Mauryan empire and Ashoka's Dhamma

The Mauryan empire, founded by Chandragupta around the end of the fourth century BCE, was the first empire to unite most of the Indian subcontinent under one rule. Its administration, described in the Arthashastra tradition and in Megasthenes, combined a central court at Pataliputra with provincial governors, officials and spies. Ashoka, its most famous ruler, transformed imperial ideology after the Kalinga war by proclaiming Dhamma, a moral policy of tolerance, welfare and respect, inscribed on rocks and pillars across the empire.