Part 3 - Hinterland and population of Rājagṛha

Absence of monumental buildings did not undermine Rājagṛha’s position as a city. For being the early capital of Magadha and theroyal abode as the name suggests, itfell into the category of Rājadhaniya. It is a city with the king (i.e. royal palace) in the centre and inhabited by numerous wealthy people, should preferably be laid out within the kingdom on the banks of a river.^[1] It is the most important town of a kingdom and the administrative headquarter. Kauṭilya mentions a sthāniya should be aheadquarter of 800 villages. It must be some provincial revenue collecting centre.^[2] Clearly Kauṭilya speaks of a large hinterland and a revenue collection point. Exploitation of agricultural hinterland sustains and support non food producing urban areas. Keeping this on mind, Kauṭilya emphasizes on creating new agricultural settlement in the countryside and advises the king to encourage śūdra farmers to settle there. He even advises to give some incentives to these early settlers of the virgin land. Population should be between 100 to 500 in such settlements and it should cover an area of one or two kroshas.^[3] it is interesting to note that Makkhan Lal’s study on proto historic and early historic population pattern in the Gaṅgā-Yamunā-Rind plain (Kanpur district) reveals small rural settlements of less than 500 inhabitants far outnumber semi or fully urban settlements. Number of inhabitants fairly matches with Kauṭilyan theory.^[4]

Archaeologically considered, iron arrived in India since the PGW times. But iron available in a limited scale could not make any perceptible social effect immediately. In the words of A. Ghosh “in a slow moving society the impact of iron was slow” finds ground.^[5] From the PGW sites like Atranjikhera and Noh rice has been found though it is not too clear archaeologically.

Real change appeared from the NBPW to early historical period. Colonization of the doab was possible only when iron came to be used extensively. Many archaeologists believe that superiority of iron does not lay in its strength but in its availability.^[6] T. N. Roy also thinks that Iron Age is concomitant with the permanent colonization of middle Gaṅgā plains.^[7] Colonization implied a growth in the number and population of settlements. Such settlements are primarily agricultural and formed a vast agricultural hinterland for the growing kingdom of Magadha.

R.S. Sharma in an attempt to trace the development of agriculture in this period has shown iron shares, sickles, edges, knives etc. were used for agricultural and household purposes. They mostly belonged to the 2^nd millennium BCE. Several crops occurred in the mid Ganga basin. Agricultural knowledge gained a momentum and between 700- 200 BCE rice, barley, wheat, green gram or moong, chik-pea, pea, khesari from Khairadih might be found. Since Buddha’s time sesame and mustard oils were also used for cooking purpose. Sugar cane was also mentioned in the Pali Buddhist texts.^[8] Tripathi also confirms sharma’s view. As early as the PGW period staple foods like barley, maize, mustard were grown in the Ganga plains. Location of this hinterland in the middle Ganga plains must have stimulated the growth of Magadha.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

P. K. Acharya, op.cit,1980, X. 44- 47 pp. 93-98.

[2]:

Kangle, op.cit, 1997, 2.3.3 pp. 67-68.

[3]:

Ibid,2.1.2 pp. 62-63.

[4]:

Makkhan Lal, Archaeology of population (a study of population change in the Ganga-Yamuna Doab from 2^ndmillennium B.C. to the present) Varanasi, Banaras Hindu University, 1984.

[5]:

A. Ghosh, op cit, 1973, p.10

[6]:

Vibha Tripathi, The Painted Grey ware: An Iron Age cultureof Northern India, Delhi, Concept Publication Co., 1976, pp.102-03.

[7]:

Ibid, p.11

[8]:

R. S. Sharma, The Varna and State Formation in the mid-Ganga Plains: An Ethnoarchaeological View, New Delhi, Manohar, 2001, p.68