India Map 200 BCE — Historical Map & Timeline

Who ruled India in 200 BCE?

In 200 BCE, power in the subcontinent was shared among 2 major states and dynasties. Dates are conventional estimates.

• Maurya Empire
  Most of the subcontinent; capital Pataliputra. Founded by Chandragupta Maurya; reached its widest extent under Ashoka. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica — Mauryan Empire · Read: The Maurya Empire
• Early Chera, Chola and Pandya kingdoms
  Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The three crowned kingdoms of the far south described in Sangam poetry. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica — Sangam literature

What happened in India around 200 BCE?

• c. 261 BCE: Kalinga becomes the moral centre of Ashoka’s inscriptions. Ashoka’s own edicts describe conquest, death and displacement in Kalinga, then turn toward restraint and public welfare. The inscriptions do not say that warfare vanished, but they make royal remorse an extraordinary public claim. Source: Britannica: Ashoka—Edicts and policy
• 250 BCE: Ashoka’s edicts address the empire
• 232 BCE: Ashoka’s reign ends
• c. 1st–3rd century CE: Kushan rulers connect northern India to Central Asia. The Kushan realm linked the northwest and Ganga basin to commercial and cultural routes across Central Asia. Under Kanishka and his successors, coinage and patronage drew on Greek, Iranian, Indian and Buddhist traditions. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Kushan dynasty
• 20 CE: Indo-Parthian rule under Gondophares
• 78 CE: Kushan power links northern routes