Question

Who was Chandragupta Maurya?​

Answer 1

Founder of Mauryan Dynasty & the 1st ruler who consolidated almost whole of India.✔✔

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Answer 2

Answer:

Chandragupta Maurya was the founder of the Maurya Empire in ancient India. He is credited with bringing together the small fragmented kingdoms of the country and combining them into a single large empire. During his reign, the Maurya Empire stretched from Bengal and Assam in the East, to Afghanistan and Balochistan in the West, to Kashmir and Nepal in the North and to the Deccan Plateau in the South. Chandragupta Maurya, along with his mentor Chanakya, was responsible in bringing an end to the Nanda Empire. After a successful reign of around 23 years, Chandragupta Maurya renounced all the worldly pleasures and turned himself into a Jain monk. It is said that he performed ‘Sallekhana’, a ritual of fasting until death, and therefore willfully ended his own life.

As per various records, Chanakya was on the lookout for a suitable person to end the reign of a Nanda king and possibly the Empire as well. During this time, a young Chandragupta who was playing along with his friends in the Magadha kingdom was spotted by Chanakya. Impressed with Chandragupta’s leadership skills, Chanakya is said to have adopted Chandragupta before training him on various levels. Thereafter, Chanakya brought Chandragupta to Takshashila, where he turned all his pre-amassed wealth into a huge army in an attempt to dethrone the Nanda king.

Chandragupta Maurya married Durdhara and was leading a happy married life. Parallelly, Chanakya was adding small dosages of poison in the food consumed by Chandragupta Maurya so that his emperor wouldn’t be affected by any attempts of his enemies who might try to kill him by poisoning his food. The idea was to train Chandragupta Maurya’s body to get used to poison. Unfortunately, during the last stage of her pregnancy, queen Durdhara consumed some of the food which was meant to be served to Chandragupta Maurya. Chanakya, who entered the palace at that time, realized that Durdhara would no longer live and hence decided to save the unborn child. So, he took a sword and cut open Durdhara’s womb to save the child, who was later named as Bindusara. Later, Chandragupta Maurya married Seleucus’ daughter Helena as part of his diplomacy and entered into an alliance with Seleucus.

Around 297 BC, under the guidance of his spiritual guru Saint Bhadrabahu, Chandragupta Maurya decided to give up his mortal body through Sallekhana. Hence he started fasting and on one fine day inside a cave at Shravanabelagola, he breathed his last, ending his days of self-starvation. Today, a small temple sits on the place where once the cave, inside which he passed away, is believed to have been located.