DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

CHAPTER VI
THE RISE OF MAGADHA
6.1. New institutions and sources.
6.2. Tribes and kingdoms.
6.3. Kosala and Magadha.
6.4. Destruction of tribal power.
6.5. New religions.
6.6. Buddhism.
6.7. Appendix : Punch-marked coins.
THE organization which had enabled
the Aryans to wipe out an ancient urban civilization on the Indus also
made it possible for them to penetrate the wilderness to the east. The
new, recoinbined society with two main castes gave them the labour
power of the sudra. Without the equivalent, it would not have been
profitable to clear the land for pasture and for the plough. The
further differentiation of the upper caste into caste-classes increased
surplus production without the force and vigilance required in a slaveholding
society, as in Greece or Rome. By the seventh century B. c.,
Indian settlements extended in a long uneven strip from Punjab to Bihar,
decidedly heterogeneous in types of population or degree of
advancement, but with enough of a common language and tradition to
permit considerable trade and cultural intercourse. Nevertheless, just
those social relations within the tribe that had made the first settlements
possible had at this stage turned into fetters which had to be broken
before society could advance to a higher level. The necessary steps
towards a remarkable new type of society were taken between 520 B. c.
(Bimbisara’s conquest of Anga) and 360 B. c. (Mahapadma Nanda’s