State and Society up to 1000 CE

This is Chapter 5 of the new integrated Grade 9 book: 42 pages (95–136) built round four ‘Big Questions’ — how state and society were organised before 1000 CE; how states spread across the subcontinent; how the ideas of dharma and the chakravarti samrāṭ (universal ruler) promoted unity; and how social, administrative and occupational groups took shape. It runs from the Vedic texts to the Cholas: kin-based janas, janapadas and mahājanapadas, the Mauryas and Guptas, the Satavāhanas and the Tamil kingdoms; kingship and the saptāṅga; layered administration and self-governing villages; ethics; varṇa and jāti, family, women and religion; education; and the economy. It has 13 figures (five maps, two timelines, photographs of a manuscript, inscriptions and ruins, and two illustrations), several charts (the Four Vedas, the assemblies, the saptāṅga, the literary heritage), a running timeline along the foot of every page, many boxes (Let's Explore, Let's Recall, Think About It, Let's Analyse, Don't Miss Out), a Before we move on summary and 14 questions and activities. We use ten concept sections. Every number is recomputed; our additions are marked †.

• Earlier in this book: iest101 (Understanding Social Science — sources and how the book names and dates the past), iest104 (Early Humans and Beginning of Civilisation — the Harappans, whose undeciphered script is why the Vedas are our earliest readable literature); and, for the Ganga plains and the Deccan's black soil, iest102 and iest103.
• What comes next: Book II, iest203 (Resistance and Resilience, 1000–1700 CE) picks up after 1000 CE, including bhakti.
• Matching live chapters (for depth): lehs102 (Class 12 Kings, Farmers and Towns — mahājanapadas, Mauryas, inscriptions, land grants, trade), lehs103 (Kinship, Caste and Class — varṇa, jāti, gotra, women, the Dharmaśāstras), lehs104 (Thinkers, Beliefs and Buildings — Vedic religion, Upaniṣads, Buddhism and Jainism), lehs202 (Bhakti–Sufi traditions — the Āḻvārs and Nāyanmārs); and for art, kefa103 (Mauryan), kefa104 (post-Mauryan) and kefa106 (temples of the Guptas, Pallavas, Chālukyas and Cholas).
• UPSC, honestly: ancient India is a steady Prelims area and a regular GS1 Mains theme, but it is asked at the depth of the Class 12 books (lehs102–104) and standard references. This chapter is a broad first map of 2,000 years. We link 24 questions whose core it genuinely teaches — the Vedas and their parts (1980–2012), dharma and ṛta (2011), Vedic women (1995), varṇa and jāti (1984), kinship terms (1996), the post-Vedic puruṣārthas (1994), Chola village government and Uttaramerur (1980, 1985, 1993), guilds (2012), Sangam society (2022), Charaka (1988), and Mains on Sangam literature (2013), Takṣaśilā (2014), continuity (2015) and Vedic society (2023, 2024).

• Sources: Vedas — Ṛigveda (1,028 hymns), Yajurveda, Sāmaveda, Atharvaveda — each with saṃhitā, brāhmaṇa, āraṇyaka, upaniṣad; oral for centuries. Ṛigveda's date: debated (book: 5th to 2nd millennium BCE; many scholars c. 1500–1200 BCE).
• Early polity: ≈ 30 janas; pañchajana (Yadu, Turvaśa, Puru, Anu, Druhyu); rājā as clan chief; sabhā (smaller, judicial), samiti (larger, policy), vidatha (popular gathering).
• Territory: janapadas c. 1000–600 BCE → 16 mahājanapadas; rājyas and gaṇas/saṅghas; Magadha → Mauryas (321 BCE). Iron, PGW, then NBPW in the middle Ganga plain.
• Kingship: duties in the Arthaśāstra, the Yajurveda's coronation oath and the Śānti Parva; saptāṅga (svāmī, amātya, janapada, durga, kośa, daṇḍa, mitra); mantri-pariṣad; pan-Indian ideal — chakravarti kṣetra, Jambudvīpa, aśvamedha.
• Administration: Satavāhana āhāras and grāmika; 300–800 CE bhukti/viṣaya (north), maṇḍalam/koṭṭam/nāḍu (south); Gupta sāndhivigrahika, kumārāmātya; Pallava brahmadeya; Chālukya agrahāra; Chola maṇḍalam → valanāḍu → nāḍu → ūr; Uttaramerur and the kuḍavōlai.
• Society and economy: ṛta, dharma; varṇa vs jāti; āśramas, puruṣārthas, saṃskāras; women sages; Āḻvārs (12) and Nāyanmārs (63); gurukula, Nālandā, Takṣaśilā; land tax ≈ one-sixth; Sudarśana lake, Grand Anicut; Uttarāpatha, Dakṣiṇāpatha; guilds (śreṇīs) as banks — Nashik, Sanchi.

Because the Harappan script is still unread (iest104), the Vedas are the earliest known body of Indian literature. They existed orally for centuries before being written down (Fig. 5.2 shows a later manuscript). There are four (the book's box): the Ṛigveda — the earliest, with 1,028 hymns (sūktas), some praising deities and others reflecting on creation, birth and death; the Yajurveda — the performance of yajñas and the Ṛigvedic hymns used in them, with prose explanations; the Sāmaveda — Ṛigvedic hymns arranged for musical recitation, a foundation of the seven svaras of Indian music; and the Atharvaveda — hymns to ward off evil and to treat physical and mental ailments. Each Veda has four parts: saṃhitā (hymns for invoking deities and offerings), brāhmaṇa (prose explaining rituals), āraṇyaka (‘forest’ texts of sages' speculation) and upaniṣad (the Self, Ātman, and the Ultimate, Brahman). The earliest Ṛigvedic hymns were composed in the Sapta-Sindhu — the Indus, its five tributaries and the Sarasvatī. Historians read the Vedas for the times and places in which they were composed; the book adds that, given the continuity of cultural practices, they are regarded as foundational to Indian culture.

Early Vedic society was organised in janas (clans) bound by kinship. The Ṛigveda names about thirty janas; five — Yadu, Turvaśa, Puru, Anu and Druhyu — were together the pañchajana (‘five peoples’). The name ‘Bharata’ first appears in the Ṛigveda for the Bharata jana, the people ruled by the Bharata family. The rājā was mainly a clan chief who led in war and protected his people. The Ṛigveda and Atharvaveda mention three assemblies: the sabhā (a smaller body of select elites, mainly judicial), the samiti (a larger assembly on policy and politics, representing the broader population) and the vidatha (a popular gathering of the jana that discussed war and other matters). In the first millennium BCE more settlements appear in the Ganga plains, with iron implements, more varieties of grain and PGW pottery; in the second half of the millennium the middle Ganga region (Prayagraj to eastern Bihar) has the glossy ‘deluxe’ NBPW, and texts speak of more farming, more grain, paddy and iron tools. Between about 1000 and 600 BCE janas became janapadas — ‘where a jana set its feet’ — as identity shifted from kinship to territory, and control of land, farming and trade routes needed more complex administration. Contemporary texts then speak of sixteen mahājanapadas; Magadha (Bihar), with its strategic location, fertile plains and strong rulers, became the most powerful and grew into the Mauryan Empire. The later Vedic centre shifted from the north-west to the Ganga plains; by about 600 BCE northern India had both monarchies (rājyas) and ‘republics’ (gaṇas or saṅghas).

In the Deccan the Mauryas were followed by the Satavāhanas, who in the book's words lasted ‘nearly 500 years’, from the 2nd century BCE to the 3rd century CE. Further south were the Cholas (lower Kaveri valley), Pandyas (Tamraparni and Vaigai valleys), Keralaputras (the Cheras of Kerala) and Satiyaputras (northern Tamil Nadu) — all named in Aśoka's inscriptions. The three ‘crowned kings’ (vendar) of Tamilakam had emblems — tiger (Chola), bow (Chera) and fish (Pandya) — and are known mainly from Sangam literature (300 BCE–300 CE in the book), which also mentions Vedic yajñas and links with the epics; a Chera king won the title adhirāja. These early kingdoms are different from the later imperial Cholas, Cheras and Pandyas. From the 6th century BCE rulers were called rājā, mahārāja or samrāṭ. The book argues that their geopolitical awareness covered the whole subcontinent, expressed in Jambudvīpa, Bhāratavarṣa, the aśvamedha and rājasūya yajñas, pṛthivī and the chakravarti kṣetra. Aśoka speaks of his efforts bringing changes in spiritual life in Jambudvīpa; the Arthaśāstra defines pṛthivī as the land between the Himalayas and the sea and equates it with the chakravarti kṣetra, the domain of a universal ruler. The Sangam Chera king Nedunjeral Ādan is described as carrying his conquests to the Himalayas, and the Chola Rājendra I (11th century) took the title Gaṅgaikoṇḍa after campaigns to the Ganga.

The texts describe the king's duties. Kauṭilya's Arthaśāstra says officers follow an energetic king energetically. The coronation oath in the Yajurveda asks him to judge strong and weak impartially, protect the land from calamities and do good to the people. The Śānti Parva of the Mahābhārata guides rulers on ethics and justice: the king protects subjects from external threats and internal disorder and judges cases such as abduction, robbery, theft and adultery; the book notes severe punishments for serious offences it lists (killing a cow, treachery, drinking liquor), sometimes even death. Kingship was generally hereditary, but there are references to kings being elected or expelled, so royal power was not always absolute. The king ruled through a layered system centred on the mantri-pariṣad, a small council of elder statesmen that usually included the treasurer, the chief tax collector, the chief legal adviser and the commander-in-chief; the book cites an Aśokan inscription for the council's role in the emperor's absence. Kauṭilya saw the state as an organic whole of seven parts — the saptāṅga: svāmī (king), amātya (ministers and officials), janapada (territory with its people), durga (forts), kośa (treasury), daṇḍa (army, law and order) and mitra (allies). The Arthaśāstra's line ‘one wheel does not move the carriage’ sums up the need for cooperation.

Kingdoms were divided into provinces, divisions and districts. The Satavāhana empire had āhāras (divisions) with their amātyas, and villages under a headman, the grāmika. District governors (pradeśikas) handled justice and administration, often after consulting bankers, caravan leaders, artisans and scribes; cities had governors for revenue and order. Between about 300 and 800 CE, the book says, power was decentralised: the rājya was split into provinces (bhuktis in the north, maṇḍalas/maṇḍalams in the south), divisions (viṣaya or bhoga; koṭṭams or valanāḍu), districts (adhiṣṭhāna or paṭṭana; nāḍu), village groups like a modern tahsil (vīthis; paṭṭalā and kūṟṟam) and villages. The Guptas kept much of the older system — the mantri headed civil administration, with the commander-in-chief, the general and the chief of the palace guards; a new sāndhivigrahika (minister of peace and war) appeared; and kumārāmātyas served at local and provincial levels. The Damodarpur copper plates of Kumāragupta I show a five-member district office — head officer, chief banker, chief caravan trader, chief artisan and a fifth official. The Pallavas (c. 275–897 CE) combined monarchy with local government; tax-free brahmadeya villages were a striking feature, and village assemblies worked through committees (variyams) for irrigation, gardens and temples. The Chālukyas of Badami (c. 543–753 CE) followed a similar pattern and granted agrahāras to brāhmaṇa settlements — Aihole and Badami became centres of learning. The Gurjara–Pratihāras (8th–10th centuries) ruled from Kannauj, contested in the ‘tripartite struggle’ with the Pālas and Rāṣṭrakūṭas; all three combined monarchy with decentralised units, the village being largely self-reliant. The imperial Cholas divided their empire into maṇḍalams → valanāḍus → nāḍus → ūrs; village assemblies settled disputes and handled revenue, land, irrigation, roads and records.

The book treats ethics as the base of law and life. The Vedas and epics discuss reality, right conduct and the origin of things; the Bhagavad Gītā stresses knowledge, faith, action, virtue and an ethical life. Samatva (sameness) holds that all bodies are made of the same matter and all consciousness is one supreme consciousness, which the Vedas call satya (true) and ṛta (right); the Mahābhārata has characters of all varṇas upholding samatva, and the epics praise the person and ruler who works ‘for the welfare of all beings’. Ṛta in the Ṛigveda is the all-pervading cosmic order — harmony in nature and society, regulating natural forces and upholding moral values. Dharma, from the root dhṛ (to hold, uphold), here means duty, obligation, righteousness and moral conduct, not religion; Bhīṣma calls it ‘that which upholds beings’, and in the sense of natural law ‘the dharma of iron is to sink and of wood to float’. Buddhism's Pāli dhamma expresses similar ethics. Aśoka's edicts promoted dhamma — moral conduct, family respect, non-violence, compassion; the Uttaramerur rules asked for candidates with honest earnings and a pure mind; Kāmandaka's Nītisāra and Bāṇabhaṭṭa's Kādambarī (often called one of the world's first novels) advise on kingship.

The book: early Vedic texts do not show fixed birth-based status; identity was shaped by ethnicity, region, village, gotra, language and especially occupation, and occupations were flexible. Its evidence is a Ṛigvedic verse (9.112.3) in which the speaker is a poet, his father a physician and his mother a grinder of corn. The earliest mention of the four categories is in the Puruṣasūkta (Book 10 of the Ṛigveda); in time each became tied to roles — brāhmaṇas: studying and teaching the Vedas, yajñas, giving and receiving gifts; rājanya/kṣatriyas: war, protection, justice; vaiśyas: farming, herding, trade; śūdras: assisting the others, though in practice they farmed, herded, traded and made crafts. The book calls the division functional, a scale of values putting knowledge above power and wealth, and cites the Buddhist Sutta Nipāta: one is a brāhmaṇa or an outcaste by deeds, not birth. This flexibility later narrowed. Jātis grew from intermarriage, migrating groups becoming endogamous, and territorial differences; varṇas stayed four, jātis had no limit. The book stresses mobility: rulers came from varied backgrounds (Nandas, Mauryas, Śuṅgas, Satavāhanas, Vākāṭakas, Guptas, Puṣyabhūtis); the Mandsaur inscription (473 CE) tells of silk weavers who moved from Lāṭa (Gujarat) to Daśapura (Madhya Pradesh) and also took up archery and astrology; the Karitalai copper plates (late 5th century) show brāhmaṇas as land managers. The Sangam Tolkappiyam knows a four-fold division — Arasar (kings), Antanar (brāhmaṇas), Vanigar (merchants), Velar (farmers) — premised on occupation, and the Pattinappalai pictures a busy trading society of merchants, salt-makers, fishers, artisans, farmers and warriors. In the family sections: the kula was the smallest unit, linked through the grāma, the viś (under a viśpati) and the jana; later the kula meant a household of kin; the gotra was a patrilineal line from a sage and regulated marriage. Each person had duties by varṇa and āśrama — brahmacharya (student), gṛhastha (householder), vānaprastha (forest life), saṃnyāsa (renunciation) — marked by the sixteen saṃskāras; and four goals, the puruṣārthas — dharma, artha, kāma and mokṣa — with wealth good when guided by dharma.

The book: the Vedic period is ‘often described’ as one of high status for women — they joined scholarly learning, sometimes performed rituals with men, took part in chariot races and attended the sabhā; hymns are attributed to women sages Apālā, Viśvavārā, Ghoṣā and Lopāmudrā; goddesses such as Uṣā (dawn) and Aditi were revered. It quotes Manusmṛti 3.56 — where women are honoured the gods rejoice, where not, rites bear no fruit. Women's position ‘fluctuated, even declined’ over time, yet they kept contributing in households, farming, crafts and religion. Gupta–Vākāṭaka literature shows educated women skilled in the arts; Prabhāvatī Gupta, daughter of Chandragupta II, ruled as regent of the Vākāṭakas and issued land grants; women appear as donors in post-Mauryan votive inscriptions. Sangam poems show women planting, weeding, husking, winnowing, herding, spinning, fishing, making salt and selling garlands, and poets such as Avvaiyār and Veṇṇikkuyattiyār; the Chola queen Sembiyan Mahādevī supported temple building. Religious life: the Vedic pantheon had no rigid hierarchy; different deities are praised as supreme in different hymns; worship was through yajñas, offerings to the sacred fire; deities were linked to nature — sun, rain, fire, earth, dawn — and the book links this to festivals such as Chhath and Makar Sankranti and to respect for nature. From the middle of the first millennium BCE renunciants (parivrājaka, bhikṣu, śramaṇa) appeared; the Buddha and Mahāvīra were the most influential, and the book notes that vānaprastha and saṃnyāsa already carried a renunciatory sense. Worship of personal deities — Viṣṇu, Śiva, Śakti — led to bhakti, a direct path to the divine open to all regardless of class or gender; mentioned in the Mahābhārata, it became an organised movement in the 6th-century Tamil region through the 12 Āḻvārs (Viṣṇu) and 63 Nāyanmārs (Śiva).

The book: education was holistic, cultivating truth, patience, regularity, humility, self-control, purity of self (sattvaśuddhi), a sense of the unity of life and reverence for all beings, and training pupils to live by dharma — duties to parents, teachers and the gods. Students learnt the Vedas, grammar, logic, philosophy, ethics, mathematics, science, medicine and astronomy, and arts and crafts — music, dance, painting, physical education, archery — with yoga, meditation and service to the guru. The guru–śiṣya paramparā was sacred; the teacher's home was the centre of the gurukula and the student lived as family. Before the second millennium CE, centres of higher learning drew students from India and abroad (Fig. 5.10); a vast literature covered philosophy, grammar, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, cooking, agriculture and architecture, and persisted despite political change. The book's literary heritage chart: grammar — Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī, Piṅgala's Chhandaśāstra, Patañjali's Mahābhāṣya; smṛti (dharma, law, ethics) — Manu, Yājñavalkya, Nārada, Viṣṇu; medicine — Charaka and Suśruta saṃhitās; Sanskrit kāvya — Kālidāsa's Raghuvaṃśa and Kumārasambhava; Tamil — Tiruvaḷḷuvar's Tirukkuṟaḷ, the epics Silappadikāram and Maṇimēkalai, and Sangam poems on love (akam) and war and public life (puṟam).

The Mauryan state regulated the economy: village land was divided into holdings with common pastures and groves; forests were cleared for farming but some were protected by law; the basic land tax was a fixed share, generally one-sixth of the produce; land was classified for assessment, and Kauṭilya lists cultivated, fallow, high and dry land, sown fields and groves; crops included rice varieties, pulses, wheat, linseed, mustard, saffron, sugarcane, vegetables and fruit. After the Mauryas farming remained the backbone; the Milindapañho describes eight stages of farm work; expanding Deccan farming probably increased cotton on the black soil; the Amarakośa has a chapter on forests, crops, plants and manure; Sangam texts praise the Chera land's jackfruit, pepper and turmeric and describe ragi and sugarcane. Irrigation was vital: Rudradaman's Junagadh record says Chandragupta's governor Puṣyagupta built a dam on the Sudarśana lake near Girnar; the Cholas built canals, lakes and tanks, and Karikāla's Grand Anicut (Kallanai) is still in use. Trade grew with stable states: the Arthaśāstra says Magadha traded textiles, gems, coral, pearls, metals and minerals; salt was state-regulated; the state guarded routes and fought adulteration. By about the 6th century BCE two great land routes, Uttarāpatha and Dakṣiṇāpatha, linked inland regions with ports, and ports such as Muziris, Kāveripaṭṭinam, Arikameḍu and Masulipaṭnam grew; by the early centuries CE trade with Rome went by sea and over land through Central Asia. Guilds (śreṇīs) of people in the same craft or trade grew after the mahājanapadas, as silver punch-marked coins came into use; the Jātakas mention eighteen kinds; guilds controlled quality, often fixed prices, disciplined members through guild courts, and acted as banks, financiers and trustees. Textiles of silk, cotton, wool and linen flourished at Mathurā, Kāśī and Kāmarūpa.

Three Let's Explore boxes, five Think About It boxes, one Let's Analyse and four Let's Recall boxes (three with questions). Outlines below.

Fourteen questions and activities after a four-point Before we move on summary. Try first, then open.

Numbers

One-liners

• The Vedas are our earliest readable literature: four Vedas, four layers each.
• From kin to land: jana → janapada → mahājanapada → empire.
• Sabhā judged, samiti decided, vidatha gathered — how democratic they were is debated.
• The chakravarti ideal imagined one ruler from the Himalayas to the sea.
• Saptāṅga: seven parts, one state — ‘one wheel does not move the carriage’.
• Provinces, districts, villages: decentralised rule, self-governing villages.
• Uttaramerur: committees chosen by lot from a pot of palm leaves.
• Ṛta is cosmic order; dharma is duty and right conduct.
• Varṇas are four, jātis are many; how fluid they were is debated.
• Guilds set standards, judged members and worked as banks.

Traps to avoid

• Mahājanapadas: 6th–4th century BCE, not ‘600 BCE–300 CE’.
• Faxian was in India c. 401–410 CE, not ‘300–400 CE’.
• The third Vedic assembly is the vidatha (book: ‘vidhata’).
• Damodarpur's fifth member is usually the chief scribe (prathama-kāyastha).
• Imperial Cholas lasted to 1279 CE, not just the 11th century.
• Aśoka's council had to report its debates to him (Rock Edict VI) — not ‘independent’ decisions.
• Brahmadeya = land granted to brāhmaṇas; not a Pallava monopoly.
• Nirukta is a Vedāṅga, not part of the Veda.
• Āḻvārs (12) are Vaiṣṇava; Nāyanmārs (63) are Śaiva.
• UPSC 1994 ‘post-Vedic’: key = puruṣārthas, but the āśrama scheme is also post-Vedic — a debatable key.
• Takṣaśilā: a city of teachers, not a single residential university — positions differ.
• Fig. 5.6's Senas belong to the late 11th century, after 1000 CE.

Prelims — what UPSC asks

• From this chapter: the Vedas and their parts (1980, 1984, 1985, 1988, 1992, 2004), early Vedic religion (2012), dharma and ṛta (2011), Lopāmudrā (1995), varṇa and jāti (1984), kinship terms (1996), the post-Vedic puruṣārthas (1994), Chola village government and Uttaramerur (1980, 1985, 1993), guilds (2012), Sangam society (2022), Charaka (1988).
• Learn term → meaning pairs (sabhā, vidatha, saptāṅga, sāndhivigrahika, brahmadeya, variyam, kuḍavōlai, śreṇī) and source → fact pairs (Junagadh, Uttaramerur, Damodarpur, Mandsaur, Nāśik, Sanchi). Where the book's dates differ from standard ones, use the standard date and know the book's.

Mains — where it appears and how to answer

• GS1: Vedic society and religion and what survives (2023); changes from Ṛigvedic to later Vedic economy and society (2024); Sangam literature as a social source (2013); Takṣaśilā vs Nālandā (2014); continuity of Indian civilisation (2015). Use the ladder (kin → territory), the source boxes and the positions boxes.
• For varṇa, women and education, give the book's evidence and the textual-norms evidence side by side, with authors; avoid one-sided verdicts.

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

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