What was the first secular state?

Factual Questions
1

Freedom of religion is an old concept. It looks like theMaurya Empire under King Ashok was officially Buddhist, but there were laws in place guaranteeing freedom of religion subject to legitimate peace and order. Nowadays, there are countries like this, where the government officially endorses a specific religion but guarantees freedom of religion for ordinary citizens, such as the UK.

The US was founded as not only a country in which freedom of religion was guaranteed subject to citizens keeping the peace, but was founded explicitly as a secular state that did not endorse any specific faith as the “official” faith of the US Government. This contrasts with the UK where the government officially endorses the Church of England, but there are no laws prohibiting a citizen from following a different faith. Was the US actually the first country to do this, or were there other nations before it that had a secular government?

2

Firstly you have a very wraped idea of the Mauryan Empire. Secondly, define “secular” and “state”. Lots of political entities have tolerated or even promoted other religions, the Roman, Abassiad, Ottomons Empires, while having an official religion, while others have had de facto discrimination despite official secularization, the early USA, post WWII USSR etc. It has fluctuated as well. At certain times the Egyptian priesthood was quite under the thumb of the Pharaohs, at others it was dominant.

Large, heterogeneous empires tended to be (if you excuse a generalization which has many exceptions) more tolerant of diverse religious persuasions, often out of necessity. The Persian Empire for instance.

3

I think the modern concept of a secular state would require that the state have no official religion and also not be officially religious.

4

Nitpick: My understanding is that at the time of the founding of the US Government, some states were still expressly sectarian, and one reason the federal government was made explicitly secular was to avoid conflict with those state churches.

5

The concept of the secular state in what was to become the US was first put into practice by the colony of Rhode Island. See the section on “Church and State” in this Wiki article about Rhode Island founder Roger Williams.