This next series will focus on Ancient India and the changes from a period of competing Kingdoms in the 6th century BC, to the Mauryan Empire of the 4th century. This first part will focus on the period of the Mahajanapada.
The area of Northern India, in the 6th-5th centuries BC, was a region comprised of fairly small but powerful states known as the Mahajanapadas. These states, of which there were sixteen, were mostly situated along the Indus and Ganges rivers. They varied in size and power and possessed a number of institutions. For example, whilst most of the Mahajanapada were monarchic kingdoms, a number were governed by oligarchic republics; though these too were lead by a King (a position, in this case, similar to that of a Roman Consul or a Punic Shofet). The most prominent of these ‘republics’ was the Vrijji Confederacy, a state North of the Lower Ganges, which remained one of the most powerful Mahajanapada until it’s conquest in 400 BC by Maghada.
Maghada, from which the future Nanda Empire would emerge, was a Kingdom south of Vrijji on a fertile confluence of the Ganges. The territory possessed significant resources, enabling Maghada to gain a powerful military and economy. In the early 6th century BC, Maghada vied with three other powerful states; the Vrijji Confederacy, Kossala, and Anga. However, in the 560’s BC, Maghada was able to conquer Anga, following a marriage alliance with Kossala, under King Binbisara, forming the first Maghadan Empire.
Along the Indus, the most significant states were the Gandharan Empire, centred on Taxila and Pushkalavati in Punjab, and the Kambojas, who were probably an Iranian people with links to Bactria and who straddled the Hindu Kush mountains. These two, due to their strategic position along the ‘great northern road’ (known as the Khorasan highway in the near east), dominated the east/west trade routes and were as such economically prosperous. Taxila was similarly regarded as a great education centre throughout India, and as such, received the powerful men of the other Mahajanapada at the university there (this included many of Buddha’s associates). However, by 518 BC, these regions, along with the other Indus states, were conquered by the Achaemenid Empire, expanding eastwards from Iran. The Kambojas were likely conquered by Cyrus the great as he is said to have captured Kapisa, a strategically important Kamboja city that controlled the Kush passes. The final conquest of Gandhara however, likely occurred under Darius I in 518.
Join us next time for a look at the Axial age religions, the Imperial pressures of this conquest and the formation of the Nanda Empire.
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