2 Kings, Farmers and Towns Early states and

Economies (600 BCE - 600 CE)

Developments Between 1900 BCE and 600BCE( followed by end of

Harapan civilization)

➢ Rigveda was composed (1500 BCE)

➢ Agricultural settlements emerged in Indian subcontinent

➢ Pastoral populations spread in Deccan and further south

➢ Megalith culture developed in Central and South India

➢ Emergence of Early states, kingdoms, and empires in India

Megalith culture

➔Megalith period was followed by stone age

➔Megalith means ‘big stone’

➔Megalith culture originated in South India

 ➔Megalith culture related to new mode of disposal of dead

➔Megalith Grave were encircled with big pieces of stone

➔Megaliths contain skeletons, pottery and iron objects

➔Megalith culture belongs to iron age.

Why 6th century BCE Turning point in Indian History BCE

1. Rise of Cities in Gangetic region of India started in 6 th century

2. It was second urbanisation in India after Harappan cities

3. Rise of early states (Mahajanapadas)in India in 6th century BCE

4. New systems of thought like Buddhism and Jainism emerged in 6 th century

BCE

5. Wide use of iron started

6. Coinage system and trade developed

The Earliest States in India

Time line of Early Political institutions

 ‘Jana’ to ‘Janapada’

 Janapada to Mahajanapada
  Mahajanapada to kingdom

 Kingdom to Empire

Meaning

Jana : People, clan ,tribe

Janapada : Land where jana settled
Mahajanapada : Large Janapadas

Features of Mahajanapadas

 Mahajanapadas were early states or Political institutions in India

 Some Mahajanapadas were ruled by ‘Raja’s or Kings

 Some Mahajanapadas were Oligarchies/republics

 Each Mahajanapada had capital city

 Mahajanapada had standing army

 Mahajanapada had bureaucracy

Oigarchy

 Ganas or Sanghas-power shared by

 number of men)

3 sources refers 16 Mahajanapadas

1. Anguttara Nikaya (Buddist text)
2. Bhagavata Sutra(Jaina text)
3. Vakkya prajapatii(Jaina text)

16 Mahajanapadas

Mahajanapada Capital Modern location

1 Anga Champa Bihar,West Bengal

2 Magadha Rajagriha Gaya, patna(Bihar)
3 Vajji Vaishali Northern Bihar
4 Malla Kusinara Deoria and Uttar Pradesh
5 Kasi Kasi Varanasi Uttar Pradesh
6 Kosala Sravasti Awad Uttar Pradesh
7 Vatsa Kousambi Allahabad Uttar Pradesh
8 Chedi Sothivati Bundelkhand and Jaipur
Rajasthan
9 Kuru Indraprastha Meerat and South Estern
Haryana
10 Panchala Ahichchatra and Kampliya Western Uttar Pradesh
11 Surasena Mathura Western Uttar Pradesh
12 Matsya Viratnagar Jaipur Rajastan
13 Avanti Ujjaini Malwa and Madhya Pradesh
14 Ashmak Pratisthan/ Paithan Bank of Godavari Maharashtra
15 Gandhara Taxila Rawalpindi Pakistan
16 Kamboja Pooncha Rajori and Hajra Jammu
Kashmir
 Dharma sutras

• Dharma Sutras are rules and norms for all social sections including kings written by
Brahmanas from 6th century BCE

Kingdom of Magadha

➢ Kingdom of Magadha established by 600 BCE

➢ Each Mahajanapada struggled for supremacy from 6th century BCE

➢ Magadha became victorious

➢ Two of India's greatest empires, the Maurya Empire and Gupta Empire,
originated in Magadha.

➢ First capital of Magadha : Rajgrih (Now in Bihar)

➢ Later capital of Magadha : Pataliputra (modern Patna Bihar)

Rise and Success of Magadha – Causes

1) Magadha was a fertile region

 2) Availability of iron deposits

3) Availability of elephants (used in army)

4) Presence of river Ganga and its tributaries(for Communication and transport)

5) Strategic location of capitals

• Rajgir (fortified and located in the hills)

• Pataliputra (commanding routes of communication along the Ganga).

6) Powerful and ambitious rulers like Bimbisara,Ajathasatru,and Mahapadma

Nanda

Important Rulers of Magadha

 Bimbisara (544-493 BC)

 Ajatha satru (493-461 BC)

 Mahapadma Nanda(Nanda dynasty (345–321 BC)

 Nanda dynasty overthrown by Chandragupta Maurya

Alexander invaded India in 326 BCE did not attack

Magadha due to its strong army

The Mauryan Empire (321 BCE and 187 BCE)

 The Mauryan empire established by Chandra Gupta Maurya in 321

 BCE

 Pataliputra was Mauryan capital

 The first Empire in India

First Three Mauryan Emperors

1 Chandra Gupta Maurya (321-298 BCE)

2 Bindusara (298-272 BCE)
3 Asoka (272-232 BCE)

Sources for Mauryan History

1 Indica written by Megasthanese

2 Arthashastra of Koutilya

3 Mudrarakshasa written by Vishaka datta

4 Buddhist,Jaina,and Puranic literature

5 Archaeological sources like Inscription, Sculptures and Coins

Features of Asokan inscription

 Asoka was the first ruler who inscribed his messages to his
subjects and officials on stone rock

 Asoka used inscriptions to propagate Dhamma

 Asoka’s inscriptions provide information about his career, policies

and the extent of the empire

 Language of Asokan inscriptions : Prakrit

 Language of inscriptions in the north west: Aramaic and Greek

 Script of Asokan inscriptions commonly used: Brahmi

 Script used in north West :Kharoshti

 Script used in Afghanistan: Aramaic and Greek

Asoka(273-232BCE)

✔ Greatest Mauryan Emperor

✔ He conquered Kalinga [Orissa ] in 261 BCE

✔ The Kalinga war caused Asoka great sorrow

✔ Asoka abandoned the policy of conquest

✔ He adopted measures of peace

✔ ‘Bheri ghosha’ replaced by ‘Dharma ghosha’

✔ He became follower of Buddhism

Dhamma policy

➢ ‘Dhamma’ is a Prakrit word means Dharma in Sanskrit

➢ Dhamma policy was adopted by emperor Asoka

➢ Dhamma was moral and ethical code

➢ Dhamma was not a religious practice

➢ Dhamma was based on Buddhist principle

➢ Dhamma policy initiated to eliminate social and religious

tensions
➢ Asoka engraved his views on Dhamma in Rock edicts

➢ Respect and obedience to parents, teachers, elders

➢ Generosity towards Brahman, ascetics, poor

➢ Treating slaves and servants kindly

➢ Maintaining Religious tolerance

➢ Practising Ahimsa

➢ following truthfulness, morality and Purity

Dharma Mahamatras

Dharma Mahamatras were special officers to spread the

message of Dharma appointed by Asoka

Administering the Empire

 Five major political centres in the Mouryan empire

1. Pataliputra (The capital of Mouryan empire)

2. Taxila (provincial capital)
3. Ujjayini (provincial capital)
4. Tosali (provincial capital)
5. Suvarnagiri (provincial capital)

 Uniform administrative system was not possible due to

vastness and diversity of empire

 Administrative control was strongest in areas around the

capital and the provincial centres.

 Taxila and Ujjayini being situated on important long-distance

trade routes

 Suvarnagiri (literally, the golden mountain) was important for

tapping the gold mines of Karnataka.

 Communication along both land and riverine routes was

existed

 Journeys from the centre to the provinces could have taken

weeks

 Asoka also tried to hold his empire together by propagating

Dhamma Special officers, known as the Dhamma mahamatra

 Megasthenese wrote about officers of state performed various

duties including collecting taxes
  The Arthashastra lays down minute details of administrative
and military organisation including how to capture elephants

Mouryan Army

 Megasthenese mentions a committee with six subcommittees for

coordinating military activity.

 The First Committee looked after the navy

 The Second managed transport

 The third was responsible for foot-soldiers

 The fourth for horses

 The fifth for chariots

 The sixth for elephants.

Was the Mauryan empire important or not?

Important empire

✔ India was under colonial rule, and was part of the British empire

✔ There was an empire in early India both challenging and exciting for
Indian Historians
 ✔ Maurya's, stone sculpture were considered to be examples of the
spectacular art typical of empires.

✔ Indian historians found the message on Asokan inscriptions very

different from that of most other rulers

✔ Nationalist leaders in the twentieth century regarded Asoka as an

inspiring national figure

Not Important empire

✔ Mauryan empire lasted for about 150 years, which is not a very
long time.

✔ Mauryan Empire did not encompass the entire subcontinent

✔ Administrative control was not uniform in the empire

✔ By the second century BCE , new chiefdoms and kingdoms

emerged in several parts of the subcontinent.

New Notions of Kingship ;Chiefs and kings in the

South

New kingdoms

1) The Cholas,Cheras and Pandyas in Tamilakam

 2) The Satavahanas of Western and Central India

3) The Sakas, in the north-western and western parts of the

subcontinent

Tamilakam

The ancient Tamil country, which included parts of present-day

Tamil Nadu Andhra Pradesh and Kerala

Tamil Sangam Texts

Early Tamil poems describing chiefs and the ways in which

they acquired and distributed resources.

Chiefs and Chiefdoms

➢ A chief is a powerful man whose position may or may not be hereditary.

➢ He derives support from his kinsfolk.

 ➢ His functions may include performing special rituals, leadership in warfare,
and arbitrating disputes.

➢ He receives gifts from his subordinates (unlike kings who usually collect
taxes) and often distributes these amongst his supporters.

➢ Generally, there are no regular armies and officials in chiefdom

➢ Silappadikaram, an epic written in Tamil describes Senguttuvan visits the

forest and defeats people and receives gifts

Divine King

How Kushan rulers claimed divinity(godlike)

 The Kushans (1st century BCE – 1st century CE ), who ruled over a vast
kingdom extending from Central Asia to north-west India

 The notions of kingship they wished to project are evidenced in their

coins and sculpture

 Kushans Identified themselves with variety of Gods

 Colossal statues of Kushan rulers have been found installed in a shrine

at Mat near Mathura (Uttar Pradesh) and in a shrine in Afghanistan

 Many Kushan rulers adopted the title ‘Devaputra’, or “son of god”

Gupta Empire (335-455CE)

 ➔ Sri Gupta : Founder of Gupta Empire

➔ Chandragupta I (319-334) : Founder of Gupta Era in 319 CE

➔ Samudra Gupta (335-375) : Conqueror

Allahabad pillarminscription

‘Napoleon of India’

➔ Chandra Gupta II (375-415) : Vikramaditya (title)

Navaratnas in the court

visit of Fahien

Sources of Gupta history

 Literature, coins and inscriptions

 Prashastis, composed in praise of kings by poets.

 The Prayaga Prashasti (also known as the Allahabad Pillar

Inscription) composed in Sanskrit by Harishena, the court poet
of Samudragupta.
A Changing Countryside: Popular perceptions of
kings

• Historians examined the Jatakas and the Panchatantra to know

popular perceptions of the King

• The Jatakas were written in Pali around the middle of the first
millennium CE.CE

• The Gandatindu Jataka describes the plight of the subjects of a

wicked king

• The king went in disguise to find out what his subjects thought
about him

• Each one of them cursed him for their miseries, complaining that
they were attacked by robbers at night and by tax collectors during
the day.

• To escape from this situation, people abandoned their village and

went to live in the forest.

Strategies for increasing production

1) Plough agriculture (River valleys of the Ganga and the Kaveri)

2) The iron-tipped ploughshare

(was used to turn the alluvial soil
in areas which had high

rainfall.)
3) Transplantation (used for paddy cultivation in areas
where water is plentiful.)

4) Irrigation (wells tanks canals)

Transplantation

In transplantation seeds are first broadcast; when the saplings

have grown they are transplanted in waterlogged fields

Gahapati

• A gahapati was the owner, master or head of a household

• Gahapati exercised control over the women, children, slaves and

workers who shared a common residence.
 • He was also the owner of the resources – land, animals and other
things – that belonged to the household.

• Sometimes the term was used as a marker of status for men belonging
to the urban elite, including wealthy merchants.

Manusmriti

➢ The Manusmriti is one of the best-known legal texts of early

India, written in Sanskrit and compiled between c. 2nd century
BCE and 2nd century CE.

➢ Manusmriti advises the king about the importance of

boundary

Land grants and new rural elites

➢ The policy of kings granting lands to individuals or institutions

called land grants

➢ Evidences of land grants starts from first century CE

➢ Land grants were recorded in inscriptions.

➢ Some of these inscriptions were on stone

➢ Most inscriptions were on copper plates which were probably

given as a record of the transaction to those who received the
land.

➢ Land granted to religious institutions or to Brahmanas by kings

➢ Most inscriptions were in Sanskrit and some are local

languages like Tamil and Telugu

➢ An agrahara was land granted to a Brahmana, who was usually

exempted from paying land revenue and other dues and was
often given the right to collect these dues from the local people

➢ Land grants were strategy to extend agriculture to new areas.

➢ Kings were losing control over their samantas, they tried to

win allies by making grants of land.

➢ There were regional variations in the sizes of land donated

➢ There were variations in the rights given to donees (the
recipients of the grant).
 Land grant of Prabhavati Gupta

➢ Prabhavati Gupta was the daughter Chandragupta II (c. 375-415 CE ).

➢ She was married into the Vakatakas, who were powerful in the Deccan

➢ According to Sanskrit legal texts, women were not supposed to have

independent access to resources such as land.

➢ The inscription indicates that Prabhavati had access to land, which she
then granted.

➢ This may have been because she was a queen

➢ It is also possible that the provisions of legal texts were not uniformly
implemented

The Harshacharita
  The Harshacharita is a biography of Harshavardhana, the
ruler of Kanauj

 composed in Sanskrit by his court poet, Banabhatta (c.

seventh century CE ).

The history of Pataliputra

• Pataliputra,began as a village known as Pataligrama.(todays Patna)

• In the 5thcentury BCE, the Magadhan rulers shifted their capital from
Rajagriha to this settlement and renamed it.

• In the 4th century BCE , it was the capital of the Mauryan Empire and
one of the largest cities in Asia.

• Subsequently, its importance declined.

• When the Chinese pilgrim Xuan Zang visited the city in the 7 th century
CE , he found it in ruins, and with a very small population.

New cities(from 6th century BCE)

➢ Many of cities were capitals of Mahajanapadas.

➢ All major towns were located along routes of communication.

➢ Pataliputra was on riverine routes.

 ➢ Ujjayini was along land routes

➢ Puhar was near the sea coast

➢ Mathura was centre of commercial, cultural and political activity.

Urban populations: Elites and craftspersons

 Kings and ruling elites lived in fortified cities.

 People who lived in towns are washing folk, weavers, scribes, carpenters,
potters, goldsmiths blacksmiths, officials, religious teachers, merchants and
kings.

 There were Guilds or Shrenis,( organisations of craft producers and

merchants)in cities

Trade in the subcontinent and beyond

✔ From the 6thcentury BCE, land and river and sea routes developed

✔ overland trade extended into Central Asia and beyond

✔ Ports that dotted the coastline – extending across the Arabian Sea to
East and North Africa and West Asia, and through the Bay of Bengal to
South east Asia and China.
 ✔ Successful merchants designated as Masattuvan in Tamil and Setthis
and Satthavahas in Prakrit

✔ goods traded were – salt, grain, cloth, metal ores and finished products,
stone, timber, medicinal plants.

✔ Spices, especially pepper, were in high demand in the Roman Empire

✔ Textiles and medicinal plants, transported across the Arabian Sea to the
Mediterranean.

Coins and kings

✔ Punch-marked coins made of silver and copper (6thcentury BCE

onwards) were amongst the earliest to be minted and used.

✔ Numismatists have studied coins to reconstruct commercial

networks.

✔ Coins were issued by kings.

✔ Merchants, bankers and townspeople also issued some of these

coins.

✔ The first coins to bear the names and images of rulers were
issued by the Indo-Greeks

(The Indo Greeks established control over the north-western

 part of the subcontinent 2nd century BCE ).

✔ The first gold coins were issued in 1st century CE by the

Kushans.

✔ Hoards of Roman coins have been found from archaeological

sites in south India.

✔ Tribal republics such as the Yaudheyas of Punjab and Haryana

(1stcentury CE) issued coins

✔ The most spectacular pure gold coins were issued by the Gupta
rulers.

Numismatics

➔Numismatics is the study of coins, including visual elements

such as scripts and images, metallurgical analysis and the
contexts in which they have been found.

A punch-marked coin: is a coin in which symbols were punched

or stamped onto the metal surface

Was there economic crisis from 6th century CE

 ✔ From 6th century CE onwards, there are fewer finds of gold coins

✔ Some suggest that with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire
long-distance trade declined

✔ Others argue that new towns and networks of trade started

emerging around this time.

✔ But coins continue to be mentioned in inscriptions and texts.

✔ Could it be that there are fewer finds because coins were in

circulation rather than being hoarded?

The Malabar coast (present-day Kerala)

➔ Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, work composed by an anonymous

Greek sailor (1st century CE )

➔ “Periplus” is a Greek word meaning sailing around and

“Erythraean” was the Greek name for the Red Sea

➔ This book describes trade activities in Kerala coast

 Inscriptions

➔ Inscriptions are writings engraved on hard surfaces such as stone, metal or

pottery.

➔ They usually record the achievements, activities or ideas of those who

commissioned them

➔ It includes the exploits of kings, or donations made by women and men to religious
institutions.

➔ The earliest inscriptions were in Prakrit, a name for languages used by ordinary
people.

Epigraphy

➔ Epigraphy is the study of inscriptions.

James Prinsep
➔ James Prinsep was an officer in the mint of the East India Company

➔ He deciphered Brahmi and Kharosthi, in the 1838

➔ These scripts used in the earliest inscriptions and coins

➔ He identified a king referred to as Piyadassi – meaning “pleasant to

behold”;as Asoka
How Are Inscriptions Deciphered?

Deciphering Brahmi

 Most scripts used to write modern Indian languages are

derived from Brahmi

 From the late 18thcentury, European scholars aided by Indian

pandits worked backwards from contemporary Bengali and
Devanagari (the script used to write Hindi) manuscripts,
comparing their letters with older specimens.

How Kharosthi was read

 Kharosthi was the script used in inscriptions in the north-west

 Coins of Indo-Greek kings contain the names of kings written in Greek and
Kharosthi scripts.

 European scholars who could read the former compared the letters.

 James Prinsep identified the language of the Kharosthi inscriptions as Prakrit

 It became possible to read longer inscriptions as well.

Historical evidence from inscriptions
how epigraphists and historians work?

➢ The name of the ruler, Asoka, is not mentioned in the inscription

➢ Instead titles of ruler used – devanampiya, often translated as “beloved of the

gods” and piyadassi, or “pleasant to behold”.

➢ The name Asoka is mentioned in some other inscriptions, which also contain
these titles.

➢ After examining all these inscriptions, and finding that they match in terms of
content, style, language and palaeography, epigraphists have concluded that they
were issued by the same ruler.

Some questions yet to be answered by Historians

• Would passers-by have stopped to read these inscriptions?

• Most people were probably not literate.

• Did everybody understand the Prakrit used in Pataliputra?

• Would the orders of the king have been followed?

• The inscription depicting Asokan’s anguish has not been found in

the region (Orissa) that was conquered.
The Limitations of Inscriptional Evidence

✔ letters are very faintly engraved

✔ Inscriptions may be damaged or letters missing.

✔ Exact meaning of the words not known

✔ Not all inscriptions have been deciphered, published and

translated.

✔ Many inscriptions have not survived the ravages of time.

✔ Only a fraction of what was inscribed available

✔ Politically or economically significant was not necessarily

recorded in inscriptions.

✔ Routine agricultural practices and the joys and sorrows of

daily existence find no mention in inscription

✔ The content of inscriptions almost invariably projects the

perspective of the person(s) who commissioned them.