Maurya, Chandragupta
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Comment by janmejay tanwar on June 22nd, 2009 at 12:24 pm
It is widely known fact that Chandragupta was a pupil of Chanakya (Vishnugupta). He was bought from his maternal uncle (slavery was common in those days) and then trained in a brahmin school. This was very uncommon since Chandragupta belonged to lower cast and hence not even allowed to enter the schools at Taxila. But Chanakya made arrangements and groomed him. They more or less had a father – son relationship rather than a teacher – pupil relationship. In ancient India, the guru was revered and given more respect than one’s father. The gurukul system was prominent will about 1000 A.D.
Chandragupta consolidated and unified the land mass called Bharat (Modern day India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Sri Lanka), this was Vishnugupta’s dream to avoid any further attacks from the west (Greeks). It was the second such attempt to unify all the states (mahajanpads) and territories. The first one was by King Bharat, after whom the country is called Bhaarat. After Chandragupta Maurya his progeny ruled for another 200 or so years and then the kingdom disintegrated. The next such phase of integrating and unifying India came under Emperor Aurangzeb almost 2000 years later in the 17th century. Kings who ruled over the whole Indian peninsula were called Chakravarti Kings and hindu scriptures identify about 10 such kings before Chandragupta including King Rama of Solar Race (Suryavanshi) who is revered as an incarnation of Lord Vishnu.
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