From First Urbanisation to Second

Detail

What the First Urbanisation was

• The Harappan (Sindhu-Sarasvatī) civilisation is India's First Urbanisation. It was a full urban order, not just big villages.
• It broke down in the early 2nd millennium BCE.
• Britannica dates the decline to roughly 2000–1750 BCE, and says it happened in stages, perhaps over a century or more — not in one sudden event everywhere [2].
• The end was not the same in every region. Mohenjo-daro's end was sharp and sudden; in the south, in Kathiawar and beyond, things looked very different [2].

What exactly vanished

Every part of the urban package went. Listing them is the exam-useful way to see what a "city" means:

• Big buildings — elaborate private houses and public structures.
• Crowded streets and markets — the daily buzz of a town.
• Specialised occupational communities — full-time metalsmiths, potters, builders, weavers. These are people who do one job all year, not farmers who make pots in spare time.
• A writing system — the Harappan script and the seals that carried it.
• A sanitation system — drains, soak-pits, planned water removal.
• An administration — people who kept records and ran things.
• A state structure and the ruling class behind it.
• Britannica agrees on the pattern: after the end date, the cities and many distinctly urban traits — writing, seals, and several specialised urban crafts — disappear [2].

What happened to the people

• Cities ended; people did not.
• Some cities were abandoned outright.
• In others, people stayed on but went back to village life — same place, simpler living.
• So this is a collapse of the urban system, not of the population. Britannica makes the same point: the urban collapse does not mean the whole lifestyle broke down, but it does mean the old system of social and political control ended [2].

The urban gap — roughly one thousand years

• For about one millennium, urban life was absent from India (leaving aside a few possible towns).
• This gap is the single most important fact of this section. c. 1900 BCE to c. 900/600 BCE = no cities.
• Britannica calls the era that follows the "Post-Harappan" or, better, the "Post-Urban" period, lasting until about 750 BCE [2].
• Important regional cultures did continue through the gap. Village life, farming, pottery styles and metal work all carried on. Empty of cities does not mean empty of history.

The new urban phase begins

• In the 1st millennium BCE a vibrant new urbanisation started.
• Where it began: the Ganga plains, parts of the Sindhu basin and nearby regions.
• Where it went: it spread gradually across the subcontinent.
• This is the Second Urbanisation — and (Class 7 Part 1, Ch 4 "New Beginnings") it has continued right up to today. India's cities have never again vanished.
• Britannica puts the start of this second urbanisation in the Ganga and Yamuna valleys around 900 BCE [2].

The pottery and metal markers

• Painted Grey Ware (PGW) — grey pots painted with simple designs, the marker pottery of the early Ganga settlements.
• PGW spread settlements eastward into the upper Ganges–Yamuna valleys, and by the second quarter of the 1st millennium BCE this growth produced the first cities of the Ganges system [2][3].

• PGW phase is usually dated c. 1200–800 BCE [3].

• Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW) — a fine, shiny black pottery. The Second Urbanisation is generally seen at the end of the PGW phase and with the use of NBPW [3].

• Iron — iron working coincided with, if not actually helped cause, this change. The earliest dated iron is probably from about 1200–1100 BCE at Pirak, in the Kachchhi region [2].

How we know — two kinds of evidence

The scaffold gives exactly two legs to stand on. Both matter in an answer:

1. Archaeological excavation of the ancient urban centres — digging up the towns themselves and reading what is in the ground.
2. Ancient literature — late Vedic, Buddhist and Jain texts are full of references to the new cities. - The two must agree before a claim is safe. A city named in a text is stronger when a mound with NBPW pottery is dug at the same spot.

The organising claim — why the 6th century BCE matters

Class 12 Part 1, Ch 2 "Kings, Farmers and Towns" states it plainly: the sixth century BCE is a major turning point in early Indian history. Five things arrive together and feed each other:

• Early states — the janapadas and mahajanapadas.
• Cities — the towns of the Second Urbanisation.
• Growing use of iron — better ploughs and axes, more farm surplus.
• Development of coinage — money makes trade and taxes easier.
• Diverse systems of thought, including Buddhism and Jainism.

The chain, broken into steps:

• Iron tools clear forest and plough the heavy, wet Ganga soil.
• More farm surplus feeds people who do not farm.
• Those non-farmers live in towns as craftsmen, traders, soldiers, officials.
• Towns and trade need money, so coinage appears.
• Towns and surplus need collecting and defending, so states appear.
• Towns bring new groups — traders, artisans — who ask new questions, so new thought systems like Buddhism and Jainism find listeners.

Note: NCERT frames the 6th century BCE as the turning point; Britannica dates the first Ganga cities a little earlier, to the second quarter of the 1st millennium BCE (c. 750–500 BCE), and the second urbanisation's start to c. 900 BCE [2][3]. Treat the NCERT 6th century BCE as the exam answer; the earlier dates mark when the process began, not when cities were full-grown.

Prelims Hooks

• India's First Urbanisation = the Harappan (Sindhu-Sarasvatī) civilisation; it broke down in the early 2nd millennium BCE.
• Urban traits lost after the Harappans: writing, seals, sanitation, specialised crafts, administration, state structure.
• Gap without cities in India: about one millennium.
• Britannica dates the Indus decline to roughly 2000–1750 BCE, in stages, not one event [2].
• The era after is called Post-Harappan / "Post-Urban", lasting to about 750 BCE [2].
• Mohenjo-daro's end was dramatic and sudden; Kathiawar and the south were different [2].
• Second Urbanisation began in the 1st millennium BCE in the Ganga plains and parts of the Sindhu basin; Britannica gives c. 900 BCE in the Ganga–Yamuna valleys [2].
• Two evidence types for the Second Urbanisation: archaeological excavation + late Vedic, Buddhist and Jain literature.
• Painted Grey Ware (PGW) phase = c. 1200–800 BCE; Second Urbanisation is seen at the end of PGW and with Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW) [3].
• Earliest dated iron in the subcontinent: about 1200–1100 BCE at Pirak, Kachchhi region [2].
• The sixth century BCE is the major turning point — early states, cities, iron, coinage, Buddhism and Jainism.

Mains Points

• Two urbanisations, one key difference. The first ended and left no descendant city. The second never ended — India's urban life runs unbroken from the Ganga towns to today. Use this to argue that the Second Urbanisation, not the first, is the true root of the Indian city.
• The gap is the proof that cities need conditions, not just people. People stayed in the Indus region and kept farming, but for a thousand years they built no city. Cities need surplus, specialists, trade and an authority to hold them together. When those went, towns went too — even with the same people on the same land.
• Iron as cause or companion — a live debate. Britannica says iron working "coincided with, if not actually contributed to" the change [2]. Argue both sides: iron axes and ploughs opened the wet Ganga forests and raised surplus; but PGW settlement growth was already underway, so iron may have sped up a process that had other causes (rice farming, population growth, trade routes).
• Why the 6th century BCE is treated as one package. States, cities, iron, coins and new religions are not five separate facts. Surplus feeds towns, towns need money and rulers, and towns give new social groups the confidence to question old ritual order. A GS-I answer scores by showing this interlock rather than listing the five items.