New Beginnings: Cities and States

Why This Matters

Look at the name of your town or city. Now here is something surprising. Some of India’s cities are about 2,500 years old. People have been living in them, without stopping, for that long.

Cities like Rajgir, Mathura, Varanasi and Ujjain were big, busy cities even in ancient times. They had high walls, busy markets, and rulers who collected taxes. And many of them are still alive and busy today.

But here is the strange part of the story. India once had great cities — the Harappan cities — and then they were lost. For about a thousand years after that, India had almost no cities at all. People lived only in small villages.

Then, slowly, cities came back. New states and kingdoms grew. Coins were used for the first time. This big change is the story of this chapter. We will see how empty land turned into busy cities and powerful states all over again.

The Big Idea

Long ago, India’s first cities — the Harappan cities — disappeared. For about a thousand years after that, India had no cities, only villages. Then, in the 1st millennium BCE (the years from 1000 BCE to 1 BCE), cities grew once more, mostly along the Ganga plains. This second return of cities is called the Second Urbanisation (“urban” just means to do with towns and cities). At the same time, people formed small states called janapadas, which slowly joined into 16 bigger states called mahajanapadas. Better iron tools grew more food, extra food fed traders and craftspeople, growing trade brought the first coins, and all of this made cities grow. Some of these states were ruled by a single king (a kingdom), while a few were ruled by an assembly that voted (an early republic). This was a time of huge change that shaped India for thousands of years.

Let’s Break It Down

We will follow the story in order. First, how cities came back after a long gap. Then how small states grew into big ones. Then why the cities grew. Then the two ways these states were ruled. And finally, how society was organised and how the great roads tied India together. Let us begin.

How cities came back — the Second Urbanisation

To understand this chapter, we first need to remember what came before it.

So after about 1900 BCE, India lost its cities. For roughly a thousand years, there were almost no cities. People lived in villages and small groups. There were no crowded markets, no city walls, no large rulers — at least, not the way there had been before.

Then, in the 1st millennium BCE (after 1000 BCE), cities began to grow again. This time they grew mostly in the Ganga plains in the north, and slowly spread to other parts of India. Because cities were returning for a second time in India’s history, historians call this the Second Urbanisation of India. (“Urbanisation” just means towns and cities growing up.)

How do we even know all this happened so long ago? From two main kinds of clues:

1. Archaeology. This is the study of old things dug up from the ground — old walls, pots, coins, tools. Diggings have found the remains of these ancient cities, so we know they were real.
2. Old writings. Old books — like late Vedic, Buddhist and Jain writings — talk about these cities by name. So we have both the ground evidence and the written evidence.

This timeline puts the whole story in order. Figure 4.1 below shows where this new age of cities sits compared to the Harappans.

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Janapadas grow into mahajanapadas

So who built these new states? Let us see how they began.

As people settled down, they formed clans — large family groups who shared the same language and the same customs. (A clan is just a big group of related families who feel they belong together.) Each clan came to control a piece of land. This land was called a janapada.

The word janapada is a Sanskrit word. It means “where the people (jana) have set foot (pada)” — in other words, the land where a group of people have settled down. Each janapada was led by a ruler called a raja.

Now, over time, these janapadas grew. Trade between them increased. Roads connected them. By around the 8th or 7th centuries BCE (that is, around 700–800 BCE), some of these smaller states joined together. The bigger states that resulted were called mahajanapadas. The word simply means “great janapadas” (maha means “great” or “big”).

Old texts give slightly different lists, but the most common list names 16 mahajanapadas. They stretched from Gandhara in the north-west, to Anga in the east, and down to Ashmaka in central India near the Godavari river.

The four most powerful of these states were Magadha, Kosala, Vatsa and Avanti. Figure 4.2 below shows where these 16 states lay.

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Notice in Figure 4.2 how most of the dots are squeezed into the Ganga plains. That is not by accident — and the next section explains why.

Most of these mahajanapadas had a large capital city. (A capital is the main city of a state, where the ruler lives and rules from.) These capitals were well-defended. They had thick walls all around, called ramparts. Outside the wall was a moat — a wide, deep ditch full of water, to stop attackers from reaching the wall.

The gateways through the wall were kept narrow on purpose. Why narrow? So that guards could easily check everyone going in or out, and control the flow of people and goods. A wide-open gate would be hard to guard. A narrow one is easy.

Figure 4.3 below shows what one of these capital cities looked like, with all its parts labelled.

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And here is something wonderful. Most of these 2,500-year-old capitals are still living cities today. The same spots where people built walls and markets long ago are still busy towns now.

What made the cities grow — surplus, iron, trade and coins

Now the big “why” question. Cities don’t just appear. Something has to make them possible. What was it?

The answer is a chain of events, where one thing led to the next. Let us walk through it slowly.

Step one: iron tools. A huge new technology appeared — iron. People learned to take iron out of rock and shape it into tools. (Before this, the best metal tools were made of bronze, which is softer.)

Why did iron matter so much? Iron is harder and sharper than bronze. So iron made better ploughs and axes. (A plough is the tool that cuts and turns the soil so seeds can be planted.) With strong iron tools, farmers could clear thick forests and dig the soil more easily. So they could farm much more land.

Step two: surplus food. Because farmers could now grow more, they grew more food than they needed. Extra food, left over after everyone has eaten, is called a surplus. (For example, if a family grows 100 bags of grain but only needs 70 to eat, the extra 30 bags are their surplus.)

Step three: people freed for other jobs. Here is the magic of surplus food. If a few farmers can grow enough food for everybody, then not everyone has to farm. Other people are now free to do different work — making pots, weaving cloth, working iron, building, and trading. These people can live in towns and buy their food instead of growing it.

Step four: trade grows. With many different goods being made — pots, cloth, metal tools, ornaments — people began to buy and sell more. Goods travelled from one region to another. This buying and selling is called trade, and it grew quickly.

Step five: coins. Growing trade had a problem. How do you pay? Swapping a bag of grain for a pot is clumsy. So people invented coins — small pieces of metal used as money. India’s first coins were made of silver, with little symbols punched into them, so they are called punch-marked coins. Usually each mahajanapada made its own coins, but coins from one area were used in others too.

All five of these together — better tools, extra food, many jobs, busy trade, and coins — made cities grow. Figure 4.4 below shows this whole chain at a glance.

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Let us put one part of this in a worked example, so the reasoning sticks.

Two ways to rule — kingdoms and republics

These mahajanapadas were not all ruled the same way. There were two different systems. This is one of the most interesting parts of the chapter.

First, let us recall an old idea, because it matters here.

Now, the two systems:

1. Kingdoms (monarchies). In many mahajanapadas, the raja (king) was the top authority. He had the final say. He was helped by ministers and an assembly of elders, but he was the one in charge. The king’s job was to collect taxes (a share of people’s income, paid to the state), keep law and order, build strong walls around the capital, and keep an army to defend the land or to fight neighbours. Importantly, the position was hereditary — that means it passed down within the family, so the next king was usually the king’s son. Magadha, Kosala and Avanti were powerful kingdoms.

2. Republics (gana-sanghas). A few mahajanapadas worked very differently. In states like Vajji (also spelt Vijji) and Malla, the assembly held the real power. The members would discuss important matters, and if they could not agree, they would vote. Most surprising of all — the assembly even chose the raja! These states were called gana-sanghas (also called ganas or sanghas).

Because the ruler was chosen and big decisions were taken by a group through discussion and voting, scholars call these gana-sanghas early republics. (A republic is a state where the people, or their chosen representatives, hold power, rather than a single all-powerful king.) These were some of the earliest republics anywhere in the world.

Figure 4.5 below shows the two systems side by side.

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Let us compare the two systems clearly in a table.

Question	Kingdom (monarchy)	Republic (gana-sangha)
Who has the final say?	One king (the raja)	The assembly, as a group
How are big decisions made?	The king decides	By discussion and, if needed, voting
How is the ruler chosen?	Inherited — usually the king's son	Chosen by the assembly
Who holds the real power?	One person at the top	Many members together
Examples	Magadha, Kosala, Avanti	Vajji, Malla

It is worth being honest here. We only have a few old texts about these very ancient times, and they are incomplete. So while we know the gana-sanghas voted and chose rulers, we cannot be sure of every detail. Historians are careful not to claim more than the evidence shows.

New ideas, society and the great roads

This age was a time of huge change. Many new things appeared together.

New ideas. New schools of thought grew — late Vedic, Buddhist and Jain teachings in particular. Monks, nuns and travelling scholars carried these ideas across India. Indian art also began to bloom and would grow even richer later.

Iron for war too. Iron did not just help farming. It also made better weapons — swords, spears and arrows that were lighter and sharper than bronze ones. So there is some evidence of wars between neighbouring mahajanapadas (though we cannot tell how often). Sometimes neighbours also formed alliances (agreements to help each other). Over time, these wars and alliances would give rise to bigger kingdoms and empires.

How society was organised — the varna–jati system. As society grew more complex, people were grouped by the kind of work they did. India developed a system with two parts:

• A jati was a community of people tied to a particular occupation — a particular kind of work, like farming, metalwork or trade. The skill was usually passed down from parents to children. A jati could split into many sub-jatis, each with its own customs.
• A varna was a broader idea that came from the Vedic texts. There were four varnas: Brahmins (who preserved and spread knowledge and performed rituals), Kshatriyas (who defended the land and fought if needed), Vaishyas (who grew the wealth through trade, business and farming), and Shudras (the artisans, craftspeople, workers and servants).

It is important to know that in these early times, this system was more flexible than it later became. There is evidence that people sometimes changed their occupation — for instance, if a long drought struck, a community of farmers might move to a city and take up new work. Over many centuries, sadly, the system grew rigid and led to unfairness and discrimination against some groups, especially during later periods. But the rigid form was not how it began.

The great roads. Trade, pilgrims and armies all needed to travel. So in this period, two great roads became famous:

• The Uttarapatha — the “northern road” — connected the north-west regions, across the Ganga plains, all the way to eastern India.
• The Dakshinapatha — the “southern road” — started near Prayagraj, crossed the Vindhya hills, and went all the way south.

Many smaller roads branched off to busy ports on the eastern and western coasts. In the east, great cities like Sisupalgarh (near today’s Bhubaneswar) grew up, with a neat square plan and strong walls. In the south, cities began appearing from about 400 BCE, and three famous kingdoms rose — the Cholas, the Cheras and the Pandyas. The south was rich in gems, gold and spices, and traded with faraway lands overseas.

By about 300 to 200 BCE, almost the whole subcontinent was tied together. Goods, people and ideas flowed from region to region. And around the same time, the mahajanapadas themselves came to an end — making way for the great empires you will read about next.

Common Mistakes

Some ideas in this chapter are easy to mix up. Let us clear up the common ones.

Quick Check

Time to test yourself. Try each question before reading the answer.

Practice Problems

Try writing your own answer first, then open the solution to check.

Easy

Medium

Challenge

Summary

• After the Harappan cities faded (around 1900 BCE), India had almost no cities for about a thousand years — people lived in villages.
• In the 1st millennium BCE, cities grew again, mostly in the Ganga plains. This return of cities is the Second Urbanisation. We know about it from archaeology and from old writings.
• People formed clans that controlled lands called janapadas, each led by a raja. By about 700–800 BCE, these joined into bigger states — the 16 mahajanapadas. The most powerful were Magadha, Kosala, Vatsa and Avanti.
• Cities grew because of a chain: iron tools → more farming → surplus food → people free for crafts and trade → growing trade → the first coins (silver punch-marked coins). Capitals had thick walls, a moat and a narrow gateway for defence.
• There were two ways to rule: kingdoms (monarchies), where one inherited king decided (Magadha, Kosala, Avanti), and republics (gana-sanghas), where an assembly discussed, voted, and even chose the ruler (Vajji, Malla).
• Society was organised by the varna–jati system (four varnas; jatis tied to occupations). In these early times it was more flexible and became rigid only much later.
• New ideas (Buddhist and Jain teachings) spread, and great roads — the Uttarapatha and Dakshinapatha — tied India together. In the south, the Cholas, Cheras and Pandyas rose. By about 300–200 BCE the mahajanapadas ended.

What’s Next

You have seen how small states grew into 16 powerful mahajanapadas, and how they fought and made alliances with one another. So what happened next? Some of these states grew stronger and stronger, swallowed their neighbours, and turned into something even bigger — vast empires ruled from a single centre.

In the next chapter, The Rise of Empires, we will follow that story — how Magadha rose above the rest, and how India’s first great empires were built.