The period from the seventh to the fifth
centuries BC was a turning point in the intellectual and spiritual
development of the whole world: it produced, among others, the early
Greek philosophers, the great Hebrew prophets, Confucius in China and
Zoroaster in Persia.
For north India, the sixth century BC was a
time of particular social, political and intellectual ferment. The older
and more familiar tribal structure of society was disintegrating. In its
place were appearing a few great regional kingdoms and a number of smaller
tribal groupings known, as republics. These kept some of the
characteristics of tribal structure but had little political power, being
dependent on the largest of the kingdoms.
In this transition period, when the old
social order was passing away and a new one had not yet taken shape, many
people felt themselves adrift, socially, and morally. Religious confusion
also arose as divergent streams of religious thought and practice came
into contact and conflict. It was probably from this conflict that the
so-called heterodox teachers associated with Buddhism, Jainism and the
Ajivikas sect emerged. They, in turn, probably owed their origin to the
Shramanas, the ancient religious teachers distinguished from the Brahmins
by their doctrine of salvation through asceticism. They were considered
heterodox because they refused to accept the authority of the Vedas, the
authoritative Hindu texts, and rejected the institutions of cast and
sacrifice.
