The period extending from the second century B. C. to the fourth century A. D. was a crucial epoch in ancient Indian history. It witnessed significant social and economic developments, remarkable religious efflorescence, and a political kaleidoscope characterised by the foreign invasions and the settlement of the foreigners as a dominant section of the ruling aristocracy, which exercised a considerable impact on the existing social order. In fact the period holds the key to the understanding of the entire earlier and subsequent social history of India. The Manu-smrti and the Yajnavalkya-smrti, which were among the monumental products of this age, formulated, partly under the influence of earlier traditions and partly under the impact of the contemporary conditions, a system of norms and values of social life, which remained closely connected with the efforts to regulate Indian society for centuries to come.
In the present work Dr. Bhattacharya has critically discussed the main aspects of the society of this period in a lucid manner with a full grasp of the source material, penetrativeness of insight, objectiveness of approach, and with judiciousness in the correlation and interpretation of the data gathered from a wide range of literary and archaeological sources. While analysing the social structure in a historical perspective, in the background of the political changes and the economic developments, he has thrown revealing light on the social, economic, legal and ritualistic status of the major classes in the varna-divided society. His treatment of the Vaisyas and the wages of workmen is of singular importance. By adducing fresh evidence and offering sound interpretation, he has brought into prominent relief how the forces generated by the socio-economic changes and the role of foreign elements accentuated to a marked degree the contradiction and conflict between the reigning ideals of the age and the actual facts of social life; how they paved the way for the emergence of some new values and forms in social relations, including the relations of production; and how the varna theory helped in the assimilation of the foreigners and the inlandish social groups, which was necessitated by the particular conditions of the age.
The outstanding merit of the present work lies in the fact that it reveals not only how the social structure was but also how it actually functioned in this age. The varnas, as the author has clearly perceived, were not homogeneous social classes. He has convincingly shown how each of them was being split into an upper and a lower strata under the stress of mainly the economic factor, and how this phenomenon, along with the pulls and pressures of conflict-ing and mutual interests was closely connected with the process of the formation of classes, on the basis of the possession of wealth and power, which tended to some extent to cut across the ascriptive lines of the hierarchical social system of varnas and castes.
This learned and thought-provoking work of Dr. Bhattacharya will remain indispensable for every serious researcher of the social history of ancient India.
The following pages represent a modest attempt to study afresh the main features of the Indian social order, the forces that kept it together and influenced it most, of an exceedingly important period, roughly from the fall of the Mauryas to the rise of the Guptas. Exposed to the influences of startling political and economic changes, the Indian social order in the post-Mauryan period demonstrated both its elasticity and vigour, the capacity to respond to the needs of change and the ability to hold its own against external pressures. Our study which substantially represents the author's D. Phil. thesis accepted at the university of Allahabad in 1972, is an attempt to understand this interaction of the forces of change and stability vis-a-vis the social order.
There is always some kind of power confrontation in a given society, which has also been termed as 'the differentiation of the functions of control". "Four antitheses-temporal power and spiritual power, civil power and military power, political power and administrative power, political power and economic power-illustrate the modern differentiations of the functions of control."¹ Transferred from the modern Occident to ancient India of our period, we may reduce these antitheses to the following: temporal power and spiritual power, spiritual power and economic power, political power and economic power; the political, administrative and military power were yet to become antithetical. When these differentiations of the functions of control become sharp and the confrontations acute, they lead to a violent upturning of the established social order. During our period some of the factors which tend to the sharpening of the differentiations, e.g., the passing of political authority into the hands of invading foreign tribes and an unprecedented economic growth, were abundantly present. Yet the Indian society withstood these pressures.
The problem of social mobility was solved in a most admirable manner-India seems to have discovered a sort of golden mean between absolute rigidity and uncontrolled scope for social mobility, both of which lead to the ultimate destruction of the social and cultural fabric. 'We know some mobile societies, and the United States of America may serve as an example, in which the social distribution of individuals has been very satisfactory. But we know also of some immobile societies, like India, where social distribution has not been altogether bad. The objective fact of an unquestionable supremacy of the Brahmins during 2,000 years, is a very convincing test of their adequacy for their social position, regardless of whether we like the caste-system or not. Surely stupid men, without money and organization, cannot keep such exclusive domination for so long a time. And surely, too, it is absolutely childish to try to explain such a fact through "prejudices" and "superstitions". No prejudice if it does not perform something useful, can exist even 100 years'. It would, however, be wrong to imagine that the requisite adjustments were made effortlessly, in fact, the social system was put under very severe strains which left their impress on the contemporary social records.
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