The duties laid down in ‘Manusmriti’ for the Chandals:

(i) They had to live outside the village.

(ii) They had to use discarded utensils.

(iii) They had to wear clothes of the dead and ornaments of iron.

(iv) They could not walk about in villages and cities at night.

(v) They had to dispose of the bodies of those who had no relatives and serve as executioners.

Agriculture: Agriculture was the main occupation of the Indus Valley people.

Domestication of Animals: The people of Harappa domesticated animals like oxen, buffaloes, pigs, goats and sheep.

Trade: Traders carried on trade in the country as well as with other countries like Egypt, Babylon and Afghanistan.

Inscription helps alot when writing the history of the Gupta period because with the help of it we can trace from it earliest period to its last period. Here are some of the example:
(a) Dr. Fleet rendered great service by publishing in 1888 the third volume of Corpus inscription of the early Gupta kings and their successors.The first 16 inscriptions in the above mentioned corpus refer to the early Guptas.Their dates range from 360 A.D. to 466 A.D.The date line of the early Gupta dynasty is taken to end with Skandagupta.
(b) ;The Allahabad pillar inscription of Samudragupta gives us a detailed account of the conquests of his.
 (c) ;The Eran Stone No. 2 inscription of Samudragupta’s period contains a record of the power and achievements of Samudragupta. 
(d) The Udayagiri cave inscription, the Mathura stone inscription, the Sanchi stone inscription and the Gadhwa Stone Inscription of the time of Chandragupta II give us a lot of information regarding the attitude of the state towards religion.
Thus we can see from the above example that the inscription touches almost all the aspects of the Gupta rule. From its economy, society to political. Thus making it easier to reconstruct many aspects of theri rule from first Gupta ruler to the last one.

The reasons behind the decline of the Mauryan empire were

1. The successors of Ashoka were politically weak and inefficient.
2. The empire was too large in terms of size and it was very difficult to control the far flung territories.
3. After Ashoka’s death, there was no strong central authority. As a result, the viceroys of the provinces declared themselves independent.
4. Maintenance of a large standing army and an elaborate administrative system was a major strain on the state treasury.

The distribution of the population according to different types of occupations is referred to as the occupational structure.An enormous variety of.occupations are found in any country. These occupations can be classified into three categories: primary, secondary and tertiary.

(i) Primary activities include agriculture, animal husbandry, building and construction work, etc.

(ii) Secondary activities include manufacturing industry, building and construction work, etc.

(iii) Tertiary activities include transport, communications, commerce, administration and other services

An Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) report that was made public this week claims that the largest and oldest sites of the Harappan Civilization are both in Haryana. The oldest, according to C-14 radio-dating done by ASI, is at Bhirana village in Fatehabad district, and has been dated to 7570-6200 BC. Until now, Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan was considered the largest among the 2,000 Harappan sites known to exist in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. A recent report by the Archaeological Survey of India claims that Haryana's Bhirrana is the oldest Harappan site and Rakhigarhi the biggest Harappan site in Asia.

Retribution is defined as something done to get back at someone or the act of punishing someone for their actions. An example of retribution is when someone gets the death penalty for committing murder. An example of retribution is when someone gets the death penalty for committing murder. Vengeance is the  infliction of injury, harm, humiliation, or the like, on a person by another who has been harmed by that person; violent revenge:

He sent his son Mahendra and daughter Sanghamitra to Sri Lanka to propagate Buddhism. Asoka also tried to hold his empire together by propagating dhamma, the principles of which were simple and virtually universally applicable. This, according to him, would ensure the well-being of people in this world and the next.

Reconstructing religous beliefs and practices of past is not an easy task. Now reconstructions of Harappan religion are made on the assumption that later traditions provide parallels with earlier ones. This is because archaeologists often move from the known to the unknown, that is, from the present to the past. While this is plausible in the case of stone querns and pots, it becomes more speculative when we extend it to “religious” symbols.

However attempts have been made by the scholars to reconstruct the religious beliefs and practices by examining the seals of the harappan civilization. And studying these seals and the motifs printed on it scholars have come out with ideas regarding the religious practices of the Harappan people. For example there are some seal which seem to depict ritual scenes. Others, with plant motifs, are thought to indicate nature worship. Some animals – such as the one-horned animal, often called the “unicorn” – depicted on seals seem to be mythical, composite creatures. In some seals, a figure shown seated cross-legged in a “yogic” posture, sometimes surrounded by animals, has been regarded as a depiction of “proto-Shiva”, that is, an early form of one of the major deities of Hinduism.

Even then there still remain doubts when it comes to religious practices for instance, at the “proto-Shiva” seals. The earliest religious text, the Rigveda (compiled c. 1500-1000 BCE) mentions a god named Rudra, which is a name used for Shiva in later Puranic traditions However, unlike Shiva, Rudra in the Rigveda is neither depicted as Pashupati (lord of animals in general and cattle in particular), nor as a yogi. In other words, this depiction does not match the description of Rudra in the Rigveda. 

Hence even though seals does help in reconstructing religious beliefs and practices of the Harappan civilization but even then it is no more than a speculation.

 (i) Early archaeologists thought that certain objects which seemed unusual or unfamiliar may have had a religious significance. These included terracotta figurines of women, heavily jewelled some with elaborate head-dresses, regarded as mother goddesses.

(ii) Rare stone statutory of men in an almost standardised posture, seated with one hand on the knee such as ‘priest king’ was also similarly classified.

(iii) Same structures have been assigned of ritual significance which include great bath and fire altars found at Kalibangan and Lothal.

(iv) Attempts have also been made to reconstruct religious beliefs and practices by examining seals, some of which seem to depict ritual scenes. Others, with plant motifs, are thought to indicate nature worship. Some animals — such as the one-horned animal, often called the ‘unicorn — depicted on seals seem to be mythical, composite creatures. In some seals, a figure shown seated cross-legged in a yogic posture, sometimes surrounded by animals, has been regarded as a depiction of ‘proto-Shiva’, that is, an early form of one of the major deities of HinduisnvBesides, conical stone objects have been ‘ classified as lingas.

The rayas and the nayakas:

1. Nayakas were military chiefs who usually controlled forts and had armed supporters. They moved from one area to another, and in many cases were accompanied by peasants looking for fertile land on which to settle. They usually spoke Telugu or Kannada. Many nayakas submitted to the authority of the kings of Vijayanagara but they often rebelled and had to be subdued by military action.
2. The amara-nayaka system was a major political innovation of the Vijayanagara Empire. They were military commanders who were given territories to govern by the raya. They collected taxes and other dues from peasants, craftspersons and traders in the area.
3. These contingents provided the Vijayanagara kings with an effective fighting force with which they brought the entire southern peninsula under their control.

The Revolt of 1857 was of a formidable nature but it failed due to various reasons:

1. Lack of good and effective leadership : The great leaders like Bahadur Shah, Nana Sahib, Tantia Tope, Rani Lakshmi Bai, Kunwar Singh, etc. who brave fought to overthrow the British empire. But these leaders were not as trained and good commanders who suppressed the revolt like Lawrence, Campbell, Havelock, Outram, etc. The activities of Indian leaders were confined to a narrow area and extended over a short brief period.

2. The mutiny was not centralised : The mutiny was not centralised and occurred only in some places. R. C. Mazumdar says, “It was never in all India character but was localised, restricted and poorly orgainsed.” The mutiny had not spread in South India. Punjab, Rohilkhand, Awadh, Bihar and Western Bengal were the areas where the mutiny had spread. Some of the feudal princes like the Rajas of Patiala, Jind, Gwalior, Hyderabad helped its suppression.

3. Lack of Resources : The resources of the British Empire were far superior to those of the rebels. Even though the British was engaged in so many wars before the revolt. The Chinese and the Crimean wars had been concluded by 1856 and the British troops around 1,12,000 were poured into India from many parts of the world.

Apart from this the British had also recruited 3,10,000 additional Indian soldiers in India. The rebels did not possess the modern weapons like the British troops. They fought with swords and spears. The electric telegraph kept the commander in chief informed about the movements of the Indian rebels and their strategy. The British which had colonies throughout the world derived its resources to suppress the revolt with men and money powers, whereas the rebels lacked man power and money which was a major set back for the revolt.

4. The Revolt was poorly organised : The leaders of the revolt like Nana Sahib, Tantia Tope, Rani Lakshmi Bai, Kunwar Singh, etc. were not lacking in bravery, but were deficient in experience, organising ability and concerted operation. Surprise attacks and the guerilla tactics of Tantia Tope and other leaders could not win them their lost independence. When the revolt was suppressed the Government of India and the provincial governments appointed various commissions and boards to find out the scheme of plan of the rebels, but they could not find out any preplan of the revolutionaries before the occurrence and after it.

5. The rebels had no common ideals : The rebels had only anti-foreign sentiments except that they did not have any common ideals. When the rebels marched into Delhi, they captured it and they proclaimed Bahadur Shah the Emperor at Delhi. At the same time Nana Sahib was proclaimed as the Peshwa of Kanpur | and Gwalior. Hindu-Muslim differences lay dormant against the common enemy, but were not dead. The peasants and the lower caste people did not show any sympathy for the rebels. In the Bombay and Madras Presidencies the lower class people who were recruited into the British troops remained loyal to the British. The Hindus wanted to set up a Maratha rule while the Muslims wanted to revive the Mughal kingdom. The selfishness of the revolt sapped the strength of the revolt.

Ashoka the Great (Devanagari: अशोक; IAST transliteration: Aśoka, 304 BCE – 232 BCE), known also as Piyadasi (Pali. Sanskrit:Priyadarśin – meaning 'good looking'), and Devanaŋpiya (Pali. Sanskrit:Devānāmpriya meaning 'beloved of the Gods'), was the emperor of the Mauryan Empire from 273 BCE to 232 BCE. His given name was Asoka but he assumed the title Devanampiya Piyadasi which means "Beloved-of-the-Gods”.

The Non-cooperation movement was launched on 5th September, 1920 by Mahatma Gandhi with the aim of self-governance and obtaining full independence as the Indian National Congress (INC) withdraw its support for British reforms following the Rowlatt Act of 21 March 1919, and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 14 April 1919.

Buddhism rapidly spread throughout the world due to the following reasons:

• The disciples of Buddha founded an organization of monks called sangha who became teachers of dhamma. These monks lived simply, possessed only the essential requisites for survival. They spread the teachings of Buddha and Buddhism.

• Women also became part of a sangha and persuaded other women to follow Buddhism.

• Buddha attracted followers from various social groups such as kings, wealthy men and common folks including workers, slaves and craftspeople.

• Buddhism regarded everyone as equal. The social identities were not considered important.

• Buddhism appealed to those that were dissatisfied with the existing religious practices and rapidly changing social identities.

• Conduct and values were of greater importance than claims of superiority based on birth.

All these factors led to the growth of Buddhism.

The teachings of Buddha have been reconstructed in Sutta Pitaka. According to Buddhist Philosophy:

• The world is transient (anicca) and constantly changing.

• The world is soulless (anatta). There is nothing permanent and eternal in it.

• Sorrow (dukh) is intrinsic to human existence.

• Only when the person follows the path of moderation between severe penance and self-indulgence, he could rise above worldly troubles.

• Existence or non-existence of God is irrelevant to Buddhism. The world is the creation of humans.

• Humanity and ethical values are considered above everything.

• Buddha emphasized individuality and righteous action as the means to escape from the cycle of rebirth and attain self-realization and Nibbana, i.e, the extinguishing of ego and desire. This would thus end the cycle of suffering.