Part 6 - Demography (middle and lower Ganga plain)

Monica Smith primarily views cities as population centres and demography constitutes one axe of the triaxial method. However direct evidence on demographic dynamics is meagre. Only Makkhan Lal’s study on population archaeology in the Ganga-Yamuna Doab is a help in this direction^[1] His study traces the evolution of population from proto historic to historic times in the Kanpur area where he conducted his research. Located close to the Vārāṇasī region and in general it reveals useful facts about population change. There was a steady population growth from proto-historic to historic times but population growth was retarded and even decreased in the smaller settlements but settlements of higher order i.e. of urban character sees a greater population rise and concentration. Such sites had a spatial increase too. However overall rural population was still greater and it amounted to 56% of the total population. But individual rural site’s capacity to retain population did not exceed 500 whereas early Iron Age settlements like Inamgaon or Daimabad had a decent population of 1000 and 6000 respectively.

Erdosy has observed that up to 550 BCE there was a slow population growth and no such central place in the middle and lower Ganga plain. Marked population growth started taking place from this time and their concentration in the cities brought about revolutionary changes. In fact, S. Misra has considered high population density and their non-agricultural nature were the two important attributes of urbanity. This non-agrarian population constituted the specialized professional class and also ensured the labour needed for various civic, constructional and arduous work. On the other, they also created a regular demand to produce more surplus. Therefore surplus was a product of social demand and population was a precondition to it.

Possible population of some sites located in the middle Ganga plain were-Mathura 60000, Besnagar and Vaishali 48000, Kaushambi and Rajagriha 40, 000 and Ujjain 38000. This huge population growth surely accounted for urbanisation.^[2] There was a corresponding a real growth and the information available from two important sites of middle Gaṅgā plain were Mathura and Kauśāmbī covering 300 and 200 ha. area. Total sixty sites with an areal range of 50–300 ha. were explored in the Indian subcontinent in the early centuries CE, thus fulfilling all the major internal criteria of urbanity.