Ancient India · Topic 5 of 17
Rise of cities, states, economy and society in 6th century BCE North India
The Basics
After the Later Vedic village economy of the Painted Grey Ware phase, eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar remained thickly forested and sparsely settled. Clearing this moist, heavy soil needed better tools than copper or stone.
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By the sixth century BCE, the cities created by Second Urbanization needed political structures to match their wealth. Clans that settled permanently in an area began claiming it as their own. They named this territory after themselves. Each territory was organized either as a kingdom under a hereditary ruler, or as a gana-sangha, an oligarchy ruled by an assembly of leading families. This shift from clan-based chiefship to territorial kingship is called the rise of the mahajanapadas, meaning "great janapadas". Growing tax revenue and professional armies made this kingship possible.
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Kashi, with its capital Varanasi between the Varuna and Asi rivers, had once been the strongest power in the region, and the Jatakas describe a long rivalry between Kashi and Kosala for paramountcy. This rivalry ended when Kosala conquered Kashi and absorbed it into its own kingdom, removing one rival from the contest for the Gangetic plain.
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Ganas or sanghas were oligarchies, not democracies, though often called 'republics'.
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By around 600 BCE, villages in the Ganga valley grew in number and size. This is shown by Northern Black Polished Ware sites, which far outnumber earlier Painted Grey Ware settlements. This growth did not happen on its own.
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Before the 6th century BCE, exchange relied mainly on barter. Even the Harappans, despite extensive trade, used no coins. Vedic texts mention nishka, nishkagriva, hiranya-pinda, suvarna, shatamana and pada. These were gold ornaments or fixed-weight metal pieces, not true coins. They served as prestige objects or gifts. Cattle also sometimes served as a measure of value. This worked for small, local exchanges. But as surplus grew, towns like Shravasti, Kaushambi, Varanasi, Vaishali and Rajagriha filled with artisans and merchants. Barter and ornament-money became too clumsy for large-scale, long-distance trade.
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By the later Mahajanapada period, towns were full of specialised artisans and traders, and coined money was making exchange easier. Individual craftsmen and merchants were weak on their own, facing larger buyers and the risk of working alone. This pushed people of the same craft or trade to organise into shrenis, or guilds.
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Uttarapatha was the great northern route, linking Taxila with Tamralipti on the Bay of Bengal.
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By the 6th century BCE, Brahmanical texts had an established theory of four varnas. These were Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra. But city life in the Mahajanapadas created traders, moneylenders, scribes and specialised artisans. These groups did not fit neatly into the simple fourfold scheme.
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By the later Vedic and early Mahajanapada period, society was divided into four varnas. Shudras were placed at the bottom. They were denied the sacred thread and legal protection. Even below the Shudras, a group called the Chandalas had begun to appear in texts. The elite viewed them with contempt.
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By around 600 to 300 BCE, the growth of agriculture, crafts, trade and coinage in the Mahajanapadas had created people with real wealth and control over resources. The varna order still ranked them below brahmanas and kshatriyas. Out of this situation two new social groups came into prominence, the gahapati and the setthi.
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Both epics grew over centuries, from oral bardic fragments to their present form, so no single author wrote them.
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Panini wrote the Ashtadhyayi, the oldest surviving Sanskrit grammar, in about the 5th or 4th century BCE.
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