Social Changes
Little change can be traced in the mode of house-building and the style of dress. In regard to dietary, the eating of meat was being looked upon with disfavor. New forms of social entertainment had come into existence. We have references to the Sailusha or actor, and gathas or verses were sung by the lute-players (vinagathin) at great public festivals to the accompaniment of musical instruments which were sometimes furnished with a hundred strings (sata-tantu). Such gathas foreshadow the “songs of victory” which developed into the Great Epic.
In regard to the position of women, there was hardly any improvement. Daughters were regarded as a source of misery. Women could not go to the tribal council or assembly (Sabha), neither could they take an inheritance. Married women of the upper classes had often to suffer the presence of rival wives. The lot of queens was specially unenviable in this respect. While some of them, e.g. the mahishi or chief queen, and the vavata or the favourite, were loved and honoured, others like the parivrikti were admittedly neglected. But they continued to have their share in religious rites. The education which some of them received was of a high order, as it enabled them to take a prominent part in philosophical disputations at royal courts. The rules of marriage underwent a change towards greater rigidity, and there were instances of child marriage.
As regards class distinction, changes of far-reaching importance were taking place. The two higher classes, namely the Brahmana and the Kshatriya, enjoyed privileges denied to the VaiSudra. The latter could be “oppressed at will.” Different modes of address were laid down for the four castes. Change of caste was becoming difficult, if not impossible, but the higher classes were still free to intermarry with the lower orders, though marriage with Sudras was not much approved. The life of a member of the higher castes was now rigidly regulated. The Chandogya Upanishad makes pointed reference to three stages, that of the householder engaged in sacrifice, study and charity, that of the hermit who practised austerity, and that of the Brahmacharin who dwelt with his Acharya or teacher. The power and prestige of the Brahmanas had increased immensely. But though the priest claimed to be a god on earth and the protector of the realm, and the same individual might be the Purohita of several kingdoms, there was no pope to oppose the king. The Brahmana claim to supremacy was now and then contested by the Kshatriya, and we have declarations to the effect that the Kshatriya had no superior and that the priest was only a follower of the king. The great community of ordinary freemen was splitting up into small functional groups and we have references, in addition to those engaged in agricultural and pastoral pursuits, to the merchant, the chariot-maker, the smith, the carpenter, the tanner, the fisherman, etc., as names of distinct castes. Some of them were sinking in social estimation, and in a Brahmana passage a carpenter’s touch is said to impart ceremonial impurity. The Sudra, too, was regarded as impure and was not allowed to touch the milk needed for oblations to the Fire-God. The gulf separating him from the humbler freeman was, however, becoming narrower. He was not infrequently grouped with the Vaisya, and the two together were set against the priest and the noble. The right of the Sadra to live and prosper was gradually recognised and prayers were even uttered for his glory. The ranks of Sudras were constantly swelled by the admission of new aboriginal tribes into the Aryan polity.
Outside the regular castes stood two important bodies of men, namely, the Vratyas and the Nishadas. The Vratyas were probably Aryans outside the pale of Brahmanism. They did not observe Brahmanic rules, spoke some Prakritic language and led a nomadic life. They appear to have had some special connection with the people of Magadha and the cult of Siva and of the “Arhats.” they were permitted to become members of the Brahmianical community by the performance of some prescribed rites.
The Nishadas were clearly a non-Aryan people who lived in their own villages and had their own rulers (Sthapati). They were probably identical with the modern Bhils.
Economic Condition
The people, including even men of wealth, still lived mostly in villages, but the amenities of city life were no longer unknown. In certain villages peasant proprietors, working in their own fields, were being replaced by a class of landlords who obtained, possession of entire villages. Transfer of land, however, did not meet with popular approval during this epoch, and allotments could only be made with the consent of clansmen.
Agriculture continued to be one of the principal occupations of the people. Considerable improvement was effected in agricultural implements, and new kinds of grain and fruit trees were grown on the soil. But the cultivator was not free from trouble, and an Upanishad passage refers to a hailstorm or a swarm of locusts that sadly afflicted the land of the Kurus and forced many people to leave the country. Trade and industry flourished. A class of hereditary merchants (vanija) came into being. There was inland trade with the Kiratas inhabiting the mountains, who apparently exchanged the drugs which they dug up on the high ridges for clothes, mattresses, and skins. The sea was known intimately, and the mention of the legend of the flood in the Satapatha Brahmana is taken by some authorities to point to intercourse with Babylon. Commerce was facilitated by the use of convenient units of value like the nishka, the satamana, and the krishnala, but it is doubtful if these had acquired all the characteristics of a regular coinage. The nishka, formerly a necklet, was now probably a lump of gold possessing a definite weight equal to three hundred and twenty ratis (1 rati = 18 grams), which was also the weight of a satamana. A krishnala weighed one rati, that is, 1.8 grains. Merchants were probably organised into guilds, as appears from references to ganas or corporations and the sreshthins or aldermen.
The variety of industrial occupations was remarkable. Specialisation had gone far. The chariot-maker was distinguished from the carpenter, the maker of the bows from the maker of the bow-strings and of arrows, the tanner from the hide-dresser or furrier. Women took part in industrial life a makers of embroidered garments,workers in thorns, dyers, etc.
