The Mouryan Empire was the first pan-Indian empire. It was one the most powerful empires of the world at that time. The first Emperor Chandragupta was guided b

The Mouryan Empire was the first pan-Indian empire. It was one the most powerful empires of the world at that time. The first Emperor Chandragupta was guided by a scholar called Chanakya. He wrote one of earliest book on Polity in the world. He was Machiavellian (he predates Machiavelli) and always promoted realpolitik. The book is called Artha Shastra and you can read it in English. One of the curious things I found is that sex work was legalized and regulated by state. Sex workers paid taxes to the state. This is something some Europeans and Americans debate to this day. Chandragupta's grandson, Ashoka is one of the Great Emperors of the world. He was the earliest ruler of a welfare state. He put an end to discriminatory penal practices favoring Brahmins, the priest class. He made shelters and planted trees. And declared he cared about each and every subject of his Empire. He send envoys to different countries of SE Asia to spread Buddhism, and he took up monkhood in the last stage of his life and died. Indians forgot about his legacy and the whole Empire. It is through his pillars spread across ahuge landmass, that the scholarly Orientalist William Jones came to know about this Empires. Indians were thought to have always divided into very small kingdoms before the Mughal, but this proved on the contrary. And the British, at least a few of them began to have a respect for the Indians.