Social Life and Religious Ideas 6th Century BCE onwards
— A Period of Social Complexity, Codification, and Hierarchy
Urbanisation and Social Complexity
As towns and cities emerged across the Gangetic plains and other regions, society too began to evolve—becoming more layered, diverse, and complex.
Cities became crossroads—not just of goods, but of people, professions, ideas, and beliefs.
- Markets and crafts brought people from different regions, tribes, and linguistic backgrounds together.
- This urban mingling challenged the older, rural, Vedic social norms.
👉 How did the Brahmanas respond to this changing social world?
They codified social behaviour through Sanskrit legal texts, giving rise to two major categories:
📚 Dharmasutras and Dharmashastras – the backbone of Brahmanical law
Varna-Based Stratification: From Fluidity to Rigidity
From flexibility in the early Vedic period to a fixed hierarchy in the post-Vedic period
Society was now explicitly divided into four Varnas, each with assigned duties, justified through religious narratives.
🧩 The Four Varnas:
| Varna | Role in Society | Key Features |
| Brahmanas | Priests, scholars, ritual experts | Highest status; exempt from tax and punishment |
| Kshatriyas | Warriors, rulers, administrators | Governed the state; lived on peasants’ taxes |
| Vaishyas | Farmers, herders, traders | Economic backbone; principal taxpayers |
| Shudras | Servants, labourers | Excluded from Vedic education; performed manual tasks |
⚠️ The Brahmanas promoted the myth that Shudras were born from the feet of the Creator, justifying their marginalisation and untouchability.
🔒 Restrictions on Shudras and Women:
- Denied Vedic education
- Kept away from rituals, food-sharing, and intermarriage with higher varnas
- Reduced to roles like agricultural slaves, servants, and labourers
Emergence of Jati: Flexibility within Rigidity
While varna was fixed at four, social reality was more complex. Hence, Brahmanical thinkers introduced the concept of Jati.
What is Jati?
- Jatis were birth-based social groups, not limited to four.
- Formed when new tribes, professions, or ethnicities didn’t fit into the varna model.
📌 Examples of Jatis:
| Group | Category |
| Nishadas | Forest-dwelling tribes |
| Mlechchhas | People speaking non-Sanskrit languages |
| Suvarnakara | Goldsmiths |
💡 Thus, Jatis served as a flexible mechanism to accommodate social diversity within the hierarchical framework.
🧶 Jatis and Shrenis:
- Many occupational jatis (weavers, potters, smiths) were organised into guilds (shrenis)
- While based on shared craft, some members adopted other roles, showing limited social mobility
🏛 Guild Loyalty & Collective Identity:
- An inscription from Mandasor (5th century CE) mentions silk weavers who:
- Migrated from Lata (Gujarat)
- Invested their collective wealth in building a temple to the Sun God
- This reveals strong collective ethos and religious patronage from artisan communities
Codification of Social Duties: Dharmasutras and Dharmashastras
To legitimise this hierarchy, Brahmanical scholars composed detailed rulebooks for society, known as Dharmasutras and Dharmashastras.
📘 Dharmasutras:
- Belong to Kalpasutra category of the Vedangas
- Classed as Smriti (remembered knowledge)
- Focused on:
- Interpersonal duties (varna-based)
- Family law, inheritance, kinship
- Relations with the state and caste norms
- Famous authors: Gautama, Baudhayana, Apastamba, Vashishtha
📙 Dharmashastras:
- Expanded upon the Dharmasutras
- Provided a philosophical basis for social order, linking Dharma to Rita (cosmic moral law)
- Manusmriti (by Manu) was the most influential
- Other examples: Yajnavalkya Smriti, Parashara Smriti, Narada Smriti
🕰️ Chronology:
| Text | Time Period |
| Dharmasutras | ~500 BCE onwards |
| Manusmriti | ~200 BCE – 200 CE |
| Yajnavalkya Smriti, etc. | ~300–600 CE |
Purusharthas: Philosophy of Life Goals
While social control was strict, ancient Indian philosophy also offered a framework for individual purpose—called Purusharthas.
🧘 The Purusharthas are the four aims of human life, representing both material and spiritual goals:
| Purushartha | Meaning |
| Dharma | Righteousness; moral duties in accordance with cosmic order (Rita) |
| Artha | Wealth, material success |
| Kama | Desire, pleasure, emotional fulfillment |
| Moksha | Liberation from the cycle of rebirth (ultimate goal) |
📌 This model shaped both individual conduct and social expectations, becoming central to Hindu ethical thinking.
The Dharmashastric Social Order: Structured by Birth, Not Deed
The Dharmasutras and Dharmashastras, composed primarily by Brahmanas, served as instruction manuals on how society should ideally function.
🎯 Their central concern was to preserve ritual purity, maintain varna hierarchy, and establish a birth-based, hereditary order.
⚖️ Social Categorisation:
| Varna | Ideal Duty (Dharma) |
| Brahmanas | Teaching and learning the Vedas, conducting rituals, receiving gifts |
| Kshatriyas | Warfare, justice, governance, sacrifices |
| Vaishyas | Agriculture, cattle rearing, trade, Vedic rituals |
| Shudras | Service to higher varnas; excluded from education, rituals |
🧬 The basis of status? Not karma, but janma (birth) — a belief reinforced through stories, rituals, and texts.
Untouchability: Sanctioned Marginalisation
Certain groups were excluded not just from varna society but from human dignity itself.
❌ Who were these “Untouchables”?
- Chandalas (cremators), Nishadas (forest dwellers), handlers of dead animals, and some craft workers.
- They were not even assigned a varna, instead labelled as “avarna” or outside the fold altogether.
📜 Manusmriti’s diktat:
- Live outside the village
- Use discarded utensils, wear clothes of the dead
- Banned from city entry at night
- Perform executions and dispose of unclaimed corpses
⚠️ Their touch, presence, even visibility was considered polluting — the very logic of exclusion institutionalised.
Unequal Law: Civil and Criminal Bias by Varna
The laws laid out in the Dharmashastras were deeply biased — not all crimes were treated equally.
| Situation | Treatment |
| Shudra insults Brahmana | Severe punishment |
| Brahmana insults Shudra | Mild or no punishment |
⚖️ Law was not blind — it was caste-sensitive and deeply hierarchical.
Gotra and Marriage: Ritual Lineage and Social Control
From 1000 BCE onwards, people began to be classified into gotras — lineages tracing descent from Vedic seers.
Two key rules:
- Exogamy – No marriage within the same gotra
- Patrilineal gotra adoption – Women adopted their husband’s gotra after marriage
👰 Types of Marriage: 8 Recognised Forms
| Type | Description | Status |
| Brahma | No gifts, family-arranged match | Ideal |
| Daiva | Bride given to priest | Accepted |
| Arsha | Groom gives symbolic gifts (cow, bull) | Accepted |
| Prajapatya | Mutual consent-based | Accepted |
| Gandharva | Love marriage | Condemned |
| Asura | Marriage by purchase | Condemned |
| Rakshasa | Marriage by abduction | Condemned |
| Paishacha | Without consent (immoral seduction) | Condemned |
💡 The first four were considered ‘pure’ Brahmanical forms, while the last four were practices of non-Brahmanical communities, showing the Brahmanas’ attempt to regulate evolving social customs.
Inheritance and Wealth: Gender Inequity Legalised
👨 For men:
- Equal inheritance among sons; eldest received a special share
- Could gain wealth via: inheritance, conquest, work, investment, gifts
👩 For women:
- Excluded from paternal inheritance
- Could own stridhana – gifts from relatives at marriage, or as tokens of affection
⚠️ Women were granted no independent legal claim over wealth or property.
Brahmanical Strategies to Enforce Social Norms
📘 How were these rules made to appear divine, unchallengeable, and universal?
| Strategy | Example |
| 1. Divine origin of varna | Purusha Sukta – Brahmana from head, Shudra from feet |
| 2. Kings as enforcers | Rulers were advised to uphold caste norms |
| 3. Status by birth | Your janma fixed your dharma and your place in society |
| 4. Stories and Epics | Mahabharata and other texts used as ideological tools |
Resistance and Realities: Cracks in the Brahmanical Order
The Dharmashastra worldview was not universal. Many real-life examples defied the rules:
| Norm | Violation |
| Only Kshatriyas can be kings | Shungas and Kanvas were Brahmanas |
| Gotra exogamy mandatory | Satavahana queens practiced gotra endogamy |
| Women must adopt husband’s gotra | Some queens retained father’s gotra |
| Brahmanas above Kshatriyas | Buddhist and Jain texts reversed the order |
🧭 These examples prove that Brahmanical codes were aspirational, not actual. Society was diverse, and alternate ideas and structures coexisted, especially in heterodox traditions.
Emergence of New Religious Ideas: 6th Century BCE as a Philosophical Turning Point
This period is globally significant. Across civilizations, new philosophical and ethical systems emerged, challenging older, ritualistic, hierarchical belief structures.
| Region | Thinker | Philosophy |
| India | Mahavira, Gautama Buddha | Jainism, Buddhism |
| China | Confucius (Kong Zi), Laozi | Confucianism, Daoism |
| Iran | Zarathustra | Zoroastrianism |
| Greece | Socrates, Plato, Aristotle | Rational Philosophy, Ethics |
🧭 This was not a coincidence but a civilizational need: Agrarian states were expanding, old tribal norms were breaking down, cities and surplus economies were emerging — people needed new answers to existential, social, and ethical questions.
Religious Ferment in India: The Context
By the 6th century BCE:
- Varna system had ossified into a rigid caste hierarchy
- Brahmanical rituals were expensive, exclusive, and male-dominated
- Common people (especially Shudras, women, and forest dwellers) were excluded from spiritual participation
⚠️ Against this exclusion and ritualism, rose a wave of heterodox thinkers questioning Vedic orthodoxy and advocating personal morality, renunciation, and ethical conduct.
Jainism and Buddhism: The Two Major Heterodox Paths
Among the 64 sects mentioned in Buddhist texts, Jainism and Buddhism emerged as the most influential due to:
- Organised community structure (sangha)
- Appeal to logic and ethics
- Accessible teachings (in Prakrit & Pali, not Sanskrit)
- Open monasticism for men and women
- Focus on karma, rebirth, and individual liberation (moksha/nirvana)
| Feature | Jainism | Buddhism |
| Founder | Mahavira (24th Tirthankara) | Gautama Buddha |
| Emphasis | Ahimsa (non-violence), asceticism | Middle Path, Noble Eightfold Path |
| Language | Ardhamagadhi Prakrit | Pali |
| Liberation | Through self-effort and non-violence | Through wisdom, ethical conduct, and meditation |
| God | Atheistic | Non-theistic |
🧘 These philosophies opened spiritual opportunities for lower castes, women, and householders, unlike Vedic paths limited to dvija varnas (twice-born males).
Kutagarashala: The Democratic Intellectual Arena
🛖 What was the Kutagarashala?
Literally, “pointed-roof huts” — makeshift assembly shelters or forest groves where itinerant teachers debated the nature of truth, karma, moksha, and dharma.
🧠 These were public intellectual spaces — a kind of proto-university system — where logic, argumentation, and dialogue (shastrartha) were tools for spiritual persuasion.
| Feature | Importance |
| Open to all sects | Promoted pluralism of thought |
| Teacher-led | Encouraged philosophical mobility – students could switch allegiance |
| Topics | Karma, rebirth, suffering, soul, ethics |
| Outcome | Sectarian fluidity, dynamic doctrinal development |
🧩 The Kutagarashala model underlines the pluralistic and argumentative culture of ancient Indian religion — faith was earned, not inherited.
Taxila: The Crossroads of Knowledge and Empire
🏛️ Taxila: India’s Ancient Cosmopolitan University
| Period | Political Control |
| 6th BCE | Achaemenid Empire (Persia) |
| 326 BCE | Alexander’s conquest |
| 317 BCE | Mauryan annexation |
| 200–80 BCE | Indo-Greek and Indo-Scythian rule |
| ~30 CE | Kushana Empire (Buddhist phase) |
| ~5th CE | Destroyed by Hunas |
💡 Key Features of Taxila:
- Multidisciplinary education – from Vedic scriptures to Buddhist philosophy, grammar to medicine, politics to art
- Followed gurukul model – one-on-one mentorship
- Linked to trade routes, attracting students across India and Central Asia
- Evolved from Brahmanical-Vedic seat to a Buddhist hub
🎓 Legendary Teachers of Taxila:
| Name | Discipline | Contribution |
| Panini | Sanskrit Grammar | Ashtadhyayi – earliest descriptive grammar in the world |
| Charaka | Medicine | Charaka Samhita – foundational Ayurvedic text |
| Jivaka | Medicine | Physician to Buddha; treated kings and monks alike |
| Chanakya (Kautilya) | Political Science | Arthashastra – text on statecraft, economy, espionage |
🌏 Taxila was not just a city — it was India’s intellectual crossroads, reflecting the pan-Asian spread of Indian thought.
Panini: The Scientific Genius of Sanskrit
Panini’s Ashtadhyayi is not just a grammar — it’s a mathematical masterpiece:
- Uses rules (sutras) and meta-rules
- 3959 rules compressed using algebra-like brevity
- Preceded modern linguistic ideas by 2000+ years
- Foundation for all future Sanskrit commentaries:
- Mahabhashya by Patanjali (2nd BCE)
- Kasika Vritti by Jayaditya-Vamana (7th CE)
🧠 Panini’s work influenced computer linguistics and is studied even in AI/natural language processing today.