Describe the social life in India under the regional ruling dynasties
Answers
Answer:
In the first half of the millennium the South saw various small kingdoms rise and fall mostly independent to the turmoil in the Gangetic plains and the spread of the Buddhism and Jainism to the southern tip of India. During the second half of the millennium after the fall of the Gupta Empire, a gradual shift of the balance of both military and cultural power occurs from the northern states to the rise of large southern states.
From the mid-seventh to the mid-13th centuries, regionalism was the dominant theme of political and dynastic history of the Indian subcontinent. Three features commonly characterize the sociopolitical realities of this period.
First, the spread of Brahmanical religions was a two-way process of Sanskritization of local cults and localization of Brahmanical social order.
Second was the ascendancy of the Brahman priestly and landowning groups that later dominated regional institutions and political developments.
Third, because of the seesawing of numerous dynasties that had a remarkable ability to survive perennial military attacks, regional kingdoms faced frequent defeats but seldom total annihilation.
Peninsular India was involved in an 8th-century tripartite power struggle among the Chalukyas (556–757 CE), the Pallavas (300–888 CE) of Kanchipuram, and the Pandyas. The Chalukya rulers were overthrown by their subordinates, the Rashtrakutas (753-973 CE). Although both the Pallava and Pandya kingdoms were enemies, the real struggle for political domination was between the Pallava and Chalukya realms.
The emergence of the Rashtrakutas heralded a new era in the history of South India. The idiom of a Pan-Indian empire had moved to south. South Indian kingdoms had hitherto ruled areas only up to and south of the Narmada River. It was the Rashtrakutas who first forged north to the Gangetic plains and successfully contested their might against the Palas of Bengal and the Rajput Prathiharas of Gujarat.
Despite interregional conflicts, local autonomy was preserved to a far greater degree in the south where it had prevailed for centuries. The absence of a highly centralized government was associated with a corresponding local autonomy in the administration of villages and districts. Extensive and well-documented overland and maritime trade flourished with the Arabs on the west coast and with Southeast Asia. Trade facilitated cultural diffusion in Southeast Asia, where local elites selectively but willingly adopted Indian art, architecture, literature, and social customs.
Answer:
The position of women declined during this period. Many evil practices such as sati, child marriage etc prevailed.