewer
and fewer young men in Britain were interested in joining, and the continuing distrust of Indians
resulted in a declining base in terms of quality and quantity. By 1945 Indians were numerically
dominant in the ICS and at issue was loyal divided between the Empire and independence.[114] The
finances of the Raj depended on land taxes, and these became problematic in the 1930s. Epstein argues
that after 1919 it became harder and harder to collect the land revenue. The Raj's suppression of civil
disobedience after 1934 temporarily increased the power of the revenue agents but after 1937 they were
forced by the new Congress-controlled provincial governments to hand back confiscated land. Again the
outbreak of war strengthened them, in the face of the Quit India movement the revenue collectors had to
rely on military force and by 194647 direct British control was rapidly disappearing in much of the
countryside.[115]
[edit]Government
of India Act: 19311937
British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonaldto the right of Mahatma Gandhi at the Second round Table
Conference in London, October 1931. Fourth from the left in the foreground is Dr. B. R. Ambedkar,
representative of the "Depressed Classes."
In 1935, after the Round Table Conferences, Parliament passed the Government of India Act 1935, which
authorised the establishment of independent legislative assemblies in all provinces of British India, the
creation of a central government incorporating both the British provinces and the princely states, and the
protection of Muslim minorities. The futureConstitution of independent India was based on this
act.[116] However, it divided the electorate into 19 religious and social categories, e.g., Moslems, Sikhs,
Indian Christians, Depressed Classes, Landholders, Commerce and Industry, Europeans, Anglo-Indians,
etc., each of which was given separate representation in the Provincial Legislative Assemblies. A voter
could cast a vote only for candidates in his own category.
The 1935 Act provided for more autonomy for Indian provinces, with the goal of cooling off nationalist
sentiment. The act provided for a national parliament and an executive branch under the purview of the
British government, but the rulers of the princely states managed to block its implementation. These
states remained under the full control of their hereditary rulers, with no popular government. \To prepare
for elections Congress built up its grass roots membership from 473,000 in 1935 to 4.5 million in
1939.[117]
In the 1937 elections Congress won victories in seven of the eleven provinces of British
India.[118] Congress governments, with wide powers, were formed in these provinces. The widespread
voter support for the Indian National Congress surprised Raj officials, who previously had seen the
Congress as a small elitist body.[119]
[edit]World
War II, Muslim League's Lahore Resolution: 19381941
While the Muslim League was a small elite group in 1927 with only 1300 members, it grew rapidly once
it became an organisation that reached out to the masses, reaching 500,000 members in Bengal in 1944,
200,000 in Punjab, and hundreds of thousands elsewhere. Jinnah now was well positioned to negotiate
with the British from a position of power.[120] With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the
viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, declared war on India's behalf without consulting Indian leaders, leading the
Congress provincial ministries to resign in protest. The Muslim League, in contrast, supported Britain in
the war effort and maintained its control of the government in three major provinces, Bengal, Sind and
the Punjab.
Jinnah repeatedly warned that Muslims would be unfairly treated in an independent India dominated by
the Congress. On 24 March 1940 in Lahore, the League passed the "Lahore Resolution", demanding that,
"the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in majority as in the North-Western and Eastern zones
of India should be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constituent units shall be
autonomous and sovereign." Although there were other important national Muslim politicians such as
Congress leader Ab'ul Kalam Azad, and influential regional Muslim politicians such as A. K. Fazlul Huq of
the leftist Krishak Praja Party in Bengal, Sikander Hyat Khan of the landlord-dominated Punjab Unionist Party,
and Abd al-Ghaffar Khan of the pro-CongressKhudai Khidmatgar (popularly, "red shirts") in the North West
Frontier Province,
the British, over the next six years, were to increasingly see the League as the main
representative of Muslim India.[121]
The Congress was secular and strongly opposed having any religious state. It insisted there was a natural
unity to India, and repeatedly blamed the British for "divide and rule" tactics based on prompting
Muslims to think of themselves as alien from Hindus. Jinnah rejected the notion of a united India, and
emphasised that religious communities were more basic than an artificial nationalism. He proclaimed
the Two-Nation Theory,[122] stating at Lahore on 22 March 1940:
"Islam and Hinduism ... are not religions in the strict sense of the word, but are, in fact, different
and distinct social orders, and it is a dream that the Hindus and Muslims can ever evolve a
common nationality, and this misconception of one Indian nation has troubles and will lead India
to destruction if we fail to revise our notions in time. The Hindus and Muslims belong to two
different religious philosophies, social customs, litterateurs. They neither intermarry nor
interdine together and, indeed, they belong to two different civilisations which are based mainly
on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their aspect on life and of life are different ... To yoke
together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a
majority, must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built
for the government of such a state."[123]
Mahatma Gandhi andRajendra Prasad (left)
on their way to meet the viceroy Lord Linlithgow (13

October 1939) after the outbreak of World War II.
Chaudhari Khaliquzzaman(left)
seconding the 1940 Lahore Resolution of theMuslim

League withJinnah (right) presiding, and Liaquat Ali Khancentre.
Newly arrived Indian troops on the quayside in Singapore, November 1941
Indian Army Sikh personnel in action during the successful Operation Crusader in Western Desert
Campaign in North Africa in December 1941.
[edit]Army
expansion
Sherman tank of the 9th Royal Deccan Horse, 255th Indian Tank Brigade, Burma 1945
While the regular Indian army in 1939 included about 220,000 native troops, it expanded tenfold
during the war[124] and small naval and air force units were created. Over two million Indians
volunteered for military service in the British Army. They played a major role in numerous
campaigns, especially in the Middle East and North Africa. Casualties were moderate (in terms of
the world war), with were 24,000 killed; 64,000 wounded; 12,000 missing (probably dead), and
60,000 captured at Singapore in 1942.[125]
London paid most of the cost of the Indian Army, which had the effect of erasing India's national
debt. It ended the war with a surplus of 1,300 million. In addition, heavy British spending on
munitions produced in India (such as uniforms, rifles, machine-guns, field artillery, and
ammunition) led to a rapid expansion of industrial output, such as textiles (up 16%), steel (up 18%),
chemicals (up 30%). Small warships were built, and an aircraft factory opened in Bangalore. The
railway system, with 700,000 employees, was taxed to the limit as demand for transportation
soared.[126]
[edit]INA
The soldiers captured at Singapore had the option of going to Japanese POW camps or joining
the Indian National Army, headed by Subhas Chandra Bose but under Japanese control. Most joined the
INA coming to a total of 50000 soldiers[127] and fought in Burma; about 10,000 survived the war.[128]
On some ideological conflict leading to Tripuri Crisis for the election of the Congress
President,[129] Bose resigned from the Congress in 1939 and turned to Germany and Japan to liberate
India by force.[130] With Japanese sponsorship he organised the Indian National Army. From the onset of
the war, the Japanese secret service had promoted unrest in South east Asia to destabilise the British
war effort,[131] and set up several puppet governments in the captured regions. For India Japan created
the Provisional Government of Azad Hind (Free India), presided by Bose.[132] After early Japanese
success in Burma, the reinforced British Indian Army in 1945 first halted and then reversed the
Japanese U Go offensive, and launched its Burma Campaign.
Sir Stafford Cripps
[edit]Cripps
negotiating with Gandhi March 1942
Mission, Quit India Resolution: 19421945
The British government sent the Cripps' mission in 1942 to secure Indian nationalists' cooperation in
the war effort in exchange for a promise of independence as soon as the war ended. Top officials in
Britain, most notably Prime Minister Winston Churchill, did not support the Cripps Mission and
negotiations with the Congress soon broke down.[133]
Women's procession in Bombay during the "Quit India" movement, 1942

Congress in July 1942 launched the "Quit India" movement in demanding the immediate withdrawal
of the British from India or face nationwide civil disobedience. On 8 August the Raj arrested all
national, provincial and local Congress leaders, holding tens of thousands of them until 1945. The
country erupted in violent demonstrations led by students and later by peasant political groups,
especially in Eastern United Provinces, Bihar, and western Bengal. The large war-time British Army
presence crushed the movement in a little more than six weeks;[134] nonetheless, a portion of the
movement formed for a time an underground provisional government on the border with
Nepal.[134] In other parts of India, the movement was less spontaneous and the protest less intensive,
however it lasted sporadically into the summer of 1943. It did not slow down the British war effort
or recruiting for the army.[135]
September 19, 1945 saw England offer India limited autonomy within the British Empire. The AllIndia Congress debated between September 20 through 23, but they rejected the proposition and
demanded that England leave India immediately.[136]
[edit]Elections,
Cabinet Mission, Direct Action Day: 1946
In January 1946, a number of mutinies broke out in the armed services, starting with that of RAF
servicemen frustrated with their slow repatriation to Britain.[137] The mutinies came to a head
with mutiny of the Royal Indian Navy in Bombay in February 1946, followed by others in Calcutta,
Madras, and Karachi. Although the mutinies were rapidly suppressed, they had the effect of spurring
the new Labour government in Britain to action, and leading to the Cabinet Mission to India led by
the Secretary of State for India, Lord Pethick Lawrence, and includingSir Stafford Cripps, who had visited
four years before.[137]
Also in early 1946, new elections were called in India. Earlier, at the end of the war in 1945, the
colonial government had announced the public trial of three senior officers of Bose's defeated Indian
National Army who stood accused of treason. Now as the trials began, the Congress leadership,
although ambivalent towards the INA, chose to defend the accused officers.[138] The subsequent
convictions of the officers, the public outcry against the convictions, and the eventual remission of
the sentences, created positive propaganda for the Congress, which only helped in the party's
subsequent electoral victories in eight of the eleven provinces.[139] The negotiations between the
Congress and the Muslim League, however, stumbled over the issue of the partition. Jinnah
proclaimed 16 August 1946, Direct Action Day, with the stated goal of highlighting, peacefully, the
demand for a Muslim homeland in British India. The following day Hindu-Muslim riots broke out in
Calcutta and quickly spread throughout India. Although the Government of India and the Congress
were both shaken by the course of events, in September, a Congress-led interim government was
installed, with Jawaharlal Nehru as united India's prime minister.[140]
Members of the 1946 Cabinet Mission to Indiameeting Muhammad Ali Jinnah. On the extreme left is Lord
Pethick Lawrence; on the extreme right, Sir Stafford Cripps.
Khan Sahib Qazi Zafar Hussain,
member of the Muslim rural elite of Punjab, who during the 1946
Punjab Provincial Assembly Election, supported Punjab Muslim League.
Dead and wounded after the Direct Action Day which developed into pitched battles as Muslim and
Hindu mobs attacked and killed each other across Calcutta in 1946.
[edit]The
Plan for Partition: 1947
Later that year, the Labour government in Britain, its exchequer exhausted by the recently concluded
World War II, and conscious that it had neither the mandate at home, the international support, nor
the reliability of native forces for continuing to control an increasingly restless India,[141][142] decided to
end British rule of India, and in early 1947 Britain announced its intention of transferring power no
later than June 1948.
As independence approached, the violence between Hindus and Muslims in the provinces of Punjab
and Bengal continued unabated. With the British army unprepared for the potential for increased
violence, the new viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, advanced the date for the transfer of power, allowing
less than six months for a mutually agreed plan for independence. In June 1947, the nationalist
leaders, including Sardar Patel, Nehru and Abul Kalam Azad on behalf of the Congress, Jinnah
representing the Muslim League, B. R. Ambedkar representing the Untouchable community, and Master
Tara Singh representing
the Sikhs, agreed to a partition of the countryalong religious lines in stark

opposition to Gandhi's views. The predominantly Hindu and Sikh areas were assigned to the new
India and predominantly Muslim areas to the new nation of Pakistan; the plan included a partition of
the Muslim-majority provinces of Punjab and Bengal.
Percentage of Hindus by district. Map of British Indian Empire, 1909.
Percentage of Muslims by district. Map of British Indian Empire, 1909.

[edit]Violence,
Partition, Independence: 1947
On 14 August 1947, the new Dominion of Pakistan came into being, with Muhammad Ali Jinnah sworn
in as its first Governor General inKarachi. The following day, 15 August 1947, India, now a
smaller Union of India, became an independent country with official ceremonies taking place in
New Delhi, and with Jawaharlal Nehru assuming the office of the prime minister, and the viceroy,
Louis Mountbatten, staying on as its first Governor General.[143]
The great majority of Indians remained in place with independence, but in border areas millions of
people (Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu) relocated across the newly drawn borders. In Punjab, where the new
border lines divided the Sikh regions in half, there was much bloodshed; in Bengal and Bihar, where
Gandhi's presence assuaged communal tempers, the violence was more limited. In all, somewhere
between 250,000 and 500,000 people on both sides of the new borders, both among the refugee and
resident populations of the three faiths, died in the violence.[144] Other estimates of the number of
deaths are as high as 1,500,000. Source
[edit]Ideological
impact
At independence and since India has maintained such central British institutions as parliamentary
government, one-person, one-vote and the rule of law through nonpartisan courts. They retained as
well the institutional arrangements of the Raj such as district administration, universities and stock
exchanges. One major change was the rejection of separate princely states. Metcalf shows that over
the course of two centuries, British intellectuals and Indian specialists made the highest priority
bringing peace, unity and good government to India. They offered many competing methods to
reach the goal. For example, Cornwallis recommended turning BengaliZamindar into the sort of English
landlords that controlled local affairs in England. Munro proposed to deal directly with the
peasants.Sir William Jones and the Orientalists promoted Sanskrit, while Macaulay promoted the
English language.[145] Zinkin argues that in the long-run, what matters most about the legacy of the
Raj is the British political ideologies which the Indians took over after 1947, especially the belief in
unity, democracy, the rule of law and a certain equality beyond caste and creed. Zinkin sees this not
just in the Congress party but also among Hindu Nationalists in the Bharatya Janata Party, which
specifically emphasises Hindu traditions.[146][147]
[edit]Economic
impact
"A significant fact which stands out is that those parts of India which have been longest under
British rule are the poorest today. Indeed some kind of chart might be drawn up to indicate the close
connection between length of British rule and progressive growth of poverty."
Jawaharlal Nehru, on the economic effects of the British rule, in his book The Discovery of India[148]
In 1780 the conservative British politician Edmund Burke raised the issue of India's position: he
vehemently attacked the East India Company, claiming that Warren Hastings and other top officials
had ruined the Indian economy and society. Indian historian Rajat Kanta Ray (1998) continues this
line of attack, saying the new economy brought by the British in the 18th century was a form of
"plunder" and a catastrophe for the traditional economy of Mughal India. Ray accuses the British of
depleting the food and money stocks and of imposing high taxes that helped cause the terrible
famine of 1770, which killed a third of the people of Bengal.[149]
P. J. Marshall shows
that recent scholarship has reinterpreted the view that the prosperity of the
formerly benign Mughal rule gave way to poverty and anarchy. He argues the British takeover did
not make any sharp break with the past, which largely delegated control to regional Mughal rulers
and sustained a generally prosperous economy for the rest of the 18th century. Marshall notes the
British went into partnership with Indian bankers and raised revenue through local tax
administrators and kept the old Mughal rates of taxation.[150]Instead of the Indian nationalist account
of the British as alien aggressors, seizing power by brute force and impoverishing all of India,
Marshall presents the interpretation (supported by many scholars in India and the West) that the
British were not in full control but instead were players in what was primarily an Indian play and in
which their rise to power depended upon excellent cooperation with Indian elites. This notion
however contradicts the accounts of pilferage and theft of famous diamonds and rare resources
forcibly removed from its citizens. Marshall admits that much of his interpretation is still rejected by
many historians.[151]
[edit]Famines,
epidemics, and public health
Main articles: Famines, epidemics, and public health in the British Raj and Timeline of major famines in India
during British rule (1765 to 1947)
See also: Chalisa famine, Doji bara famine, Agra famine of 183738, Orissa Famine of 1866, Rajputana famine of
1869, Bihar famine of 187374, Great Famine of 187678, Indian famine of 189697, and Indian famine of 1899
1900
According to Angus Maddison, "The British contributed to public health by introducing smallpox
vaccination, establishing Western medicine and training modern doctors, by killing rats, and
establishing quarantine procedures. As a result, the death rate fell and the population of India grew
by 1947 to more than two-and-a- half times its size in 1757."[152]
Population growth worsened the plight of the peasantry. As a result of peace and improved
sanitation and health, the Indian population rose from perhaps 100 million in 1700 to 300
million by 1920. While encouraging agricultural productivity, the British also provided
economic incentives to have more children to help in the fields. Although a similar
population increase occurred in Europe at the same time, the growing numbers could be
absorbed by industrialisation or emigration to the Americas and Australia. India enjoyed
neither an industrial revolution nor an increase in food growing. Moreover, Indian landlords
had a stake in the cash crop system and discouraged innovation. As a result, population
numbers far outstripped the amount of available food and land, creating dire poverty and
widespread hunger.
-Craig A. Lockard, Societies, Networks, and Transitions[153]
Famines in India (Estimated deaths in millions)

Colonial era
(17651947)[154][155][156]
[show]Famine
Years
Deaths
Victims of the Great Famine of 187678 in India

During the British Raj, India experienced some of the worst famines ever recorded, including the Great
Famine of 18761878, in which 6.1 million to 10.3 million people died[166] and the Indian famine of 1899
1900, in which 1.25 to 10 million people died.[167] Recent research, including work by Mike
Davis and Amartya Sen,[168] attributes most of the effects of these famines to British policy in India.
An El Nio event caused the Indian famine of 18761878.[169]
Having been criticised for the badly bungled relief-effort during the Orissa famine of 1866,[170] British
authorities began to discuss famine policy soon afterwards, and in early 1868 Sir William Muir,
Lieutenant-Governor of the North Western Provinces, issued a famous order stating that:[171]
"... every District officer would be held personally responsible that no deaths occurred from
starvation which could have been avoided by any exertion or arrangement on his part or that of his
subordinates."
The first cholera pandemic began in Bengal, then spread across India by 1820. 10,000 British troops and
countless Indians died during this pandemic.[172] Estimated deaths in India between 1817 and 1860
exceeded 15 million persons. Another 23 million died between 1865 and 1917.[173] The Third
Pandemic of plague started in China in the middle of the 19th century, spreading disease to all
inhabited continents and killing 10 million people in India alone.[174] Waldemar Haffkine, who mainly
worked in India, became the firstmicrobiologist to developed and deploy vaccines against cholera and
bubonic plague. In 1925 the Plague Laboratory in Bombay was renamed the Haffkine Institute.
Fevers ranked as one of the leading causes of death in India in the 19th century.[175] Britain's Sir
Ronald Ross, working in thePresidency General Hospital in Calcutta, finally proved in 1898 that
mosquitoes transmit malaria.[176]
In 1881 around 120,000 leprosy patients existed in India. The central government passed the Lepers
Act of 1898, which provided legal provision for forcible confinement of leprosy sufferers in
India.[177] Under the direction of Mountstuart Elphinstone a program was launched to propagate smallpox
vaccination.[178] Mass
vaccination in India resulted in a major decline in smallpox mortality by the end

of the 19th century. In 1849 nearly 13% of all Calcutta deaths were due to smallpox.[180] Between
1868 and 1907, there were approximately 4.7 million deaths from smallpox.[181]
[179]
Sir Robert Grant directed his attention to establishing a systematic institution in Bombay for imparting
medical knowledge to the natives.[182] In 1860, Grant Medical College became one of the four recognised
colleges for teaching courses leading to degrees (alongside Elphinstone College, Deccan
College and Government Law College, Mumbai).
[edit]See
also
British Empire
portal
Wikimedia Commons has

media related to: British Raj
Company rule in India
Indian independence movement
Imperialism in Asia
[edit]Notes
o
^ Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1989: from Skr. rj: to reign, rule; cognate with L. rx, rgis, OIr. r, rg king (see RICH).
a b
Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition (June 2008), on-line edition (September 2011): "spec. In full British
Raj. Direct rule in India by the British (18581947); this period of dominion."
^ Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1989. Examples: 1955Times 25 Aug 9/7 It was effective against the
British raj in India, and the conclusion drawn here is that the British knew that they were wrong. 1969 R.
MILLAR Kut xv. 288 Sir Stanley Maude had taken command in Mesopotamia, displacing the raj of antique
Indian Army commanders. 1975 H. R. ISAACS in H. M. Patel et al. Say not the Struggle Nought Availeth 251
The post-independence rgime in all its incarnations since the passing of the British Raj.
^ First the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland then, after 1927, the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland
^ The names "Empire of India" and "Federation of India" were also in use.
^ Kaul, Chandrika. "From Empire to Independence: The British Raj in India 18581947". Retrieved 3 March
2011.
^ Marshall (2001), p. 384
^ "Nepal." Encyclopdia Britannica. 2008.
^ "Bhutan." Encyclopdia Britannica. 2008.
^ "Sikkim." Encyclopdia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopdia Britannica Online. 5 August 2007

<http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-46212>.
^ "India". World Digital Library. Retrieved 24 January 2013.
^ Interpretation Act 1889 (52 & 53 Vict. c. 63), s. 18
^ 1. Imperial Gazetteer of India, volume IV, published under the authority of the Secretary of State for India-inCouncil, 1909, Oxford University Press. page 5. Quote: "The history of British India falls, as observed by Sir C.
P. Ilbert in his Government of India, into three periods. From the beginning of the seventeenth century to the
middle of the eighteenth century the East India Company is a trading corporation, existing on the sufferance of
the native powers and in rivalry with the merchant companies of Holland and France. During the next century
the Company acquires and consolidates its dominion, shares its sovereignty in increasing proportions with the
Crown, and gradually loses its mercantile privileges and functions. After the mutiny of 1857 the remaining
powers of the Company are transferred to the Crown, and then follows an era of peace in which India awakens
to new life and progress." 2. The Statutes: From the Twentieth Year of King Henry the Third to the ... by Robert
Harry Drayton, Statutes of the Realm - Law - 1770 Page 211 (3) "Save as otherwise expressly provided in this
Act, the law of British India and of the several parts thereof existing immediately before the appointed
..." 3. Edney, M.E. (1997) Mapping an Empire: The Geographical Construction of British India, 1765-1843,
University of Chicago Press. 480 pages. ISBN 978-0-226-18488-3 4. Hawes, C.J. (1996) Poor Relations: The
Making of a Eurasian Community in British India, 1773-1833. Routledge, 217 pages. ISBN 978-0-7007-0425-5.
^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. II 1908, p. 463,470 Quote1: "Before passing on to the political history of British
India, which properly begins with the Anglo-French Wars in the Carnatic, ... (p.463)" Quote2: "The political
history of the British in India begins in the eighteenth century with the French Wars in the Carnatic. (p.471)"
^ British Indian Passport of Muhammad Ali Jinnah
a b
a b c
^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 56
^ Markovits, Claude (2004). A history of modern India, 14801950. Anthem Press. pp. 386409.
^ Robin J. Moore, "Imperial India, 18581914," pp 422-46
^ Moore, "Imperial India, 18581914", p. 424
^ Brown 1994, p. 96
^ Moore 2001a, p. 426
^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 104
^ Peers 2006, p. 76
^ Bayly 1990, p. 195
^ Peers 2006, p. 72, Bayly 1990, p. 72
^ Michael Maclagan (1963). "Clemency" Canning: Charles John, 1st Earl Canning, Governor-General and
Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 60
a b c
Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 46
Moore, "Imperial India, 18581914", p. 426
Viceroy of India, 18561862. Macmillan. p. 212. Retrieved 21 February 2012.
^ William Ford (1887). John Laird Mair Lawrence, a viceroy of India, by William St. Clair. pp. 186253.
^ Sarvepalli Gopal (1953). The viceroyalty of Lord Ripon, 18801884. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 21
a b
Sir William Wilson Hunter (1876). A life of the Earl of Mayo, fourth viceroy of India. pp. 181310.
February 2012.
^ Briton Martin, Jr.. "The Viceroyalty of Lord Dufferin," History Today, (Dec 1960) 10#12 pp. 821830, and (Jan
1961) 11#1 pp. 5664
^ Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall (1905). The life of the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava. 2. pp. 72207.
^ Sir George Forrest (1894). The administration of the Marquis of Lansdowne as Viceroy and Governor-general
of India, 18881894.
^ Michael Edwardes, High Noon of Empire: India under Curzon(1965)
^ H. Caldwell Lipsett (1903). Lord Curzon in India: 1898-1903. R.A. Everett.
^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. I 1908, p. 449
^ Ernest Hullo, "India," in Catholic Encyclopedia (1910) vol. 7online
a b
Manmath Nath Das (1964). India under Morley and Minto: politics behind revolution, repression and
reforms. G. Allen and Unwin. Retrieved 21 February 2012.
a b
a b c d
^ European Madness and Gender in Nineteenth-century British India. Social History of Medicine 1996 9(3):357
382.
Spear 1990, p. 147

Spear 1990, pp. 147148
^ Ronald E. Robinson and John Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians: The Climax of Imperialism. (1968)
^ David Gilmour, The Ruling Caste: Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj (2007) pp. 46, 135
^ Radhika Singha, "Colonial Law and Infrastructural Power: Reconstructing Community, Locating the Female
Subject,"Studies in History, (Feb 2003), 19#1 pp. 87126 online
^ Tazeen M. Murshid, "Law and Female Autonomy in Colonial India," Journal of the Asiatic Society of
Bangladesh: Humanities,(June 2002), 47#1 pp. 2542
^ Suresh Chandra Ghosh, "Bentinck, Macaulay and the introduction of English education in India," History of
Education,(March 1995) 24#1 pp. 1724
^ Spear, Percival (1938). "Bentinck and Education".Cambridge Historical Journal 6 (1): 78101.
^ Moore, "Imperial India, 18581914," p. 431
^ Zareer Masani, Indian Tales of the Raj (1988) p. 89
^ B. R. Tomlinson, The Economy of Modern India, 18601970(1996) p. 5
^ B. H. Tomlinson, "India and the British Empire, 18801935,"Indian Economic and Social History Review, (Oct
1975), 12#4 pp. 337380
^ Madison, Angus (2006). The world economy, Volumes 12. OECD Publishing. p. 638.
doi:10.1787/456125276116. ISBN 92-64-02261-9. Retrieved November 1, 2011.
^ Peter Robb, "British Rule and Indian "Improvement,"Economic History Review (Nov 1981), 34#4 pp. 507
523 in JSTOR
^ F. H. Brown and B. R. Tomlinson, "Tata, Jamshed Nasarwanji (18391904)", in Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography (2004)Retrieved 28 Jan 2012 doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/36421
^ Vinay Bahl, "The Emergence of Large-Scale Steel Industry in India Under British Colonial Rule, 1880
1907," Indian Economic and Social History Review, (Oct 1994) 31#4 pp. 413460
^ Daniel R. Headrick, The tentacles of progress: technology transfer in the age of imperialism, 1850
1940, (1988) pp. 2912
^ Vinay Bahl, Making of the Indian Working Class: A Case of the Tata Iron & Steel Company, 1880
1946 (1995) ch 8
^ Claude Markovits, Indian Business and Nationalist Politics 193139: The Indigenous Capitalist Class and the
Rise of the Congress Party (Cambridge University Press, 2002) pp. 16066
^ I. D. Derbyshire, "Economic Change and the Railways in North India, 18601914," Modern Asian
Studies, (1987), 21#3 pp. 521545 in JSTOR
^ R.R. Bhandari (2005). Indian Railways: Glorious 150 years. Ministry of Information and Broadcasting,
Government of India. pp. 119. ISBN 81-230-1254-3.
^ Thorner, Daniel (2005). "The pattern of railway development in India". In Kerr, Ian J.. Railways in Modern
India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. pp. 8096. ISBN 0-19-567292-5.
^ Hurd, John (2005). "Railways". In Kerr, Ian J.. Railways in Modern India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
pp. 14717296. ISBN 0-19-567292-5.
^ Daniel R. Headrick, The tentacles of progress: technology transfer in the age of imperialism, 1850
1940, (1988) pp. 7879
^ Headrick, The tentacles of progress: technology transfer in the age of imperialism, 18501940, (1988) pp. 81
82, 291
^ Wainwright, A. Marin (1994). Inheritance of Empire. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.
p. 48. ISBN 978-0-275-94733-0.
^ R. O. Christensen, "The State and Indian Railway Performance, 18701920: Part I, Financial Efficiency and
Standards of Service," Journal of Transport History (Sept. 1981) 2#2, pp. 115
^ (Stein 2001, p. 259)
^ Laura Bear, Lines of the nation: Indian Railway workers, bureaucracy, and the intimate historical self (2007)
pp. 2528
^ Arudra Burra, "The Indian Civil Service and the nationalist movement: neutrality, politics and
continuity," Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, (Nov 2010), 48#4 pp. 404432
^ B. R. Tomlinson, The economy of modern India, 18601970(1996) p 109
^ Judith Brown, Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy (1994) p. 12
^ Angus Maddison, The World Economy, pages 109112, (2001)
a b c d
a b
(Spear 1990, p. 170)
a b
(Majumdar, Raychaudhuri & Datta 1950, p. 888)
^ (Bose & Jalal 2003, p. 100)
^ Helen S. Dyer, Pandita Ramabai: the story of her life (1900)online
^ David Ludden, India and South Asia: a short history (2002) p.197
^ Stanley A. Wolpert, Tilak and Gokhale: revolution and reform in the making of modern India (1962) p 67
^ Michael Edwardes, High Noon of Empire: India under Curzon(1965) p 77
^ Moore, "Imperial India, 18581914," p. 435
^ John R. McLane, "The Decision to Partition Bengal in 1905,"Indian Economic and Social History Review, July
(Spear 1990, p. 169)
1965, 2#3, pp. 221237
^ V. Sankaran Nair, Swadeshi movement: The beginnings of student unrest in South India (1985) excerpt and
text search
^ Peter Heehs, The lives of Sri Aurobindo (2008) p. 184
^ (Bandyopadhyay 2005, p. 260)
^ Statistical abstract relating to British India, Issues 4041(1906) p. 36
^ David Arnold, "The Armed Police and Colonial Rule in South India, 19141947," Modern Asian Studies, (Jan
1977) 11#1 pp. 101125; Arnold, Police Power and Colonial Rule: Madras, 18591947 (1986)
^ Wolpert, A New History of India, pp. 275276
^ Ludden (2002), pp. 200201
^ (Robb 2004, p. 174)
^ Olympic Games Antwerp. 1920: Official Report.
a b c
a b c d e
a b c d
Brown 1994, pp. 214215
a b c d
Brown 1994, pp. 210213
^ Brown 1994, pp. 216217
^ Balraj Krishna, India's Bismarck, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel(2007) ch. 2
a b c d e f g h
a b c
a b c d
a b c
Brown 1994, pp. 195196
a b c
Stein 2001, p. 304
^ Ludden 2002, p. 208
^ Chhabra 2005, p. 2
^ Nick Lloyd, The Amritsar Massacre: The Untold Story of One Fateful Day (2011) p. 180
^ Derek Sayer, "British Reaction to the Amritsar Massacre 19191920," Past & Present, May 1991, Issue 131,
a b c d e f
Brown 1994, pp. 197198
Brown 1994, pp. 200201

Brown 1994, p. 199
Brown 1994, pp. 203204
Brown 1994, pp. 201202

Spear 1990, p. 190
a b c d e f g h i
Brown 1994, pp. 205207
pp. 130164
^ Brain Bond, "Amritsar 1919," History Today, Sept 1963, Vol. 13 Issue 10, pp. 666676
^ Srinath Raghaven, "Protecting the Raj: The Army in India and Internal Security, c . 191939," Small Wars and
Insurgencies,(Fall 2005), 16#3 pp. 253279 online
a b
^ David C. Potter, "Manpower Shortage and the End of Colonialism: The Case of Indian Civil Service," Modern
(Markovits 2004, pp. 373374)
Asian Studies, (Jan 1973) 7#1 pp. 4773
^ Simon Epstein, "District Officers in Decline: The Erosion of British Authority in the Bombay Countryside, 1919
to 1947,"Modern Asian Studies, (May 1982) 16#3 pp. 493518
^ (Low 1993, pp. 40, 156)
^ Piers Brendon, The Decline and Fall of the British Empire: 17811997 (2008) p. 394
^ (Low 1993, p. 154)
^ Andrew Muldoon, "Politics, Intelligence and Elections in Late Colonial India: Congress and the Raj in
1937," Journal of the Canadian Historical Association (2009), 20#2 pp. 160188; Muldoon, Empire, politics and
the creation of the 1935 India Act: last act of the Raj (2009)
^ Ramachandra Guha, India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy (2007) p. 43
^ (Robb 2002, p. 190)
^ Stephen P. Cohen, The idea of Pakistan (2004) p. 28
^ D. N. Panigrahi, India's partition: the story of imperialism in retreat (2004) pp. 1512
^ Recruitment was especially active in the Punjab province of British India, under the leadership of the then
Premier Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan, who believed in cooperating with the British to achieve eventual freedom for
the Indian nation. For details of various recrutiment drives by Sir Sikandar between 1939 and 1942, see Omer
Tarin and Neal Dando, 'Memoirs of the Second World War: Major Shaukat Hayat Khan' (Critique)
inDurbar:Journal of the Indian Military Historical Society, UK, Vol 27, No 3, Autumn 2010, pp. 136137; and
Speech of November 1941, at http://www.harappa.com/mom/may99.htm/ Retrieved 28 April 2012
^ Roy, Kaushik (2009). "Military Loyalty in the Colonial Context: A Case Study of the Indian Army during World
War II". Journal of Military History 73 (2).
^ John F. Riddick, The history of British India: a chronology(2006) p. 142
^ Sailen Debnath, Philosophical and Political Thought of Subhas Chandra Bose,
^ Kaushik Roy, "Axis Satellite Armies of World War II: A Case Study of the Azad Hind Fauj, 194245," Indian
Historical Review,(Jan 2008) 35#1 pp. 144172
^ Sailen Debnath, Subhas Chandra Bose: His Ideas and Activities, Ph.D. Thesis, 1987, University of North
Bnegal,
^ (Low 1993, pp. 3131)
^ Lebra 1977, p. 23
^ Lebra 1977, p. 31, (Low 1993, pp. 3131)
^ Shyam Ratna Gupta, "New Light On The Cripps Mission,"India Quarterly, (Jan 1972), Vol. 28 Issue 1, p. 69
74
a b
^ Bandyopadhyay 2004, pp. 418420
^ Jessup, John E. (1989). A Chronology of Conflict and Resolution, 1945-1985. New York: Greenwood
(Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, pp. 206207)
Press. ISBN 0-313-24308-5.

a b
^ (Judd 2004, pp. 170171)
^ (Judd 2004, p. 172)
(Judd 2004, pp. 172173)
^ Sarvepalli Gopal (1976). Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography. Harvard University Press. p. 362. ISBN 978-0-67447310-2. Retrieved 21 February 2012.
^ Hyam 2007, p. 106 Quote:By the end of 1945, he and theCommander-in-Chief of India, General Auckinleck
were advising that there was a real threat in 1946 of large-scale anti-British Disorder amounting to even a wellorganised rising aiming to expel the British by paralysing the administration. Quote: ... it was clear to Attlee that
everything depended on the spirit and reliability of the Indian Army:"Provided that they do their duty, armed
insurrection in India would not be an insolube problem. If, however, the Indian Army was to go the other way,
the picture would be very different ... Quote: ... Thus, Wavell concluded, if the army and the police "failed"
Britain would be forced to go. In theory, it might be possible to revive and reinvigorate the services, and rule for
another fifteent to trwenty years, but:It is a fallacy to suppose that the solution lies in trying to maintain status
quo. We have no longer the resources, nor the necessary prestige or confidence in ourselves.
^ Brown 1994, p. 330 Quote: "India had always been a minority interest in British public life; no great body of
public opinion now emerged to argue that war-weary and impoverished Britain should send troops and money to
hold it against its will in an empire of doubtful value. By late 1946 both Prime Minister and Secretary of State for
India recognized that neither international opinion no their own voters would stand for any reassertion of the raj,
even if there had been the men, money, and administrative machinery with which to do so." Sarkar 1983, p. 418
Quote: "With a war weary army and people and a ravaged economy, Britain would have had to retreat; the
Labour victory only quickened the process somewhat." Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 212 Quote: "More importantly,
though victorious in war, Britain had suffered immensely in the struggle. It simply did not possess the manpower
or economic resources required to coerce a restive India."
^ Ian Talbot and Gurharpal Singh, The Partition of India (2009), passim
^ Maria Misra, Vishnu's crowded temple: India since the Great Rebellion (2008) p 237
^ Thomas R. Metcalf, The New Cambridge History of India: Ideologies of the Raj (1995), pp 10-12, 34-35
^ Maurice Zinkin, "Legacies of the Raj," Asian Affairs, (Oct 1995, 26#3) online
^ Y. K. Malik and V. B. Singh, Hindu Nationalists in India: the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (Westview
Press, 1994), p 14
^ Nehru 1946, p. 295
^ Rajat Kanta Ray, "Indian Society and the Establishment of British Supremacy, 17651818," in The Oxford
History of the British Empire: vol. 2, "The Eighteenth Century" ed. by P. J. Marshall, (1998), pp. 50829
^ Professor Ray agrees that the East India Company inherited an onerous taxation system that took one-third of
the produce of Indian cultivators.
^ P.J. Marshall, "The British in Asia: Trade to Dominion, 17001765," in The Oxford History of the British
Empire: vol. 2, The Eighteenth Century" ed. by P. J. Marshall, (1998), pp. 487507
^ Angus Maddison (2006). "Class structure and economic growth: India and Pakistan since the Moghuls".
Taylor & Francis. p.53. ISBN 0-415-38259-9
^ Craig A. Lockard (2010). "Societies, Networks, and Transitions, Volume 3". Cengage Learning. p.610. ISBN 14390-8534-X
^ Bose 1918, pp. 7981.
^ Rai 2008, pp. 263281.
^ Koomar 2009, pp. 1314.
^ Desai, Raychaudhuri & Kumar 1983, p. 528.
^ Grove 2007, p. 80.
^ Grove 2007, p. 83.
^ Desai, Raychaudhuri & Kumar 1983, p. 529.
^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. III 1907, p. 488.
^ Davis 2001, p. 7.
^ Desai, Raychaudhuri & Kumar 1983, pp. 530.
^ Davis, Mike. Late Victorian Holocausts. 1. Verso, 2000. ISBN 978-1-85984-739-8 pg 7
^ Davis, Mike. Late Victorian Holocausts. 1. Verso, 2000. ISBN 978-1-85984-739-8 pg 173
^ Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom. ISBN 978-0-385-72027-4 ch 7
^ " Grda, C.: Famine: A Short History". Princeton University Press.
^ Hall-Matthews 2008, p. 1
^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. III 1907, p. 478
^ John Pike (24 July 2011). "Cholera- Biological Weapons". Globalsecurity.org. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
^ The 1832 Cholera Epidemic in New York State, By G. William Beardslee
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[edit]Further
reading
[edit]Surveys
Bandhu, Deep Chand. History of Indian National Congress (2003) 405pp
Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar (2004), From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India, New Delhi and London: Orient
Longmans. Pp. xx, 548., ISBN 978-81-250-2596-2.
Bayly, C. A. (1990), Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (The New Cambridge History of India),
Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 248, ISBN 978-0-521-38650-0.
Brown, Judith M. (1994), Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy, Oxford University Press. Pp. xiii,
474, ISBN 978-0-19-873113-9.
Bose, Sugata; Jalal, Ayesha (2003), Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, Routledge, ISBN 978-0415-30787-1
Copland, Ian (2001), India 18851947: The Unmaking of an Empire (Seminar Studies in History Series), Harlow and
London: Pearson Longmans. Pp. 160, ISBN 978-0-582-38173-5.
Coupland, Reginald. India: A Re-Statement (Oxford University Press, 1945), evaluation of the
Raj, emphasising government.online edition
Dodwell H. H., ed. The Cambridge History of India. Volume 6: The Indian Empire 18581918.
With Chapters on the Development of Administration 18181858 (1932) 660pp online edition; also
published as vol 5 of the Cambridge History of the British Empire
James, Lawrence. Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India(2000)
Judd, Dennis (2004), The Lion and the Tiger: The Rise and Fall of the British Raj, 16001947, Oxford and New York:
Oxford University Press. Pp. xiii, 280, ISBN 978-0-19-280358-0.
Kumar, Dharma, and Meghnad Desai, eds. The Cambridge Economic History of India, Volume
2: c. 17572003 (2010), 1114pp; articles by scholars ISBN 978-81-250-2731-7
Louis, William Roger, and Judith M. Brown, eds. The Oxford History of the British Empire (5
vol 19992001), with numerous articles on the Raj
Ludden, David. India And South Asia: A Short History (2002)
Metcalf, Barbara (2006), A Concise History of Modern India (Cambridge Concise Histories), Cambridge and New
York: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xxxiii, 372, ISBN 978-0-521-68225-1.
Mansingh, Surjit The A to Z of India (2010), a concise historical encyclopaedia
Marshall, P. J. (2001), The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire, 400 pp., Cambridge and London:
Cambridge University Press., ISBN 978-0-521-00254-7.
Markovits, Claude (ed) (2005), A History of Modern India 14801950 (Anthem South Asian Studies), Anthem Press.
Pp. 607,ISBN 978-1-84331-152-2.
Moon, Penderel. The British Conquest and Dominion of India (2 vol. 1989) 1235pp; the fullest
scholarly history of political and military events from a British top-down perspective;
Peers, Douglas M. (2006), India under Colonial Rule 17001885, Harlow and London: Pearson Longmans. Pp. xvi,
163, ISBN 0-582-31738-X.
Riddick, John F. The history of British India: a chronology (2006)excerpt and text search, covers
15991947
Riddick, John F. Who Was Who in British India (1998), covers 15991947
Sarkar, Sumit. Modern India, 18851947 (2002)
Smith, Vincent A. (1958) The Oxford History of India (3rd ed.) the Raj section was written by
Percival Spear
Spear, Percival (1990), A History of India, Volume 2, New Delhi and London: Penguin Books. Pp. 298, ISBN 978-014-013836-8. online edition
Stein, Burton (2001), A History of India, New Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. xiv, 432, ISBN 978-0-19565446-2.
Thompson, Edward, and G.T. Garratt. Rise and Fulfilment of British Rule in India (1934) 690
pages; scholarly survey, 15991933excerpt and text search
Wolpert, Stanley (2003), A New History of India, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 544, ISBN 9780-19-516678-1.
[edit]Specialized
topics
Baker, David, Colonialism in an Indian Hinterland: The Central Provinces, 18201920, Delhi and Oxford: Oxford
University Press. Pp. xiii, 374, ISBN 978-0-19-563049-7, JSTOR 2059781
Bayly, C. A. (2000), Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 17801870
(Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society), Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press. Pp.
426, ISBN 978-0-521-66360-1
Brown, Judith M. Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope (1991), scholarly biography
Brown; Louis, Wm. Roger, eds. (2001), Oxford History of the British Empire: The Twentieth Century, Oxford and New
York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 800, ISBN 978-0-19-924679-3
Chandavarkar, Rajnarayan (1998), Imperial Power and Popular Politics: Class, Resistance and the State in India,
18501950, (Cambridge Studies in Indian History & Society). Cambridge University Press. Pp. 400, ISBN 978-0-52159692-3.
Chatterji, Joya (1993), Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 19321947, Cambridge University Press.
Pp. 323,ISBN 978-0-521-52328-8.
Copland, Ian (2002), Princes of India in the Endgame of Empire, 19171947, (Cambridge Studies in Indian History &
Society). Cambridge University Press. Pp. 316, ISBN 978-0-521-89436-4.
Manmath Nath Das (1964). India under Morley and Minto: politics behind revolution, repression and reforms. G. Allen
and Unwin.
Dewey, Clive. Anglo-Indian Attitudes: The Mind of the Indian Civil Service (2003)
Ewing, Ann. "Administering India: The Indian Civil Service," History Today, June 1982, 32#6
pp. 4348, covers 18581947
Gilmartin, David. 1988. Empire and Islam: Punjab and the Making of Pakistan. University of
California Press. 258 pages. ISBN 978-0-520-06249-8.
Gilmour, David. The Ruling Caste: Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj (2007)
Gilmour, David. Curzon: Imperial Statesman (2006) excerpt and text search
Gopal, Sarvepalli (1 January 1976). Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography. Harvard U. Press. ISBN 978-0-674-47310-2.
Retrieved 21 February 2012.
Sarvepalli Gopal (1953). The viceroyalty of Lord Ripon, 18801884. Oxford U. Press. Retrieved 21 February 2012.
Gould, William (2004), Hindu Nationalism and the Language of Politics in Late Colonial India, Cambridge U. Press.
Pp. 320.
Gopal, Sarvepalli. British Policy in India 18581905 (2008)
Gopal, Sarvepalli. Viceroyalty of Lord Irwin 19261931 (1957)
Jalal, Ayesha (1993), The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, Cambridge U.
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Indian History Before British MHT

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Chandragupta II

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chandragupta II The Great (Vikramaditya)

Coin of the Gupta king Chandragupta II

2.1 Early life and coronation

2.2 Vakataka-Gupta Age

2.3 Visit of Fa-hein

2.4 Campaigns against foreign tribes

2.5 End of Chandragupta II

5 Iron pillar of Delhi

life and coronation

against foreign tribes

Vikramaditya goes forth to war

Gold Dinar 7.75g Archer Type

Gold Dinar 7.59g Horseman Type

Gold Dinar 7.8g Chattra (Parasol or Royal Umbrella) Type

Main article: Iron pillar of Delhi

The iron pillar of Delhi, erected by Chandragupta II the Great

Main article: Vikram Samvat

^ AUTHOR ushistory.org TITLE OF PAGE The Gupta Period of India TITLE OF

^ Raghu Vamsa v 4.6075

^ ata shrivikramadityo helya nirjitakhilah Mlechchana Kamboja. Yavanan neechan Hunan

^ Cf:"In the story contained in Kathasarit-sagara, king Vikarmaditya is said to have

R. K. Mookerji, The Gupta Empire, 4th edition. Motilal Banarsidass, 1959.

R. C. Majumdar, Ancient India, 6th revised edition. Motilal Banarsidass, 1971.

List of people known as The Great

4th-century monarchs in Asia

5th-century monarchs in Asia

This page was last modified on 12 March 2013 at 21:59.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A "Chakravartin" ruler, 1st century BCE/CE. Andhra Pradesh, Amaravati.

232 BCE (aged 72)

Ashes immersed in the GangesRiver, possibly

at Varanasi,Cremated 232 BCE, less than 24 hours after

Maharani Dharma or Shubhadrangi

Mahendra, Sanghamitra, Tivala,Kunala,

1.1 Early life

1.2 Rise to power

1.3 Early life as Emperor

2.1 Buddhist conversion

2.2 Death and legacy

2.2.1 Buddhist kingship

4.1 Foci of Debate

5.1 Global spread of Buddhism

5.3 Ashoka Chakra

5.4 Pillars of Ashoka (Ashokstambha)

5.5 Lion Capital of Asoka (Ashokmudra)

5.6 Constructions credited to Ashoka

6 In art, film and literature

An imaginary painting of Asoka's Queen by Abanindranath Tagore (18711951)

Ashokan Pillar at Vaishali

Main articles: Edicts of Ashoka, Ashokavadana, Mahavamsa, and Dipavamsa

Main article: Ashoka Chakra

Main article: Pillars of Ashoka

The Asokan pillar at Lumbini, Nepal

Capital of Asoka (Ashokmudra)

Main article: Lion Capital of Asoka

The Horse represents Buddha's departure from palatial life.

The Lion represents the accomplishment of Buddha.

Sanchi, Madhya Pradesh, India

Dhamek Stupa, Sarnath, Uttar Pradesh, India

Mahabodhi Temple, Bihar, India

Barabar Caves, Bihar, India