Concept
Ashoka
Related concepts (23)
Maurya Empire
The Maurya Empire was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in South Asia based in Magadha. Founded by Chandragupta Maurya in 322 BCE, it existed in loose-knit fashion until 185 BCE. The empire was centralized by the conquest of the Indo-Gangetic Plain; its capital city was located at Pataliputra (modern Patna). Outside this imperial centre, the empire's geographical extent was dependent on the loyalty of military commanders who controlled the armed cities scattered within it. During Ashoka's rule (ca.
Buddhism
Buddhism (ˈbʊdɪzəm , USalsoˈbuːd- ), also known as Buddha Dharma, and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in the eastern Gangetic plain as a śramaṇa–movement in the 5th century BCE, and gradually spread throughout much of Asia via the Silk Road. It is the world's fourth-largest religion, with over 520 million followers (Buddhists) who comprise seven percent of the global population.
India
India, officially the Republic of India (ISO: ISO), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area; the most populous country as of June 2023; and from the time of its independence in 1947, the world's most populous democracy. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east.
The Buddha
_Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha ("the awakened"), was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in Lumbini, in what is now Nepal, to royal parents of the Shakya clan, but renounced his home life to live as a wandering ascetic (śramaṇa). After leading a life of mendicancy, asceticism, and meditation, he attained enlightenment at Bodh Gaya in what is now India.
Brahmi script
Brahmi (ˈbrɑːmi; ; ISO: Brāhmī; Sometimes also known as dhamma lipi) is a writing system of ancient South Asia that appeared as a fully developed script in the third century BCE. Its descendants, the Brahmic scripts, continue to be used today across South and Southeast Asia. Brahmi is an abugida which uses a system of diacritical marks to associate vowels with consonant symbols.
Stupa
In Buddhism, a stupa (स्तूप, ) is a mound-like or hemispherical structure containing relics (such as śarīra – typically the remains of Buddhist monks or nuns) that is used as a place of meditation. Circumambulation or pradakhshina has been an important ritual and devotional practice in Buddhism since the earliest times, and stupas always have a pradakhshina path around them. The original South Asian form is a large solid dome above a tholobate or drum with vertical sides, which usually sits on a square base.
Magadha
Magadha, also called the Kingdom of Magadha or the Magadha Empire, was an ancient Indian kingdom and empire, and one of the sixteen Mahajanapadas of the Second Urbanization, based in southern Bihar in the eastern Ganges Plain, in Ancient India. Magadha was ruled by the Brihadratha dynasty, the Haryanka dynasty (544–413 BCE), the Shaishunaga dynasty (413–345 BCE), the Nanda dynasty (345–322 BCE), the Mauryan dynasty (322–184 BCE), the Shunga dynasty (184–73 BCE) and the Kanva dynasty (73–28 BCE) after which it broke up into multiple small states after being defeated by the Satavahana Empire of the Deccan.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (UKsri_ˈlæŋkə,ʃriː-, US-_ˈlɑːŋkə; Śrī Laṅkā (ʃriː laŋkaː); Ilaṅkai (ilaŋɡaj)), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian peninsula by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. Sri Lanka shares a maritime border with the Maldives in the south-west and India in the north-west.
Gandhara
Gandhāra was an ancient Indo-Aryan civilization centered in the present-day north-west Pakistan and including parts of north-east Afghanistan, roughly in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent. The core of the region of Gandhara was the Peshawar valley and Swat valley, though the cultural influence of "Greater Gandhara" extended across the Indus river to the Taxila region in Potohar Plateau and westwards into the Kabul valley in Afghanistan, and northwards up to the Karakoram range.
Jainism
Jainism (ˈdʒeɪnɪzəm ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankars (supreme preachers of Dharma), with the first in the current time cycle being Rishabhadeva, whom the tradition holds to have lived millions of years ago, the twenty-third tirthankara Parshvanatha, whom historians date to the 9th century BCE, and the twenty-fourth tirthankara Mahavira, around 600 BCE.