Mauryan political centres
Topic: The Mauryan Empire · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 2 "Kings, Farmers and Towns"
Meaning
The Mauryan political centres were five main seats of power named in Ashoka's inscriptions. Pataliputra was the capital. Taxila, Ujjayini, Tosali and Suvarnagiri were the provincial centres. Taxila and Ujjayini lay on important long-distance trade routes. Suvarnagiri ("the golden mountain") may have been chosen to use the gold mines of Karnataka. Historians think Mauryan control was strongest around these centres. The empire's regions, from the hills of Afghanistan to the coast of Orissa, were too different to be run in one uniform way.
Example
The same Ashokan message was engraved across the empire, from the North West Frontier to Andhra, Orissa and Uttarakhand. But historians argue that real administrative control was firm near Pataliputra and the four provincial centres and weaker in faraway areas.
Don't confuse with
- Mahajanapadas: the sixteen separate kingdoms and republics that came before the Mauryas. The Mauryan centres were seats inside one empire.