During the Mauryan Age, the social structure crystallised and rigidities of the caste system became a permanent feature. Buddhism could not effectively keep in check the superior position of the Brahmins and they continued to play a leading role in the society and polity of the age.
The impetus which Asoka’s imperial propaganda had given to Buddhism was continued after him by other royal patrons and by the zeal of pious missionaries.
This led to the firm establishment of Buddhism within India and its expansion in the regions of East and South-east Asia. Buddhism thus became definitely a world religion, while Jainism under similar influences was transformed into an all-India cult.
In the course of these great movements within the fold of Indian society, the situation was somewhat complicated by the influx of large hordes of foreigners with altogether alien social and cultural standards.
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The first reactions to these changes are seen in the gloomy prophecies of universal decay and dissolution that we come across in contemporary Brahmanical works. And yet, in this age of seeming social collapse were sown the seeds of a great revival. Brahmanism, to begin with, far from being engulfed by the onrushing waves of the rival faiths, girded itself for a fresh struggle and an eventual triumph.
While its body of social and religious laws was systematised in the great Smritis of Manu and Yajnavalkya, its extensive circle of myths, legends and fables, and its entire code of individual and social ethics were incorporated into the epic story of the Mahabharata so as to give that work in its present form an authority rivaling that of the Vedas.
Brahmanism, again, found in some of the ruling houses of northern India and the Deccan zealous patrons who upheld its social and religious practices; while in the South it won for itself honoured places in contemporary society.
At the same time, therefore, when the reform movements of Buddhism and Jainism during this age reached their culmination, the Brahmanical counter-reformation strengthened itself to meet its two rivals with success. Simultaneously, the problem created by the settlement of foreigners en masse was solved by the rapidity and completeness with which they were assimilated into the Indian social system.
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There was yet another development which, like those just mentioned stamps this age with the seal of creativity. Though the rise of towns on an extensive scale may be traced back long before this period, a new social type, namely the city-bred man of fashion, portrayed in the Kamasutra of Vatsyayana, seems only now to have come into his own.