Mahajanpadas & Rise of Magadh
Mahajanpadas In the later Vedic period, the tribal organisations changed its identity and gradually shifted to the territorial identity, and the area of settlement were now regarded as janapadas or states. In transition from tribe to monarchy, they lost the essential democratic pattern of the tribe but retained the idea of government through an essential democratic pattern of the tribe but retained the idea of government through an assembly representing the tribes. These states consisted of either a single tribe such as the Shakyas, Kolias, Mallas etc. or a confederacy of tribes such as the Vrijjis, Yadavas, Panchala etc. The people in the lower Ganges Valley and Delta, which were outside the Aryan pale, were regarded as Mlecchas. There was, therefore, a strong consciousness of the pure land of the Aryans called Aryavarta. According to Anguttara Nikaya, there were about sixteen Mahajanpadas in the sixth century BC. Their capital and locations are given in a table o