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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

Discuss the comparative merit of the Arthasastra, the Indica and Asoka Inscriptions as sources for the administration, socio-economic conditions and religious life in the Mauryan period.

  • UPSC 1989
  • Mauryan Empire

Reconstructing the Mauryan period rests on three principal textual sources — Kautilya's Arthashastra, Megasthenes' Indica, and Ashoka's Rock and Pillar Edicts. None was written as a neutral record for posterity: the Arthashastra is a normative manual of statecraft, the Indica a foreigner's ethnographic report filtered through later Greek quotation, and the inscriptions the king's own…

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What the full answer covers

  • Administration
  • Socio-Economic Conditions
  • Religious Life

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