Founder of Mauryan Empire-Chandragupta Maurya

# Chandragupta’s origins are shrouded in mystery. The Greek sources (which are the oldest) mention him to be of non-warrior lineage. The Hindu sources also say he was a student of Kautilya of humble birth (probably born to a Shudra woman). Most Buddhist sources say he was a Kshatriya.
# It is generally accepted that he was an orphaned boy born into a humble family who was trained by Kautilya.
# Greek accounts mention him as Sandrokottos.
# Alexander had abandoned his India conquest in 324 BC and within a year, Chandragupta had defeated some of the Greek-ruled cities in the north-western part of the country.
# Kautilya provided the strategy while Chandragupta executed it. They had raised a mercenary army of their own.
# Then, they moved eastward into Magadha.
# In a series of battles, he defeated Dhana Nanda and laid the foundations of the Maurya Empire in about 321 BC.
# In 305 BC, he entered into a treaty with Seleucus Nicator in which Chandragupta acquired Baluchistan, eastern Afghanistan and the region to the west of Indus. He also married Seleucus Nicator’s daughter. 
# In return, Seleucus Nicator got 500 elephants. Seleucus Nicator avoided a full-scale war with the mighty Chandragupta and in return got war assets that would lead him to victory against his rivals in the Battle of Ipsus, fought in 301 BC
# Megasthenes was the Greek ambassador at Chandragupta’s court.
# Chandragupta led a policy of expansion and brought under one control almost the whole of present India barring a few places like Kalinga and the extreme South.
# His reign lasted from 321 BC to 297 BC.
He abdicated the throne in favour of his son, Bindusara, and went to Karnataka with Jain monk Bhadrabahu. He had embraced Jainism and is said to have starved himself to death according to the Jain tradition at Shravanabelagola.