MAGADHA’S RISE

Every story has a beginning and for the Mauryans, it was Magadha. This is dragging its history back somewhat but necessary to better appreciate their eventual rise and trajectory. And here, it is the sixth century BCE that marks the beginning, a crucial period in more ways than one. This itself was due to a mélange of various political, social, economic and philosophical developments. It is also seen as the onset of what is termed the early historical period in north India. Of course, there is a great deal of argument and debate about the names accorded to varied ages in Indian history and there does not seem to be any foreseeable end to it. Dates are regularly disputed; very few are set in stone, literally and figuratively. There is, however, a sort of general consensus on some of the main time blocks of the past, so we can agree that this century was an important one. Though, when a particular century (or larger timespan) is pinpointed, as in this case, it should be seen as an approximation. Changes in history occur over many centuries—a slow but continuous process.

A word about the original sources. These are always period-specific, so a particular kind of source that provides valuable evidence for a certain time span might not necessarily be useful for another. Historians usually identify and demarcate the pertinent sources for their period of study before undertaking the actual research, always keeping in mind that a new source could emerge, at any delightful point, to buttress or contest their assertions. For the sixth century BCE, both literary and archaeological sources exist. Of the textual sources, there are both secular and religious works. The latter, for purposes of convenience, can broadly be divided into those belonging to the Brahmanical, Buddhist and Jaina traditions.

The dating of these texts, though, is a huge—and hotly disputed—bottleneck. The problem usually arises when they are sometimes read as direct reflections of society and polity. An example of this is the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the popular Sanskrit epics, that were composed over a long period of time with several interpolations. Their specific dating is a challenge, therefore, and it makes sense to use them for generalised comparisons on polity, society and culture. Again, some components of the Dharmashastra literature might or might not pertain to this specific period but can be used as general sources that reflect different aspects of the Brahmanical normative tradition.

Moreover, all three types of literary sources—the Brahmanical, Buddhist and Jaina—have some intrinsic problems. For instance, the Puranas (from around the fourth century CE), that belong to the Brahmanical corpus—collections of lore and legends that provide information on dynastic history but can be annoyingly confusing given that they sometimes contradict each other, mix up rulers of different dynasties, often describe contemporary rulers as successors and maintain a frustrating silence on rulers known from other sources. This is not always the case but it happens often enough to sound an alarm bell to the serious historian. And sometimes, they talk in an unnecessarily complicated future tense so that you are not very sure whether they are referring to things that have happened or will happen or things that have already happened but are cleverly mentioned as predictions.

Also, if you compare the dynastic history of the Buddhist and Jaina texts, and juxtapose it with the Puranic material, you find a lot of discrepancies so that it is often difficult to discern a single coherent thread. Perhaps their writers had access to different sets of details at different points of time. Or, equally, different perspectives might have created different versions. To add to the general chaotic mix, we also have several Greek and Latin accounts that provide interesting information on Alexander the Great’s invasion of India (327–326 BCE)—although written long after it—and the contemporary political context of the north-west. Some of these literary luminaries were Arrian, Plutarch and Justin.

When you move to the archaeological sources, you find a focus on the Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW), a specific type of deluxe pottery, and the culture associated with it. Historians associate early historic cultures on the basis of their particular pottery assemblages and tend to refer to past eras in what might sound like mysterious and unfathomable jargon as BRW, PGW, OCP and, in this case, NBPW. The letters refer to the colour of the pottery in each case—Black and Red Ware (associated with the Harappans), Painted Grey Ware and Ochre Coloured Pottery (associated with the post-Harappans) and the NBPW, which is technically associated with the period from the seventh to the third century BCE in its first phase.

An important piece of evidence that goes with NBPW sites is an early series of punch-marked coins, which marks the beginning of the use of money in the Indian subcontinent. A complication arises here, though, or rather several. NBPW, totally belying its name, is not confined to north India and nor is it always black or polished. It has been found as far south as Amaravati in Andhra Pradesh, and in several shades and colours other than black. This is just another indication of how complex and often baffling the process of historical reconstruction really is, definitely not something to be undertaken by the fainthearted or the untrained!

From the sixth century BCE onwards, the contours of north Indian political history become much clearer than before and prominent people mentioned in varied literary traditions can, thrillingly, be identified as actual historical figures. An important marker of this timespan was the emergence of state polities and societies along a wide axis—from Gandhara in the north-west to Anga in the east and southwards across the Vindhyas to the Godavari river in the Deccan. There were two types of rival political systems at the time—the monarchies (rajyas), which were mainly centred in the fertile alluvial tracts of the Gangetic valley, and the non-monarchical states (ganas/sanghas)—initially (and misleadingly) termed republics but, in fact, oligarchies with power exercised by a group of people—which were located around the northern edges of these kingdoms, mostly in or near the Himalayan foothills in eastern India. All three literary traditions, as well as Greek accounts, provide information on these political systems. Numismatic and epigraphic evidence also exists. The lines between them seem to have been fluid, though: the Kurus started off as a monarchy and then became a gana; the Videhas, too.

Thus, Buddhist and Jaina texts tell us that sixteen powerful states (solasa-mahajanapada) thrived in the early part of this century, apart from smaller states, chiefdoms and tribal principalities. Different texts provide slightly varying lists. For purposes of convenience, we will quote a single one, the Anguttara Nikaya, a Buddhist text, here. The names are in Pali, the language of the commoners, with the Sanskrit equivalents provided within brackets. Thus, the sixteen states were Kasi (Kashi), Kosala (Koshala), Anga, Magadha, Vajji (Vrijji), Malla, Chetiya (Chedi), Vamsa (Vatsa), Kuru, Panchala, Machchha (Matsya), Shurasena, Assaka (Ashmaka), Avanti, Gandhara and Kamboja.

So did these sixteen polities suddenly emerge from a vacuum? Clearly not: there are indications that the nature of political units had been changing slowly but surely over time. Later Vedic texts reflect a transition from lineage-based tribal polities to territorial states. This was not a wholescale transition, by any means, but tribes were definitely coming together to form larger political units, such as the Purus and Bharatas who merged to form the Kurus, which, according to some scholars, actually represented the first state in India. However, political transitions are usually gradual, being the culmination of several increasingly complex processes.

The emergence of a monarchical state, for instance, would undoubtedly have involved contestations, negotiations and accommodations of varied kinds, involving coercive mechanisms and control over resources in equal measure. It would also have necessitated the scripting of often-fanciful origin stories so as to legitimise the concentration of political power in the hands of a single person or family. Herein lies the basis of hereditary kingship—and an opportunity for writers of great imagination to shine. The Aitareya Brahmana, for instance, states that the gods were defeated by the demons because they had no king, so they elected one who led them to victory, thereby intrinsically drawing this figure closer to the divine realm.

And here we come to the knotty problem of iron. Later Vedic texts indicate a familiarity with it and its use in agriculture in the Indo-Gangetic divide and the upper Ganga valley from around 1,000 to 500 BCE. It was a significant technological advance from the copper-bronze age that preceded it but there has been much argument on the role of iron in paving the way for the emergence of the sophisticated political systems in the sixth century BCE by way of clearing thick alluvial forests and enhancing agricultural produce. D.D. Kosambi felt that the eastern movement of the Indo-Aryans was to reach the iron ores of south Bihar, thence Magadha’s prominence. However, a chemical analysis of early iron artefacts at Atranjikhera point to the hills between Agra and Gwalior, and not Bihar, as the probable source of ores. Frustrating, yes, but chemistry trumps all other kinds of evidence, particularly as regards ancient India. It is dull but irrefutable.

R.S. Sharma, who claimed that iron axes helped clear the Ganga valley and expand agriculture, leading to urbanisation and the rise of religions like Buddhism in the new socioeconomic milieu, was also furiously challenged. It was argued that the forests in question could have been cleared by burning, that the impact of iron technology was very gradual and not a prerequisite for urbanisation, and that the Ganga plains remained heavily forested till the sixteenth/seventeenth centuries. (It is true that largescale deforestation of the Ganga valley happened in the colonial period.)

However, while technology as a factor in historical change has to be considered along with other variables, there is general unanimity, though, that the use of iron was known almost all over the Indian subcontinent during the period c. 800–500 BCE—a fact that is derived not just from concrete archaeological finds but also from fortunate corroborations in literature, one of the Buddhist texts, for instance, drawing an analogy with the hissing of an iron plough that is plunged into water. Its beginnings in the Ganga valley can be traced to the second millennium BCE, its use and impact gradually widening thereon, reflected in the number and range of iron objects in the NBPW phase.

The sixth century BCE in the Ganga valley was also an age of thinkers, of philosophers, of great ponderings and musings. And this is how Buddhism and Jainism, the two great ‘heterodox’ religions, came to be. Both had much to do with the polities and politics of the time, and the writings of both traditions are significant sources for this period despite routinely contradicting each other and often making assertions that are manifestly exaggerated.

Almost everyone is conversant with the story of the Buddha, its founder (c. 530–479 BCE)—of his birth as Siddhartha, son of Shuddhodana, chief of the Sakya clan of Kapilavastu; of the prophecy that proclaimed him to either become a world conqueror or renouncer; of his parents’ frantic measures to ensure he fulfilled the former; of Siddhartha’s sudden discovery of old age, disease, death and renunciation, in that order; and of his consequent abandonment of his wife and child, and his world of luxury, to seek the truth. The hagiographies of the Buddha—themselves an inextricable mix of history and legend—tell us that after years of penance and thought, he achieved enlightenment, delivered his first sermon in a deer park near Benares, established an order of monks and nuns called the sangha, and preached his doctrine for over four decades till his death at the age of eighty at Kusinara (modern Kasi).

Jainism, on the other hand, is older than Buddhism and discerning a coherent historical biography from the hagiographies is as difficult in the case of Vardhamana, its exponent, as in the case of the Buddha, with the Shvetambara (white-clad) and Digambara (sky-clad/naked) traditions disagreeing on many salient aspects of his life. However, the main story is, once again, a well-known one—of Vardhamana’s birth in c. 599 BCE at Kundagrama near Vaishali to an aristocratic family; of his renunciation of the world at a young age; of his wanderings and austerities until he attained enlightenment and became Mahavira, the twenty-fourth tirthankara of his line; of his establishment of the Jaina sangha and discipline; and of his death at the age of seventy-two at Pavapuri near modern Patna.

Reams have been written on the Buddhist and Jaina philosophies and there is no need to plunge into the details here. Suffice it to say that the Buddha and Mahavira were contemporaries, and their creeds evolved in a situation of initial urbanisation where chiefdoms were shifting to kingdoms but before the emergence of large kingdoms or empires. There is some broad similarity in their teachings, too—their rejection of the Vedas’ authority, their non-theistic doctrine, their emphasis on renunciation and human effort to attain salvation and their establishment of a monastic order for men and women. They are often seen as a reaction to the Brahmanical religion that endorsed social hierarchies and elaborate rituals, hence the epithet ‘heterodox’—a hasty one, though, evidently based on a surface understanding of these creeds. For instance, although the Buddhist doctrine was definitely more inclusive than the Brahmanical tradition, it did not aim to abolish social differences. In fact, the Buddha saw all social relationships as chains and the cause of suffering and thus, in his view, a person needed to break away from them to attain liberation.

However, the monastic order that he created could potentially accommodate social dropouts under certain conditions; varna and jati considerations were seen as irrelevant for aspirants to the sangha. Interestingly, many brahmanas became monks and lay-followers of the Buddha despite his criticism of Brahmanical ritual and arrogation of social preeminence. Perhaps his teachings appealed to them in that such issues were also being discussed within their own ranks. That these converts were frowned upon by others of their ilk, though, is made clear by Buddhist texts. Incidentally, the Buddhist tradition reverses the Brahmanical order of rank and places the kshatriya higher than the brahmana. The latter term, though, is used in two senses in the Buddhist canon—as a conventional social category and as an ideal category of a wise person who led an exemplary life. The Buddha himself is addressed as ‘brahmana’!

The Buddhist dhamma (featuring the four noble truths and the eightfold path) held enormous appeal for the laity due to its practical code of conduct for eliminating suffering and its accordance of importance to varied emerging social groups, such as the gahapati or householder. But what of women vis-à-vis this doctrine? Admittedly, the Buddha did accord them relevance by saying that they could aspire to the highest human goal of nibbana/nirvana but then proceeded to fetter them with dire predictions and restrictions. He did not want to establish a bhikkuni/bhikshuni sangha for women but caved in due to the pressure from his disciple, Ananda, and his aunt, Gautami, observing darkly—as per the Vinaya Pitaka—that his doctrine would now decline in 500 rather than 1,000 years due to their inclusion. The same noble text informs us that nuns, despite their seniority, could not revile or abuse monks and, furthermore, had to meekly accept their criticism and/or advice without returning the favour in equal coin.

Lest we intemperately accuse the Buddha of gender bias right away (and much has already been made of his abrupt abandonment of his wife, Yashodhara and son, Rahula, to traverse a higher plane), let us also consider the fact that he did give women some measure of individual agency in the religious sphere that was otherwise usually denied to them. Buddhist texts are rife with references to learned nuns and we also have the glorious, concrete example of the Therigatha (Verses of Elder Nuns), a collection of seventy-three poems composed by seventy-two nuns, who had advanced quite a bit on the spiritual road.

And let us also remember that women donors, as a collective identity, are more visible in the Buddhist cause than in any other throughout early Indian history. Yet just to confound, here is an interesting anecdote from the Anguttara Nikaya. While at the house of Anathapindika, a prominent gahapati of Shravasti, the Buddha’s ears were assailed by persistent noise, the source of which, the former unhappily informed him, was his daughter-in-law, Sujata, the child of wealthy parents and a law unto herself, incapable of restraint from any quarter. The Buddha proceeded to give the errant Sujata a lecture on the seven kinds of wives that existed. Hell awaited the first three kinds whose crimes ranged from being wilful and indolent to neglectful and loud, while heaven was the reward for the other four types who basically looked after their husbands in every which way.

Sujata suddenly had an inexplicable character transformation and opted for one of the latter categories—that of the slavelike wife/dasisama who is calm, patient and obedient, and remains meek while her husband beats her up. Presumably, quiet reigned in Anathapindika’s household thereon but the point is that recalcitrant wives did exist in all their intractability, resisting patriarchal strictures and generally being heard. That Sujata subsequently chose the most servile form of wifehood might equally reflect the (male) writer’s wishful thinking and his keen desire to reinforce the norm in a situation where it was continually being challenged.

The Jaina doctrine, while being somewhat similar to the Buddhist, focuses largely on ahimsa or non-violence/non-injury towards other living beings, which, especially in the case of its monks and nuns, was observed to an extraordinary degree. For instance, they were forbidden from bathing or walking in the rain so as not to harm water bodies, from digging the earth so as not to kill earth bodies, from fanning themselves so as not to harm air bodies, from lighting or extinguishing flames so as not to harm fire bodies, and from walking on greenery or touching living plants so as not to harm vegetable bodies. Certainly not a discipline for the absentminded!

However, Jainism was able to strike a practical balance between the worlds of monasticism and the householder. People of all varnas and social categories could enter the Jaina sangha. Yet once again, there was an odd relationship that it sported with Brahmanism. There is a highly dramatic story in the Uttaradhyayana Sutra of a Jaina monk in search of food who stumbles upon some brahmanas intent on a sacrifice. They refuse him food and, weirdly, attack him with sticks and canes until a demigod/yaksha intervenes whereupon they capitulate and seek the monk’s pardon, who, in turn, graciously proceeds to upbraid them on the futility of sacrifices and the wisdom of the Jaina way. To further complicate the issue, all the chief disciples of Mahavira were brahmanas belonging to the Magadha area who apparently entered the sangha with several of their disciples. In fact, the Jaina texts say, the brahmana varna was instituted by the first Jaina tirthankara’s son and, furthermore, only a Jaina monk was worthy of being called a brahmana.

Turning from these excessively convoluted claims to the issue of women, the Jaina tradition, too, had a problematic relationship with them. They were seen as a generally avoidable danger, whose friendship and company ought to be shunned by monks, but were, equally, seen as deserving of a monastic order. In fact, at the time of Mahavira’s death, there were apparently 14,000 monks, 36,000 nuns, 1,59,000 laymen and 3,18,000 laywomen. The figures speak for themselves. Curiously enough, though, the issue of clothing became a key element in the vigorous Jaina debate on gender and salvation. The Digambara order (mentioned earlier) for whom nudity was a prerequisite (clothes being seen as possessions), claimed that a woman who clearly could not roam around naked could, therefore, not attain salvation and had to be reborn as a man to attain this goal. The Shvetambaras disagree: clothes were optional and both men and women could attain salvation. And yet, here is a reality check—nuns, irrespective of their seniority, had to offer respectful salutations to the monks at all times. Moreover, they were supposed to confess their errors to the monks and be rebuked by them but it was never a vice versa situation. And the Digambara order, in particular, seems to have nurtured a morbid fear of menstruating women and the generally unspeakable things that went on with their anatomy. Some of the explanations proferred thereof would put the most imaginative writer of fiction to shame.

Time for another curious and convoluted tale, at this juncture, that involves women and food. This one exemplifies the Shvetambara belief that women could attain salvation or jinahood and focuses on Malli, their nineteenth tirthankara, who was, in fact, a woman—although she became one only because of cheating in a previous birth, if we may be allowed to preempt the story a bit. Accordingly, Malli’s soul was born, in a previous life, in a king named Mahabala. At some point, Mahabala, along with his seven friends, renounced the world in order to become Jaina monks. As part of their new regimen, they undertook to observe the same number of fasts but Mahabala was soon champing at the bit and devising innovative ways of skipping meals, thus ending with a greater number of fasts than originally agreed upon.

Other than this, though, his conduct was exemplary and so, he was deemed worthy of becoming a jina. However, his meal-skipping deed to rack up his fast-tally cast a long shadow for which, after spending some time in heaven, his soul had to be resigned to the fact that it was reborn in a woman’s body, that of a princess named Malli. His seven friends, on the other hand, were reborn as kshatriya warriors of neighbouring kingdoms. Inevitably—and ironically, given their previous mutual relationship—they all desired Malli and fought with each other for her hand. This had the unfortunate result of making Malli renounce the world in disgust whereupon she promptly attained enlightenment and became the nineteenth tirthankara, thereby constituting the single exception to the rule that a jina should be male.

Incidentally, the Digambaras scoff at this fanciful tale. For them, the nineteenth tirthankara was a man named Mallinatha who was very firmly a prince, not a princess, and who became enlightened after becoming a Digambara monk. However, Malli did not ever become the object of popular worship, although a ninth century image of her has been found that sports long hair and breasts. Not surprisingly, the number of Digambara nuns did decline over time. The Buddhist bhikkuni sangha was similarly affected, performing a disappearing act of sorts among the Theravada communities of Sri Lanka and southeast Asia. In fact, both Buddhism and Jainism disappeared in slow stages from the central scheme of things but that happened over a long span of time and in a different period altogether.

The point of this somewhat tangential discussion on religion is to reiterate the fact that the sixth century BCE was an age of increasing levels of complexity. Urbanism, new socio-economic groupings and new philosophies were among the changes that marked the age—and as the development of Buddhism and Jainism and their rivalry with a well-entrenched Brahmanism played out in the background of the tussle between the new political systems that emerged in this period, it becomes important to consider them before we tackle the main story.