Kings, Farmers and Towns Early States and Economies

What is Epigraphy?

Study of inscriptions

What happened after the end of the Harappan Civilization?

Rigveda

Megaliths

Iron tools and weapons in burial and usage

Formation of new towns

Agricultural settlements emerged

What are patidevakas?

Reporters in Mauryans

What have recent decades seen a preoccupation in?

Histories of marginalized groups

What have historians in the mid-twentieth century seen an interest in?

Economic change and ways in which social groips emerge

What were late ninteenth and early twentieth century historians interested in?

Histories of kings

What does Asoka claim?

That earlier rulers had no arrangements to receive reports

What are the limitations of inscriptions?

Faintly engraved

Damaged or have letters missing

How was Kharosthi script deciphered?

It shared similarities with Greek and Prakrit

A was the same in Greek and Kharosthi

Why is it difficult to conduct extensive excavations of where kings and ruling elites lived?

People still live there

What indicated an economic crisis?

Finds of gold taper off

Who were beyond the reach of officials?

Pastortalists, fisherfolk, hunter-gathers, mobike or semi-sedentary artisans and shifting cultivators

What is Harshacharita?

Biography of Harshavardhan written by Banabhatta based on life of Harshavardhana

Who is Kubera?

God of wealth

How do we know about how the subjects felt about their rulers?

Jatakas (100 CE) and Panchantantra

Who is Varuna?

God of Ocean

Who is Indra?

God of rains

Who is Yama?

God of death

Sources for Mauryas

Megasthenes, Arthshatra, Buddhist, Jaina and Puranic text, Inscriptions

Where have colossal statues of Kushana rulers been found?

Mat near Mathura and Afghanistan

How do we know about Gupta rulers?

Literature, coins, inscriptions, and prashastis

How do we know about kushanas?

Inscriptions and textual traditions

Coins and sculptures

What was the army important for?

It would take weeks or months to carry message from center.

Army was important for protection of those who were on the move

Provisions were also needed by army didn’t take care of that

When was Pataliputra (Patna) made the capital?

4th BCE

Commanded routes along ganga

Who did nationalist leaders consider an inspring figure?

Asoka because he was powerful and industrious but also humble

Did not adopt grandiose titles

What was an important landmark in the nineteenth century?

Discovery of Mauryan Empire

Challeging and exiting

What was the message from Pakistan to Andhra Pradesh?

It was the same message engraved everywhere

What city declined after the Mauryan period?

Pataliputra

Xuan Zang visited in the 7th century CE

Example of rajas controlling resources like land collectively?

Vaji Sangha

Capital of Kamboja

Pushkalvanti

Capital of Anga

Champa

Capital of Malla

Kusingara

Capital of Kashi

Varanasi

Purpose of “devanampiya” and “piyadassi” in Asokan inscriptions

To identify the ruler’s different roles and responsibilites

How was Brahmi deciphered?

Aided by pandits

Compared Bengali and Devanagari scripts with ancient speciments

What language did they think early inscriptions were in?

Sanskrit

What dynasty-controlled Magadha after Mauryans?

Shungas

Who preceded the Mauryas?

Nandas

Main source of revenue in early states

Land revenue

What source provides us with information about early Indian urban centers?

Megasthenes Indica

From Seleucid court

Title used by Kushana to claim divine status

Devaputra

What happened to the embankments of Sudarshana lake?

They were damaged by a storm

What was Ashoka known as?

Piyadassi

What were Inscription written on?

Hard surfaced such as stone metal or pottery

Who was the Kushana ruler?

Kanishka

Who had the most spectacular gold coins?

Gupta

Remarkable for purity

What was Mathura for?

Bustling centers of commercial, cultural and political activiyt

How did Satvahana and Shakas try to take power?

They tried to cling on

Where were Kushana rulers from?

Central Asia

Yuhzeni confederation

What were some strategies to avoid taxes?

Run into the forest

What were the earliest coins?

Punch-marked (6th CE) made of silver and copper

Mauryans

What was in high demand in the Roman Empire?

Pepper

Three kingdoms of Tamilakam

Cholas, Cheras, and Pandyas

Andhra Pradesh and Kerala with Tamila Nadu

Why were things inscribed?

Recorded achievements, activities or ideas of those of commissioned them

Exploits of the king

Donations made by women or men to the religious institutions

Irrigation

To increase the agricultural production through wells and tanks and less commonly tanks

Communities and individuals organised the construction of irrigation works

Powerful men recorded such activities in inscription

Who were land grants for?

Religious Institutions or to Brahmanas

Sanskrit

Sometimes half in Sanskrit and other half in Tamil or Telugu

Maybe used to extent agriculture or maybe giving into the samantas

What are votive inscriptions?

2nd BCE Gifts made to religious institutions

Name of donor maybe occupation

How were dead buried?

Rich range of iron tool and weapons

What was Megalith?

Elaborate stone structures used for burying the dead

New

What materials were used?

gold, silver, copper, bronze, ivory, glass, shell and terracotta

What is agrahara?

Land granted to a Brahmana

Exempted from paying land revenue

Given right to collect tax from others

What did the Buddhist tradition say about agriculture?

Landless laborer, small peasants and large landholders

Who issued the first coins to bear names and images of rulers?

Indo-Greeks

Second century

North western part

What profession was risky by highly profitable?

Seafarers

Rigveda was composed by people living along which river?

Indus river

Who was James Prinsep?

An officer in the mint of the East India Company

What languages did James Prinsep decipher?

Brahmi and Kharosthi

1838

What were languages used in one of the oldest inscriptions on coins?

Brahmi and Kharosthi

What does Piyadassi mean?

Pleasant to behold (king)

What gave a new direction to investigations?

Inscriptions of variety of languages used to reconstruct the lineages of major dynasties

What did scholars shift their focus too?

Context of political history

What century is the major turning point?

Sixth century BCE

What happened in the Sixth Century BCE?

Use of iron, development of coinage. Buddhism and Jainism and mahajanpadas

What were mahajanpadas?

Sixteen states

Nearly 1000 years

What is paleography?

Deciphering based of style of writing and the amount of precision

What language were the earliest inscriptions in?

Prakrit (Language for ordinary people)

Important languages of inscriptions

Pali, Tamil, Prakrit, and Sanskrit

Important mahajanpadas

Vajji (Vaishali)

Magadha (Rajgir)

Koshala (Shravasti)

Kuru (Indraprashtha)

Panchala (Ahichchhatra)

Gandhara (Taxila)

Avanti (Ujjayini)

Who were ganas/sanghas?

Oligarchies who controlled mahajanpadas

Buddha and Mahavira belonged to one

Who were rajas?

Men in oligarchies who had power over mahajanpadas

What does Janapada mean?

Land where a jana (people, clan or tribe) sets its foot or settles.

Used in Prakrit and Sanskrit

What did each mahajanpada have?

A capital which was often fortified

Ruled by kings

Army

Bureaucracies

Who composed Dharmasustras?

Brahmanas in Sanskrit

Who did Dharmasustras lay down rules for?

Rulers and Kshatriyas

What were rulers advised to do?

Collect tax and tribute from cultivators, traders and artisans

What was an Oligarchy?

Form of government where power is exercised by a group of men.

Roman republic

Were raids of neighboring states recognized as legitmate?

Yes

What was the most powerful mahajanpada between 6th and 4th century BCE?

Magadha (present day Bihar)

Why was Magadha successful?

Agriculture was productive

Iron mines were accessible (Jharkhand)

Elephants were found in the forests

Ganga provided cheap means of communication

Has ambitious kings with ambitious policies Bimbisara, Ajatasattu, Mahapadma Nanda

Who were the ambitious kings of Magadha?

Bumbisara, Ajatasattu, and Mahapadma Nanda

What was the first capital of Magadha?

Rajagaha (Rajgir in Bihar). House of the king

Fortified in the hills

What was the second capital of Magadha?

Pataliputra (Patna)

Commanded communication along the ganga

Languages

Ashokan languages were written in Prakrit

Northwest were in Aramaic and Greek

Prakrit inscription were writeen in Brahmi script

Some in the northwest used Kharosthi script

Aramaic and Greek scripts were used in Afghanistan

Who founded the Mauryan Empire?

Chandragupta Maurya (321 BCE)

Where was the Mauryan empire?

Extended to Afghanistan and Baluchistan

What place did Asoka conquer?

Kalinga (Orissa)

Who was Megasthenes?

Greek ambassador to the court of Chandragupta Maurya

Who was the minister of Chandragupta?

Kautilya or Chanakya