Kings, Farmers and Towns

NCERT opens by bridging the gap after the Harappan cities: in the 1,500 years that followed, the Rigveda was composed by people along the Indus and its tributaries; farming villages appeared across north India, the Deccan and Karnataka; pastoral groups lived in the Deccan and further south; and from the first millennium BCE people in central and south India built megaliths — elaborate stone burials, often with iron tools and weapons. From c. sixth century BCE the big trends were early states, changes in agriculture and new towns.

• Follows Theme One (the Harappans) and leads into Theme Three (kinship, caste and class — the same period seen through social history) and Theme Four (Buddhism, Jainism, stupas and temples).
• UPSC: GS1 Ancient History is dense with this chapter — Mauryan administration and Asokan edicts, Saka/Kushana/Gupta rulers, coins, guilds, land grants and ‘feudalism’, Sangam society; Mains 2026 asked directly about Asokan inscriptions as sources.

• Sixteen mahajanapadas (Buddhist and Jaina lists); most monarchies, some ganas/sanghas (oligarchies) such as Vajji; Magadha rose to the top between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE.
• Two explanations of Magadha: resources (fertile land, iron, elephants, the Ganga) say modern historians; ambitious kings and ministers said early Buddhist and Jaina writers.
• Mauryas: Chandragupta (c. 321 BCE) → Asoka (c. 272/268–231 BCE); sources — Megasthenes, Arthashastra, later texts, and Asoka’s rock and pillar inscriptions; five centres: Pataliputra, Taxila, Ujjayini, Tosali, Suvarnagiri.
• New kingship: Sangam chiefs, Kushana devaputra and statues, Gupta samantas and prashastis (Harishena’s praise of Samudragupta).
• Countryside: iron ploughshare, transplantation, irrigation; gahapati, vellalar–uzhavar–adimai; land grants/agrahara (Prabhavati Gupta) — their impact is debated.
• Towns and coins: guilds (shrenis), NBPW; punch-marked → Indo-Greek named coins → Kushana and Gupta gold; Prinsep read Brahmi in 1838; inscriptions have real limits.

In the 1830s James Prinsep, an officer in the East India Company’s mint, deciphered Brahmi and Kharosthi, the scripts of the earliest inscriptions and coins. Most inscriptions named a king Piyadassi (‘pleasant to behold’); a few also called him Asoka, a ruler famous from Buddhist texts. This set European and Indian scholars to reconstructing dynasties from inscriptions and texts; by the early twentieth century the broad outline of political history was in place. Scholars then asked how political change was linked to economic and social change — and found the links were real but not simple or direct.

The sixth century BCE is often seen as a turning point: early states, cities, more iron, coinage, and new systems of thought including Buddhism and Jainism. Early Buddhist and Jaina texts list sixteen mahajanapadas; the lists vary, but Vajji, Magadha, Koshala, Kuru, Panchala, Gandhara and Avanti recur. Most were ruled by kings, but some — ganas or sanghas — were oligarchies, where power was shared by many men called rajas; the Buddha and Mahavira both came from such ganas. In the Vajji sangha the rajas probably controlled land collectively. Some of these states lasted nearly a thousand years.

Each mahajanapada had a capital, often fortified. Forts, incipient armies and bureaucracies needed resources. From c. sixth century BCE Brahmanas composed Sanskrit Dharmasutras laying down norms for rulers — ideally Kshatriyas — who were to collect taxes and tribute from cultivators, traders and artisans. Whether pastoralists and forest peoples paid, we do not know. Raids on neighbours were a legitimate way to get wealth. Some states built standing armies and bureaucracies; others relied on militias, mostly peasants.

Magadha (present-day Bihar) became the most powerful mahajanapada between the sixth and fourth centuries BCE. Modern historians point to productive agriculture, accessible iron mines (present-day Jharkhand), elephants from local forests for the army, and the Ganga and its tributaries for cheap communication. Early Buddhist and Jaina writers instead credited ruthlessly ambitious kings — Bimbisara, Ajatasattu and Mahapadma Nanda — and their ministers. The first capital, Rajagaha (Rajgir; the name means ‘house of the king’), was a fortified settlement among hills; later the capital moved to Pataliputra (Patna), commanding the Ganga routes.

Magadha’s growth culminated in the Mauryan Empire. Chandragupta Maurya founded it (c. 321 BCE) and pushed control north-west into Afghanistan and Baluchistan; his grandson Asoka conquered Kalinga (coastal Orissa). Sources: archaeological finds, especially sculpture; Megasthenes, a Greek ambassador at Chandragupta’s court, whose account survives only in fragments; the Arthashastra, parts probably by Kautilya or Chanakya, traditionally Chandragupta’s minister; later Buddhist, Jaina, Puranic and Sanskrit works; and, most valuable, the inscriptions of Asoka (c. 272/268–231 BCE) on rocks and pillars.

Asoka was the first ruler to inscribe messages to subjects and officials on stone — natural rocks and polished pillars — to proclaim dhamma: respect for elders, generosity to Brahmanas and renunciants, kindness to slaves and servants, and respect for others’ religions and traditions.

Administering the empire. There were five major political centres: the capital Pataliputra and provincial centres at Taxila, Ujjayini, Tosali and Suvarnagiri, all named in Asokan inscriptions. Almost the same message was engraved from the north-west of present-day Pakistan to Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Uttarakhand. Was administration uniform? Historians think not — the regions (Afghan hills, Orissa coast) were too diverse. Control was probably strongest around the capital and the provincial centres, which were carefully chosen: Taxila and Ujjayini lay on long-distance trade routes; Suvarnagiri (‘golden mountain’) possibly tapped the gold mines of Karnataka.

Communication by land and river was vital; journeys to the provinces took weeks or months, needing provisions and protection — hence the army. Megasthenes describes a committee with six subcommittees for military affairs: navy; transport and provisions; foot-soldiers; horses; chariots; elephants. Asoka also tried to hold the empire together with dhamma, simple and nearly universal principles meant to secure well-being in this world and the next, spread by special officers, the dhamma mahamatta.

How important was the empire? Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Indian historians, writing under British rule, found an early Indian empire challenging and exciting; Mauryan sculpture looked like imperial art; Asoka’s inscriptions seemed to show a ruler more powerful, industrious and humble than later kings with grand titles — so nationalist leaders saw him as an inspiration. But the empire lasted only about 150 years, did not cover the whole subcontinent, and control within it was uneven; by the second century BCE new chiefdoms and kingdoms had emerged.

New kingdoms in the Deccan and further south proved stable and prosperous, including the chiefdoms of the Cholas, Cheras and Pandyas in Tamilakam (the ancient Tamil country, including parts of present-day Andhra Pradesh and Kerala as well as Tamil Nadu). The Sangam texts describe chiefs and how they got and shared resources. Many chiefs and kings — the Satavahanas (parts of western and central India, c. 2nd century BCE–2nd century CE) and the Shakas (of Central Asian origin, in the north-west and west) — drew revenue from long-distance trade; their origins were often obscure, and once in power they sought social status (Theme Three).

Divine kings. The Kushanas ruled a vast realm from Central Asia to north-west India and projected kingship through coins and sculpture. Colossal statues of Kushana rulers stood in a shrine at Mat near Mathura and in a shrine in Afghanistan, suggesting they saw themselves as godlike. Many took the title devaputra (‘son of god’), perhaps inspired by Chinese rulers who called themselves sons of heaven.

By the fourth century there were larger states such as the Gupta Empire, many of which depended on samantas — men who lived off local resources, including land, and offered homage and military support. Powerful samantas could become kings; weak kings could become subordinates. Gupta history comes from literature, coins and inscriptions, including prashastis — praise-poems by court poets, which their readers prized as poetry rather than literal truth. The Prayaga Prashasti (Allahabad Pillar Inscription), composed in Sanskrit by Harishena, court poet of Samudragupta (c. 4th century CE), is the classic case.

What did subjects think? Ordinary people rarely left records, so historians use story collections such as the Jatakas and the Panchatantra, many of which began as oral tales. The Jatakas were written in Pali around the middle of the first millennium CE. In the Gandatindu Jataka a wicked king goes in disguise and hears everyone — old people, cultivators, herders, village boys, even animals — curse him: robbers attack them by night and tax collectors by day. They abandon the village for the forest. Relations between kings and rural subjects could be strained; flight to the forest remained an option.

Raising production. (1) Plough agriculture spread in fertile alluvial valleys like the Ganga and the Kaveri from c. sixth century BCE; the iron-tipped ploughshare turned soil in high-rainfall areas. (2) In parts of the Ganga valley transplantation dramatically increased paddy output, though it meant back-breaking work. But the iron ploughshare was not universal: semi-arid parts of Punjab and Rajasthan adopted it only in the twentieth century, and hilly tracts of the north-east and centre used hoe agriculture, better suited to the terrain. (3) Irrigation through wells and tanks, less often canals, built by communities and by powerful individuals, including kings, who recorded it in inscriptions.

Differences in rural society. Buddhist stories mention landless agricultural labourers, small peasants and large landholders; Pali texts often call the last two gahapati. Large landholders and the village headman (often hereditary) became powerful and controlled other cultivators. Tamil Sangam texts list vellalar (large landowners), uzhavar (ploughmen) and adimai (slaves). The differences probably arose from unequal access to land, labour and new technologies, which made control over land a burning issue in legal texts.

From the early centuries CE, grants of land were recorded in inscriptions — some on stone, most on copper plates given to recipients as a record. Surviving grants are mostly to religious institutions or Brahmanas. Most were in Sanskrit; especially from the seventh century, part could be in a local language such as Tamil or Telugu.

Prabhavati Gupta, daughter of Chandragupta II (c. 375–415 CE), married into the Vakataka family of the Deccan. Sanskrit legal texts denied women independent access to land, yet her inscription shows her granting land — perhaps because she was an exceptional queen, or because legal norms were not uniformly applied. The grant also lists rural people — Brahmanas, peasants and others who owed produce to the king — and tells them to obey the new lord, and perhaps pay him their dues.

Grants varied in size — from small plots to vast uncultivated tracts — and in the rights given. Their impact is hotly debated. Some historians see them as a strategy by ruling lineages to extend agriculture into new areas. Others see them as a sign of weakening political power: losing control over samantas, kings won allies with land — and projected themselves as ‘supermen’ to keep up at least a façade of power. Meanwhile many people stayed beyond officials and samantas — pastoralists, fisherfolk, hunter-gatherers, mobile artisans and shifting cultivators — and seldom left records.

Urban centres emerged from c. sixth century BCE, many as mahajanapada capitals. Virtually all lay on routes: Pataliputra on a river route, Ujjayini on land routes, Puhar near the coast; cities like Mathura bustled with commerce, culture and politics. Kings and elites lived in fortified cities. Excavation is hard because people still live on these sites (unlike Harappan cities), but finds include Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW) — fine glossy bowls and dishes, probably used by the rich — and ornaments, tools, weapons, vessels and figurines of gold, silver, copper, bronze, ivory, glass, shell and terracotta.

From the second century BCE short votive inscriptions name donors and sometimes occupations: washing folk, weavers, scribes, carpenters, potters, goldsmiths, blacksmiths, officials, religious teachers, merchants and kings. Some mention guilds or shrenis of craft producers and merchants, which probably procured raw materials, regulated production and marketed products. Craftspeople probably used many iron tools to meet elite demand.

Trade. From the sixth century BCE land and river routes criss-crossed the subcontinent and reached Central Asia; sea routes ran across the Arabian Sea to East and North Africa and West Asia, and across the Bay of Bengal to Southeast Asia and China. Rulers tried to control routes, perhaps selling protection. Travellers ranged from peddlers on foot to merchants with caravans of bullock carts and pack-animals and seafarers in risky but profitable ventures. Rich merchants were called masattuvan (Tamil) and setthi and satthavaha (Prakrit). Goods included salt, grain, cloth, metal ores and products, stone, timber and medicinal plants; pepper, textiles and medicinal plants were in high demand in the Roman Empire.

Coinage eased exchange. Punch-marked coins of silver and copper (c. sixth century BCE onwards) were among the earliest, found at sites across the subcontinent. Attempts to link their symbols to dynasties, including the Mauryas, suggest kings issued them, but merchants, bankers and townspeople may also have issued some. The first coins with rulers’ names and images were issued by the Indo-Greeks in the north-west (c. 2nd century BCE). The Kushanas issued gold coins on a large scale from c. first century CE, almost identical in weight to those of contemporary Roman emperors and the Parthian rulers of Iran, found in north India and Central Asia — evidence of high-value transactions. Roman coin hoards in south India show that trade networks crossed political boundaries.

Tribal republics also minted: the Yaudheyas of Punjab and Haryana (c. 1st century CE) issued several thousand copper coins — evidence of their role in exchange. Some of the most spectacular gold coins were the Guptas’; the earliest were remarkably pure and served long-distance trade from which kings also gained. From c. sixth century CE finds of gold coins taper off. Crisis? Some historians link it to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and declining long-distance trade; others point to new towns and trade networks, note that coins are still mentioned in inscriptions and texts, and suggest coins were circulating rather than hoarded.

Brahmi, the script of most Asokan inscriptions, is the ancestor of most scripts used for modern Indian languages. From the late eighteenth century European scholars, helped by Indian pandits, worked backwards from Bengali and Devanagari manuscripts, comparing letters with older specimens. They sometimes assumed early inscriptions were in Sanskrit, though the earliest were in Prakrit; after decades of work by many epigraphists, James Prinsep read Asokan Brahmi in 1838. Kharosthi, used in the north-west, was read differently: Indo-Greek coins (c. 2nd–1st centuries BCE) carried kings’ names in Greek and Kharosthi; scholars matched letters (e.g. the ‘a’ in names like Apollodotus); and once Prinsep identified the language as Prakrit, longer inscriptions could be read.

Epigraphy has limits. Technical: faint letters, damage and missing letters make readings uncertain. Meaning: words may be specific to a place or time, so scholars keep debating readings. Coverage: thousands of inscriptions exist but not all are deciphered, published and translated, and many more have been lost — what we have is a fraction. Selection: routine farming and daily joys and sorrows are absent; inscriptions focus on grand, unique events. Perspective: they project the view of whoever commissioned them, so they must be set beside other sources.

Historians also keep re-asking questions of old evidence. Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholars focused on kings; from the mid-twentieth century, on economic change and the emergence of social groups; recently, on marginalised groups — which will lead to fresh readings of old sources.

Q1–5: 100–150 words. Q6–9: short essays of about 500 words — expand each point with an example from a Source. Try each yourself first.

Numbers

One-liners

• Mahajanapadas: monarchies and ganas/sanghas; Magadha won.
• Magadha: resources (historians) vs ambitious kings (Buddhist and Jaina writers).
• Mauryan control: strongest at five centres, not uniform.
• Dhamma: elders, Brahmanas and renunciants, slaves and servants, other faiths.
• Chiefs receive gifts; kings collect taxes.
• Kushanas: devaputra, colossal statues; Guptas: samantas and prashastis.
• Iron ploughshare + transplantation + irrigation = more output, more inequality.
• Agrahara: Brahmana land, revenue-free, with rights over villagers’ dues.
• Guilds procured, regulated and marketed.
• Brahmi read backwards from Devanagari; Kharosthi via bilingual Indo-Greek coins.

Traps to avoid

• Senguttuvan of the Silappadikaram was a Chera, not a Pandya as NCERT’s Source 3 says (UPSC 2026).
• Pataliputra became the capital in the 5th century BCE (NCERT’s own box); section 2.2’s ‘fourth century’ is inconsistent.
• Asoka is named only in a few minor rock edicts (Maski etc.); elsewhere he is Devanampiya Piyadassi.
• Kharosthi runs right to left; Brahmi left to right and is the parent of most Indian scripts.
• The Kalinga anguish edict (XIII) is not found in Kalinga itself.
• The Prayaga Prashasti is by Harishena, for Samudragupta, on an Asokan pillar.
• The Sudarshana lake was built under the Mauryas, repaired by Rudradaman and again under Skandagupta — not Kumaragupta.
• First coins with rulers’ names and images: Indo-Greeks; widespread gold: Kushanas.
• Prabhavati Gupta: daughter of Chandragupta II, a Vakataka queen.
• Gahapati is a household head and property owner, not just a farmer.

Prelims — what UPSC asks

• Asoka and his inscriptions are UPSC’s favourite cluster: Prinsep (1993), Priyadarsi (1995), name in Maski (1990, 1997), Kanganahalli relief (2019), Kalinga (2000), dhamma and tolerance (1998, 2020), southern kingdoms in RE II and XIII (1998), edict sites and states (2022), district officers (2025), pillars (1997), a map of the empire (1998).
• Mauryan sources: Megasthenes (1981), Arthashastra (1990), Chanakya = Vishnugupta (1993), Nandas and Alexander (2000), dynasty order (1982), contemporaries (2005), Sohgaura plate (1998), a mahajanapada map (1997).
• Post-Mauryan rulers: Saka era (1980, 1982), Greeks–Sakas–Kushans (2006), Bactria (1999), Pratishthana (1992), Allahabad pillar (2006), Sudarshana lake (1985), Senguttuvan (2026). Economy: coins (1981, 1986, 1993, 1997, 1998, 2026), guilds (2012), ports (2023), Arikamedu (1991), Roman decline (1999), feudalism (2000), kulyavapa (2020), Harshacharita (1998), Brahmi and Kharosthi (1989, 1997).

Mains — where it appears and how to answer

• GS1 2026: importance of Asokan inscriptions for reconstructing Mauryan history — use sections 3, 9 and 10: what they reveal (centres, dhamma, officials, Kalinga), languages/scripts, how they were read, and their limits (king’s view, missing Kalinga edict, literacy).
• GS1 2017: excellence of Gupta numismatic art not seen later — Gupta gold purity and imagery (Fig. 2.9), the 6th-century decline in gold finds and its debated causes.
• GS1 2013: Sangam literature as a mirror of social and economic life — chiefs and gift exchange (Source 3), vellalar–uzhavar–adimai, trade and ports (Periplus, Puhar, Kodumanal).
• Answer frame for source-based questions: what the source says → who wrote it and why → what it reveals → what it hides → corroboration.

Tap an option. NCERT's own exercise questions come first; the rest test the figures and common confusions.

Open any question to attempt it in the Question bank — your attempt is saved to your progress.