Before the Mauryan Empire, the Indian subcontinent was fragmented into hundreds of kingdoms that were ruled by powerful regional chiefs who engaged in warfare using their small armies.
In 327 BCE, Alexander of Macedon and his troops entered India and overran the existing kingdoms in the Punjab region. He left after only two years, but his destruction of the regional powers opened the opportunity for other groups to seize control. The first group, the kingdom of Magadha, used their military to gain control of trade routes through the Ganges valley and the sea routes to the Bay of Bengal.
Soon after, however, Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the Maurya Empire, successfully seized control of Magadha. He started on the outskirts and eventually made his way to the heart of the kingdom. Eventually, he gained control of northwestern India and Bactria—what is today Afghanistan and was at that time controlled by the Greeks. Chandragupta Maurya successfully unified the Indian subcontinent under an empire.
After gaining power, Chandragupta II expanded the Gupta Empire through conquest and political marriages until the end of his reign in 413 CE. By 395 CE, his control over India extended coast-to-coast. Just like Ashoka, Chandragupta II made Pataliputra the capital of his empire and centralized the government there. He used tribute money from allies to fund government projects and salaries. Unlike Ashoka, Chandragupta did not rely on a network of spies or closely monitor the affairs of foreigners or allies. Instead, he let regions make their own decisions about administration and local governance.
Some scholars have argued that the Gupta empire was a golden age of India. The empire was marked by peace and public safety, and scholars flourished in this environment. Kalidasa, a poet of the time, is considered the greatest poet and dramatist of the Sanskrit language. Aryabhata, who lived during Gupta empire, was the first of the Indian mathematician-astronomers who worked on the approximation for Pi. Vishnu Sharma is thought to be the author of the Panchatantra fables, one of the most widely-translated non-religious books in history.
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