Mahajanapadas
Introduction
- Aryans began migrating eastwards from about 1000 BCE.
- Way of Urbanization & Rise of new ideas and faith (Jainism & Buddhism).
- Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW) – Luxury ware.
- Second Urbanisation – Political & Administration center, Center of trade and commerce, Holy centers.
- Big sacrifices were now recognised as being rajas of janapadas (land where the jana set its foot).
- Purana Qila in Delhi, hastinapura nere Meerut, and Atranjikhera, near Etah (the last two are in Uttar Pradesh).
- Painted gray ware, some in red with simple lines and geometric pattern.
- Janapadas became more important than others, and were known as mahajanapadas.
- Mahajanapadas had capital city, many with fortified.
- Fortification wall at Kaushambi. found near present-day Allahabad (Uttar Pradesh).
- Maintaining armies, use punch marked coins.
- Brahmanas began composing Sanskrit texts – Dharmasutras.
- According to Puranic, Buddhist and Jaina traditions, there were sixteen mahajanapadas.
- Gandhara
- Kamboja
- Assaka
- Vatsa
- Avanti
- Shurasena
- Chedi
- Malla
- Kuru
- Panchala
- Matsya
- Vajji (Vrijji)
- Anga
- Kasi
- Kosala
- Magadha
- The mahajanapadas are classified as gana-sanghas and chiefdoms based on the nature of their polity.
- Vrijjis - Best known of the gana-sanghas. - kingdoms did not come under the single decision-making authority of a king but decisions were taken on a collective basis by the heads of the different clans together.
- Ikshvaku & Vrishni name of the clan, mentioned in Ramayana and Mahabharata.
- Vedic orthodoxy was an established practice in these kingdoms.
- Parishad & sabha – Councils that assist king.
- Richer landowners - grihapatis.
- labourers called - dasas or karmakaras.
- Smaller landowners - kassakas or krishakas.
- A new social category that emerged, placed below the shudras - untouchables.
- Piyadassi – meaning “pleasant to behold”;
- Urbanisation was on the rise.
- Own language
- Centralised administration.
- Formation of state in the Gangetic plains.
- Vedic orthodoxy was an established practice in these kingdoms.
- The king was assisted by councils called parishad and sabha.
- Crops - fixed at 1/6th of what was produced, bhaga or a share.
- crafts persons - form of labour (work for a day every month for the king).
- Herders - Animals and animal produce.
- Taxes on goods.
- Hunters and gatherers - forest produce.
- Other taxes - Bali, Kara & Shulka.
- Iron ploughshares & people began transplanting paddy.
- slave men and women (dasas and dasis) landless agricultural labourers (kammakaras) do the work.
- Ganga and Son flowed through Magadha.
- Important for (a) transport, (b) water supplies (c) making the land fertile.
- Elephants – used in army, build house by forest wood, Iron ore - strong tools and weapons
- Powerful rulers: Bimbisara and Ajatasattu.
- Haryanka dynasty was succeeded by the Shishunaga dynasty.
- The Shishunagas ruled for fifty years before the throne was usurped by Mahapadma Nanda
- Mahapadma Nanda - control up to the north-west part of the subcontinent. Rajagriha (present-day Rajgir) in Bihar was the capital of Magadha for several years. Later capital was shifted to Pataliputra (present-day Patna)
- Bimbisara of the Haryanka dynasty, marrying off his sister to Prasenajit, ruler of Kosala, he received Kasi as dowry. also married the princesses of Lichchhavis and Madra. Ajatashatru ascended the throne by killing his father. King Prasenajit immediately took back Kasi.
- Confrontation between Magadha and Kosala until Prasenajit was overthrown and died at Rajgriha. He defeated the Lichchhavis and the Mallas.
- Ajatashatru died in 461 BCE.
- Haryanka dynasty was succeeded by the Shishunaga dynasty.
- The Shishunagas ruled for fifty years before the throne was usurped by Mahapadma Nanda (emperor of Magadha in362 BCE) by murdering the last of the Shishunaga kings.
- Mahapadma Nanda was succeeded by his eight sons, and they were together known as the navanandas or the nine Nandas.
- Nandas exterminated many kshatriya clans.
- Gandhara - Part of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia.
- Cyrus, emperor of Persia, invaded India (530 BCE), destroyed the city of Kapisha.
- Taxila
- Part of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia.
- One of thegreatest intellectual achievements of any ancient civilization.
- Panini seems to have compiled his well-known work, Ashtadhyayi.
- Development of Kharosthi script, it was derived from Aramaic used widely in the Achaemenid Empire of Persia.
- Persian sigloi (silver coin).
- Mauryan art and architecture show traces of Persian influence
- Alexander, lived Macedonia in Europe - conquer part of Egypt and West Asia, and came to the Indian subcontinent (327-325 BCE).
- Defeating the Persians, Ambhi, the ruler of Taxila.
- Establishing direct contact between India and Greece. Trade Increase.
- His soldiers refused and scared by heard about rulers of India (Mahapadma Nanda). He died of typhoid in Babylon.
- Alexander’s death created a void in the north-west, facilitating the accession of Chandragupta Maurya to the throne of Magadha.
- Vajji, with its capital at Vaishali (Bihar), was under a different form of government, known as gana or sangha.
- Not one, many rulers, meet up for discussion and debate.
- However, women, dasas and kammakaras could not participate in these assemblies.
- Buddha and Mahavira belonged to ganas or sanghas.
- Rajas of powerful kingdoms tried to conquer the sanghas.
- ganas or sanghas were conquered by the Gupta rulers
- Ajatasattu wanted to attack the Vajjis. Sent his minister to get advice of Buddha
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