IAS Book Launch: Chandragupta Maurya

We take it for granted that some historical figures become heroes, and others do not. Central to Chandragupta Maurya’s rise from obscure ruler to contemporary national icon was later historians’ imagination of his meeting with Seleucus, founder of the Seleucid Empire and one of Alexander the Great’s generals, in c.305-3 BC. British and Indian historians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have interpreted what few reliable sources are available in radically different ways. With Chandragupta representing India and Seleucus standing in for Britain, British scholars argued that Seleucus defeated Chandragupta. Indian academics contended the opposite, however, and Chandragupta has been idealised as a hero who vanquished the foreign invader in contemporary popular culture.

Dr Sushma Jansari will be in conversation with Dr Amar Sohal (Cambridge, Politics and International Studies), Professor Phiroze Vasunia (UCL, Greek and Latin) and Professor Rachel Mairs (University of Reading, Classics)