Give an account of the Society during the Post- Mauryan Period

The post-Mauryan period in India marks a crisis in India’s social history. Buddhism with state support had become a world religion and Jainism was transformed into an all-India cult. The situation was complicated by the influx of large hoards of foreigners with altogether alien social and cultural practices.

The growth of arts, crafts and trade resulted in attaining changed social status by the vaishyas and shudras. The first reactions to these changes are seen in the gloomy prophesies of universal decay and dissolution that are met with in the brahmanical works. This is known as the kali age.

This age is significant for many far reaching changes in the traditional concept of varna; and this change is reflected in the concept and system of jati. Jatis emerged within the varna system through fragmentation, consolidation (of artisans and shr’enis) as well as the incorporation of tribal and foreign communities within a structure which regulated hierarchy through marriage rules and endogamy.

Privileged heredity or birth in a particular lineage, leading to the use of the term jati for indicating membership in a particular community. In this sense, the varnas were extended to provide the institutional and ideological base for the growth of a wider society.

The earliest use of jati in connection with a Varna is found in the Nirukta which speaks of a woman of a shudra jati. By the time of Panini, the shudra Varna was divided into aninvasita and niravasita. The second category included chandalas and mritapas.

Around second century BC concepts of vratya and varnasamkara were invented because of the assimilation of widely divergent social, economic and cultural groups. These two concepts largely contributed to the formation of separate jatis due to non-performance of the sacred duty (vratya) or because of the mixed marriages of original founder couples {varnasamkara). These theoretical devices, it is believed, were highly successful in extending the Varna system into the jati system.

In recent years, the differences between the Varna and jati have amply been shown. Jati generally operates at the local level whereas the Varna system remains the same all over India. Further, theoretically the varnas are divided on the basis of their functions, but the jati hierarchy is organised on the principle of the absolute purity of the brahmana caste and the relative impurity of all other castes.

Varnas are broad categories subsuming within them a large number of jatis in a rather loose fashion. Despite all their differences these two sets of identities have often been used interchangeably probably since the time of Panini.

The vratya and varnasamkara concepts seem to have led to a dilution or modification of the Varna concepts particularly in the early historical period. The notions of vaishya and shudra Varna acquired new meanings which favoured a shift from the relative purity of function to relative purity of birth implied in the transition from Varna to jati.

Within the vaishya and brahmana varnas, territorial and occupational differences played a major role in the emergence of segmented identities as castes ranked within these categories generally emphasize their specialisation in a particular craft or tradition of learning or their territorial affiliation. Adoption in the Kshatriya Varna was necessitated by the arrival of new ruling and powerful groups, foreign as well as indigenous, which required constant adjustments.

The process of evolution of jatis under the broad categories of varnas acquired a new dimension in the post-Mauryan period. The chief characteristic of the jati system was the crisis in the old order and the lawgiver’s desperation to preserve brahmanical society, not only by ordaining rigorous measures against the shudras, but also by inventing suitable genealogies for the incorporation of foreign elements into varna society.

Manu reaffirms the old theory that the king shoukLcompel a vaishya to trade, to lend money, to cultivate land or to tend cattle, and a shudra to serve the three upper varnas. But in the chapter on times of distress (apad-dharm) the service was to be mainly reserve for the brahmanas and kshatriyas. The Yuga Purana informs us that during this period, even women took to ploughing.

Manu lays down that, if in times of distress the vaishya cannot support himself by his own occupations he should take to the occupations of the shudras. This shows that the distinction between the functions of the vaishyas and the shudras was being gradually obliterated. However, unlike the vaishyas, the shudras do not appear as peasants, paying taxes to the state. It is because there is no evidence of the existence of independent shudra peasants. It seems that shudras were mostly employed as agricultural workers.

Artisans and craftsmen were largely drawn from the shudra category. These artisans and craftsmen were organised in guilds. Consequently they became wealthy and rose in status. However, since they were mostly located in towns and cities the general condition of the shudras remained the same; and possibly they sometimes refused to perform their duties. To prevent this situation, the dharmashastra writers suggested measures of both coercion and concessions. No doubt the Satavahanas declared themselves to have been the restorer of varnashramadharma.