CHAPTER-26

Spread of Civilization in Eastern India

 Revision or Short Notes

Arora IAS

Signs of Civilization

• A region is considered to be civilized if its people know writing, set up a system for collecting taxes, and maintaining order, form social classes and produce specialists for performing priestly, administrative, and production functions.
• Above all, a civilized society is able to produce enough to sustain not only the actual producers comprising artisans and peasants but also consumers who are not engaged in production. A combination of these elements makes for civilization.
• The period from the fourth to the seventh century is remarkable for the diffusion of an advanced rural economy, formation of state systems, and delineation of social classes in eastern MP, Orissa, eastern Bengal, southeast Bengal, and Assam.

Orissa, and Eastern and Southern MP

• Kalinga, or coastal Orissa south of the Mahanadi, rose to importance under Ashoka, though a strong state had been founded in that area in the first century BC. Its ruler, Kharavela had advanced as far as Magadha.
• In the first and second centuries AD, the ports of Orissa conducted a brisk trade in pearls, ivory, and muslin. Excavations at Shishupalgarh, the site of Kalinganagari, of Kharavela’s capital at a distance of 60 km from Bhubaneswar, yielded several Roman objects indicating trade contacts with the Roman empire.
• However, the greater part of Orissa, particularly north Orissa, neither experienced state formation nor much commercial activity. In the fourth century Kosala and Mahakantara figured in the list of the regions conquered by Samudragupta, and covered parts of northern and western Orissa.
• The most important of was the state of the Matharas, also known as Pitribhaktas, who at the peak of their power dominated the area between the Mahanadi and the Krishna. Their contemporaries and neighbours were the Vasishthas, the Nalas, and the Manas.
• The Vasishthas ruled on the borders of Andhra in south Kalinga, the Nalas in the forest area of Mahakantara, and the Manas in the coastal area in the north beyond the Mahanadi. Each state developed its system of taxation, administration, and military organization.
• The Nalas, and probably the Manas, also evolved their system of coinage. The find of Nala gold coins in the tribal Bastar area in MP is significant. It presupposes an economic system in which gold money was used in large transactions, and served as a medium of payment to high functionaries.
• The Matharas created a district called Mahendrabhoga in the area of the Mahendra mountains, and also ruled over a district called Dantayavagubhoga, which apparently supplied ivory and rice-gruel to its administrators though it had been created in a backward area.
• The Matharas made endowments called agraharas, which consisted of land and income from villages and were meant to support the religious and educational activities of the brahmanas. Some agraharas had to pay taxes although elsewhere in the country they were tax-free.
• In coastal Orissa, writing had certainly been known since the third century BC, and inscriptions up to the mid-fourth century AD were written in Prakrit, but from about AD 350 onwards Sanskrit began to be used.

Bengal

• As regards Bengal, parts of north Bengal, now in Bogra district, provide evidence of the prevalence of writing during Ashoka’s reign. An inscription indicates several settlements maintaining a storehouse filled with coins and food grains for the upkeep of Buddhist monks.
• Also, people of this area knew Prakrit and professed Buddhism. Similarly, an inscription found in the coastal district of Noakhali in south-east Bengal indicates that the people of the area knew Prakrit and the Brahmi script in the second century BC.
• In about the middle of the fourth century, a king with the title ‘maharaja’ ruled in Pokharna on the Damodara in Bankura district. He knew Sanskrit and was a devotee of Vishnu, for whose worship he possibly granted a village.
• The area situated between the Ganges and the Brahmaputra now covering Bangladesh emerged as a settled and fairly Sanskrit-educated region in the fifth and sixth centuries. The Gupta governors, who seem to have become independent after about AD 550, occupied north Bengal; some part of it may also have been seized by the rulers of Kamarupa.
• Local vassal princes called samanta maharajas had created their own administrative apparatus and built their military organization. By AD 600 the area came to be known as Gauda and functioned as an independent state ruled by Shashanka, Harsha’s adversary.
• For a century from AD 432–3 a series of land sale documents recorded on copperplates in Pundravardhanabhukti, which covered almost the whole of north Bengal, now mostly in Bangladesh. Most of the land transactions indicate that land was purchased with gold coins called dinara.
• The deltaic portion of Bengal formed by the Brahmaputra and called Samatata, which was made to acknowledge the authority of Samudragupta in the fourth century, covered south-east Bengal. From about AD 525 onwards, the area developed a fairly organized state covering Samatata and a portion of Vanga which lay on the western boundary of Samatata. It is called the kingdom of Samatata or Vanga whose rulers, including Sama Haradeva, issued a substantial number of gold coins in the second half of the sixth century.
• In addition to this state, in the seventh century, there existed the state of the Khadgas, literally swordsmen, in the Dhaka area. There was also the kingdom of a brahmana feudatory called Lokanatha and that of the Ratas, both in the Comilla area. All these princes of south-east and central Bengal issued land grants in the sixth and seventh centuries.
• A fiscal and administrative unit called Dandabhukti was formed in the border areas between Bengal and Orissa. Danda means punishment, and bhukti The unit was apparently to pacify and suppress the tribal inhabitants of that region and may have promoted Sanskrit and other elements of culture in the tribal areas. This was also true of Vardhamanabhukti (Burdwan).
• In south-east Bengal in the Faridpur area, five plots of land granted to a Buddhist monastery were declared waste and water-logged and they paid no tax to the state. Similarly, 200 brahmanas were given a large area in Comilla district within a forest region full of deer, boars, buffaloes, tigers, serpents, and the like. All such instances are sufficient proof of the progress of colonization and civilization in new areas.
• The fifth to seventh centuries also saw the formation of about half a dozen states, some large and others small; some independent and others feudatory. However, each had its victory or military camp where it maintained its infantry, cavalry, elephants, and boats. Each had its fiscal and administrative districts with its machinery for tax collection and maintenance of order.
• The number of endowments had increased to such a degree that eventually an officer called agraharika had to be appointed to look after them.

Assam

• Kamarupa, coterminous with the Brahmaputra basin running from east to west, shot into prominence in the seventh century. Excavations, however, show settlements in Ambari near Guwahati from the fourth century of the Christian era.
• In the same century Samudragupta received tributes from Davaka and Kamarupa. Davaka possibly accounted for a portion of Nowgong district, and Kamarupa covered the Brahmaputra basin.
• The Ambari excavations near Guwahati show that settlements were fairly developed in the sixth and seventh centuries, and this is supported by inscriptions. By the beginning of the sixth century, the use of Sanskrit and the art of writing are clearly in evidence.
• The Kamarupa kings adopted the title varman, which obtained not only in northern, central, and western India but also in Bengal, Orissa, Andhra, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. This title, which means armour and symbolizes a warrior, was given to the kshatriyas by Manu.
• Buddhism also acquired a foothold, and the Chinese traveller Hsuan Tsang (Hieun Tsang) visited this state.

The Formative Phase

• Cultural contacts with the Gupta empire stimulated the spread of civilization in the eastern zone. North Bengal and northwest Orissa came under Gupta rule; in other areas of these regions, the Gupta influence can be inferred from the use of the Gupta era dates in inscriptions.
• In Bengal new states were formed by feudatories, who maintained a substantial number of elephants, horses, boats, etc., in their military camps. For the first time, the fifth and sixth centuries clearly show large-scale writing, use of Sanskrit, formation of a varna society, and the growth of Buddhism and Brahmanism in the form of Shaivism and Vaishnavism in this area.
• The decline and fall of the Gupta empire therefore coincided with considerable progress in the outlying regions. Many obscure areas, which were possibly ruled by tribal chiefs and were thinly settled, came into limelight.
• This applied to the red soil areas of West Bengal, north Orissa, and the adjoining areas of MP, which formed part of Jharkhand and were difficult to cultivate and settle. It applied even more to the jungle areas with alluvial soil and heavy rainfall in Bangladesh and to the Brahmaputra basin.