164 Part III: South Asia
ber the concept of “Zomia” discussed in part II: the zones of resistance—
mountains, jungles, and wastelands—where independent peoples try to stay out
of reach of states. Modern India still has vast areas of such independent people
resisting absorption into the caste system, especially in eastern and central India.
Another body of texts attests to the emergence of persons discontented
with urban life in the small kingdoms, opting instead for a lifestyle of spiritual
practice and renunciation. The Upanishads bring new religious ideas that chal-
lenge the dominance of priestly Brahmans and their mastery of ritual on behalf
of kings. The forest seemed to call to people in the crowded cities of the late
Vedic age. We hear of forest-dwelling sages such as Valmiki, who tells the story
of Rama’s exile. Bands of renouncers traveled together, or individual mystics
holed up in caves and mountaintops seeking a new reality that breaks with
much of the worldview of the Vedas and the Brahmans. Among these was
Gautama (the Buddha), who as a prince in the small kingdom of Sakya, had
everything a man of the Vedic age could want, but outside his palace he
encountered sickness, old age, and death, and decided to join a band of
renouncers to escape this world. (The main story of the Buddha is told in the
next chapter.) This was certainly a critique of contemporary society. The state,
it seems, could not be everything to everyone. While marginal tribal popula-
tions tried to keep their distance and many of those at the heart of it embraced
renunciation, nothing could stop the growing power of state society.The Mauryan-Guptan Empires (323 B.C.E.–550 C.E.)
A century and a half after the death of the Buddha, Alexander the Great
invaded India in the west, the first firm date we have in Indian history (i.e., 326
B.C.E.). Historians traveling with Alexander reported the marvels of India: trees
that produced wool (cotton), trees so gigantic that 500 troops could shelter
under each one at noon, vast numbers of monkeys, and a large city, Taxila,
governed by good laws whose king welcomed Alexander with kindness. They
provided lengthy descriptions of the customs of the country and described a
society of multiple castes and categories specialized by occupation. They noted
three kinds of religious men: Brahmans, who were ritualists and advisors to
kings; Buddhists, philosophers who were contentious and fond of argument;
and naked ascetics who lived in the open air.
The small northern states were finally conquered and unified in 323 B.C.E.
by Chandragupta Maurya, whose capital was at Pataliputra (now Patna) in a
region south of the Ganges River known as Magadha (now south Bihar). At its
peak, the Mauryan Empire was larger than any Indian government until Brit-
ish times. A manuscript in Sanskrit discovered in 1905, probably unread for a
thousand years, revealed the real world of political power underlying all the
ancient religious texts that seems to portray an “empire of the spirit.” It proved
to be a text on political power resembling Sun Tzu’s The Art of War or Machia-
velli’s The Prince—although written sometime during the Mauryan Empire by a
royal minister named Kautilya. “Kautilya makes Machiavelli look like Mother