Write a short note about mahajanapadas about 80 to 100 words.
Answers
Mahajanapadas were forming and growing in this part of the world, there was much activity in the rest of the known world then, too. Just west of River Indus lay the Achaemenid Empire, which at its height was larger than any other empire previously known in history stretching all the way till Greece and Egypt. Its ruler Darius I (550 - 486 BCE) would conquer much of the Indus river valley around 518 BCE and make it the 7th province of the Achaemenid Empire. It was King Darius I who sent a Greek explorer named Scylax of Caryanda to sail down the Indus river and prepare an account of what he saw. The ‘report’ that was prepared, named ‘Periplus of Scylax’ , through now lost in time, is considered the earliest known account of India by a Westerner.