The four purānās – Vāyu, Matsya, the later Vishnu and the still later, Bhāgavata, according to Bhandarkar (1985) contain information about several dynasties who ruled at different periods as well as the number of princes belonging to each dynasty and the length of each one's reign. For example, the duration assigned to the Mauryan dynasty founded by Chandragupta is recorded as 137 years.

Western scholars believed that the history of India was chronicled and recorded only after the Mauryan dynasty began and was written by travellers from outside the land.

In the Mauryan dynasty, there were 9–10 princes according to Maxmueller, deriving chronological information from Alexander's time (Bhandarkar, 1985, p. 30). King Asoka (273–232 BC) of the Mauryan dynasty was the greatest of all the ancient emperors. His might and rule extended from Kapurdigir in Yūsafzai country to Dhauli in Cuttack, from Tirhut in the north to the Gujarat peninsula in the west. His concern for his subjects and his warcraft were said to have been phenomenal. However, little remains of the history of his time. There are only rock edicts to go by after he spurned his Hindu religion and violence and entered a life of piety and peace under Buddhist order. Due to this shift to another religion, the Hindus declined to keep any record of his reign in India (Mitra, 1969, pp. 407–426). He was thought to be a renegade from the religion of his ancestors and since Buddhists were also expelled from the country, Asoka's name and fame could not be kept alive.