Category :
UPSC
Social Crisis and Agrarian Changes
- The Central factor that ultimately transformed the ancient Indian society into medieval society was the practice of land grants.
- Contemporary Puranic texts complain of a situation in which vamas or social classes discarded the functions assigned to them.
- Several measures were adopted to overcome the crisis. The almost contemporary law book of Manu advises that the vaishyas and shudras should not be allowed to deviate from their duties. This may have led to coercive measures.
- But a more important step to meet the situation was to grant land to priests and officials in lieu of salaries and remuneration.
Rise of Landlords
- Land grants became frequent from the fifth century A.D.
- According to this the brahmanas were granted villages free from taxes.
- All the taxes which were collected by the king from the villages were transferred to the brahmanas. In addition to this, the beneficiaries were given the right to govern the people living in the donated villages.
- In later times the beneficiaries were authorised to punish all criminal offenders.
- In the Maurya period the officers of the state from the highest to the lowest were generally paid in cash.
- The practice continued under the Kushans, who issued a large number of copper and gold coins. But from the sixth century A.D. the position seems to have changed.
- The law-books of that century recommended that services should be rewarded in land From the time of Harshavardhana public officials were paid in land revenues.
New Agrarian Economy
- We notice an important change in the agrarian economy.
- Hsuan Tsang describes the shudras as agriculturists, which suggests that they no Ionger cultivated land mainly as slaves and agricultural labourers.
Decline of Trade and Towns
- From the sixth century A.D. onwards there started a sharp decline.
- Trade with the western part of the Roman Empire ended in the third century, and silk trade with Iran and the Byzantium stopped in the middle of the sixth century.
- The decline of trade for well over 300 years after the sixth century is strikingly demonstrated by the practical absence of gold coins in the country.
- The decline of trade led to the decay of towns. The post-Gupta period witnessed the ruin of many old commercial cities in north India.
- In the late fifth century a group of silk weavers from the western coast migrated to Mandasor in Malwa, gave up silk weaving and adopted other professions.
Changes in the Varna System
- According to the Dharmashastras social positions hitherto were mainly regulated by the varna system. The people were divided into four vamas.
- The economic rights of a person were also determined by the vama.
- Thus formerly all things in society were graded according to the vamas, but now they also came to be determined according to the landed possessions of a person.
- From the seventh century onwards numerous castes were created.
- A Purana of the eight century states that thousands of mixed castes were produced by the connection of vaishya women with men of lower castes.
- So were the brahmanas and the Rajputs who appeared as an important factor in India polity and society around the seventh century.
Cultural Development
- The Chinese traveller Hsuan Tsang mentions several nationalities.
- The Jaina books of the late eight century notice the existence of 18 major nationalities.
- Vishakhadatta, an author of about the ninth century A.D., speaks of different regions inhabited by peoples, different in customs, clothing and language.
- Telugu and Malayalam developed much later. It seems that each region came to develop its own language on account of its isolation from the others.
- Regional scripts became more prominent in the seventh century A.D. and later.
- But from the seventh century every region came to have its own script, and hence one cannot read post-Gupta inscriptions found in different parts of the country unless he has the knowledge of regional scripts.
Bhakti and Tantricism
- We also notice some religious changes in post-Gupta times.
- Hindu divinities came to be arranged according to their grades in the hierarchy.
- Vishnu, Shiva and Durga appeared as supreme deities.
- We find the practice of worshipping Brahma, Ganapati, Vishnu, Shakti and Shiva.
- They were called panchadeva or five divinities.
- The chief god Shiva or some other deity was installed in the main temple, around which tour subsidiary shrines were erected to house the other four deities. Such temples were known as Panchayatana.
- From the 700 A.D. Bhakti cult spread throughout the country, especially in the south. Bhakti meant that people made all kinds of offerings to the god in return for which they received the prasada or the favour of the god.
- The most remarkable development in the religious field in India from about the sixth century A.D. was the spread of tantricism.
