Ashoka the Great
304 BCE–232 BCE · Pataliputra (Patna)
Ashoka (reigned c. 268-232 BCE) was the third emperor of the Maurya dynasty, grandson of its founder Chandragupta, ruling over nearly the entire Indian subcontinent from the capital at Pataliputra. According to his own inscriptions, the great bloodshed of his conquest of Kalinga led him to embrace Buddhist ethics, which he promoted through a program of dhamma (moral law) carved on rock and pillar edicts across the empire. He is remembered for these edicts and for supporting the spread of Buddhism beyond India, including missions to Sri Lanka.
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Pataliputra (Patna)
What they did here
Ashoka was born a son of the Mauryan emperor Bindusara at the imperial capital Pataliputra, where he later ruled from his coronation around 268 BCE.
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Ashoka the Great’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Graeco-Roman world
Scientists
Mesopotamian world
Luminaries & Explorers world
Rulers world
- Pyrrhus of Epirus· 319 BCE–272 BCE
- Qin Shi Huang· 259 BCE–210 BCE
- Attalus I of Pergamon· 269 BCE–197 BCE
- Bindusara· –273 BCE
- Demetrius I Poliorcetes· 337 BCE–283 BCE
- Emperor Gaozu of Han (Liu Bang)· 256 BCE–195 BCE
- Seleucus I Nicator· 358 BCE–281 BCE
- Lysimachus· 360 BCE–281 BCE
- Hannibal Barca· 247 BCE–183 BCE
- Chandragupta Maurya· –297 BCE
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