Kinship, caste and class in early India
Whole chapter · 16–24 focused hours
Post-Mauryan India and the Sangam age
A first-attempt learner with school-level reading and little retained ancient/medieval history or art history. Later chapters assume the earlier chronological context; History optional and practical arts training are outside scope.
Includes
- Selected explanatory readings, images/maps and source extracts
- Brief chronology or comparison notes
- Available mapped practice, mistake review and one initial recall review
Separate time needed
- Subsequent spaced revision and full mock examinations
- Reading every reference book and optional exercise in full
- Exclude literary authorship catalogues and sculpture-school identification; assign those once in Culture.
Editorial planning estimate; not measured learner time
- Varna duties in Dharmasutras and Manusmriti, jatis beyond varna, occupations and mobility
- Gotra, exogamy and endogamy, eight forms of marriage, Satavahana metronymics as exception
- Inheritance schools: Mitakshara (sons' right by birth) versus Dayabhaga (right after father's death); both not caste-based
- Chandalas and untouchability in Manusmriti and Fa-hien's account
- The Mahabharata critical edition and how historians read epic for social history
Where to study this topic
- Themes in Indian History Part I, Class XII, Theme 3 Kinship, Caste and Class: Early Societies ↗
Theme 3 Kinship, Caste and Class, pp. 1-29 (printed 53-81)
- R.S. Sharma, India's Ancient Past (publisher page with table of contents) ↗
ch. 32
Whole chapter reading
- Tamil Nadu State Board Class XI History Volume I (lessons 1 to 11), full text ↗
Lessons 5–6, early Tamil society and post-Mauryan polities
- Themes in Indian History Part I, Class XII, Theme 3 Kinship, Caste and Class: Early Societies ↗
Kinship, caste and social differentiation; interpret texts as evidence rather than literal descriptions of all society.
- R.S. Sharma, India's Ancient Past (publisher page with table of contents) ↗
Chapters 20–23, regional states, southern society and commerce; use only sections filling gaps in the assigned school-text readings.
Book required