Second Urbanization Phase

Second urbanization phase opened number of new avenues in Indian society. The flourishing arts reached a new pinnacle. Ceramics especially became very popular. The major excavations findings of that era are; rajagriha, vaishali, bodhgaya in bihar; dharanikota in Andhra Pradesh; nevasa in Maharashtra, saranath, hastinapura, kosambi in Uttar Pradesh, chandraketugarh in West Bengal, arikamedu in Pondicherry, sisupalgarh in Orissa and vidhisa in Madhya Pradesh etc. These above mentioned cities have significant number of fortified cities belonging to second urbanization era.

The Buddhist phase brought refreshing changes in Indian culture. This is one of the glorious phases in Indian history. The one major change in Buddhist phase was the kind of support they received from famous kings and generous merchants. Urban citizens also provided amazing patronage to Buddhist constructions and many shrines at places like ajanta, sanati, sanchi, kanehri, lalitgiri, saranath, amravati etc beat testimony to richness of buddhist culture. Jainism also made its entry during this period and it also got royal patronage and many cities in India have splendid Jain monuments. The names include, mathura near New Delhi and udayagiri, khandagiri in Orissa.

During one particular era Buddhism was the single biggest religion in India but once that period came to an end, large numbers of brahmanical temples were constructed in all parts of India in accordance with regional styles. Besara and dravida in south India and kalinga and nagara in north India have such temples. Meanwhile, Jainism kept its presence intact and they also built temples in places like ellora in Maharashtra and sravanabelagola in Karnataka. Soon, Islam also followed with monuments in north Indian places like Agra, Lucknow, Delhi and in south India, Hyderabad and northern Karnataka. Other amazing archeological wonders were built by Marathas of Maharashtra, Rajputs of Rajasthan etc.