Introduction
Dasharatha Maurya, generally regarded as a grandson of Ashoka, succeeded him on the Maurya throne according to most reconstructions of the dynasty's later succession.
Family
- Father: Ashoka
- Siblings: Kunala, Mahendra, Sanghamitra, Tivara
Evidence from Cave Dedications
Dasharatha's reign is known chiefly through a small number of cave dedications to the Ajivika ascetic sect in the Nagarjuni Hills, continuing a pattern of royal patronage toward non-orthodox religious groups that Ashoka himself, despite his own embrace of Buddhism, had also extended to the Ajivikas. Some traditions describe Dasharatha as Ashoka's direct successor, while others place Samprati in that role or shortly afterward; the exact succession after Ashoka's death is not fully settled in the surviving record, and this account notes that uncertainty rather than resolving it.
This article records the Maurya Empire (c. 4th-2nd century BCE) as historical genealogy reconstructed from Ashoka's own rock and pillar edicts, Greek and Latin accounts of contact with the Mauryas, and later Buddhist, Jain and Puranic traditions composed well after the events they describe; where these traditions genuinely disagree, that disagreement is noted rather than resolved into invented certainty.