History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer
“The centuries between c. 200 B.C. and c. A.D. 300 constitute a landmark in the socioreligious history of India.” Analyse the proposition.
- UPSC 1995
- Post-Mauryan Period
The five centuries after the Mauryan collapse (c. 185 B.C.) saw no single paramount power, yet they reshaped Indian religious life more decisively than the preceding Vedic and Mauryan centuries combined. Political fragmentation and the arrival of Indo-Greeks, Sakas, Parthians, and Kushanas created conditions — cosmopolitan trade, urban wealth, and rulers without inherited Brahmanical legitimacy…
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What the full answer covers
- The Political-Economic Matrix Enabling Religious Change
- The Emergence of Mahayana Buddhism and Image Worship
- Brahmanism's Reformulation: Toward Puranic Hinduism
- Foreign Rulers as Integrators, Not Disruptors, of Indian Religion
- Social Absorption: Varna Flexibility and the "Kshatriya-ization" of Foreigners
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