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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

Examine the nature of the Mauryan State. Bring out the features of their administrative system.

  • UPSC 2002
  • Mauryan Empire

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The Mauryan Empire (322–185 BCE) is conventionally described as ancient India's first pan-subcontinental, centralized bureaucratic state — an image drawn chiefly from a literal reading of Kautilya's Arthashastra and the geographical spread of Ashokan edicts. Yet the same evidence, read more critically, also reveals an empire whose administrative reach varied sharply from the Gangetic core…

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What the full answer covers

  • The Case for a Centralized, Interventionist State
  • The Adhyaksha System: Bureaucracy as the Instrument of Control
  • Thapar and Fussman: The Case Against Uniform Centralization
  • Evidence from the Edicts Themselves
  • Features of the Administrative System
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