The Mauryan empire in early India*

Abstract

This article attempts to differentiate a kingdom from an empire by arguing that an empire is a more evolved form of the state than a kingdom. An essential feature of empire has generally been extensive territory held together by continuing conquests and a centralized administration. The argument in this article is that an empire requires the restructuring of the economy to provide a substantial revenue, the introduction of administrative forms that are appropriate to regional and local governance, and the encouragement of an ideology sufficiently flexible to be acceptable to the constituent societies. Imperial systems have to control diverse communities and their complexity lies in the varying nature of this control.