The Maurya Dynasty is a family dynasty in India and the first of India's major empires.
Except for the far south, the Maurya dynasty reigned over
much of the Indian subcontinent during its peak.
Chandragupta Maurya created the dynasty in the fourth
century B.C.E., but it achieved its pinnacle under his grandson Ashoka, who
ruled from 269 to 232 B.C.E.
The kingdom was headquartered on the lower Ganges basin,
with Pataliputra as its capital, close to the current city of Patna in Bihar.
The Mauryan empire was the first centralized Indian empire
to be documented historically, and it was run and maintained by a huge
governmental bureaucracy.
The empire was short-lived, despite its size and structure.
After Ashoka's death, it started to deteriorate; fifty years
later, it was all but vanished.
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