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Around the sixth century BCE, the growth of states, towns, trade, crafts and new social groups coincided with major religious and philosophical questioning. Shramana traditions, including Jainism, Buddhism and the Ajivikas, developed within this wider social and intellectual transformation.
Not all Mahajanapadas were ruled by hereditary monarchs. While states such as Magadha and Kosala were monarchies, polities such as Vajji and Malla were associated with gana-sangha systems in which political authority was shared among elite clan members. These were not modern democracies.
By around the sixth century BCE, a number of large territorial states known as Mahajanapadas had emerged across northern India and adjoining regions. The Anguttara Nikaya preserves a famous list of sixteen. Magadha, Kosala, Vatsa and Avanti became major powers, while polities such as Vajji followed forms of gana-sangha political organisation.
Several centuries after the decline of Harappan urbanism, a new phase of urban growth developed during the first millennium BCE. By around the sixth century BCE, new towns, territorial states, expanding agriculture and trade, coinage and the increasingly widespread use of iron had become major features of northern India.
