mahajanapathas

Kuru was the name of an Indo-Aryan tribe and their kingdom in the Vedic civilization of India. Their kingdom was located in the area of modern Haryana. They formed the first political center of the Indo-Aryans after the Rigvedic period, and after their emergence from the Punjab, and it was there that the codification and redaction of the Vedic texts began.

kuru kingdom

Their capital was Indraprastha, which may have been the most powerful city in India, prior to the rise of the Magadhan city of Pataliputra. The Kuru kingdom figures prominently in the list of Mahajanapadas. At the time of Buddha, the Kuru realm was only three hundred leagues in extent, but was a cultural hub. The kingdom corresponds in name to the Kuru dynasty mentioned in the Indian epic Mahabharata. 

Gandhara Kingdom

Ghandahra is the name of an ancient Mahajanapada in northern Pakistan and parts of northern Punjab and Kashmir and eastern Afghanistan. Gandhara was located mainly in the vale of Peshawar, the Potohar plateau and on the northern side of the Kabul River. Its main cities were Peshawar and Taxila.

16 Mahajanapadas

The Kingdom of Gandhara lasted from the 6th Century BC to the 11th Century AD. In the sixth to fourth centuries BCE Gandhara was dominated under the Achaemenid Dynasty of Iran. The successors of Alexander the Great maintained themselves in Bactria and Gandhara from 322 BCE to about 50 BCE. Rejoined to India under the Maurya Dynasty, the Gandhara province became the object of intense missionary activity by the Buddhist emperor Asoka (reigned c. 273-232 BCE). In the first century AD the Kushans, a tribe of Scythian stock from north China made themselves masters of Gandhara. Their rule, however, was interrupted by the invasion of the Persian King Shapur I in AD 242, and the Buddhist civilization of Gandhara was finally completely destroyed by the White Huns, the Hephthalites, in the sixth century. It was conquered by Mahmood of Ghazni in 1021 AD, the name Gandhara disappeared.

Kosala Kingdom

Kosala was an ancient Indian kingdom, corresponding roughly in area with the region of Oudh. in what is now south-central Uttar Pradesh state, it extended into present-day Nepal. Its capital was Ayodhya. In the 6th century BC it rose to become one of the dominant states in northern India. Kosala formed one of the sixteen powerful realms of India (Mahajanapadas) of Buddhist traditions, and its cultural and political strength earned it the status of great power. The kingdom of Magadha conquered Kosala by c. 459 BC, and it became known as Northern Kosala to distinguish it from a larger kingdom to the south known variously as Kosala, Southern Kosala, or Great Kosala.

koshal kingdom

Kosala was the setting of much Sanskrit epic literature including the Ramayana. Buddha and Mahavira taught in the kingdom. King Pasenadi was the king of Kosala, which was north of Magadha ruled by King Bimbisara. The capital of the kingdom of Kosala was called Savatthi. One of King Pasenadi's sisters was the chief queen of King Bimbisara, which made him the brother-in-law of King Bimbisara.

Kalinga Dyanasty

Kalinga is mentioned in the ancient scriptures as Kalinga the Braves (Kalinga Sahasikha). During the 3rd century B.C. the Greek ambassador Megasthenes in his tour of India had mentioned about the military strength of the Kalinga army of about one lakh which consisted of 60 thousand soldiers, 1700 horses and thousands of elephants. Kalinga was also powerful in the naval force. The vast military strength of Kalinga was the cause of jealousy for the Magadha empire. According to the historians the Magadha Emperor Ashoka invaded Kalinga in 261 B.C. Nearly one lakh soldiers lost their lives in the Kalinga War and one and half lakh soldiers were captured.

Orissa

During Ashoka's invasion the capital of Kalinga was Toshali near Dhauli. The vast wealth, military power and the maritime activities of the Kalinga was the cause of jealousy for the Magadha empire. Though both Emperor Chandragupta Maurya and Bindusar wanted to conquer Kalinga, neither ventured a war with Kalinga.

After the death of Ashoka, the Great Kharavela became the emperor of Kalinga. He was the monarch of the Chedi Dynasty. The inscription found in the Elephant Caves of Khandagiri and Udaigiri mountains near Bhubaneswar describes in detail the reign of Emperor Kharavela.

Achaemeind Empire

Much of the northwestern Indian Subcontinent (present Afghanistan and most of Pakistan) was ruled by the Persian Achaemenid Empire from c. 520 BCE during the reign of Darius I, up until its conquest by Alexander.

 Lands in present-day Punjab, the Indus River from the borders of Gandhara down to the Arabian Sea, and some other parts of the Indus plain, became a satrapy of Alexander's empire. According to Herodotus of Halicarnassus, it was the most populous and richest of all the twenty satrapies of the empire. Achaemenid rule lasted about 186 years. The Achaemenids used the Aramaic script for the Persian language. After the end of Achaemenid rule, the use of Aramaic in the Indus plain diminished, although we know from inscriptions from the time of Emperor Asoka that it was still in use two centuries later. Other scripts, such as Kharosthi (a script derived from Aramaic) and Greek became more common after the arrival of Alexander.

Source:Glarious India