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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

Do you agree with the popular view that Mauryas established a unitary and highly centralized if not monolithic state system?

  • UPSC 2018
  • Mauryan Empire

The "popular view" of the Mauryan state — a single, uniformly administered empire radiating identical bureaucratic control from Pataliputra to the Deccan and the Hindu Kush — rests on a literal reading of the Arthashastra and the geographical spread of Ashokan inscriptions. That evidence is real, but it privileges the elite, centre-focused perspective; weighed against…

You are reading the opening of the model answer. The full answer is part of the History Optional PYQ Master Pack.

What the full answer covers

  • The Case for a Centralized Reading
  • The Revisionist Counter-Evidence
  • Fussman on Communication and Distance
  • Thapar's Metropolitan–Core–Periphery Model
  • Local Initiative in the Epigraphic Record
  • Weighing the Two Readings

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