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Hello all, I want to suggest a new map which has been put below instead of the second map in the infobox. I am going to put both maps here, it would be good if we can reach a consensus (the first one is the new map)!
As a fan of Joppen's maps, I normally would have little argument with your proposal, but the lower, fuller, map in the current infobox has been made by user:Avantiputra7 based on maps or details in the sources that are listed in the map's caption. It, moreover, displays the sites of Asoka's edicts, which Joppen's map does not, though it does display the physical features very well. PS I have the original atlas of Joppen 1907 and I can scan a higher-def version of your proposed map, if I haven't already uploaded it on WP. Thanks, Fowler&fowler«Talk»20:18, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
I appreciate your engagement in this matter. Allow me to provide some additional context regarding the request for the removal of the second map in the same style.
While I understand that the existing maps share a similar style and level of detail, the concern regarding the second map revolves around its historical accuracy and authenticity. It has come to attention that this particular map might not be aligned with the latest research findings from reputable historical sources and institutions.
The reasons for the request to remove the second map are centered on the following key points:
Ensuring Historical Accuracy: It is imperative that any map featured on Wikipedia accurately reflects historical information. The concerns raised about the authenticity of the second map highlight potential inaccuracies that could mislead readers seeking precise historical details.
Scholarly Endorsement: The omission of the second map from official Indian history textbooks and the lack of endorsement by the Indian Archaeological Survey of India raise doubts about its reliability as an accurate representation of historical events and boundaries.
Mitigating Misinformation: As Wikipedia aims to provide accurate and reliable information, the presence of a map that may not be historically sound could inadvertently contribute to the dissemination of misinformation.
I kindly request your understanding in considering these concerns. While both maps may share a similar style, it is vital that the content presented on Wikipedia maintains the highest standards of historical accuracy and integrity. If there are ways to address the potential issues with the second map like this -
re "Ensuring Historical Accuracy": the Avantiputra7-map has muliple references;
re "Scholarly Endorsement": lack of endorsement by the ASI may actually be an endorsement by itself; but maybe you've got sources which explicitly oppose the authors referenced by Avantiputra7?;
re "Mitigating Misinformation": again, multiple sources; please substantiate your suggestion that the map may not be historically accurate.
Point 1- Chandrgupta Maurya (322BCE) already won the Aria ,Kamboj ,Arachosia ,Gedrosia from Selucus.That map don't show Aria,Arachosia ,Gedrosia in Mauryan Empire.
Point 2- Ashoka defeated the Kalinga but this map don't show Kalinga in Mauryan Empire.
Point 3- I have checked the reference that given in the name of historians but all the references are fake , on opening these books pages they're not contain any information about Mauryan Empire expansion like this.
Wikipedia is for providing authentic information not to promote such hoax 😞.I think any narrow minded person created this pic by his own and add this pic a year later just to defame buddhist Ashoka Empire.
Request for Deletion of Inaccurate Mauryan Empire Map on Wikipedia
Dear Wikipedia Admins,
I hope this message finds you well. I am writing to kindly request the deletion of an inaccurate Mauryan Empire map that is currently featured on a Wikipedia page. The map in question has raised concerns regarding its historical accuracy, authenticity, and its alignment with established scholarly standards. I believe that its removal would greatly contribute to maintaining the integrity and reliability of the content on Wikipedia.
Several compelling reasons support the need for the removal of this misrepresented map:
Historical Inaccuracy: The map inaccurately depicts the territorial extent and boundaries of the Mauryan Empire, potentially misleading readers who are seeking precise historical information.
Lack of Archaeological Endorsement: The Indian Archaeological Survey of India, a recognized authority in historical research, has not validated the authenticity of the map. The absence of archaeological support further questions its reliability.
Exclusion from Educational Materials: The misrepresented map is notably absent from Indian history textbooks, which are widely acknowledged as reliable sources of historical information. This omission raises doubts about its credibility and historical accuracy.
Potential Dissemination of Misinformation: Including an unsupported map can inadvertently spread misinformation, undermining the educational value that Wikipedia aims to provide.
Maintaining Scholarly Standards: Wikipedia serves as a platform for sharing accurate and well-researched information. The inclusion of an inaccurate map contradicts this goal and may compromise the platform's reputation.
Avoiding Bias and Misrepresentation: The misrepresented map may introduce bias or misconceptions to readers seeking unbiased historical information.
Considering these concerns, I kindly request the deletion of the inaccurate Mauryan Empire map from the Wikipedia page. Doing so will contribute to upholding the principles of scholarly accuracy, neutrality, and responsible information dissemination that Wikipedia represents.
Thank you for your time and attention to this matter. Your dedication to maintaining the reliability and credibility of Wikipedia is greatly appreciated. Please let me know if there are any further steps or information required to facilitate the removal of the inaccurate map.
^ abStein, Burton (2010), A History of India, John Wiley & Sons, p. 74, ISBN978-1-4443-2351-1, In the past it was not uncommon for historians to conflate the vast space thus outlined with the oppressive realm described in the Arthashastra and to posit one of the earliest and certainly one of the largest totalitarian regimes in all of history. Such a picture is no longer considered believable; at present what is taken to be the realm of Ashoka is a discontinuous set of several core regions separated by very large areas occupied by relatively autonomous peoples.
^ abCite error: The named reference Ludden2013-lead-4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ abDyson, Tim (2018), A Population History of India: From the First Modern People to the Present Day, Oxford University Press, pp. 16–17, ISBN978-0-19-882905-8, Magadha power came to extend over the main cities and communication routes of the Ganges basin. Then, under Chandragupta Maurya (c.321–297 bce), and subsequently Ashoka his grandson, Pataliputra became the centre of the loose-knit Mauryan 'Empire' which during Ashoka's reign (c.268–232 bce) briefly had a presence throughout the main urban centres and arteries of the subcontinent, except for the extreme south.
🧾 Reasons -
Point 1- Chandrgupta Maurya (322BCE) already won the Aria ,Kamboj ,Arachosia ,Gedrosia from Selucus.That map don't show Aria,Arachosia ,Gedrosia.
Point 2- Ashoka defeated the Kalinga but this map don't show Kalinga in Mauryan Empire.
Point 3- I have checked the reference that given in the name of historians but all the references are fake , on opening these books pages they're not contain any information about Mauryan Empire expansion like this.
Wikipedia is for providing authentic information not to promote such hoax 😞.
In the past it was not uncommon for historians to conflate the vast space thus outlined with the oppressive realm described in the Arthashastra and to posit one of the earliest and certainly one of the largest totalitarian regimes in all of history. Such a picture is no longer considered believable; at present what is taken to be the realm of Ashoka is a discontinuous set of several core regions separated by very large areas occupied by relatively autonomous peoples.
The Indian ASI should no longer be used an authoritative source. Any publications by the ASI should be carefully assessed for the absence of falsified or manipulated information. PresidentCoriolanus (talk) 00:27, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
also Joshua all the reference given in the text are referring the place as ancient India or Indian subcontinent there is not a single mention of South Asia so please don't mention South Asia according to yourself let it be instant India or Indian subcontinent. Vkk123 (talk) 18:52, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
It's the same place - don't get worked up about it. The trouble with talking about "ancient India" is that many will not realize this includes the area of modern Pakistan (and sometimes Nepal etc). Johnbod (talk) 20:04, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
then term Indian continent should not have any problem, and I also respectfully told you that South Asia is a political term mostly, For geographical term, in historical prospective, we use Indian subcontinent.
it was not Afghanistan where Maurya Empire started , and you will also see in every history books in any country that maren empire is called ancient Kingdom of India, South Asia is political term just because few parts of Afghanistan was added during mauryan Empire the whole Empire cannot become something else. just for example Qing dynasty of China is called dynasty of ancient China but there was no China then and the land of Qing dynasty extended to present day Mongolia and Russia but it is still called Chinese dynasty. Vkk123 (talk) 04:27, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
when Chinese dynasty who extended to other parts of the country that exist now and still be called Chinese Empire or Chinese dynasty of ancient China then I don't find anything wrong with ancient India or Indian subcontinent, and also for example the crown rule in India is called British India not British South Asia because at that time whole South Asia was united India, so history is not written according to what things are now history is written what was then. Vkk123 (talk) 04:29, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
please aslo have a look on Britannica link and other reliable article about mauryan Empire it all mention Ancient india or indian subcontinent, Wikipedia cannot just make things up itself Wikipedia is a compilation of knowledge from different sources so Wikipedia should use the term that is used in history books or articles. Vkk123 (talk) 04:44, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
I feel “South Asia” is a better term vis-a-vis “Indian subcontinent ” as the Mauryan Empire included Afghanistan (which is not part of the subcontinent) during the reign of Ashoka (I may be wrong about which Mauryan emperor conquered Afghanista more..), thanks ᗟ𝖗ᗟ𝓊𝑘𝘦💀 (talk) 08:35, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
Qing dynasty aslo included present a Mongolia and parts of Russia then why it is called ancient Chinese dynasty and not East Asian dynasty change that please.. Vkk123 (talk) 13:18, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
The term “South Asia” gives a more inclusive and accurate understanding of the countries associated with the Mauryan empire i.e. India, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan etc. As Afghanistan was not part of the subcontinent I strongly believe this is the correct way of addressing the region that the empire governed.
My answer related to the Qing dynasty is that historically Mongolia was part of China due to so many imperial dynasties of China which governed China and Mongolia for example the Yuan dynasty (Genghis’ successors in China & Mongolia). I feel this is the reason why it was called the Chinese Imperial dynasty rather than East Asian dynasty.
Lastly, due to Afghanistan being part of the Mauryan empire we cannot say ancient India as it will denote that Afghanistan is a part of the Indian subcontinent (which it is not).
These are my views and of course it’s up to the community to decide which option is better. I hope we can reach a consensus quickly. Thanks! ᗟ𝖗ᗟ𝓊𝑘𝘦💀 (talk) 14:35, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
Qing dynasty also included parts of Russia ,was Russia and china also same?? I believe ancient Indian should be used because its capital, culture, religion all were from India. Qing cannot be Chinese dynasty vid Maurya is not Indian..?? Vkk123 (talk) 17:31, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
The Qing dynasty’s expansion into parts of Russia does not imply that China & Russia were one single country. Russia has its own history, culture etc as with China. Russia had interactions with China during the time that the Qing dynasty ruled China & Mongolia but that does not mean that Russia was part of the Qing empire. ᗟ𝖗ᗟ𝓊𝑘𝘦💀 (talk) 09:02, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
also South Asia does not give the accurate geography of mauryan Empire when it is called India people do understand that it had Indian culture Indian religion which South Asia does not give, today South Asia has Muslim population but at that time there was no Islam so when you use South Asia it actually destroy the meaning of Marian empires history, Mauryan Empire is always called in ancient Indian kingdom, except Wikipedia, I guess people like you are the reason why. Vkk123 (talk) 17:33, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
The concept of nationhood was already existed since Vedic Period, various name of the Indian subcontinent like Aryavarta, Bharatvarsha, Jambudweep, Brahmavarta etc mentioned in many Indian literature. In the inscription of Ashoka he called the land Jambudweep, Kharavela in his Hathi Gumpha inscription called the land Bharatwarsha. In Darius 1 inscription he called the land Hindush. So from 6th cen BC India has various names, how can you call it South Asia ? Reader who want to read the history of India, should know the history with it's name. If history of Ancient Britain, Russia, America can be written with their present country name, why don't it can be written for Ancient India. You can put the South Asia term for prehistoric part, because this region has no a single civilizational name at that time. The tern Indian subcontinent or Ancient India itself has a geographical term which include Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri lanka. Since past few years the western academia and political ideologies are deliberately trying to put South Asia term for Indian subcontinent. Rahul4931 (talk) 08:56, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
South Asia is a better term as it is considerate of the political-loadings of the term 'Indian' or 'Bharat' which may lead to more neutrality. The "Indian subcontinent" centralizes Indian identity, but the empire expanded to Bangladesh and Afghanistan to some extent. PresidentCoriolanus (talk) 00:29, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
Proposal for a synthetic map of the Maurya Empire in the infobox
Maurya Empire synthetic map 250 BCE
We keep seeing disputes about the two rather different maps of the Mauyra Empire standing side-by-side in the infobox... It is indeed rather confusing and unsatisfactory to have two rather contradictory depictions, and this format is indeed rarely, if ever, seen on Wikipedia pages. The map with "holes" is understandable as an illustration to a academic point (that some areas were not under direct and complete Mauryan jurisdiction, such as desert areas, or areas belonging to "relatively autonomous peoples" (my emphasis), per Burton Stein (2010)), but this format is rarely seen and contradicts many standard visualizations of the Mauryan realm, as reflected by the second map. Arguably many maps of ancient empires should also have "holes" in them if we were supposed to show areas of more teneous control... As a solution, I suggest we could adopt a single synthetic map, that would show both the general extent of the Maurya Empire, and illustrate in lighter shades areas where Mauryan control was arguably minimal. I am attaching a proposal, which is simply the combination by transparency of the two previous maps. Of course the caption would also be a combination of the two current captions in the infobox. Comments welcome. पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra)(talk)12:59, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
You haven't quoted Burton Stein accurately. He refers to the loose-knit empire of the Mauryas in two places: On page 83 (2nd edition) he says:
In the past it was not uncommon for historians to conflate the vast space thus outlined with the oppressive realm described in the Arthashastra and to posit one of the earliest and certainly one of the largest totalitarian regimes in all of history. Such a picture is no longer considered believable; at present what is taken to be the realm of Ashoka is a discontinuous set of several core regions separated by very large areas occupied by relatively autonomous peoples.
and on page 87 he says,
The multiplicity of ways in which the people of the imperial age were encouraged to recognize their connections with others narrowed the scope of political integration. That is, while there might be claims to enormous realms, such as Ashoka’s, they actually referred to very porous entities riddled with large, scattered autonomous zones, a situation that contributed to the ease with which outsiders were able to establish new ‘states’ by conquest, and, eventually, to the transformation of political formations after 500 ce, when the last of the imperial regimes, the Guptas, were driven from their northern domains.
In other words, Avantiputra7's map with holes is already too generous to the Mauryas. The holes were in fact much larger. The other problem with your use of Burton Stein is that you have quoted only one historian. There are many other modern ones of the same or similar views. Fowler&fowler«Talk»03:03, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
And here is David Ludden, a major historian of agrarian India, in his India and South Asia, 2013.
Ludden's model is not a map with holes, but a spider with spindly legs :
The geography of the Mauryan Empire resembled a spider with a small dense body and long spindly legs. The highest echelons of imperial society lived in the inner circle composed of the ruler, his immediate family, other relatives, and close allies, who formed a dynastic core. Outside the core, empire travelled stringy routes dotted with armed cities. Outside the palace, in the capital cities, the highest ranks in the imperial elite were held by military commanders whose active loyalty and success in war determined imperial fortunes. Wherever these men failed or rebelled, dynastic power crumbled. ... In most janapadas, the Mauryan Empire consisted of strategic urban sites connected loosely to vast hinterlands through lineages and local elites who were there when the Mauryas arrived and were still in control when they left.
The Mauryas did not have the technology that the Romans did for the surveillance of an empire. The ruins of the Roman Empire are found everywhere, ... the roads, aqueducts, arches, and bridges. There is pretty much nothing of the Mauryas, only references in a Greek visitors history. Claims are made for a Grand Trunk road, but no ancient tracks survive. There are Asokan pillars, on the basis of which sovereignty is proclaimed, but they were most likely made by Achaemenid masons who had fled to South Asia. Fowler&fowler«Talk»03:44, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
The reason we don't find much of mauryans is simple. Most of the structures were made of perishable materials primarily of wood and mud. They don't survive 2000 years . This can also be verified by Megasthenes accounts and vedic sources
I'm sorry but you saying we only get reference of mauryans in greek history is so blatantly ignorant and disrespectful. A great amount of information about mauryans comes from the indigenous sources only like puranas , buddhist sources and jain sources . Even some contemporary texts like arthashastra provides a great amount of information.
Comparison with Romans is incredibly stupid, they existed at far too big of a timeline and mostly built materials mainly of stones.
Climatic conditions also play a very big role . Climate of India is incredibly hot and humid. Most of the structures and manuscripts don't survive in these conditions for to long.
Also there is literally no evidence to suggest these pillars were made by achaemenid masons . This theory was propagated by Western historians in early 20th century. After that we have various Art historians like V.S Agrawala
Please read Lion capital of Ashoka. V.S. Agarwala is not just a outdated nationalist historian, but also a floundering, early, Hindu nationalist historian. The story that ancient South Asians were making everything in wood and one fine day out of nowhere there sprouted the lions—the habitat of whose real life cousins, the preeminently West Asian animals, Panthera leo Persica did not reach the Mauryan capital, the city of Patliputra—sculpted in the finest shining marble that looked too suspiciously like those that had been made in Persepolis and Susa for 500 years, is not credible. Fowler&fowler«Talk»14:37, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
The seals of Mohenjo-daro, made of terra cotta, had remained in pristine condition for nearly 5,000 years; the Priest-king (sculpture) made of fired steatite has survived for as long, as has the Dancing Girl (sculpture) of Mohenjo-daro, cast in bronze, yet the Indo-Aryans, who claimed sovereignty over the same region, as did their descendants, the Mauryas, had nothing but wood, and mud, and perhaps cow-dung mixed with hay? Not credible. Fowler&fowler«Talk»14:49, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
In Indus Valley civilization, the relics we found in exavation which is in good condition... But Rakhigari excavation proved that the Indus Valley civilization flourished towards eastern side of India also ...
All the inscription, pillars of Ashokas discovered by Cunningham was in barren Area... not in human populated Area. Because nearly all the 84000 STUPAS along with pillars 84000 pillars destroyed by invaders, narrow minded Brahmins. Some of them got saved because they're not in human populated area..All Girnar Rock inscription present in between dense jungles untouched from humans...
As we know Chandragupta already defeated selucus and in treaty he got Aria ,Kamboj ,Arachosia ,Gedrosia from Selucus. "
T
the four satrapies of the Gedrose, the Arachotë, the Aria, and the Paropamisadë, the River Cophes thus forming the extreme boundary of India. — Pliny, Natural History V"I,23)
And Ashoka won Kalinga is also absolute truth , his inscription is proof ...
Cunningham only did excavation where there is possibility of finding some evidence regarding Mauryans...He used Buddhist text Mahavansha and Dipavansha for exavation site confirmation...
Most of his excavation where succesful ... The region of Chattisgarh and jharkhand where you calling hole is present... because you don't know till date there was not any excavation take place at that place and also there was absence of ancient flourished city. Not even ASI (Archeological Survey Of India) interested in excavation in those region due to naxalites . Yeah those ares are affected by naxalism. These two states have 0 excavation in search of history. But there are some unknown Buddhist and Jainas temple over there....
🛡️ Now coming to other Empire
This is Sunga Empire map you used in Sunga Empire page ... But in reality historian only find inscription related to Sunga in Ayodhya and a Buddhist Bharhuta Stupa.... Does it mean that we say Sunga is limited to Ayodhya only...rest places have hole ...
The is the map of Gupta Empire you used in Gupta Empire page but in reality historian only find inscription related to Gupta's in Madhya Pradesh and Uttarpradesh only. Does it mean that we say rest of the places have hole ....
The four satrapies of the Gedrose, the Arachotë, the Aria, and the Paropamisadë, the River Cophes thus forming the extreme boundary of India. — Pliny, Natural History VI, 23) The Jain Era (talk) 03:46, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
I generally don't respond to editors who appear on Wikipedia to make a data dump in such a discussion in their first edit. All I can say is, "Welcome to Wikipedia." Fowler&fowler«Talk»11:20, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
I make account only to give my point of view.... Earlier I have a account named "Jain Media" with more than 600 edits but I forget it password... So when I saw this discussion on talk page ... I decided to make new one. The Jain Era (talk) 12:57, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
What is the point, Patliputra, of adding more maps? We are not discussing other empires. It is the Mauryas, we are discussing here. The old exaggerated maps of the Mauryan empire appearing in books of colonial or nationalist historians stand much reduced in the works of modern historians. Fowler&fowler«Talk»11:27, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
I think we have to discuss about Sir Alexander Cunningham opinion as he spend their life in excavation of Ashoka stupas and pillars.... Smith is also backbone for Mauryan history...
Later we should take Indica fragments reference, Buddhist and jaina Texts reference for clarification .
And Rudradaman Inscription of Junagarh mentioned that Chandrgupta Maurya built a Lake named Sudarshana ... Which is also present till date... So that's means Chandragupta was the ruler of that Gujarat+Rajasthan region also... The Jain Era (talk) 13:04, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
Support, I feel this is a much better option than having two maps which can create confusion for readers and I think this would decrease the number of disputes on this topic. Thanks! ᗟ𝖗ᗟ𝓊𝑘𝘦💀 (talk) 14:29, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
How do you assign a shade of brown to the holes, which most modern historians and archaeologists—who have spent years poring over primary sources or doing field work— consider to be regions into which the Mauryas had never ventured? What historiographic faith do you place in dated nationalist histories such as R. C. Majumdar's or more dated imperial histories such as those of Vincent Smith, who in retirement traded his vocation of civil servant with the avocation of historian?
My copy of Vincent Smith is of 1920 before IVC had been rediscovered. My copy of Majumdar is from 1950 with content from before India had become a republic. Fowler&fowler«Talk»19:11, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
Oppose strongly. The maps were produced by Wikipedia's graphics specialist Avantiputra7 and are the result of much thought and research. They appear one above the other, not side by side. The map appearing above is the more modern, accurate, map, cited to the major historians and has also appeared in words in the lead of the FA India for 12 years.
The map below is the old-fashioned conventional map, showing the maximum geographical extent of the Mauryas. It is the subordinate map, the less favored map. I have enough respect Avantiputra7's skills and neutrality that I would not mangle those maps in a substandard manner. Fowler&fowler«Talk»10:11, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
PS The lead of this article, whose rewriting was supervised by a WP administrator also favors the map with holes. The lead is cited to historical demographer Tim Dyson's A population history of India, Oxford 2019. Fowler&fowler«Talk»10:30, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
Neutral/mildly oppose - while the sythetic map is also acceptable informative, I really like to have the two maps together. They illustrate very clearly what differnce various representations of territorial realms make; one, which implicitly supports notions of 'greatness', and thus 'superiority'; and the other, which shows the complexities of history and social-geographical realities which shape territorial realms. While the synthetic map shows this too, having the two maps also shows how perceptions are shaped. And that's something I really like, and find very informative. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk!14:02, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
I'll go with the synthetic one. Completely agreeing that this should resolve most disputes and that many empires should have holes if considered. Bhuvii9 (talk) 17:11, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
The Mongol's typically attacked sedentary states and wreaked havoc on their populations. Entire cities were depopulated. Tamerlane's empire included Delhi, where after massacring the city's inhabitants irrespective of religion, he left behind a token ruler. Ashoka may have done that in Kalinga a millennium and half earlier, but Kalinga is not among the holes, i.e. in green. The holes, in other words, are regions in which the Mauryas left behind no evidence of a presence, not even of an occasional trespass. Fowler&fowler«Talk»11:14, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
Even if the Mauryans didn’t leave any evidence of their presence, that does not mean that they did not control or rule the area. Even if they did control the area, there is no proof of that now as it could be that the evidence (structures built by the Mauryans or something else) has been destroyed as it was so long ago. We don’t know if they did rule those areas or not. In conclusion, I feel this is a better map as it does seem a little weird or you could say ‘out of place’ to have two maps on one page. Not many Wikipedia pages have two maps on one Kingdom or Empire. ᗟ𝖗ᗟ𝓊𝑘𝘦💀 (talk) 16:34, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
There is a fourth, and bigger, problem with the synthetic map. It is the shade chosen for the holes. It has too much brown in it. Mauryan sovereignty over the holes was somewhere between barely nominal and nonexistent. The holes need to have more green in them, much, much, more.
There is a fifth problem. In a physical map, in which light brown is also employed to display elevation, the synthetic map creates the impression that the holes are merely Mauryan areas with some distinctive physical features. Fowler&fowler«Talk»14:57, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
In sum, this is another example of the original research on images, that you, Patliputra, have been engaged in for far too long on Wikipedia. It is high time you stopped. You waste the time of productive editors. You have created contaminated histories across a vast realm of topics. Fowler&fowler«Talk»16:01, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
No need to accuse Pat of original research; this is a good faith attempt to solve an ongoing opposition against using two maps. Which (the opposition), actually, shouldn't need discussion at all; the holes-map is well documented. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk!05:54, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
Ouch. I didn't expect you to come biting at me like that. My support was based on @पाटलिपुत्र's claim that many ancient empires would have holes in them, if we were to show areas of less control. I mean you do not expect the Mongols to have specifically established their rule over every nomad tribe, right? Still I think I am going to withdraw mine. I don't think I am very welcome here. PadFoot2008 (talk) 01:14, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
Not at all. Not biting you. We are talking about a resolutely ahistorical culture, @PadFoot2008:, about which the sources are flimsy, either occasional Greek visitors or books such as the Arthashastra, which was written centuries later. How come there was no Megasthenes among the Indo=Aryans, none in the centuries before and none after, only endless mythology in which a reader is hard-pressed to find evidence of real polities? What evidence there is is at the level of Homer, i.e. mythologized history. And Megastheses was a minor Greek historian. There were many others before the third century BCE who had left behind impeccable records. I am suggesting that the Mauryas did not have the level of organization, settled organization, to have sovereignty over such a large region, and modern maps attest that. Fowler&fowler«Talk»11:36, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
I think I don't have the level of expertise required here. You are an experienced editor and I respect you for that. I am going to be neutral. Thank you. PadFoot2008 (talk) 11:47, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
If you chalk up Homer to be a mythologist and Herodotus as unreliable, there were still Thucydides, Ctesias (who produced histories of Achaemenid Persia and even of what was thought to be India), and Xenophon, all of whom had preceded the Mauryas. Where was the reverse curiosity, i.e. evidence of the Mauryas visiting Greece, of Mauryan ambassadors in Greek city states leaving records of visits? Fowler&fowler«Talk»11:38, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
Support| as per the "emphasis" of Paptliputra. Avantiputra7 mentions in the image caption of the "holed" version that "certain vassal tribes are specifically mentioned." (Raychaudhuri & Mukherjee pp. 275-6) The autonomous tribes most likely enjoyed a relationship similar to that between the Bhils and Rajput monarchs. Live and let live. The brown lighter shadow over the tribal areas is the best representation of the situation.Whatupis (talk) 16:57, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
The book is 100 years old. The language is the same as in the 1923 edition of the first book of the Late Hemchandra Raychaudhuri:
Raychaudhuri, Hemchandra (1923), Political History of Ancient India: From the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty, Calcutta, British India: Calcutta University Press, OCLC557945942, Asoka evidently draws a distinction between the forests and the inhabiting tribes which are in the dominions (vijita) and peoples on the border (dntd avijitd) for whose benefit some of the special edicts were issued. Certain vassal tribes are specifically mentioned, e.g., the Andhras, Palidas (Paladas, Parimda.s), Bhojas and Rathikas (Ristikas, Rashtrikas?). They enjoyed a status midway between the Provincials proper and the unsubdued borderers. The word Petenika or Pitinika mentioned in Rock Edicts V and XIII should not, according to Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar and some other writers, be read as a separate name but as an adjective qualifying Rishtika (Edict V) and Bhoja (Edict XIII).
Being 100 years old and still published by Oxford University Press is what makes this book special.
"Political History of Ancient India, first published in 1923, has been established as a work of sound scholarship and has been the standard textbook for several decades. The eighth edition, updated with all the latest research in a separate commentary by Professor B.N. Mukherjee, will prove indispensable to scholars and students of early Indian history."
All lands of the "relatively autonomous peoples" were inside the "dominions" of the Mauryan empire. Some "relatively autonomous" tribes on these lands were vassals while others were yet to be subdued. The unsubdued ones were "on the border", neither inside nor outside the state. Therefore, this proposed map best represents this situation. This map will later be further scrutinized because I do not believe the unsubdued peoples could be living on such large portions of the empire. Whatupis (talk) 18:41, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
It is OUP India. OUP India publishes many legacy editions which are considered primary sources, giving researchers today a firsthand account of old-fashioned historiography whether colonial, nationalist or ideological. They are not WP:SECONDARY sources you can use on WP Fowler&fowler«Talk»20:41, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
That book was published before the Indus Valley Civilisation was rediscovered. The subtitle of the book, "From the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty" has Parikshit, a legendary figure from 10th century BCE. India's historical age begins with the Buddha, ca 5th century BCE. We can talk generally about the Vedic age, but not accord historical status to the legendary figures of that age.
OUP India have published a legacy, centenary, edition of Nehru's Discovery of India, the centenary, presumably, not of the book, which was published in 1945 or thereabouts, but of Nehru himself. I have the 1946 US first edition. We can't use Discovery of India on WP. I have Majumdar, Raychaudhuri, and Sinha's Advanced History of India, Macmillan 1950. We can't use that on Wikpedia either.
If they are not red-linked user-paged editors who have sprouted in the last few days, or weeks, they are an editor who has submitted a draft on the "Singrauli princely state." Some of you will recall that a location and label "singrauli" has been added to a large number of widely-used classic maps from the Imperial Gazetteer of India in a brazen form of OR, or in a veritable hoax (take your pick). (See @Doug Weller:'s last comment in User_talk:HistoricGeek2345#singrauli_maps).
As for user:Patliputra, they have already created contaminated histories across a vast swath of WP articles, mostly by doing WP:OR on images, cutting this out of that, pasting this into that ... how long will this go on? This proposal is but the latest of a quest that did not begin in Talk:Neolithic/Archive_1#PLOS_citation_and_image_spamming and will not end if someone does not stop them. How much of my valuable time is being wasted by this? How many times will they drag me to ARE for missteps in the wake of such onslaughts? Someone said at a recent ARE that I'm being catfished? What else is this? My sense of reality is being befuddled. Pinging @RegentsPark, Abecedare, Black Kite, Extraordinary Writ, and Courcelles: Here is a real time slice of how these things develop. Fowler&fowler«Talk»22:45, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
Another thing user:Patliputra does again and again and again in proposals and RfCs is to make edits such as this (today) where they change the evidence existing at the beginning of the discussion. I would never contemplate such a thing in a thousand years because I consider it to be a form of intellectual dishonesty, but they have no compunction. Fowler&fowler«Talk»23:33, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: Please stop with the personal attacks (again...). Bringing in more references is not "changing the evidence existing at the beginning of the discussion", it is actually moving forward the discussion with more relevant information, a standard Wikipedia procedure. And deleting the references you don't like [1] is on the contrary condemnable behaviour on Wikipedia. You are portraying the traditional maps ("without holes") as passé (i.e. obsolescent) [2], but this is quite untrue: they are actually pretty much the standard in generalist, authoritative, modern sources. Two examples with links to actual maps for perusal:
I do not deny the value of the "map with holes" either, it is just that they are more of a specialist take, and depart from the standard representation of the Maurya Empire. Better to leave this as a detailed scholarly discussion in the body of the article, in my opinion, and keep a more standard map for the infobox, rather than clutter the infobox with two maps that are confusingly different for a general readership. But my position about this remains rather tentative, I am only asking for comments by other users here, no need for the animosity... पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra)(talk)04:36, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
Please don’t label a description of your longstanding edit history on Wikipedia about which you have been repeatedly warned (not least at RS/N) to be personal attacks. If this entire thread was merely an exploration in the histories of ideas why have you resorted to edit warring? And who is Spielvogel? I had never heard of him. Before he retired at Penn State as Associate Professor, he specialized in Nazi Germany and the Reformation.
The Oxford Atlas has only a general editor. It has three sentences on the Mauryas. Their realm extends to the middle Iran plateau (60 E longitude), the headwaters of the Oxus in Uzbekistan and past the Great Himalayas in Tibet, ie it includes all the eight thousanders of Nepal, including Everest.
If this is not the paradigmatic example of cherry picking sources to bulk up citations merely for the visual effect in an info box, I don’t know what is. The famous Historical Atlas of South Asia of Schwartzberg is already cited there. The two maps with their sources have been in place in the info box for a number of years, and it only occurred to you now to explore the bottom of the barrel for sources that might support a WP:PEACOCK description. In contrast, the main map has the support of Romila Thapar, Burton Stein, David Arnold (historian), Hermann Kulke, Dietmar Rothermund, Robin Coningham, Ruth Young (archaeologist), David Ludden of NYU, Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah, Tim Dyson, and Monica L. Smith, all major historians, archaeologists, anthropologists or historical demographers of South Asia. Not Nazi Germany. And, if you were honestly engaged in an intellectual exploration here, you never had the integrity to question the arguments offered by the half dozen new red-linkers who have sprouted up in your wake? Instead you only stoked the flames with more maps that suits your POV, and have now attempted to edit war. Fowler&fowler«Talk»11:00, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
PS It is not a “specialist take” either. Except for Monica Smith and Tambiah, they are all authors of major textbooks used around the world. I have used all their textbooks in the FA India, Wikipedia’s oldest country FA. It is those textbooks that are cited in the main map. See WP:TERTIARY for the salience of textbooks in matters of due weight. Fowler&fowler«Talk»11:18, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
PS And had I not intervened here, would you not have installed your inveterately OR mixed map, involving taking a feature of one image and transplanting it to another, as the only map in the info box? Of course you would have. You’ve done this before. Fowler&fowler«Talk»11:30, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
Please also don't contaminate a longstanding lead with sources that make only a passing mention of the Mauryas, such as your latest:
For the most part the period of interaction between South and Souteast Asia spanned the end of the Mauryan rule in India and the rise of Kushana and Gupta. It is perhaps apropos, then, to present a brief overview of Indian history as it pertains to the period of interest in Southeast Asia. To do so it is necessary to set the stage in the years prior to the first millennium C.C. At the time the most powerful ruler in the subcontinent was Chandragupta Maurya (r. circa 321 – 292 B.C.E), who founded the Mauryan Empire. This empire came to control all of India north of the Narmada River in central modern India and was at its most powerful under Asoka (r. circa 272 – 232 B.C.E), who had continued an ambitious program of conquest.
Hi @Fowler&fowler: Regarding your recent reverts of the modern references I added [3][4], I am afraid your logic does not stand at all. I am not challenging the sources for "the map with holes", which are fine. I am only challenging the sources of the "map without holes" (the second map in the infobox) for which, strangely, you seem to favour outdated/nationalistic sources (apart from Joseph E. Schwartzberg who is not that recent either): why do you insist on using as your main reference (since 2020) the antiquated Vincent Arthur Smith (1843–1920) and the old nationalist R. C. Majumdar (1888–1980), a "dated nationalist" per your own admission [5]??? These are totally undesirable references for an infobox map, they would only be interesting in a paragraph about historiography. We should use, per Wikipedia obvious guidelines, the modern and reliable sources that support this second map: your dislike of them is irrelevant, and they are still infinitely better than your antiquated sources, for example:
The crux of the matter is that the "map without holes" is still used by a large number of modern, reliable, generalist sources, which therefore are the most appropriate for referencing purposes. पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra)(talk)15:03, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
Support The map proposed would solve lots of problem. First it would bring the map to Encyclopædia Britannica standard map of Maurya Empire (Maurya Empire - Britannica). Second it would solve the problem of Wikipedia:Citation overkill where the Infobox is bombarded with tons of sources with what historian claimed what borders instead of standard map that has been used in history circles for decades. Third it would solve the rather confusing nature of the article when compared to Maurya Empire article on other reputed sources like World History Encyclopedia. JayB91 (talk) 13:06, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
"Standard map?" According to whom? Your article from Britannica, or rather stub, has no byline; it is the work of general editors who edit all sorts of topics. Fowler&fowler«Talk»13:49, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
Britannica was last revised systematically in 1979. Romila Thapar, who wrote the history section in 1979, has long since revises her views of the geographical extent of the Mauryas. Several other sections, e.g. pre-history were written by Frank Raymond Allchin and modern by Stanley Wolpert have not been revised. I know several people at the University of Chicago, long since retired, who were a part of the 1979 revision. Fowler&fowler«Talk»13:50, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
Fowler sir , why are you believing on Romila Thapar. Indian government decided to remove the contaminated history line Form NCERT history books in next year NCERT publication which was added from Romila Thapar work .
I studied in history class that Romila Thapar gave the theory of Vaishya origin of Mauryans and she gave the proof for that Rudradaman Inscription where Chandragupta General Pushpagupta was mentioned as Vaishya.... That's actually doesn't make any sense. Her logic is completely unbelievable.
Citation overkill? It would certainly solve that problem. Thus far no historian worth their salt, has been caught dead endorsing a map in which lesser degrees of sovereignty have been demarcated by mixing colors. The citations can be stacked into one citation and it wouldn't look unsightly, if that is your issue. Fowler&fowler«Talk»13:55, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
World History Encyclopedia site says, "World History Encyclopedia (formerly Ancient History Encyclopedia) is a nonprofit educational company created in 2009 by Jan van der Crabben. ... All users may contribute content to the site, although submissions are reviewed by an editorial team before publication." That is supposed to hold a light to Romila Thapar who has spent a lifetime working in Ancient Indian History. (Library of Congress, American Historical Association) Fowler&fowler«Talk»14:01, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
Fowler, your words don't carry any weight at all. There are no scholarly maps which stand in support of the "holed" version which you are defending. Find a source akin to this. Whatupis (talk) 16:20, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
Schwartzberg's Historical Atlas of South Asia is already listed in the sources for the secondary map. No need to easter-egg it through "Harvard University." It has long been available at The Digital South Asia library.
Joseph E. Schwartzberg, a geographer at the University of Minnesota, was the primary author. Burton Stein (also at UMN until 1965) and Jan Broek, the chair of the geography department, made the original proposal. Stein remained as an adviser after he left UMN. Stein clearly had second thoughts, about the extent of Mauryan sovereignty, as two quotes from his famous textbook, A History of India, Oxford 1998;Wiley-Blackwell 2010, adorn the top of this thread.
Another adviser to the project was Fred Asher, you can see his contribution, especially of his last book before his untimely recent death (Sarnath, published by the Getty Museum), which I have liberally used in my article Lion capital of Ashoka.
In other words, you are unlikely to come up with something new, when you rush into Wikipedia, open an account and the hurriedly employ Google to argue. Fowler&fowler«Talk»17:32, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
All this can be discussed in the article body. I am not denying the existence of these self-sufficient and autonomous tribes during Mauryan times as they still continue to exist, demanding self-governance and special rights over their lands. However, the "holed" version is made by a user with no scholarly maps to base it on. Whatupis (talk) 08:15, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
There are plenty maps there showing the diminished realms of the Mauryas, such as in Coningham and Young’s ‘’The Archaeology of South Asia: From the Indus to Asoka, c. 6500 BCE–200 CE’’, Oxford, 2015, or Monica L. Smith’s publications.
See the citations for those references. They are even less generous to the grandiose views of the Mauryas than the main map of this article, let alone the obsolete one. Fowler&fowler«Talk»09:29, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
Please also don’t speculate randomly by comparing the Mauryan polity to the Republic of India annd its besieged indigenous peoples. There is little to none recorded history of the Mauryas. There was no UNICEF in 300 BCE railing year after year at the Mauryas, as it has at RoI, about the world’s highest levels of child malnutrition among them. Fowler&fowler«Talk»10:40, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
Please don't remove Vincent Smith and R. C. Majumdar (or I should say, Raychaudhuri, Datta and Majumdar). The conventional view is meaningless without them. The Oxford Atlas of World History has three sentences on the Mauryas; it is that irrelevant to an article with the high level of focus such as this (as compared to Smith, Majumdar, or Schwartzberg). Fowler&fowler«Talk»12:22, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
Joseph E. Schwartzberg's Historical Atlas of South Asia has been used in India studies for nearly 30 years. Schwartzberg wrote the geography section of Britannica 's India page. There is a reason that the Atlas is available at the Digital South Asia Library. The Atlas is already cited in the traditional, and now secondary, map of the Mauryan realm at its maximum geographical extent.
If you did not have access to the internet and Google, do you think you would have found Spielvogel? Spielvogel is that unknown in South Asia studies.
Support: The synthetic map almost perfectly details the extent of the Mauryan Empire. This follows the style of almost all historical Wikipedia maps. As mentioned by earlier editors, this format is not followed anywhere else. Clearly, Alexander’s Empire to the Mongol Empire did not have the time or resources to micromanage every inch of their empire. --1990'sguy (talk) 12:34, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
Clearly? But the historians of late Classical- or early Hellenistic Greece do not make that point overwhelmingly as do the major modern historians of South Asia about the Mauryas.
If you are concerned about the Wikipedia traditions in cartography, where on Wikipedia do you find sovereignty, the lack thereof, and the varying degrees in between demarcated by two uniform varieties of shading? Fowler&fowler«Talk»13:11, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
I say we remove the color that is being used to show the possible extents of the empire since we do not know the autonomy of local authorities and whether or not they accepted Mauryan suzerainty. Similar to the Oxford World History of Empire, we will only show the major and minor rock edicts, pillar and minor pillar edicts, and cave inscriptions. Whatupis (talk) 10:02, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
The Maurya Empire as visualized in Monica L. Smith and implied in David Ludden
Edicts have been used for map making for a very long time, at least from the time James Prinsep deciphered the Brahmi script, read the edicts, and gave the people of India a true feel for their second-oldest heroic historical figure, after the Buddha. By themselves a map of Asokan edicts belongs to a later section. If, however, we are attempting to give the reader an indication of the extent of Mauryan sovereignty in South Asia, or prevalence of Mauryan ideology or influence there, one has to say something more. This can take the form of a region, which can be (i) a solid region, such as in the traditional maps, which were usually the convex hull of the points representing the edicts or (ii) a map with holes representing the autonomous areas, such as in the explanations of Burton Stein or Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund or (iii) the map as a network, or a "spider with spindly legs" as in the works of David Ludden or Monica L. Smith (archaeologist). According to Smith, as paraphrased in the work of Robin Coningham and Ruth Young (archaeologist), "cities were effectively linked, but ideological linkage suffered severe distance decay beyond the main networks between nodes." Please see the adjoining map.
The reality is that the "convex hull" map was favored by the old colonial and somewhat later by nationalist historians in India, but modern historians, unless they are nationalists or sub-nationalist, do not. The two maps convey that two-fold reality (a) the modern view is that the Mauryan region is loose-knit and highly porous, (b) the traditional view of the convex hull is obsolete. I think user:Patliputra's version, essentially has the effect of minimizing (b), and therefore it becomes a form of obscurantism. I don't mean the editor user:Patliputra, but the ideology represented by the synthetic map—in which the choice of shading the autonomous areas pivots on a somewhat selective parsing of Burton Stein. In the main, though, the synthetic map denies the new reality, that the traditional maps are passé. Best, Fowler&fowler«Talk»14:00, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
Exactly, there are too many differences among historians and peer review should remove any bias from their political ideology. "Relatively autonomous regions" does not equal independent states which is why I may support Pataliputra. The "spindly legs" and other "very-holed" versions would have been a logistic nightmare for the empire. Imagine having to travel all the way back to Patliputra to go from Sopara to Sannati. I think the Oxford encyclopedia leaving out the map speaks of the continued debate amongst the scholarly community and a lack of agreement on the topic. Whatupis (talk) 15:03, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
Please don't use the expression "exactly." There is nothing in common between your view and mine. I typically don't respond to new editors who make posts in controversial pages in their first several edits on WP. That's my choice. It has nothing to do with not assuming good faith. My reply above stands and I don't need to disabuse you of your misinterpretation. Fowler&fowler«Talk»15:45, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
New way to solve map issue. Just by authentic interpretation of Ashoka Inscription.I think this may be helpful.
Yesterday, I was reading "Ashok Ke Shilalekh" a book on Ashoka Inscription written by Rajbali Pandey . In Girnar Second Rock inscription Ashoka mentioned some detail about his Empire. See this That I clicked . Please interpret that inscription @Fowler Sir , @Duke Sir , @Patliputra Sir and others wiki renowned historians .
I will add my interpretation, improve my interpretation if I am wrong .I am a UPSC aspirant , I wanna only one map on Empire on this page either first one or second one . It's confusing to read two types map for Aspirants like me who use wiki to know some extra about history. 🥲 I will definately get red crossed Zero Marks if I wrote on first map in exam when asked. The Jain Era (talk) 01:33, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
My interpretation - The Ashoka on starting of this inscription used "सर्वत विजित" which same used in Sanskrit and Hindi too . Like सर्वत means Everywhere and विजित means Conquered after he mentioned his name wrote Rajyo word which is clearly means a province.
Now coming from most important to Second line to Fifth line of Inscription which I think help a lot for map making .2. एवमपि प्रचंतेसु यथा चोडा पाडा सतियपुतो केतलपुतो आतंब 3. पंणी अंतियको योनराजा ये वा पि तस अंतियकस सामीपं 4. राजानो सर्वत देवानंप्रियस प्रियदसिनो राजो द्वे चिकीछा कता 2. एवमपि प्रचंतेसु यथा चोडा पाडा सतियपुतो केतलपुतो आतंब 3. पंणी अंतियको योनराजा ये वा पि तस अंतियकस सामीपं 4. राजानो सर्वत देवानंप्रियस प्रियदसिनो राजो द्वे चिकीछा कता 5. मनुसचिकीछा च पसुचिकीछा च ओसुढानि च यानि मनुसोपगानि 5. मनुसचिकीछा च पसुचिकीछा च ओसुढानि च यानि मनुसोपगा"नि
5. मनुसचिकीछा च पसुचिकीछा च ओसुढानि च यानि मनुसोपगानि
Interpretation - As we clearly see , Ashoka mentioning in Girnar Second Rock Inscription that he is making Hospitals for Animals and Humans on the land of Antioch, Cholas, keralputra and pandyas ....... Now question arising that if they're not Ashoka vassals then how they allow another region king Ashoka to built Hospitals in their territories.
And if we also interpret that they're not Ashoka vassals and a free Kingdoms then it means that Ashoka not mentioned about any inner region (like Avanti, Dakshinapatha etc) in this list of independence provinces . Then it means that there all the inner region were Ashoka fully controlled " विजित " provinces.
Two more things that I forget to mention apart from inscription.
The Tamil text Cilappatikaram which is written during Ashoka Time mentioned that Pandya King paying tax to Mauryan Emperor (Ashoka ).Sangam litrature Tamil texts mentioned the small practice done during Emperor Bindusara time by local Mauryan General breaking down the mountains to make plane land so that their chariots easily passes to the southern lands to capture Southern tip . The local Mauryan general during Bindusara time not become successful and they got defeated by Southern forces but during time of Ashoka they become successful. Ashoka himself take part in Kalinga war as Kalinga refused to pay tax to Mauryan Emperor.
The ancient Buddhist scripture, Dipavansha, which was written during the Mauryan time period in Sri Lanka, mentions a special historical event when Emperor Ashoka sent various ritual items, including large amounts of gold, gems, and jewels, for the coronation of Sri Lankan King Tissa. It is noteworthy that these valuable items reached Sri Lanka without any issues, passing through the territories of the Cholas, Pandyans, and Keralputra, all of whom were Mauryan tributaries. According to the Dipavansha commentaries, the kings of these territories ensured the safety and protection of these riches, allowing them to reach Sri Lanka without being stopped or looted.
Original Pali Texts -
अभिसेकाय पाहेसि अनेकं रतनं पुन ।
देवानम्पियतिस्सस्स तम्बपण्णिम्हि उत्तमे ॥ ८५ ॥
वालवीजनिमुण्हीसं छत्तं खग्गं च पादुकं ।
वेठनं सारपाभङ्गं भिङ्कारं नन्दिवट्टकं ॥ ८६ ॥
सिविकं सङ्घवतंसं अधोविमं वत्थकोटिकं ।
सोवण्णपातिकटच्छ्रं महग्घं हत्थपुञ्छनं ॥ ८७ ॥
अनोतत्तोदकं काजं उत्तमं हरिचन्दनं ।
मत्तिकारुणवण्णं चरअञ्जनं पन्नगाह ॥ ८८ ॥
हरीतकं आमलकं महग्घं अमतोसधं ।
सद्विवाहसतं सालिं सुगन्धं च सुकाहटं 4 ॥ ८९ ॥
पुञ्ञकम्पाभिनिब्बतं पण्णाकारं 'मनोरमं ।
लङ्काभिसेके तिस्सस्स धम्मासोकेन पेसितं ॥ ९० ॥
पुनाभिसित्तो सो राजा तम्बपण्णिम्हि इस्सरो ।
दुतियाभिसेके तस्स तिक्कन्ता तिंस रत्तियो ॥ ९१॥
(Dipavansha - Chapter 17: Verses 85 to 91)
Translation -
Verse 85:"Then King Dharmaraj Ashok also sent many gems, gold and jewellery to Tamraparni (Lanka), as an offering for the consecration of the beloved Tissa."
Verse 86:"There were chowries, crowns, umbrellas, swords, sandals, waistbands, earrings, water pots, and handfans made of peacock feathers."
Verse 87:"There were excellent conch shells, palanquins, veenas, freshly washed and folded garments, golden embroidered fabrics, armlets, and expensive handkerchiefs."
Verse 88:"Also, brought from Anavatadha, there was a fragrant water jug, excellent sandalwood, red and good-quality clay, and anjan (collyrium) sent by King Nāgarāja."
Verse 89:"There were Haritaki (myrobalan), Amla (Indian gooseberry), and Amritoushadhi (Guduchi), and sixty measures of fine, fragrant rice, which was wounded by parrots."
Verse 90:" Dharmaraja Ashoka sent such beautiful gifts acquired from previous meritorious deeds for the consecration of King Tishya."
Verse 91: "With all these consecration materials, Tissa was anointed as the ruler of Tamraparni (Sri Lanka) once again."
Verse 89:
"There were Haritaki (myrobalan), Amla (Indian gooseberry), and Amritoushadhi (Guduchi), and sixty measures of fine, fragrant rice, which was wounded by parrots."
Verse 90:
" Dharmaraja Ashoka sent such beautiful gifts acquired from previous meritorious deeds for the consecration of King Tishya."
This is the map in the Book "Indian Historical Quarterly, Vol-13" which is published by ASI (Archeological Survey Of India) based on various inscriptions and ancient Greecian and Indian texts.
Okay, I written everything, Now my request is to keep only one map on this page either First one or second one but not two as it is very confusing for readers.... Thanks.
and Sir also reply about that Ashoka Girnar, Junagadh second rock inscription interpretation and please reply on my other references (Tamil, Buddhist, ASI) that I have given..I hope other admins too reply on interpretation.
I do not find it confusing to have two maps; on the contrary, I find it very informative. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk!
yes sir true, that's actually informative for resechers not for normal readers or any other who preparing for any exam and reading this .
I'm a normal reader. If you're preparing for an exam and you find this confusing, then you better stick to your books and study, instead of spending your precious time on Wikipedia. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk!05:29, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
Yes, but I am interested 😀 in knowing the conclusion of these one month long debate.If any Admin or any other renowned writer replied to the references that I have given then will I definately reply .
In the last few days User:Fowler&fowler has been reverting systematically the modern references I added to the (attached) "map of the infobox without holes"[6][7][8][9]. Rather, Fowler&Fowler seems to favour outdated/nationalistic references for this map (apart from Joseph E. Schwartzberg): the antiquated Vincent Arthur Smith (1843–1920) and the old nationalist R. C. Majumdar (1888–1980), a "dated nationalist" per his own admission [10], which he added originally in 2020 [11]. I am afraid these are antiquated, totally undesirable references for an infobox map, and would only be interesting in a paragraph about historiography. In all probability, F&F is trying to make a WP:POINT that this would be an outdated (even "obscurantist" [12]) map, and his reverting shows that he tries to hide the fact that this format is still very much in use among many modern sources as well. The presentation of the two maps in the infobox is also rather WP:POV: F&F lists 9 different sources for the "map with holes", but only allows these 2 antiquated/nationalist sources and 1 rather modern source (Schwartzberg) for the map he dislikes [13]. I simply suggest we should follow Wikipedia guidelines, and use the modern and reliable sources that also support this second map, at least in addition to the old, traditional, sources. I therefore suggest the addition of 2 modern, reliable references to this map (a specialist of Indian archaeology and a generalist Atlas of high repute), to show that this format is still very much in use in modern, reliable, publications (these two references have direct links to their maps hereunder):
Oppose The sources that support the view of the loose-knit empire of the Mauryas with its many autonomous regions have not been self-consciously chosen to be modern. They are all the sources there are. It just happens to be the case that they are modern.
I didn't engage in any Google searches at all. On the contrary, I had used a large number of textbooks in the writing of the FA India: especially
(In other words, these books have been cited by 1,783 scholarly books or articles listed in Google Scholar)
that took a dim view of Mauryan sovereignty. On their basis, the issue of Mauryan sovereignty, or the lack thereof, is addressed both in the lead and the ancient history section of India. Per WP:TERTIARY, major textbooks are the best determinants of due weight on Wikipedia. This is WP policy In other words, the mainstream view in Indian history now is that displayed in the first map
When you look for evidence that supports the old map, it is not that we picked sources that are old. It is that the major historians of India that hold that view are of a bygone era, viz.
They were all famous historians, who in their day were cited in journals and books that are listed on Google scholar, wrote famous textbooks, but the view they advocated is no longer mainstream.
However, user:Patliputra has not found any famous historians of South Asia of the modern era that support the secondary map. Their sources are cherry picked courtesy Google. They'd be clueless without Google.
Spielvogel is a scholar of Nazi Germany and the Reformation,
Dougald J. W. O'Reilly is an archaeologist not of South Asia, but of Southeast Asia, as his own apologetic introduction to the Mauryas I have quoted above in green makes clear. He mentions the Mauryas in half a dozen introductory sentences to the chapter on the influence of South Asian culture on Southeast Asian culture which began after the demise of the Mauryas.
Oxford Atlas of World History has but three sentences on the Mauryas, and a distorted map of the Mauryan realm, which I have indicated stretches into Iranian Baluchistan (not just Pakistani) in the west; the headwaters of the Oxus in Uzbekistan; and the trans-Himalaya region in Tibet.
If that does not lack credibility, I don't know what does.
PS user:Patliputra: Please do not make incorrect statements about Dougald O'Reilly such as "a specialist of Indian archaeology"
Here is O'Reilly's CV: Dougald O’Reilly was granted an M.A. and PhD in Archaeology by the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. His researched involved the exploration of the development of political complexity in Bronze and Iron Age Thailand. He lived in Cambodia from 1999, working as a UNESCO lecturer at the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh. ... In response to the looting of archaeological sites in Cambodia, a non-governmental organization called Heritage Watch (www.heritagewatchinternational.org) was founded by O'Reilly in 2003 in an effort to combat the loss of heritage in Cambodia. O'Reilly has worked extensively in the archaeology of Southeast Asia. His research in recent years has been focussed in Cambodia where he oversaw several multi-disciplinary project examining ancient mobility, health and social organization of Iron Age settlements. He has also led research examining the rise of the state in the region with excavations undertaken in both Cambodia and Thailand, the core and periphery of empire.
Quotes from NCERT textbook and Himanshu Prabha Ray
The notion that the sovereignty of the Mauryas was loose-knit, has made it to the history syllabus of high-school students in India, to the official NCERT textbook on ancient Indian history. They learn:
1. Prinsep and Piyadass: Some of the most momentous developments in Indian epigraphy took place in the 1830s. This was when James Prinsep, an officer in the mint of the East India Company, deciphered Brahmi and Kharosthi, two scripts used in the earliest inscriptions and coins. He found that most of these mentioned a king referred to as Piyadassi – meaning “pleasant to behold”; there were a few inscriptions which referred to the king as Asoka, one of the most famous rulers known from Buddhist texts. This gave a new direction to investigations into early Indian political history as European and Indian scholars used inscriptions and texts composed in a variety of languages to reconstruct the lineages of major dynasties that had ruled the subcontinent. ... As historians began reconstructing early Indian history in the nineteenth century, the emergence of the Mauryan Empire was regarded as a major landmark. India was then under colonial rule, and was part of the British empire. Nineteenth and early twentieth century Indian historians found the possibility that there was an empire in early India both challenging and exciting. Also, some of the archaeological finds associated with the Mauryas, including stone sculpture, were considered to be examples of the spectacular art typical of empires. Many of these historians found the message on Asokan inscriptions very different from that of most other rulers, suggesting that Asoka was more powerful and industrious, as also more humble than later rulers who adopted grandiose titles. So it is not surprising that nationalist leaders in the twentieth century regarded him as an inspiring figure. Yet, how important was the Mauryan Empire? It lasted for about 150 years, which is not a very long time in the vast span of the history of the subcontinent. Besides, if you look at Map 2, you will notice that the empire did not encompass the entire subcontinent. And even within the frontiers of the empire, control was not uniform. By the second century BCE, new chiefdoms and kingdoms emerged in several parts of the subcontinent.
The least we can do on Wikipedia is to not slant the article in a manner that runs counter to what even Indian high school students learn in their history books. Fowler&fowler«Talk»11:42, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
Here is Himanshu Prabha Ray in her chapter "Mauryan Empire" (in Oxford History of World Empire (volume 2, History of Empire, edited by Peter Fibiger Bang and others), Oxford University Press, 2021:
Unlike developments in the north, there were no contemporary fortified centers in peninsular India and no evidence of Mauryan settlement, except scattered finds of NBPW and black-slipped wares, found in coastal centers. Between the second and first millennia BCE, peninsular India was home to iron-using megalithic communities, and scholars posit significant cultural integration on the basis of the construction of large monuments of stones, often sepulchral in nature. Chronologically, the Iron Age megalithic sites occur over several centuries, from 1200 BCE to 300 CE, and extend across all regions of peninsular India, with the exception of the western Deccan, encompassing parts of the present states of Maharashtra and Gujarat. ... It is significant that the inscriptions of Aśoka are located in the vicinity of megalithic sites, which both pre-date and post-date the Mauryan Empire. A study of site sizes indicates that the larger megalithic sites were found not at locations of Aśokan inscriptions, but along major routes of communication, thereby throwing into doubt claims that there was a Mauryan settlement in peninsular India, in the vicinity of the rock edicts, that may have controlled local resources such as gold mines. These routes are known to have persisted in subsequent post-Mauryan periods. ... As discussed elsewhere, the centralized model of Mauryan control needs to be re-examined, since it is based on an inadequate appraisal of the archaeological data. Much of the discussion concerning the centralized nature of the state continues to be based on the Arthaśāstra of Kautilya, though it is generally accepted that the text in its present form dates significantly later, to the early centuries of the Common Era. The emergence of the state has been linked to the expansion and control of agricultural activity and the development of urban centers, but there has been insufficient discussion of the state’s capacity to control an equally important economic activity—trade. Trade and exchange are by no means by-products of agricultural expansion, as is often accepted, but are instead activities integral to all societies. The archaeological evidence, discussed earlier, from Iron Age sites in peninsular India, provides evidence for a long pre-Mauryan history of exchange and trade in the region, both overland and coastal. Rulers certainly tapped revenues from trade, but they neither controlled nor initiated it.
Read Dipavansha , everywhere Ashoka referred as Devanapriya and Priyadarshi. Priyadarshi title also used for KIng Tissa of Lanka in Dipavansha . NOTE- Devanapriya and Priyadarshi is a Buddhist Title for King.
2nd century BCE Tamil Sangam literature text AKANANURU mentioned about Mauryans attack on South .
Information on MAURYANS creating paths in mountains
விண் பொரு நெடுங்குடை இயல் தேர் மோரியர் பொன் புனை திகிரி திரிதர குறைத்த
viN poru nedungkudai iyal ther MORIYAR (MAURYANS)
pon punai thigiri thirithara kuRaitha
AKANANURU 69, LINES 10 TO 11
“The Mauryas have carved into the sky-touching mountains and created paths for their chariots with iron wheels to roll smoothly…”
Information on Mauryans creating a path in mountains to attack the king of MOKUR:
“where the Mauryan newcomers came withtheir army with horses and fine chariots,cut into the mountains with splendid, whitewaterfalls and created paths for theirchariot wheels to roll smoothly, to attackthe king of Mōkūr who refused to submitto the Kōsars with flags on theirwell constructed chariots that ride asfast as the wind”
Information on TELUGU speaking tribes supporting MAURYAN army to make them enter into South
கனை குரல் இசைக்கும் விரை செல் கடுங்கணை முரண் மிகு வடுகர் முன்னுற மோரியர் தென் திசை மாதிரம் முன்னிய வரவிற்கு விண்ணுற ஓங்கிய பனி இருங்குன்றத்து ஒண் கதிர்த் திகிரி உருளிய குறைத்த
“where the Vadukars who have great enmity tie the shed feathers of delicate peacocks with swaying walks, to their strong bows using long fibers on the edges, shoot rapidly fitting the beauty of the tied fibers, creating sounds, and lead the Mauryas who desire to conquer the South, cutting into the rocks to let their chariot wheels with bright spokes roll…”
These practices actually done by Bindusara Southern Province Samanta, but he actually got failed to captured whole south, But what happened during the rule of Asoka they don't mention about it. Were they become successful to capture south tip or not, but Tamil Sangam literature mentioned Mauryans .
Your comment is not based on authentic ancient reference . Infact there is a history of invaders in India , most of them interested in destroying ancient structure. So we need to collect fragments to write history. Early discovered (2000 to 2002) Kanaganahalli Stupa of Asoka on the bank of river was in completely demolished condition. Asoka name on sculpture confirm it that it belongs to Asoka. This stupa was renovated by Satavahanas also. The Jain Era (talk) 06:46, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
Support| Upinder Singh in her book says that some parts of the empire were centralized while others decentralized, but she does not question the suzerainty of the Mauryan emperor at center.
The question is not whether the Maurya state was an empire or not, but what sort of empire was it? What did it mean for a territory or people to be absorbed into its fold? What were the strategies and degrees of control over different areas? How effective was this control? The three major sources for the Maurya period may actually mask the ground realities. All of them were, in one way or another, connected with the Maurya court. They project the point of view of the political–intellectual elites at the centre and perhaps exaggerate the level of central control. The idea of a highly centralized Maurya empire was based partly on an assumption that empires and centralization go together. It was also based on an uncritical reading of the Arthashastra, which presents a state that controls the people, produce, and resources of its domain with all-encompassing and robotic precision. More recent writings on the Maurya state have gone to the other extreme. Gerard Fussman (1987–88) has argued that given the extent of the empire and the communication networks of the time, the Maurya empire could not possibly have been centralized. Maurya rule was superimposed over a number of existing political units, which must have been allowed to continue to exercise varying degrees of autonomy. Ashoka’s personal supervision applied only to the propagation of dhamma, not to details of routine administration. Initiatives at the provincial and local administrative level are evident in the script, language, content, and location of the inscriptions. For instance, the fact that the Greek and Aramaic inscriptions in the northwest are not literal translations of the standard edicts suggests that considerable initiative was left in the hands of local officials. Romila Thapar ([1963], 1987) initially presented the Maurya empire as a new form of government marked by centralized control and planning. Her subsequent re-consideration of the issue (1984) suggests that the Maurya empire was not a homogeneous whole, and that it subsumed different sorts of economies, polities, and life-ways. Using the framework of world systems theory, Thapar suggests that the empire should be considered as consisting of metropolitan, core, and peripheral areas. Magadha was the metropolitan state. The core areas included existing states, areas of incipient state formation, and centres of trade. The peripheral areas included a number of pre-state societies. The relationship between the metropolitan state and the core and peripheral areas varied, but the nature of the relationship did not—it basically involved exploitation. It is not actually necessary to label the Maurya empire as ‘centralized’ or ‘decentralized’. The empire must have had some element of centralized control, but given its extent, there must also have been a significant amount of delegation of authority to functionaries at provincial, district, and village levels. While the Maurya period shows continuity with the preceding period in terms of political, social, and economic processes, there are also some new features. The Nandas had a large empire, but the Maurya empire was larger, covering practically the entire subcontinent and extending beyond it in the northwest. This empire was accompanied by manifestations of an imperial ideology and vision, expressed in sophisticated monumental stone sculpture and architecture. The edict-bearing Ashokan pillars stand as imperial monuments bearing the king’s unique message to his people. Another significant difference from earlier regimes was that the Maurya emperors were not insular; they looked beyond the limits of the subcontinent. This is evident from their entertaining ambassadors from Hellenistic courts, Ashoka’s dispatch of Buddhist and dhamma missions to various areas, and his claim of attaining dhamma-vijaya (victory through dhamma) in the domains of other kings.
There is a reason that we don't use Upinder Singh's high school book on the FA India for all but the most innocuous statements. It was as if she had bent over backward to cater to every view and in the end to say nothing at all. As a result, high school students in India themselves don't read her (see page 52 of their textbook)
You would be more credible if you weren't an WP:SPA who has just appeared on Wikipedia to promote one POV on this page. I've been catfished too many times recently on Wikipedia to consider your vote to be meaningful in the least. It was even noted by administrators at a recent WP:AREFowler&fowler«Talk»14:03, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
Proposed updated, syncretic map of the Maurya Empire, per Kulke & Rothermund
One of the main problems with the "Swiss cheese"-like map with holes is that it is a fairly unfamiliar, almost eerie, representation of the Maurya Empire, and is apparently never seen as such anywhere in the literature, and is therefore quite WP:OR from a design standpoint (i.e. the "Swiss cheese" design does not, as far as I know, exist in the scholarship). The reference map it is claimed from ("This is based on the map provided on p. 69 of Kulke, H.; Rothermund, D. (2004), A History of India, 4th, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-32920-0."[14]) actually looks very different, and adopts a very different design approach. The actual Kulke & Rothermund map has the following characteristics:
the "free and autonomous tribes" are not represented by empty voids but by grids of horizontal lines (stripes) which give a sense of "mass" to the whole map, rather than a sense of vacuity.
the striped "free and autonomous tribes" actually go beyond the central Mauryan realm in the north, the south and the west, defining a space that rather corresponds to the space defined by many of the more tradional depictions of the Mauryan Empire.
interestingly, an "approximate border in the south" appears in the Kulke & Rothermund map (in red in the attached map), which had disappeared in the "map with holes". This frontier implies a larger extent of the Mauryan Empire in the South. It also shows that for Kulke & Rothermund it is possible to be both a "free and autonomous tribes" and to be part of the Mauryan Empire.
in the Google scan of the book [15], it seems the central Mauryan territory is coloured in a light shade of grey, which would correspond to the brown in the attached map. This area also corresponds to the areas where Mauryan inscriptions have been found.
I therefore suggest we adopt the attached improved map, in that it is more faithfull to the Kulke & Rothermund map and other maps in the scholarship, and can serve as unique map in the infobox. It should satisfy both the traditionalists in that it shows the global mass of the empire, and the minimalists, in that it adequately describes the lesser Mauryan control in some areas, in a way more consistent with the literature. पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra)(talk)06:48, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
PS The largest linearly hatched region says "unconquered tribes;" the others say "free and autonomous tribes." My 6th edition, 2016, displays the map on page 43. I also have the 1986 first edition and 1990s second. They have the same map, more or less, only the Himalayan belt is not shaded and the maps are in the back of the book. Nowhere do K&R say that the large free autonomous areas were a part of the empire. I think you are again attempting to salvage the grandiose view of the Mauryas, which has been in shreds for quite some time. Fowler&fowler«Talk»14:04, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
Stop this disruption. Stop with the non-stop OR. Close all the other half-baked proposals that you have littered this page with upstairs first. Why do you think you have the license to keep promoting historical sub-regionalism, even irredentism? Do you remember the hard time you gave me on Brahmi script, about not giving primacy of mention to James Prinsep, edit-warring ever and anon, until I forced your hand with the weight of sources? Well, look upstairs, the many millions of high-school students in India begin their NCERT history chapter with Prinsep and Piyadassi. Please also note how the high-school chapter on the Mauryas ends:
Yet, how important was the Mauryan Empire? It lasted for about 150 years, which is not a very long time in the vast span of the history of the subcontinent. Besides, if you look at Map 2, you will notice that the empire did not encompass the entire subcontinent. And even within the frontiers of the empire, control was not uniform. By the second century BCE, new chiefdoms and kingdoms emerged in several parts of the subcontinent.
If only you weren't this ignorant dear. For what the Mauryan administration achieved for its time is simply incredible. A passage from Burjor Avari's India: The Ancient Past:
The work of six major committees is described at length. Their duties covered such varied issues as the promotion of arts and crafts in the city, the reception and care of foreigners, the registration of births and deaths, the supervision of weights and measures, the quality control over manufactures and the collection of duties over goods sold. An examination of the departmental details indicates to us not only a high level of bureaucracy but also a certain concern for the quality of life of the ordinary people (Raychaudhuri 1996: 246–60). The greatest of all the Mogul emperors, Akbar, ‘had nothing like it, and it may be doubted if any of the ancient Greek cities were better organised’ (Smith 1958: 110). When the accounts of Megasthenes are corroborated by the vast number of details in Kautilya’s Arthashastra, our knowledge of the world of Chandragupta Maurya becomes more complete. It was indeed a highly ordered and well-regulated world.
We are proud of the Romans too and of all those who progressed human civilization. Always respect the superior races even if you are not from among them. Whatupis (talk) 14:29, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
Until yesterday you were attempting to challenge me that no map existed, whereas I am the one who has cited K&R for 12 years on Wikipedia, and have three editions of the book. Fowler&fowler«Talk»14:05, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
Oppose the absurdity of copying the conventions of a monochrome map, inverting its design sense by replacing a crossed-out effect with a hatched-in one, in the name of adding "mass" to a map which concerns the extent and limitations of Mauryan control and thereby instead implying a commonality of dominion rather than its lack (indicatively deprecated above as "vacuity"), while drawing inferences from one line on the monochrome map which neither the map itself nor the accompanying text support. NebY (talk) 14:08, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
@NebY: Even in their monochrome map [16], Kulke & Rothermund could have selected the reverse convention, by just showing a grey mass of "Swiss cheese" for the smaller core area of the empire, but they didn't (and no academic, as far as know, does). Instead, Kulke & Rothermund chose to start from the large traditional outline of the empire, and preferred to show more or less independent polities by a hatched pattern. So in effect, Kulke & Rothermund are showing 2 maps in one: the traditional outline, and the more recent and smaller "core areas" outline. This is precisely and exactly what we are trying to do here by offering a synthetic map with the exact same graphic convention. Color or monochrome, the intention and the methodology are the same.
I might add that there is in many authors a degree of uncertainty about the exact level of independence of these peripheral tribes: Burton Stein speaks of "relatively autonomous peoples" [17], Kulke & Rothermund feel they have to differentiate several categories such as "unconquered" (in the Gondwana area), and "free and autonomous" everywhere else ("autonomous" particularly implying only a degree of independence [18]) and even include some "free and autonomous" tribes within the southern boundary of the empire [19], hence I think the ambiguity and the need felt by academics to still show the areas corresponding to these peripheral or internal tribes in their maps of the Mauyra Empire, albeit in a hatched pattern. I have yet to see from any academic a "Swiss cheese"-like "map with holes" of the Maurya Empire, like the one so prominently-exposed on our Wikipedia page, so it does feel like there is some level of unwarranted WP:OR here. Anyway, I am only proposing a way to have a single coherent map for the infobox, a map which would be closer to actual published maps.पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra)(talk)16:39, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
I've already told you once, @पाटलिपुत्र:, I've told you twice, this is the third time. On page 83 (2nd edition) Burton Stein says:
In the past it was not uncommon for historians to conflate the vast space thus outlined with the oppressive realm described in the Arthashastra and to posit one of the earliest and certainly one of the largest totalitarian regimes in all of history. Such a picture is no longer considered believable; at present what is taken to be the realm of Ashoka is a discontinuous set of several core regions separated by very large areas occupied by relatively autonomous peoples.
and on page 87 he says,
The multiplicity of ways in which the people of the imperial age were encouraged to recognize their connections with others narrowed the scope of political integration. That is, while there might be claims to enormous realms, such as Ashoka’s, they actually referred to very porous entities riddled with large, scattered autonomous zones, a situation that contributed to the ease with which outsiders were able to establish new ‘states’ by conquest, and, eventually, to the transformation of political formations after 500 ce, when the last of the imperial regimes, the Guptas, were driven from their northern domains.
The other problem with your use of Burton Stein is that you have quoted only one historian. There are many other modern ones of the same or similar views.
Here is David Ludden, a major historian of agrarian India, in his India and South Asia, 2013.
Ludden's model is not a map with holes, but a spider with spindly legs :
The geography of the Mauryan Empire resembled a spider with a small dense body and long spindly legs. The highest echelons of imperial society lived in the inner circle composed of the ruler, his immediate family, other relatives, and close allies, who formed a dynastic core. Outside the core, empire travelled stringy routes dotted with armed cities. Outside the palace, in the capital cities, the highest ranks in the imperial elite were held by military commanders whose active loyalty and success in war determined imperial fortunes. Wherever these men failed or rebelled, dynastic power crumbled. ... In most janapadas, the Mauryan Empire consisted of strategic urban sites connected loosely to vast hinterlands through lineages and local elites who were there when the Mauryas arrived and were still in control when they left.
That historian has gone to the other side of the extreme, mainly mapping around the edicts that survived. You need to argue on the basis of reliable published maps. Whatupis (talk) 02:21, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
Oppose - I took a look at K &R, and read a few pages; they clearly describe an "empire" which was more like a northern network of trade and taxes extending to a regional center in the south and some peripheral centers south-west and east, than a "mass" of territory with "holes" in it. Those tribes must have been, economically speaking, quite uninteresting. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk!03:08, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
I just came upon John Zubrzycki's The Shortest History of India, and he has a map far larger which includes Makran, Bactria, South India, Sri Lanka, Northeast and some portions of eastern Burma. Whatupis (talk) 04:12, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
WP:OR?I am more and more concerned that this map with holes (attached →) is WP:OR and does not exist in the literature as such. These "holes" are actually all of a different nature: the Gondwana hole is indeed an "unconquered tribe" and marked as such by Kulke&Rothemond [20], but the northwest hole is only a desert area (Thar Desert) and therefore has no political significance (and is just considered as Mauryan territory in most maps), and all the other holes are actually "free and autonomous" tribes ("autonomous" particularly implying only a degree of independence [21]) or "relatively autonomous peoples" [22], and therefore cannot be said to be "null" entities either. Can anyone provide a reference for a similar map from a reliable source? It would be a bit problematic if Wikipedia is to use prominently a graphic depiction of the Maurya Empire which actually does not exist in the literature... We should stick with what academics do (for example follow the Kulke & Rothermund map above), not invent different stuff... पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra)(talk)05:50, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
Yes. Do what the scholars have done in their maps. Why is it so hard for people to follow a simple message and not breach OR. Editors here are arguing against it as if they are scholars. Whatupis (talk) 05:58, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
Contemporary historians do not buy the fairy tale about a centralized empire with roads and canals extending from Baluchistan to the Tibet Trans Himalayas.
All your maps thus far are a form of rear-guard action for restoring as much of the fairy tale as is possible. It is similar to the fairy tale about Muslim atrocities in South Asia after 1199 CE you were attempting to sell in Mohammad of Ghor and Lion capital of Ashoka, it is standard pseudo-Hindu-nationalist fare. Fowler&fowler«Talk»14:45, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
It is true that my Sikh gurus were butchered by them. But the actions of a few should not define everyone under the common umbrella of "Muslim". They were radical Khawarij or Salafi-Jihadis as more commonly known today. Whatupis (talk) 07:28, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
I have no idea what happened during the Delhi sultanate but if it did happen it was necessary to destroy the caste system with sword and teach them a lesson. The two Hindu-revolutions (Buddhism and Jainism) were too peaceful with no vision to conquer and rule with their values over subjugated populations. Countless people would have been freed and saved from the Brahmin-Kshatriya duo's wicked clutches if they had fought for these people. Sometimes war is required to protect great values which bring heaven down to Earth. Whatupis (talk) 18:14, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
Like I've said before. There is no record of the Mauryas' public works that make an empire, except hearsay. See Smith, Monica L. (2005), "Networks, Territories, and the Cartography of Ancient States", Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 95 (4), Blackwell: 832–849, The level of documented state-level investment in infrastructure under the Mauryans is minimal. Aside from the way stations mentioned in Asokan inscriptions, they constructed no formal road systems or communications networks. Investment in specific cities is unrecorded, although excavations at Patna have revealed substantial structures and a long wooden palisade that may date to the early centuries BC (summarized in Allchin 1995). In general, archaeological remains are at odds with the textual record about the manner, extent, and effectiveness of state-level control and bureaucracy. Sinopoli (2001, 159) and others have therefore proposed that the view of a strong, centrist Mauryan polity be reevaluated since claims for its universal status and highly centralized political structure appear to have been overstated (see also Sugandhi 2003).Fowler&fowler«Talk»15:01, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The "map with holes" as such, currently prominently displayed as the primary map of the Maurya Empire article, does not seem to exist in scholarship, and therefore constitute an original creation (WP:OR), aimed at conveying a new visual concept that has not been presented by academics. It is supposedly based on a map by Kulke&Rothermund [23], but actually changes the graphical convention drastically, and essentially only keeps a portion of the map (the portion showing the core areas of the Maurya Empire) in WP:POV fashion. Such a creation could be acceptable as an explanatory diagram somewhere in the article, but not as the main "official" Wikipedia map for the Maurya Empire article. Proposed updated map of the Maurya Empire, closely following Kulke & RothermundAn "official" Wikipedia map should be strictly derived from major published maps, such as the one attached (→), which is indeed closely following Kulke&Rothermund.
Proponents of this original "map with holes" seem to claim that about half of Kulke&Rothermund's Mauryan Empire map is irrelevant. This does feel like selective reading and cherry-picking of the source. The portions which are being selectively left out represent various entities of different nature: the Gondwana hole is indeed an "unconquered tribe" and marked as such by Kulke&Rothermund [24], but the northwest hole is only a desert area (Thar Desert) and therefore has no political significance (and is just considered as Mauryan territory in most maps), and all the other holes are actually "free and autonomous" tribes ("autonomous" particularly implying only a degree of independence [25]), otherwise called "relatively autonomous peoples" in other sources [26] suggesting some level of connection to the Mauryas, hence the reason why Kulke&Rothermund still considerers it important to show them in a map of the Maurya Empire.
As a general rule, for the sake of Wikipedia's authoritativeness, we should strictly follow published maps only, and not indulge in original creations that tend to favour some specific point of view.
You cannot@पाटलिपुत्र: change the above statement after it has been responded to, per Wikipedia policy. In other words, as the initiator of this RfC you cannot claim unfair advantage by having your POV not only appear front and center, but by being intermittently renewed, revised, or appended to, render many of the responses ill-considered, slapdash, or incoherent. You may add postscripts below which must appear chronologically so that the coherence and cohesion of the ensuing discussion does not suffer. I note that you have done this in other RfCs before, and as I did then, I will refactor any such attempt. Please take cognizance. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk»12:09, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: My understanding is that an individual statement in response to an RfC can be freely amended, contrary to a two-way discussion where one responds to another (an RfC is basically not a discussion, but a structured response to a proposition spelled in the RfC heading, meant to be analysed by a closer). But no problem, pending more imput from someone cognizant of the procedures, I will humour you and datestamp possible modifications, additions etc... No problem. Don't unilaterally modify my own contributions though, that's a definite no-go on Wikipedia. Best पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra)(talk)12:36, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
@पाटलिपुत्र: Again. The coherence and cohesion of a structured discussion on Wikipedia is inviolable. It cannot be compromised. Violating it makes the discussion semantically opaque. You make a statement, let's call it Statment A. Editor1 appears after you and responds using their best arguments, but thereafter never visits the RfC again. You then change Statement A to Statement B which is marked with a timestamp. Editor2 appears and responds to Statement B. They too disappear thereafter. You then change your statement again to Statement C. and this process continues. When Editor15 appears, how will they assess the exchange? Will they be comparing timestamp after timestamp and correlating a response below to the version of your statement that existed until then? How will a closer evaluate the discussion? It will be a semantic and logical nightmare. So, please don't be facetious and "humor" me. I consider this tactic to be deeply disturbing. It is to be anathematized anywhere and everywhere on Wikipedia. Yes, I will revert any such attempt and you can then take me to ANI, ARE, or the forum of your choosing as you've done many times before. But enough is enough. Fowler&fowler«Talk»13:08, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
In other words, if I introduce a new source in my statement below, you will need to respond to the argument below. You cannot retroactively alter your statement above to give the appearance of having anticipated my source/argument. Even with a timestamp, deciphering such references within one long statement by the nominator will become next to impossible. It would be highly unfair to ordinary volunteering editors who have made the effort to respond to the RfC to subject them to such a nightmare of argumentation. Fowler&fowler«Talk»23:47, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
I want to complain to the Wikipedia community about this egregious abuse of the time of well-meaning, longstanding, editors. User:Patliputra (mostly) and two others have made six proposals above in which they themselves have voted "support as nominator," each of which is unfinished and un-closed. As each proposal has shown the hallmarks of not going their way, they have without warning begun a new proposal in the section below. So we now have:
Yes. It is very much acceptable and yes there is a map that is closely paraphrased (in transferred usage) in the main map of Mauryan Empire. Most modern historians of South Asia consider the Mauryan empire to have been loose-knit with a few areas of control in a vaster and mostly unsecured hinterland:
In the reckoning of David Ludden (former chair of the history department at New York University, and President of the Association of Asian Studies), "The geography of the Mauryan Empire resembled a spider with a small dense body and long spindly legs. The highest echelons of imperial society lived in the inner circle composed of the ruler, his immediate family, other relatives, and close allies, who formed a dynastic core. Outside the core, empire travelled stringy routes dotted with armed cities. ... In most janapadas, the Mauryan Empire consisted of strategic urban sites connected loosely to vast hinterlands through lineages and local elites who were there when the Mauryas arrived and were still in control when they left."Fowler&fowler«Talk»13:36, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
Maurya empire in the network model of anthropologist Monica L. Smith (in a very poor reproduction by F&f)
In the words of UCLA anthropologist Monica L. Smith, Smith, Monica L. (2005), "Networks, Territories, and the Cartography of Ancient States", Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 95 (4), Blackwell: 832–849, The level of documented state-level investment in infrastructure under the Mauryans is minimal. Aside from the way stations mentioned in Asokan inscriptions, they constructed no formal road systems or communications networks. ... In general, archaeological remains are at odds with the textual record about the manner, extent, and effectiveness of state-level control and bureaucracy. Sinopoli (2001, 159) and others have therefore proposed that the view of a strong, centrist Mauryan polity be reevaluated since claims for its universal status and highly centralized political structure appear to have been overstated (see also Sugandhi 2003).
Possible territories of the Maurya empire in the work of Sinopoli 2001 and 2006 (in a very poor reproduction by F&f)
And as for a map, it is there in "Sinopoli 2001" mentioned above; see for example, the work of Carla Sinopoli, Professor of Archaeology, University of New Mexico: Sinopoli, Carla L. (2006), "Imperial Landscapes of South Asia", Archaeology of Asia, Wiley-Blackwell, doi:10.1002/9780470774670, Both early scholarship and nationalistic rhetoric about the Mauryans portrayed the empire as a highly centralized and homogeneous polity that unified a vast region into a single monolithic imperial state. Recent writing have in contrast emphasized the discontinuous geography of the empire .... While the Mauryans may have had effective territorial control in their northern heartland, imperial territories in peninsular India were restricted to areas near important mineral resources and trade routes, suggesting discontinuous territories and limited presence in many areas of the peninsula. (Map on page 330)
Map of the Mauryan realms in Kulke & Rothermund (see the same map in an earlier edition which is available on Archive.org: Map in K&R (in a poor reproduction by F&f)
Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund say in A History of India, 6th edition, Routledge, 2016, page 43, In modern historical maps Ashoka’s empire is often shown as covering the whole subcontinent, with the exception of its southern tip. But if we look at the sites where Ashoka’s inscriptions have been found, we clearly see a definite regional pattern (see Map 2.1) ... South of the Vindhya mountains the Mauryas mainly controlled the coastal areas and some of the interior near present Mysore, which they probably coveted because of the gold which was found there ... This revision of the spatial extension of the Maurya empire nevertheless does not detract from its ‘All-India’ dimensions and that it marked the apex of the process of state formation which had started in the sixth century BC. The hub of the empire remained the old region of the major mahajanapadas in the triangle Delhi–Pataliputra–Ujjain. Campaigns of conquest had added the northwest, Kalinga and an enclave in the south to the empire Note: Map 2.1 is the same as the map in the appendix of [this earlier edition, available on archives.org.
Robin Coningham and Ruth Young (archaeologist), Archaeology of Sout Asia: From Indus to Asoka, Cambridge University Press, 2015, produce a network model "after Monica L. Smith" and contrast it to the much larger "traditional boundary" (page 452)
Burton Stein and David Arnold (historian)A History of India, 2nd edition, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, page 87: The multiplicity of ways in which the people of the imperial age were encouraged to recognize their connections with others narrowed the scope of political integration. That is, while there might be claims to enormous realms, such as Ashoka’s, they actually referred to very porous entities riddled with large, scattered autonomous zones, a situation that contributed to the ease with which outsiders were able to establish new ‘states’ by conquest, and, eventually, to the transformation of political formations after 500 ce, when the last of the imperial regimes, the Guptas, were driven from their northern domains.
Stanley Tambiah is summarizd in Coningham and Young's Archaeology of South Asia: From Indus to Asoka, Cambridge University Press, page 454:Such models are close to the model advocated by Stanley Tambiah with his concept of the ‘galactic polity ’ (1976). Although based on later Mediaeval Thai polities, Tambiah recognised the presence of a concentric ring or centre-periphery model in which the capital and arena of direct control was surrounded by a circle of provinces ruled by centrally appointed governors and princes with an outermost ring of “more or less independent ‘tributary’ polities” ( 1976 : 112). Moreover, Tambiahpredicted a highly fluid relationship between these units suggesting that “we have before us a galactic picture of a central planet surrounded by diff erentiated satellites, which are more or less ‘autonomous’ entities held in orbit and within the sphere of influence of the centre. Now if we introduce at the margin other similar competing central principalities and their satellites, we shall be able to appreciate the logic of a system that is a hierarchy of central points continually subject to the dynamics of pulsation and changing spheres of influence” (ibid: 113).
Romila Thapar has been summarized by Coningham and Young as follows: Romila Thaparagain returned to the study of Asokan edictsand noted the presence of three distinct “areas of isolation” within the empire – in the lower Indus plain, the eastern part of Central India, and the far south, but commented that, elsewhere, the Mauryans established routes between emerging centres of exchange (Thapar 1996 : 287). Thapar also drew attention to the notable absence of “northern artefacts” in central Karnatakadespite the “heavy cluster of inscriptions in the area”, further commenting that such phenomena “requires us to view the possible divergences in the relations between the Mauryan administration and the local people of a region” ( ibid .: 288). Revising her earlier models, Thapar has now suggested that the empire comprised relationships of control between three very different spheres, the metropolitan state, the core areas of previously established Janapadas and Mahajanapadas and, finally, the peripheral regions of “lineage-based societies” which “would be relatively liberated from the control of the metropolitan state” (ibid:318).
Historical demographer Tim Dyson, in A Population History of India: From the First Modern People to the Present Day, Oxford University Press, 2019, pages 16–17, says:
Under Chandragupta Maurya (c.321–297 bce), and subsequently Ashoka his grandson, Pataliputra became the centre of the loose-knit Mauryan ‘Empire’ which during Ashoka’s reign (c.268–232 bce) briefly had a presence throughout the main urban centres and arteries of the subcontinent, except for the extreme south.<Footnote49:The Mauryan Empire incorporated several kingdoms that had arisen outside of the Ganges basin. They included Kamboja and Gandhara in the north-west, Avanti and Cedi in central India, and Asmaka in the south. See Erdosy (1995b: 115)> and
Page 19: Therefore, by the time of the Mauryan Empire the position of women in mainstream Indo-Aryan society seems to have deteriorated. Customs such as child marriage and dowry were becoming entrenched;65 and a young women’s purpose in life was to provide sons for the male lineage into which she married. ... Practices such as female infanticide and the neglect of young girls were possibly also developing at this time, especially among higher caste people. marriage). It is important to note that, in all likelihood, these developments did not affect people living in large parts of the subcontinent—such as those in the south, and tribal communities inhabiting the forested hill and plateau areas of central and eastern India. That said, these deleterious features have continued to blight Indo-Aryan speaking areas of the subcontinent until the present day.
Note that the regions or groups free of these practices even today, are those that then lay outside Mauryan sovereignty.
Conclusion: So, a large number of modern scholars of South Asia consider the Mauryan empire to have consisted of regions of direct control and large areas that are either "autonomous" or "relatively autonomous" (Burton Stein), inhabited by free, unconquered, tribes (Kulke and Rothermund); relatively liberated" (Romila Thapar), "lineage-based societies;" (David Ludden), "suggesting discontinuous territories and limited presence in many areas of the peninsula," or in the summary of Monica Smith's work in Coningham and Young, hthat cities were effectively linked, but ideological linkage suffered severe distance decay beyond the main networks between nodes (pp. 28–29).
user:Patliputra, the nominator, has attempted to mark these regions beyond the direct control of the Mauryas with a form of uniform linear hatching, that by the choice of alternating colors in it— one of which is a darker color, similar to the darker (brown) as the regions of full sovereignty—thereby either,
attempted to reproduce only one of several interpretations, i.e. of Kulke and Rothermund, but in color, and/or
emphasized the qualifying words such as "relatively" or "mostly" in the works of a few authors. This would be WP:OR, as quite a few more do not make any such concession to the Mauryas, or their models do not make such predictions. It is best to leave the maps in the current form in the infobox: a primary map (created by user:Avantiputra7, whom I consider to be a Wikipedia graphics whizz), showing the regions of sovereignty in brown, but set off from those in green representing independence with some qualifications. This I beleive is the consensus of modern historians. It is best also to add the citations in the infobox with quotes within citations to describe the nuances for the interested, and a traditional map showing the Mauryan realms to have spread over most of South Asia. I'm sure we can improve the citations accompanying the two maps currently in the infobox with any additional sources mentioned above, but nothing is required beyond that.
Finally, as for user:Patliputra's concern for "Wikipedia's authoritativeness," I note that the diminished sovereignty of the Mauryas has been noted in the ancient history section of the FA India, Wikipedia's oldest country FA (soon to be 19 years old): "The empire was once thought to have controlled most of the subcontinent except the far south, but its core regions are now thought to have been separated by large autonomous areas." with nary a serious objection by anyone. The two maps in Maurya Empire have been in place for several years. It dosn't mean they are etched in stone, but that they have not faced serious objections. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:44, 12 September 2023 (UTC) Updated, Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk»00:33, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
PS1 I am noting that there were so many proposals made in the days leading up to this RfC, that I could not keep track of all the sources I had already listed (with some listed several times). In particular I forgot two: (a) The history textbook for XII grade students, Themes in Indian History – I, published by India's National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and (b) The chapter, "Mauryan Empire," (in Oxford History of World Empire, volume 2, History of Empire, edited by Peter Fibiger Bang and others), Oxford University Press, 2021) by Himanshu Prabha Ray, a former chairperson of India's National Monuments Authority. The sources, each with a key quote, can be found in this subsection. Best, Fowler&fowler«Talk»11:36, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
Map in Allchin 1995, showing the Mauryan provinces (boundaries in yellow) and neighboring tribes (labeled in blue)
NB1 Noting that the same map as Sinopoli, which had been cited to Erdosy, I believe, also occurs in: Allchin, F. R. (1995), The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States, Cambridge University Press, pp. 199, 208, ISBN0521375479 along with a second map which marks the locations of the "neighboring peoples" that are named in Asokan inscriptions. They are classed as Aparantas (literally, "western borderers," but used more generally for peopels such as the Kambojas and Yonas in what is today Afghanistan, and Cholas, Pandyas, and Keralaputra deep in the peninsula and Tamarparni in Sri Lanka. But no peoples are named in the white cross-hatched regions. I have superimposed the two maps on an old map of Joppen-1907 I had uploaded four years ago. Fowler&fowler«Talk»21:21, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
Response to Fowler&fowler
Possible maps properly following sources
1) L. Smith's diagram of networks.
2) Sinopoli's map of "possible boundaries"
3) The Kulke & Rothermund map
Thank you for your references User:Fowler&fowler. Nobody denies that the Mauryan Empire was, for most modern scholars (including the ones you quote), a tentacular core surrounded by tribes which were only "loosely connected" to the Maurya Empire, or were "more or less autonomous" ("autonomous" particularly implying only a degree of independence per your own admission [27]). But you just demonstrated that the current "map with holes" in the infobox, properly follows neither of the maps you provided above.
1) L. Smith's diagram (p.844) is not a map of the Maurya Empire, but just the modelization of a network. It is interesting theoretically, but is not the source of our "map with holes" and couldn't really be used in an infobox as such.
2) Sinopoli's map (p.330) with discrete areas is valuable in its own right, and could be used directly in our article (I made a usable drawing attached 2)), but defines vastly different areas from our "map with holes" and cannot be considered as its source.
3) The Kulke & Rothermund map (p.69) is a complex maps which shows the extent of the core of Mauryan Empire with the surrounding or intervening "free and autonomous" tribes. Our current "map with holes" only keeps a portion of the Kulke & Rothermund map (the portion showing the core areas of the Maurya Empire) and represents the other areas as voids, where Kulke & Rothermund show the various more or less autonomous tribes. We shouldn't misrepresent our source in such a fashion, by cherry-picking some portions and selectively leaving out other portions (this is WP:OR, WP:SYNTH etc...). Either we follow Kulke & Rothermund precisely, or we don't.
Overall, I believe we could advantageously use a faithful rendering of the Kulke & Rothermund map (which is one of the references you propose) and which I accurately drew (number 3 here) as our main map for the infobox. It is a true, faithfull, referenced, comprehensive map of the Maurya Empire (as "official" Wikipedia country maps should be) that would stand well as the unique map in an infobox. The other maps 1) and 2) could be used as needed in the article, where we can have a paragraph presenting the various understandings and representations of the Mauryan Empire through time (starting with Vincent Arthur Smith of course...). पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra)(talk)04:17, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
Okey, so Fowler did bring his maps. He could have said it earlier. I thought he drew it himself from text.
Sinpoli one follows the map in the book, though Folwer withheld figure 7 showing the territorial extent of the empire in Smith's article which has no gaps or holes. Kulke and Rothermund is a good balance between the opposing views of scholars because remember there are 2 reliable scholarly maps which show that the empire had no holes around areas thought by some to be lacking sovereignty.
However, the question right now is not which map to use but about that which closely follows Kulke, and Pataliputra has left nothing out to side with a particular point of view. Whatupis (talk) 05:00, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
This is not about me. I have been on Wikipedia for 17 years. I have written the lead of this article. It has stood in this article for quite a few years as has the main map. This is about your unexplained appearance on WP last week, your presumption of familiarity with me and easy disdain for my replies, and your single purpose account. of 40 edits of which 29 are on this talk page, all opposing anything I say. Many are random and ill-informed. Be warned. Fowler&fowler«Talk»21:36, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
Responding to ping above. I don't have the time to evaluate maps, I'm sorry. I will say that there shouldn't be multiple proposals open on the same content at the same time; if the proposer is withdrawing one to make another, the previous ones should clearly be marked as withdrawn. The many new accounts are indeed suspicious, but at least two have been blocked as socks and can safely be ignored, and as a closer I would not give much weight to an account with no previous activity !voting here. Vanamonde (Talk)23:34, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
Hi, I could not find any Wikipedia rule that says I can't vote here. There is only one map which is taken from a scholarly book that needs to be evaluated. All others are text-based fantasies. Whatupis (talk) 10:08, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
It's not that you can't !vote; Fowler was incorrect (almost to a problematic extent) to say that you couldn't. What he should have said, and what Vanamonde is correctly explaining to you now is that, taking in the totality of the circumstances, a responsible closer paying close attention to the details of this discussion could easily conclude that, given proven issues with a sock farm relating to the issue, that spontaneous new accounts are to be treated with skepticism when weighing the overall responses and trying to find a community consensus. Comment and !vote within reason, if you wish to and are indeed not socking, but understand that in the circumstances, your perspective may not be given much weight in the final analysis. SnowRise let's rap07:06, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
(Responding to ping) Creating proposal after proposal does look like the quintessential example of tendentious editing. And, I agree with Vanamonde93 that we shouldn't get much weight to the new accounts. @पाटलिपुत्र:, you're a long term editor with a respectable history - perhaps you might want to consider just letting this go. Adding multiple proposals is a recipe for confusion and it is probably better to come back to this topic after a longish break with a carefully thought through fresh proposal. RegentsPark (comment) 00:58, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
Also responding to the ping. I haven't looked into this enough to have more than the most obvious opinion, which is that the RFC opening statement is not neutral as required by WP:RFCNEUTRAL. I'd recommend something as short as "Should Map A or Map B be used in the lead of the article?". Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:19, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
Close - This RfC is hopelessly biased. Firefangledfeathers is correct that it violates the required neutrality of an RfC presentation. Further, the arguments for and against the various options are problematic. Claims of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH are extremely difficult to make (or refute) for maps unless a source has one that is comprehensive and in the public domain, neither of which is normally true. Turning a textual description into a map is inherently interpretative. I very strongly agree with RegentsPark that Wikipedia is best served by having everyone walk away for an extended period (perhaps 3 months?), letting the article evolve in very small increments in the meantime, and revisiting a single, neutrally-worded RfC at a later date. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Last1in (talk • contribs) 14:46, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
Egregious Process Violation - When I wrote the response immediately above, I had not realised that the level of WP:BLUDGEONing involved on this page. It appears the nominator is new and may not understand the RfC process. Reading this entire Talk strongly suggests to me that this nomination was not intended to obtain consensus but instead to force a particular POV into this article over the strong, persistent, admirably sourced arguments from other editors. IMHO, the RfC should have been procedurally closed the instant it was posted just on neutrality grounds alone. I very strongly recommend that पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra) withdraw this nomination immediately to show good faith, and that they review (and adhere to) WP:WRFC and WP:RFCNEUTRAL and guidelines on multiple RfCs before posting another. Cheers, Last1in (talk) 23:17, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
Textual sources are acceptable, this RFC is not. Especially for an RFC that ostensibly asks about policy, this is an extraordinarily breach of Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Statement should be neutral and brief; in the words of Wikipedia:Writing requests for comment#Neutrality, avoid writing anything that could predispose the reader towards a particular conclusion. Also be careful not to do this by implication: avoid rhetorical constructions and wording choices that indicate preference towards a particular outcome. The eventual question should have been asked at the Help Desk and would have been quickly answered: Wikipedia maps are often based on textual sources and there is no policy that requires them to be based on other maps. It has even been argued above that any map should be based stylistically on one particular monochrome map; this is nonsense on stilts and as an attempt to fill in "holes" and give a visual impression that all India was in one way or another included in the Maurya empire, itself a breach of WP:NPOV. I strongly encourage any editors who wish to see the Maurya empire given full respect not to take any such glass-half-empty attitude or otherwise give the impression that the empire's historical significance rests upon exaggerations. NebY (talk) 17:54, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
There are multiple sock farms at play here and apparently some sort of off-wiki coordination on Quora. I found at least another couple of sock farms on Commons (not an admin there, and don't have the time to provide narratives for action there) and some links to simple and Hindi wikipedias. —SpacemanSpiff08:13, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
![[14]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maurya_Empire,_c.250_BCE.png){kind=link}
