Maurya Empire
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The Maurya empire was the first state to unite most of the Indian subcontinent, founded by Chandragupta Maurya in the wake of Alexander's campaigns and the retreat of the Greek garrisons on the Indus. With the advice of the Brahmin Kautilya, said to be the author of the Arthashastra, he overthrew the Nanda dynasty of Magadha around 322 BCE and repelled Seleucus, who ceded the west in exchange for war elephants. His grandson Ashoka, who came to power after the bloody conquest of Kalinga in 261 BCE, renounced warfare, embraced Buddhism and erected pillars carrying edicts in the local scripts, urging non-violence, respect for animals and tolerance of sects. Those inscriptions, from Afghanistan to southern India, are the earliest readable texts of India and give the emperor's own voice. The empire maintained a standing army, a spy service and an efficient postal system, and its roads and rest houses are described in the Arthashastra and by the Greek ambassador Megasthenes, who lived at Pataliputra. After Ashoka the centre weakened, and the last ruler Brihadratha was assassinated by his general Pushyamitra around 185 BCE, ending the dynasty. Greek writers at Alexandria knew the empire as a great power of the east.