Jansari, Sushma;
(2023)
Chandragupta Maurya: The creation of a national hero in India.
UCL Press: London, UK.
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Abstract
We take it for granted that some historical figures become heroes, and others do not. Chandragupta Maurya evolved from obscure ruler to contemporary national icon. The key moment in the making of this Indian hero was a meeting by the banks of the River Indus between Chandragupta and Seleucus, founder of the Seleucid empire and one of Alexander the Great’s generals, in c.305-3 BC. This significant event was a moment of peace-making at the end of conflict. But no reliable account exists in early sources, and it is not even clear which ruler was victorious in battle. This uncertainty enabled British and Indian historians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to interpret the sources in radically different ways. With Chandragupta representing India and Seleucus standing in for Britain, British scholars argued that Seleucus defeated Chandragupta, while Indian academics contended the opposite. The writing and reception of history fundamentally influences how we engage with the past, and the evolving colonial and post-colonial relationship between Britain and India is crucial here. In India, the image of Chandragupta as an idealised hero who vanquished the foreign invader has prevailed and found expression in contemporary popular culture. In plays, films, television series, comic books and historical novels, Chandragupta is the powerful and virtuous Hindu ruler par excellence. The path to this elevated standing is charted in this book.
| Type: | Book |
|---|---|
| Title: | Chandragupta Maurya: The creation of a national hero in India |
| ISBN-13: | 9781800083882 |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.14324/111.9781800083882 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800083882 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Text © Author, 2023 Images © Copyright holders named in captions, 2023 Any third-party material in this book is not covered by the book’s Creative Commons licence. Details of the copyright ownership and permitted use of third-party material is given in the image (or extract) credit lines. If you would like to reuse any third-party material not covered by the book’s Creative Commons licence, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright owner. This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc/4.0/. This licence allows you to share and adapt the work for non-commercial use providing attribution is made to the author and publisher (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work) and any changes are indicated. Attribution should include the following information: Jansari, S. 2023. Chandragupta Maurya: The creation of a national hero in India. London: UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800083882 Further details about Creative Commons licences are available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ |
| Keywords: | India, Mauryan empire, British Raj, historical interpretation |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Dept of Information Studies |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10170898 |
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