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Ashoka
Ashoka Maurya (304 BCE - 232 BCE) commonly known as Ashoka
and also as Ashoka the Great, was an Indian
emperor
of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent from ca. 269 BCE to 232
BCE.[1]
One of India's greatest emperors, Ashoka reigned over most of present-day India
after a number of military conquests. His empire stretched from the Hindu Kush
mountains in Afghanistan to present-day Bangladesh
and the Indian state of Assam in the east, and as far south as northern Kerala and Andhra
Pradesh. In about 260 BCE Ashoka waged a bitterly destructive war
against the states of Kalinga (modern Orissa).[2]
He conquered Kalinga, which none of his ancestors starting from Chandragupta Maurya had conquered. His reign
was headquartered in Magadha (present-day Bihar). He supposedly
embraced Buddhism
after witnessing the mass deaths of the Kalinga War,
which he himself had waged out of a desire for conquest. "Ashoka reflected
on the war in Kalinga, which reportedly had resulted in more than 100,000
deaths and 150,000 deportations."[3] Ashoka converted
gradually to Buddhism beginning about 263 BCE at the latest.[2]
He was later dedicated to the propagation of Buddhism across Asia and established
monuments marking several significant sites in the life of Gautama
Buddha. "Ashoka regarded Buddhism as a doctrine that could
serve as a cultural foundation for political unity."[4] Ashoka is often
remembered in history as a philanthropic administrator. In the Kalinga
edicts, he addresses his people as his "children" and mentions that
as a father he desires their good.
Chandragupta Maurya
Chandragupta Maurya, (born c. 340 BCE, ruled c. 320 BCE,[2]
– 298 BCE[3])
was the founder of the Maurya Empire. He succeeded in conquering
almost all of the Indian subcontinent and is considered the first
unifier of India
as well as its first genuine emperor.[4]
In foreign Greek and Latin accounts,
Chandragupta is known as Sandrokyptos , Sandrokottos or Androcottus.[5]
Prior to Chandragupta's consolidation of power, small regional kingdoms
dominated the northwestern subcontinent, while the Nanda Dynasty
dominated the middle and lower basin of the Ganges.[6]
After Chandragupta's conquests, the Maurya Empire extended from Bengal and Assam[7]
in the east, to Afghanistan and Balochistan,some part of the eastern and
south-east Iran
in the west, to Kashmir
and Nepal[8]
in the north, and to the Deccan Plateau in the south.
Chandragupta Maurya also maintained the largest army of the ancient world
which consisted of 800,000 men, 21,000 war elephants, 30,000 cavalry and 10,000
chariots. He also had 7,000 female bodyguards which consisted of beautiful
women from Greece, Persia and India.
Chandragupta's achievements, which ranged from conquering Macedonian satrapies in
the northwest and conquering the Nanda Empire
by the time he was only about 20 years old, to achieving an alliance with Seleucus I Nicator and establishing centralized
rule throughout the Indian Subcontinent, remain some of the most
celebrated in the history of India. Over two thousand years
later, the accomplishments of Chandragupta stand out in the history of
India.
Cyrus the Great
Cyrus II of Persia
(c. 600 BC or 576 BC–530 BC[6]
commonly known as Cyrus the Great,[7]
also known as Cyrus the Elder, was the founder of the Achaemenid
Empire.[8]
Under his rule, the empire
embraced all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near
East,[8]
expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of Southwest
Asia and much of Central Asia and the Caucasus.
From the Mediterranean sea and Hellespont
in the west to the Indus River in the east, Cyrus the Great
created the largest empire the world had yet seen.[9]
His regal titles in full were The Great King, King of Persia, King of Anshan,
King of Media, King of Babylon, King of Sumer and Akkad, King of the four
corners of the World. He also pronounced what some consider to be one of the
first historically important declarations of human rights
via the Cyrus Cylinder sometime between 539 and 530 BC.
The reign of Cyrus the Great lasted between 29 and 31 years. Cyrus built his
empire by conquering first the Median Empire, then the Lydian Empire and
eventually the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Either before or
after Babylon, he led an expedition into central
Asia, which resulted in major campaigns that
were described as having brought "into subjection every nation without
exception".[10]
Cyrus did not venture into Egypt,
as he himself died in battle, fighting the Massagetae
along the Syr Darya
in December 530 BC.[11][12]
He was succeeded by his son, Cambyses II, who managed to add to the empire
by conquering Egypt,
Nubia,
and Cyrenaica
during his short rule.
Genghis Khan
He came to power by uniting many of the nomadic
tribes of northeast Asia. After founding the Mongol Empire and being proclaimed
"Genghis Khan", he started the Mongol
invasions that resulted in the conquest of most of Eurasia. These
included raids or invasions of the Kara-Khitan Khanate, Caucasus,
Khwarezmid Empire, Western Xia
and Jin dynasties. These campaigns were often
accompanied by wholesale massacres of the civilian populations – especially in Khwarezmia.
By the end of his life, the Mongol Empire occupied a substantial portion of
Central Asia and China.
Before Genghis Khan died, he assigned Ögedei Khan
as his successor and split his empire into khanates
among his sons and grandsons.[6]
He died in 1227 after defeating the Western Xia. He was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in Mongolia at an
unknown location. His descendants went on to stretch the Mongol Empire across
most of Eurasia
by conquering or creating vassal states out of all of modern-day China, Korea, the Caucasus,
Central Asian countries, and substantial portions of modern Eastern Europe,
Russia and the Middle East. Many of these invasions repeated the earlier
large-scale slaughters of local populations. As a result Genghis Khan and his
empire have a fearsome reputation in local histories.[7]
Beyond his military accomplishments, Genghis Khan also
advanced the Mongol Empire in other ways. He decreed the adoption of the Uyghur script as the Mongol Empire's writing
system. He also promoted religious tolerance in the Mongol Empire, and created
a unified empire from the nomadic tribes of northeast Asia. Present-day
Mongolians regard him as the founding father of Mongolia.
Hammurabi
Hammurabi was the sixth king of Babylon
(that is, of the First Babylonian Dynasty) from 1792 BC to
1750 BC middle chronology (1728 BC – 1686 BC short
chronology[2]).
He became the first king of the Babylonian Empire following the abdication of his father, Sin-Muballit,
extending Babylon's control over Mesopotamia
by winning a series of wars against neighboring kingdoms.[3]
Although his empire controlled all of Mesopotamia
at the time of his death, his successors were unable to maintain his empire. It
has been said that Hammurabi was Amraphel, the King of Shinar.
Hammurabi is known for the set of laws called Hammurabi's
Code, one of the first written codes of law
in recorded history. These laws were inscribed on
stone tablets (stelae)
standing over eight feet tall (2.4 meters), of unknown provenance,
found in Persia
in 1901. Owing to his reputation in modern times as an ancient law-giver,
Hammurabi's portrait is in many government buildings throughout the world.
Hammurabi was a First Dynasty king of the city-state
of Babylon, and
inherited the power from his father, Sin-Muballit,
in c. 1792 BC.[6]
Babylon was one
of the many ancient city-states that dotted the Mesopotamian plain and waged
war on each other for control of fertile agricultural
land.[7]
Though many cultures co-existed in Mesopotamia, Babylonian culture gained a
degree of prominence among the literate classes throughout the Middle East.
Kublai Khan
Kublai Khan (September 23, 1215 – February 18, 1294), born Kublai,
was the fifth Khagan
(Great Khan) of the Ikh Mongol Uls
(Mongol Empire),
reigning from 1260 to 1294, and the founder of the Yuan Dynasty
in China.
Kublai was the second son of Tolui and Sorghaghtani
Beki, and a grandson of Genghis Khan.
He succeeded his older brother Möngke
as Khagan in 1260, but had to defeat his younger brother Ariq Böke
in a succession war lasting till 1264. This episode marked the beginning of
disunity in the empire.[3]
Kublai's real power was limited to China
and Mongolia,
though as Khagan he still had influence in the Ilkhanate
and, to a far lesser degree, in the Golden Horde.[4][5][6]
If one counts the Mongol Empire at that time as a whole, his realm reached from
the Pacific to the Black Sea, from Siberia
to modern day Afghanistan – one fifth of the world's
inhabited land area.[7]
Darius the Great
Darius I (550–486 BCE) was the third king of the Persian Achaemenid
Empire. Also called Darius the Great, he ruled the empire at
its peak, when it included much of West Asia,
the Caucasus,
Central Asia,
parts of the Balkans
(Bulgaria-Romania-Pannonia),
portions of north and northeast Africa including Egypt (Mudrâya),[1]
eastern Libya,
coastal Sudan,
Eritrea,
as well as most of Pakistan, the Aegean
Islands and northern Greece/Thrace-Macedonia. Darius is also mentioned in the Biblical
canon of 1 Esdras. It has also been assumed that Darius was Emperor
Gustasp of Turkestan.[2][3]
Sir Isaac
Newton also believed that Darius and Emperor Gustasp may have been
the same person or Gustasp might have been the father of Darius.[4][5]
Darius ascended the throne by overthrowing the alleged magus usurper of Bardiya
with the assistance of six other Persian noble families; Darius was crowned
the following morning. The new king met with rebellions throughout his kingdom
and quelled them each time. A major event in Darius's life was his expedition
to punish Athens
and Eretria
for their aid in the Ionian Revolt and subjugate Greece.
Darius expanded his empire by conquering Thrace and Macedon and invading Scythia,
home of the Scythians, nomadic tribes who invaded Media and had previously
killed Cyrus the Great.
Akbar the Great
Abu'l-Fath Jalal-ud-Din Muhammad Akbar, also known as Shahanshah
Akbar-e-Azam or Akbar the Great
(14 October 1542 – 27 October 1605),[4][5]
was the third Mughal Emperor. He was of Timurid
descent; the son of Emperor Humayun, and the grandson of the Mughal Emperor Zaheeruddin
Muhammad Babur,
the ruler who founded the Mughal dynasty in India. At the end of his reign in
1605 the Mughal empire covered most of northern and central India. He is
most appreciated for having a liberal outlook on all faiths and beliefs and
during his era, culture and art reached a zenith as compared to his
predecessors.
Akbar was 13 years old when he ascended the Mughal throne in Delhi (February 1556),
following the death of his father Humayun.[6]
During his reign, he eliminated military threats from the powerful Pashtun
descendants of Sher Shah Suri, and at the Second Battle of Panipat he decisively
defeated the newly self-declared Hindu king Hemu.[7][8]
It took him nearly two more decades to consolidate his power and bring all the
parts of northern and central India into his direct realm. He
influenced the whole of the Indian Subcontinent as he ruled a greater part of
it as an emperor. As an emperor, Akbar solidified his rule by pursuing
diplomacy with the powerful Hindu Rajput caste, and by marrying a Rajput princess.[7][9]
Akbar's reign significantly influenced art and culture in the country. He
was a great patron of art and architecture [10]
He took a great interest in painting, and had the walls of his palaces adorned
with murals.
Besides encouraging the development of the Mughal school,
he also patronised the European style of painting. He was fond of literature,
and had several Sanskrit
works translated into Persian and Persian scriptures translated in Sanskrit
apart from getting many
Kanishka the Great
Kanishka or (Kanishka the Great), was an
emperor of the Kushan dynasty (127-151) who ruled an empire
extending from Turfan
in the Tarim Basin
to Pataliputra
on the Gangetic plain and famous for his military,
political, and spiritual achievements. His main capital was at Purushpura (Peshawar
in present day northwestern Pakistan) with regional capitals at the location of the modern
city of Taxila
in Pakistan,
Begram
in Afghanistan
and Mathura in India.Kanishka was a
Kushan of probable Yuezhi
ethnicity. He used an Eastern Iranian, Indo-European language known as Bactrian
(called "αρια," i. e. "Aryan" in the Rabatak inscription), which appears in Greek script
in his inscriptions, though it is not certain what language the Kushans
originally spoke; possibly some form of Tocharian - a "centum"
Indo-European language. The "Aryan" language of the inscription was a
"satem"
Middle Iranian language,[1]
possibly the one spoken in "Arya" or "Ariana"
(the region around modern Herat) and was, therefore, quite possibly unrelated to the
original language of the Kushans (or the Yuezhi), but adopted by them to
facilitate communication with local people.
Kanishka's empire was certainly vast. It extended from
southern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, north of the Amu Darya (Oxus) in the north west to
Northern India, as far as Mathura in the south east (the Rabatak inscription even claims he held Pataliputra
and Sri Champa), and his territory also included Kashmir,
where there was a town Kanishkapur, named after him not far from the Baramula
Pass and which still contains the base of a large stupa.
Knowledge of his hold over Central Asia is less well
established. The Book of the Later Han, Hou Hanshu,
states that general Ban Chao fought battles near Khotan with a
Kushan army of 70,000 men led by an otherwise unknown Kushan viceroy named Xie in 90 AD. Though Ban Chao claimed to be
victorious, forcing the Kushans to retreat by use of a scorched-earth
policy, the region fell to Kushan forces in the early 2nd century.[8]
As a result, for a period (until the Chinese regained control c. 127 AD)[9]
the territory of the Kushans extended for a short period as far as Kashgar,
Khotan
and Yarkand,
which were Chinese dependencies in the Tarim Basin,
modern Xinjiang.
Several coins of Kanishka have been found in the Tarim Basin.
Controlling both the land (the Silk Road)
and sea trade routes between South Asia and Rome seems to have been one of
Kanishka's chief imperial goals
Nebuchadnezzar II
Nebuchadnezzar II (c 634 – 562 BC) was king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, who reigned
c. 605 BC – 562 BC. According to the Bible, he conquered Judah
and Jerusalem,
and sent the Jews
into exile. He is credited with the
construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and for the
destruction of the First Temple. He is featured in the Book of
Daniel and is mentioned in several other books of the Bible.
The Akkadian name, Nabû-kudurri-uṣur, means "O god Nabu, preserve/defend my
firstborn son". Nabu is the Babylonian deity of wisdom, and son of the god
Marduk.
In an inscription,
Nebuchadnezzar styles himself as Nabu's "beloved" and "favourite".[2][3]
His name has previously been mistakenly interpreted as "O Nabu,
defend my kudurru",[4]
in which sense a kudurru is an
inscribed stone deed of property. However, when contained in a ruler's title, kudurru
approximates to "firstborn son" or "oldest son".. He is
also known as Bakhat Nasar,
which means "winner of the fate", or literally, "fate
winner".
After the defeat of the Cimmerians and Scythians, all of Nebuchadnezzar's expeditions were directed
westwards, although the powerful Median empire
lay to the north. Nebuchadnezzar's political marriage to Amytis of
Media, the daughter of the Median king, had ensured
peace between the two empires.
Nebuchadnezzar engaged in several military campaigns designed to increase
Babylonian influence in Syria
and Judah.
An attempted invasion of Egypt in 601 BCE was met with setbacks,
however, leading to numerous rebellions among the states of the Levant,
including Judah.
Nebuchadnezzar soon dealt with these rebellions, capturing Jerusalem in 597 BCE and deposing King Jehoiakim,
then in 587 BCE due to rebellion, destroying both the city and the temple, and
deporting many of the prominent citizens along with a sizable portion of the
Jewish population of Judea to Babylon.[6]
These events are described in the Prophets (Nevi'im)
and Writings (Ketuvim),
sections of the Hebrew Bible (in the books 2 Kings
and Jeremiah,
and 2 Chronicles,
respectively). After the destruction of Jerusalem,
Nebuchadnezzar engaged in a thirteen-year siege of Tyre
(585–572 BCE), which ended in a compromise, with the Tyrians accepting
Babylonian authority.
The Book of
Jeremiah contains a prophecy about the arising of a
"destroyer of nations", commonly regarded as a reference to
Nebuchadnezzar as well as an account of Nebuchadnezzar's siege of Jerusalem and
looting and destruction of the temple.