Post-Mauryan Period: Society (Social Conditions)

Post-Mauryan Society: Social Conditions

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The centuries following the fall of the Mauryan Empire saw Indian society absorb an extraordinary wave of foreign peoples — Greeks, Shakas, Parthians, and Kushans — even as the Brahmanical framework of varna and ashrama grew more rigid in its textual formulation. This period also reveals, through the Dharmashastra texts, the Jatakas, and a growing body of inscriptions, a society marked by sharp hierarchies of caste and gender alongside genuine currents of flexibility and social mobility. For UPSC History Optional aspirants, understanding how post-Mauryan society absorbed foreign groups, hardened its treatment of the Chandalas, redefined the status of women, and is illuminated by sources as varied as legal texts, Jataka stories, and inscriptions is central to the social history of this period.

Varna and Ashrama in Brahmanical Ideology

• The four varnas and ashramas remained the pillars of Brahmanical ideology, represented throughout the Dharmashastra texts of this period.
  • The earlier idea of the ashramas as alternative paths was firmly replaced by the idea of their being consecutive stages of life.

New Elements in Indian Society

• The Greeks, the Shakas, the Parthians, and the Kushans eventually lost their distinct identity in India, becoming, over time, completely Indianised.
  • They settled in India and fully identified themselves with its culture; lacking their own script, written language, or organised religion, they adopted these components of culture from India, becoming an integral part of Indian society, to which they contributed considerably.
• As most of these groups had arrived as conquerors, they were absorbed into Indian society as a warrior class — that is, as kshatriyas.
  • Their placement within Brahmanical society was explained in a curious way: the lawmaker Manu stated that the Shakas and Parthians were kshatriyas who had deviated from their duties and fallen in status — in other words, they came to be considered second-class kshatriyas.
• In no other period of ancient Indian history were foreigners assimilated into Indian society on such a large scale as in post-Maurya times.

Yavanas and the Theory of Varna-Samkara

• Outsiders such as the yavanas were absorbed into the varna scheme and accounted for through the theory of varna-samkara (mixture of varnas).
  • In the early Dharmasutras, the yavanas were described as the offspring of Kshatriya men and Shudra women. The Mahabharata variously describes them as the sons of Yayati; as born from the sage Vasishtha’s cow (along with others, such as the Pahlavas, Dravidas, and Shakas) to destroy Vishvamitra’s army; or, elsewhere, simply as Shudras.
  • The Manu Smriti refers to them as vratya-kshatriyas — Kshatriyas degraded through their non-performance of sacrificial rituals.
• Such references indicate an underlying tension between social incorporation and exclusion. Jati, lineage, and occupation continued to serve as important bases of social identity.
  • The texts reflect a clear preference for endogamy, along with a hereditary element in occupations — there are references, for instance, to people of the same profession living in separate settlements, or in distinct parts of settlements.
  • As for restrictions on giving and accepting food, the texts tend to focus mostly on those at the top of the caste hierarchy — the Brahmanas — and those considered outside the pale of caste society altogether — the Chandalas.

The Chandalas

The Manu Smriti on Chandalas

• The Manu Smriti contains a far more detailed discussion of the Chandalas than earlier texts. Some of its statements continue what earlier lawgivers had already said, but what stands out is the sheer completeness of this group’s segregation.
  • The Chandala was to live outside the village; he could enter a village or town only to perform functions assigned to him, and was to be distinguished by marks at the king’s command.
  • He was apapatra — meaning that food for him had to be placed on the ground, and he was not permitted to eat out of other people’s dishes.

Evidence from the Jatakas and Jaina Texts

• Several Jataka stories suggest that the injunctions on untouchability found in the Manu Smriti closely mirrored prevailing social practice.
  • In these stories, the Chandalas are portrayed as a despised people, living in separate settlements, whose very sight and touch were considered polluting by others; they included corpse-removers, cremators, executioners of thieves, sweepers, public performers, hunters, and fruit-sellers.
• The extreme prejudice directed against the Chandalas is echoed in Jaina texts as well.

Social Flexibility

• The existence of jati, or caste distinctions and hierarchies, did not mean that the system always operated with complete rigidity — there are clear indications of a degree of social flexibility, reflected, for instance, in the recognition extended to the offspring of unequal unions.
  • The Bhaddasala Jataka tells the story of how Prasenajit, king of Kosala, grew furious upon discovering that the Sakyas had tricked him into marrying the daughter of a Sakya prince by a slave woman.
    • The king repudiated his wife and son, but took them back after the Buddha told him that the family of the mother did not matter — it was the father’s family that counted.
  • There is a Jataka story of a prince who, in the course of a love affair, apprenticed himself successively to a potter, a basket-maker, a florist, and a cook; other stories tell of a prince becoming a trader, and a young man from a noble family taking up employment as an archer.
  • Brahmanas, too, are portrayed as taking to trade, living as hunters and trappers, farming, or hiring themselves out as cowherds.
• All these are instances of a person from a higher social station adopting the vocations of the lower orders — stories of successful upward mobility among lower-status groups, by contrast, are comparatively few.

The Condition of Women

Contradictory Textual Statements on Women

• Texts of this period contain many apparently contradictory statements about women — the Manu Smriti, for instance, both praises and reviles women, with the nature of its statements varying according to the issue under discussion.
  • Where the discussion concerns how men must guard their wives, women are described as lustful, fickle, hard-hearted, and utterly untrustworthy.
  • Where the discussion concerns how men should respect women, they are instead described as bearers of many blessings, no less than Shri (the goddess of fortune) within the home.
  • Where the discussion concerns how men must not abuse women, Manu states that the gods rejoice where women are revered, and that where they are not, no rite bears fruit.
• The Manu Smriti emphasises the husband’s control over his wife and her property, yet also states that a wife cannot be sold or repudiated, nor treated as chattel, since she is “obtained from the gods” and not received like cattle or gold in the market; the husband, in turn, is expected to support his wife in all circumstances, provided she remains faithful.
  • Beyond such individual statements, and the specific contexts in which they appear, it is necessary to identify the broader social and family structures valorised by texts such as the Manu Smriti.

The Patriarchal Family and the Subordination of Women

• The strengthening of the patriarchal nature of the family, and the increasing subordination of women, is reflected in various ways across the Dharmashastra works of this period.
  • Women withdrew from public life, their access to knowledge diminished, and they grew increasingly dependent on their male kinsmen; the preference for sons over daughters was accentuated, and women were increasingly relegated to the domestic sphere.
  • Growing restrictions on female sexuality were reflected in a great emphasis on chastity, with pre-puberty marriages serving as one means of ensuring this.

Women’s Right to Inheritance

• The relationship between women and property in Brahmanical texts changed considerably between the time of the Rig Veda and the fifth/sixth centuries CE.
  • By the time of the Smritis and Puranas, women had been relegated to a position of almost complete subordination and subservience, treated as items of property on a par with Shudras; women held a low priority among claimants to inherited property in the earlier Dharmasutras.
• From about the second century BCE, however, lawgivers began recognising, and prescribing rules regarding, women’s right to inheritance — though this applied only to stri-dhana.
  • According to the Manu Smriti, stri-dhana comprises six types of gifts: those received before the nuptial fire; those received during the bridal procession; those given or taken as a token of love, by father-in-law or mother-in-law; and those received from a woman’s brother, mother, or father.
  • It did not, however, include inherited property, or even property acquired by a woman through her own labour — regular property rights continued to be governed essentially by the rules of patrilineal inheritance.
• Women’s rights to inherit immovable property were significantly acknowledged and expanded only in later centuries (the Gupta and post-Gupta periods), largely in order to maintain a family’s control over its property and prevent it from escheating (being taken over) by the state.

Marriage

• The Smriti texts do not describe the details of marriage ceremonies, but contain a number of general statements on marriage.
  • The Manu Smriti states that after completing his studentship, a dvija male should marry a girl belonging to his own varna, who possesses good qualities.
  • The anxiety to marry off girls as early as possible was closely tied to the great importance placed on maintaining female chastity and producing children — several Smritis reflect the idea that every menstrual cycle a girl experiences represents a missed opportunity for conception, a situation considered equivalent to the killing of an embryo (bhruna-hatya).
• Unlike the earlier Dharmasutras, which held that girls should be married upon attaining puberty, later texts advocated pre-puberty marriage instead.
  • Manu states that a thirty-year-old man should marry a twelve-year-old girl, and a twenty-four-year-old man an eight-year-old girl — prescriptions that, besides fixing a young age for brides, also imply a considerable age gap between bride and groom.
• Like other Dharmashastra works, the Manu Smriti prefers marriage within the varna, though it acknowledges the existence of inter-varna unions, extending approval specifically to anuloma (hypergamous) marriages.
  • The mixture of varnas arising from pratiloma marriages, by contrast, is condemned as leading to chaos and ruin, and the king is enjoined to prevent them.
• Unlike the Baudhayana Dharmasutra, the Manu Smriti strongly disapproves of marriage between a man and his maternal uncle’s daughter or paternal aunt’s daughter.
  • Manu also disapproves of the sale of daughters (that is, the acceptance of bride-price), though it lays down rules for situations arising from this practice — for instance, if a particular girl has already been shown to a man, but another is given to him instead, he may marry both for the same price.

Abandonment of Wives and Polygamy

• The reasons for which a husband may abandon his wife, according to the Manu Smriti, include if she is notorious, afflicted with disease, addicted to alcohol, cruel, treacherous, insubordinate, barren, a spendthrift, or harsh in speech; the text further specifies how long a man should wait before abandoning a wife with such faults.
  • It suggests that a barren wife should be given up in the eighth year, one whose children die in the tenth year, one who has produced only female children in the eleventh year — but a wife who speaks harshly may be given up at once.
  • Elsewhere, however, it states that a sick but virtuous wife who cares for her husband should never be insulted or abandoned, and that a husband may take a second wife only with her consent.
• The Yajnavalkya Smriti asserts that if a man abandons his first wife and remarries, he must nonetheless continue to look after her, or else incur sin.
  • Other indications of the prevalence of polygyny appear in the Dharmashastra discussion of the property rights of sons born of different wives; for women, by contrast, lifelong monogamy is presented as the ideal.

Widow Remarriage and Niyoga

• The Manu Smriti disapproves of widow remarriage, asserting that a daughter should be given away in marriage only once.
  • Elsewhere, however, it refers to the paunarbhava — the son of a woman who has remarried, whether because she was widowed, abandoned, or simply wished to do so. In the Manu Smriti, the idea of temporary self-denial and celibacy for widows, found in the earlier Dharmasutras, is replaced by lifelong strictures.
• The Manu Smriti considers niyoga (levirate) a despicable custom, describing it as pashu dharma (“the dharma of animals”) — though it nonetheless lays down procedures to be followed should recourse to niyoga become necessary.
  • It states that if a woman’s husband dies after kanyadana, his younger brother should marry her; a son born of such a niyoga union is recognised as kshetraja (“born of the field,” i.e., of the woman).

Other Sources on Women

• While the Dharmashastra texts prescribe ideal roles for women of the upper echelons of society, other texts introduce us to women of different backgrounds and vocations.
  • In the Pali Jatakas, apart from queens, nuns, and courtesans, we encounter women associated with occupations such as basket-making, weaving, and dyeing.
• Our window into gender relations expands considerably further when we turn to non-textual evidence, especially inscriptions from across the subcontinent — some of which record the activities of royal women. Royal women of the Satavahana family, for instance, are especially prominent in the epigraphic record, exercising initiative in making donations in their own right.

Matronyms and Satavahana Queens

• We see the use of matronyms among some Satavahana kings — names such as Gautamiputra and Vasishthiputra suggest that the king adopted his mother’s gotra, even though, in the Brahmanical system, gotra is normally inherited from the father, not the mother.
  • This evidence is significant, though it does not necessarily constitute proof of matriarchy, or even matriliny — matronyms may simply have served as a means of identifying parentage in a polygynous household, or may reflect forms of marriage that the Brahmanical tradition considered less than appropriate.
  • The use of the same matronym by more than one king also raises the possibility that some Satavahana kings practised cross-cousin marriage.
• We may note a Nashik inscription, apparently a copy of one issued by Gautamiputra Satakarni and his mother, which describes its composer as a woman pratiharakshi (doorkeeper) named Lota.
  • Numerous royal and elite women likewise appear as donors in inscriptions of the Ikshvaku period at Nagarjunakonda.

Women as Donors in Inscriptions

• Inscriptions also reveal the activities of countless non-royal women — such women appear, as we shall see, in large numbers as donors at Buddhist sites, though the evidence for a similarly high incidence of female patronage of Jaina establishments has been comparatively less studied.
  • These instances do not necessarily tell us anything specific about norms of inheritance, but they do suggest that certain women held a genuine degree of control over the economic resources of their households.
• Finally, if we wish to look for the women of this period more broadly, we must move beyond the words found in texts and inscriptions into the realm of images — various aspects of women and femininity are represented extensively in the sculpture of this period.

The Jatakas as a Source of Social History

• The Jatakas can be used to reveal aspects of the everyday lives of ordinary people, reflecting a society marked by deep differences of class and caste — the themes of hierarchy and pollution taboos recur frequently throughout the stories.
  • While the popular narrative format ruled out any direct discussion of Buddhist philosophical themes, the stories were shaped to convey clear, unambiguous messages emphasising Buddhist ethics; Buddhist monks must have drawn upon an existing pool of folklore, giving it a distinctly Buddhist tinge.
• The Jatakas consist of stories within stories, each tale comprising four parts: an introductory story set in the age of the Buddha; the main story itself, set in a mythical past, in which the Buddha appears as protagonist or witness; a verse summarising the crux of the story; and a final section linking the story of the past with the present.
  • The Jatakas deal with real concerns and issues of human society even when the stories apparently concern animals — animals, like humans, are described as living in an unequal world.
  • Sometimes an inferior animal is made to realise its inferiority relative to superior ones; at other times, weaker animals are shown outwitting stronger ones through cunning. In the Setaketu Jataka, a Chandala is shown subverting the Brahmanical notion of pollution.
• Several Jataka stories project prejudices against women similar to those found in the Buddhist canonical texts — women of the upper classes are frequently described as innately fickle, untrustworthy, and adulterous, with infidelity among royal women a recurring theme.
  • On the other hand, there are also stories of women from humble families who, alongside their menfolk, are shown seeking moments of pleasure amid a life of hardship and poverty.

Conclusion

Post-Mauryan society was defined by a striking paradox: even as the Dharmashastra texts hardened the theoretical framework of varna, ashrama, and gender hierarchy — segregating the Chandalas ever more completely and tightening restrictions on women’s autonomy — the same period witnessed the large-scale absorption of foreign dynasties into the kshatriya fold, and genuine, if uneven, currents of social flexibility recorded in the Jatakas. Read together, the Dharmashastras, Jataka literature, and the growing epigraphic record of royal and non-royal women alike reveal a society considerably more complex, and more fluid, than any single normative text could capture on its own. For UPSC History Optional aspirants, holding these textual and non-textual sources in tension — rather than relying on either alone — is essential to understanding the true social conditions of post-Mauryan India.