Did a distinct urban culture develop in early historic India? How do we know and if yes, what shape did it take?

 Literature and archaeology amply indicate that the period between 200 BC and 300 AD was one of urban prosperity all over the subcontinent. Indeed it can be said to represent the apogee of early historic urbanism. Cities that arose in the sixth century BC primarily in the Gangetic valley and the Malwa region now flourished. Moreover, new towns came into being and city life spread to new regions as well, such as Kashmir, Sindh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Orissa, Andhra, Karnataka and the deep south.

sourceses: Vatsyayana’s Kamasutra which is an urban treatise par excellence and dedicated to enhancing the pleasures of leisure and refinement. 

the nagaraka or man-about-town, 

• the nagaraka or man-about-town, the cultured connoisseur of the good life in general, of pleasure in particular, and of sex even more particularly. His daily routine included beautifying himself, engaging in various arts and games, music and dancing, dressing up and going to salons, drinking parties and picnics, and conversing and dallying with courtesans. He was accompanied in these activities by other characters like the vita, vidushaka and pithamarda, all of whom were hangers-on on the nagaraka and accompanied him everywhere.

The nagaraka’s female

•  The nagaraka’s female counterpart in a sense was the ganika or courtesan. Extremely talented and beautiful, she was a superior prostitute who had among her customers the rich and powerful men of the city. She also publicly performed (dances) for the king. Amrapali is a famous courtesan from the city of Vaishali mentioned in the Jatakas.

festivals and gatherings

• Indeed city life seems to have commonly featured festivals and gatherings called utsava and samaja, and music and dance concerts, called sangitaka, and the performance of plays. These would happen at street crossings or in temple courtyards or in the king’s assembly. 

the institution of goshthi

• the institution of goshthi which was a cultural conclave or club-like meeting where men like the nagarakas and women like the ganikas could congregate and discuss poetry or art, along with indulging in wine and dalliance.

• The other side of this picture was that social and economic inequalities had also deepened together with the growing wealth and status of a few. The texts speak of the poor and downtrodden (adhana, daliddakula) and those rolling in luxuries (sadhana, mahabhogakula). 

Caste System

• The four varnas and the four ashramas (caturvarnashramadharma) emerge as the pillars of brahmanical ideology in the Dharmashastra texts of this period. Important features of caste were the preference for endogamy and hereditary occupation. There are indications of localization of caste and occupation with people of the same profession living in their own separate settlements or in distinct parts within the city.

Untouchable

• Principles of purity-pollution and hierarchy governed restrictions on the giving and receiving of food, particularly vis a vis brahmanas on the one hand and chandalas, the outcastes, on the other. The term 'untouchable' (asprishya) occurs in the Vishnu Dharmasutra of this period. It signified complete segregation of the social group called chandalas, which included corpse-removers, cremators, executioners, sweepers, hunters, etc., in other words the performers of menial functions. According to the Manu Smriti, they had to live outside the village or town and could not eat out of other people's dishes. There were a number of other groups too that were categorized as lowly (antyaja

Class Structure

• class structure was the strengthening of patriarchy in this period. It took the form of subordinating women and controlling their powers of reproduction as well as labour. This had an important economic function since carefully controlled intra-caste marital alliances ensured that property was preserved within a given clan and caste. Women of affluent classes were increasingly confined to the domestic sphere, making them economically dependent on their male kinsmen.

Women Position

• The texts also suggest that women were treated as property and akin to shudras. They were denied rights to inherit property, which was patrilineally passed on (passed on from father to son). The lawgivers of this period, however, do allow a married woman some control over the gifts made to her as a bride, which was known as stridhana. It should be noted that the occurrence of a number of women as donors at Buddhist sites like Sanchi and Bharhut indicates that certain women had some degree of access to economic resources of their households

Conclusion:Altogether, the post Mauryan economic scene was a complex, thriving one, the height of early historic agrarian and urban development. It was followed, however, by something of a decline - shrinking of urbanism and trade – which is supposed to have been set off by the drying up of Indo-Roman trade after the eclipse of the Roman Empire in about the third century AD. However, recent work has questioned this theory and it is now believed that neither urbanism nor trade ceased totally. There was instead perhaps the rise of new, regional trade networks together with or in place of older ones, and a change in the social character of cities.