Ancient India, Humanism, and Tagore Pradipta Chatterji Vestal, NY Stories of kings and queens are a universal attraction for young children as they offer feelings of adventures, and excitement that does not happen in daily lives. Such stories also teach the first moral lesson that good always wins over evil. In our childhood, we loved reading such stories, as we only had paper-books, friends, and radio to entertain us. It was long before Internet and other related technologies for learning and entertainment. My favorite stories were the glorified tales of kings and queens, and their wonderful lives. In the books the kings were always conquering lands and expanding their empires. However, there were no detailed mention of the obvious bloodsheds and violence that were involved, as those stories written for young children. A few years later some of these stories appeared in more elaborated manners in the history texts in primary and secondary schools. One may wonder at that time, why was empire -building considered so prestigious back then, didn’t it involve needless bloodsheds and brutality? I had a sigh of relief when I came across king Asoka and discovered that there were exceptions also, and every leader did not prefer cruelty, and there were many kings who promoted welfare, equity, and safety for their people. A child’s mind always remembers its first moral lessons and wants to see righteousness to win over vice at the end of the stories. However, there were kings who even ruled much earlier than king Ashoka who denounced fighting while at the pinnacle of their fame and pursued peace and equity. These kings left their legacy which enriched the future generations. Today’s story is about such an emperor of ancient India whose principles and work left their impressions on the art, culture and literature of India for thousands of years… Our knowledge of ancient India is based on fables and mysteries. The tales of many Indian maharajahs are possibly mythical as their existence cannot be confirmed with archaeological evidence. The historical authenticity of different Indian kings can be verified with some certainty from the regime of a monarch called Bimbisara ( reigned from 545 BCE to 493 BCE approximately), who was the sovereign of the Magadha Empire. Around the time of Bimbisara, the Indian subcontinent was composing of two major political groups, the Mahajanapadas and the Janapadas. Mahajanapadas were the greater kingdoms. Some were republics governed by a panel, while others were monarchies ruled by a dynasty. Back then the focus of Indian civilization was moving from the northwest to the eastern and central zones with four great Mahajanapads on the rise there - Kosala,( corresponds to the modern-day Uttar Pradesh state of India), Avanti (roughly present-day, Madhya Pradesh), Vatsa (some part of present-day Uttar Pradesh ,) and finally Magadha (ancient Magadha Empire roughly corresponds to the present-day state of Bihar, Jharkhand, some parts of West Bengal, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, and the countries of Nepal and Bangladesh). UPAHAAR 2021 উপহার ১৪২৮ 26
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