The  Mahajanapadas City states

The 16 Mahajanapadas city states

 In the later Vedic Age, a number of small kingdoms or city states had covered the subcontinent, many mentioned during Vedic literature as far back as 1000 BCE. By 600 BCE, sixteen monarchies and 'republics' known as the Mahajanapadas .

Some of these kings were hereditary, other city states elected their rulers. The educated speech at that time was Sanskrit, while the dialects of the general population of northern India were referred to as Prakrits. These sixteen kingdoms had reduced to four by 500 BCE, that is by the time of SiddHindu rituals at that time were complicated and conducted by the priestly class. It is thought that the Upanishads, late Vedic texts dealing mainly with incipient philosophy, were composed in the later Vedic Agehartha Gautama, probably due to infighting. These four were Vatsa, Avanti, Kosala and Magadha .

The Upanishads had a huge effect on Indian philosophy, and were contemporary to the development of Buddhism and Jainism, indicating a golden age of thought in this period. It was in 537 BCE, that Siddhartha Gautama attained the state of awakenedness - "enlightenment", and became known as the 'Buddha' - the awakened one. Around the same time period, in 510 BCE, Mahavira founded Jainism. The Buddha's teachings and Jainism had simple doctrines, and were preached in Prakrit, which helped them gain acceptance amongst the masses. While the geographic impact of Jainism was limited, Buddhist nuns and monks eventually spread the teachings of Buddha to Central Asia, East Asia, Tibet, Sri Lanka and South East Asia.

Amongst the sixteen Mahajanapadas, the kingdom of Magadha rose to prominence under a number of dynasties. According to tradition, the Haryanka dynasty founded the Magadha Empire in 684 BC whose capital was Rajagriha, later Pataliputra, near the present day Patna.  This empire lated until 320 BC .This dynasty was succeeded by the Shishunaga dynasty which, in turn, was overthrown by the Nanda dynasty in 424 BC. The Nandas were followed by the Maurya dynasty.

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