Religions

The changing features of social and economic life such as the growth of towns, expansion of the artisan class and the rapid development of trade and commerce in the 6th BC were closely linked with changes in the religious field. It was a period of religious upheaval not only in the history of India but also in the rest of the world. In India various sects and reformers came into existence. They protested against the existing social and religious evils and attempted to reconstruct a new socio-religious order. As a result there arose a conflict between the established orthodoxy and the aspirations of newly rising groups in the urban centres.