Mahajanapadas, Buddhism and Jainism

Prerequisites: Vedic Society and Culture · Chapter overview

The Hook: Relics That Came Home

The Core Concept

The setting: the “second urbanisation”

From about the sixth century BCE the middle Ganga plains saw the first cities since the Harappans. The drivers:

• Iron tools for clearing forests and ploughing the heavy alluvial soil.
• Wet-rice cultivation producing a surplus.
• Punch-marked coins — mostly silver — the earliest coins in India.
• Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW) — a glossy, fine pottery that marks the period archaeologically.
• New cities: Rajagriha, Shravasti, Kaushambi, Varanasi, Champa, Vaishali, Ujjayini, Taxila.

The sixteen Mahajanapadas

Buddhist (Anguttara Nikaya) and Jain (Bhagavati Sutra) texts list sixteen great states; the two lists differ slightly. The Buddhist list:

Monarchies and republics. Most Mahajanapadas were monarchies. Some were gana-sanghas (republics or oligarchies) ruled by assemblies of clan chiefs — the Vajji confederacy (including the Lichchhavis of Vaishali) and the Mallas. The Buddha’s Sakyas of Kapilavastu and Mahavira’s Jnatrikas were small republican clans. The Buddha is said to have modelled the sangha’s procedures on republican assemblies.

The rise of Magadha

Why Magadha won: iron ore nearby; fertile, well-watered alluvial soil; forests supplying elephants for war; strategic capitals (Rajagriha ringed by five hills, Pataliputra protected by rivers); control of the Ganga trade route; and ambitious rulers.

Foreign contact: the Achaemenid (Persian) ruler Darius I brought Gandhara and parts of the Indus region into his empire in the late sixth century BCE; the Kharosthi script, written right to left, developed from Persian-era Aramaic. Alexander defeated Porus at the Hydaspes (Jhelum) in 326 BCE, but his army refused to go beyond the Beas.

Why new religions arose

• Costly, priest-dominated Vedic sacrifices; the killing of cattle needed for agriculture.
• Resentment of varna hierarchy — the Buddha and Mahavira were both kshatriyas.
• A rising merchant class (setthis) seeking social standing.
• Teaching in the people’s languages — Pali (Buddhism) and Ardha-Magadhi Prakrit (Jainism).

Buddhism

Life of the Buddha (traditional dates c. 563–483 BCE; many historians favour a later date)

Teachings

• Four Noble Truths: life involves suffering (dukkha); suffering has a cause — craving (tanha); suffering can end (nirodha); there is a path to end it (magga).
• Eightfold Path: right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration.
• The Middle Path between indulgence and severe austerity; karma without an eternal soul (anatta); rejection of the authority of the Vedas and of sacrifice.
• Triratna: the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha. The sangha admitted all varnas; women were admitted as nuns — the first was Mahapajapati Gotami, the Buddha’s foster-mother.

Buddhist councils

Texts: the Tripitaka in Pali — Vinaya (monastic rules), Sutta (discourses), Abhidhamma (philosophy); the Jatakas (stories of the Buddha’s previous births); the Milindapanho (dialogue of King Menander and Nagasena); the Sri Lankan chronicles Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa; Ashvaghosha’s Buddhacharita (Sanskrit).

Schools: Hinayana/Theravada (the Buddha as a teacher; individual liberation; Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand), Mahayana (the Bodhisattva ideal, image worship, Sanskrit texts; China, Korea, Japan), Vajrayana (tantric practices; Tibet and eastern India).

Common hand gestures (mudras): bhumisparsha (earth-touching — enlightenment), dharmachakra (teaching — first sermon), abhaya (fearlessness), dhyana (meditation), varada (granting boons).

Jainism

• Jains recognise 24 tirthankaras. Rishabhanatha (Adinatha) is the first; Parshvanatha, the 23rd, taught four vows; Mahavira, the 24th, added the fifth — brahmacharya.
• Mahavira (Vardhamana): traditionally born at Kundagrama near Vaishali to Siddhartha, head of the Jnatrika clan, and Trishala, a Lichchhavi princess. He renounced the world at 30, attained kaivalya at 42 under a sal tree at Jrimbhikagrama on the Rijupalika river, and died at Pavapuri (near Rajgir) at 72. Dates: Jain tradition 599–527 BCE; many historians c. 540–468 BCE.
• Five vows (mahavratas): ahimsa (non-violence), satya (truth), asteya (non-stealing), aparigraha (non-possession), brahmacharya (chastity).
• Triratna: right faith, right knowledge, right conduct.
• Philosophy: anekantavada (reality has many aspects) and syadvada (every judgement is conditional — “may be”); extreme emphasis on non-violence and penance.

Councils and the split

During a famine in Magadha (c. 300 BCE) Bhadrabahu led a group south to Karnataka — Jain tradition says Chandragupta Maurya went with him. Those who stayed under Sthulabhadra came to be called Shvetambaras (“white-clad”); the followers of Bhadrabahu became Digambaras (“sky-clad”). Digambaras hold that women must be reborn as men to attain liberation; Shvetambaras hold that the 19th tirthankara, Mallinatha, was a woman.

Other heterodox schools

• Ajivikas — founded by Makkhali Gosala; strict determinism (niyati). Ashoka and Dasharatha gifted the Barabar and Nagarjuni caves to them.
• Charvaka / Lokayata — materialism; rejected the afterlife and the Vedas.

graph TD
    A[Second urbanisation: iron, surplus, coins] --> B[Mahajanapadas]
    A --> C[New religious movements]
    B --> D[Rise of Magadha]
    C --> E[Buddhism: Middle Path, Pali]
    C --> F[Jainism: ahimsa, Prakrit]
    C --> G[Ajivikas, Charvakas]
    D --> H[Mauryan Empire]
    E --> H

Memory Anchors

Buddhist councils, in order: “Raja Visits Patna Kashmir” → Rajagriha (Ajatashatru), Vaishali (Kalashoka), Pataliputra (Ashoka), Kashmir (Kanishka). Patrons: “A K A K”.

Life symbols: “Little Horses Trot With Style” → Lotus (birth), Horse (departure), Tree (enlightenment), Wheel (sermon), Stupa (death).

Buddhism vs Jainism

For Prelims

For Mains

• Dimensions: social protest against ritual and hierarchy; ethics of non-violence; the role of trade and urbanisation; democratic procedures of the sangha; contributions to art (stupas, chaityas, viharas), literature (Pali and Prakrit) and education (monasteries); Buddhist diplomacy and soft power today.
• Keywords: second urbanisation, gana-sangha, Middle Path, anekantavada, Bodhisattva, sangha, heterodox schools.
• Value-addition: the Piprahwa relics (returned 2025); the Sarnath Lion Capital as the State Emblem; Jain anekantavada as an early philosophy of tolerance; the Buddhist circuit (Lumbini–Bodh Gaya–Sarnath–Kushinagara).

Common Traps

In the News

• October 2024 — the Union Cabinet approved classical language status for Pali, Prakrit, Marathi, Assamese and Bengali.
• July 2025 — gems from the Piprahwa relic deposit returned to India after a planned auction abroad was halted in May 2025.

Practice

Prelims

Mains

Quick Revision

Key Takeaways

Related Topics

• The Mauryan Empire and Ashoka’s Dhamma
• Mahajanapadas and the Mauryas — quick revision
• Mahajanapadas and the Mauryas — practice questions
• Vedic and Later Vedic Age
• Indian Art and Architecture