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Greater Magadha is a theory in the studies of the Ancient India, introduced by Johannes Bronkhorst. It refers to the Nastika political and cultural sphere that developed in the lower Gangetic plains (modern day Bihar, Eastern Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal), east of the Vedic heartland and roughly corresponding to the region of the later Magadha empire.
According to Bronkhorst, out of the ideological opposition between these two cultural spheres – the Vedic realms of Kuru Kingdom and Panchala in the west, and Śramaṇa of Greater Magadha in the east – developed the two main religious & spiritual ideologies of Ancient India. Critics have questioned Bronkhorst's assertion of a stark cultural division between East and West, as well as his claim that early Magadha was less influenced by Brahmanization.
They developed an ideological opposition to the sacrifice and ritual slaying of animals. Later this non-Vedic tradition gave rise to religions or schools of philosophy such as Jainism which later gave rise to concepts like ahimsa.
According to Bronkhorst, the Śramaṇa culture arose in "Greater Magadha," which was Indo-Aryan, but not Vedic. In this culture, were placed higher than , and it rejected Vedas authority and rituals.
Out of the ideological opposition between these two cultural spheres – the Vedic realms of Kuru Kingdom and Panchala in the west, and Śramaṇa of Greater Magadha in the east – developed the two main religious & spiritual ideologies of Vedic period.
Vedic religion, which placed a lot of importance on the system of ritual correctness, arose out of the culture of the erstwhile Kuru and Panchala realms. While the Śramaṇa tradition, which placed emphasis on the spiritual works, that developed in Greater Magadha, later to gave rise to non-Vedic (non-Brahmanical) religions such as Buddhism, Jainism, Ajivika, Ajñana and the atheist ideology of Charvaka.
Alexander Wynne questions Bronkhorst's late dating of early Upanishad. He argues the ideas of karma, reincarnation and Moksha developed within the Vedic tradition rather than being borrowed. He states that there is more continuity between late Vedic thought and early Upanishads than Bronkhorst allows. Wynne proposes an alternative view that unorthodox Brahmin thinkers in the eastern region developed these ideas, triggering the ascetic and philosophical culture Bronkhorst associates with Greater Magadha.
On the other hand, Geoffrey Samuel, following Thomas Hopkins, also proposed that the Central Gangetic region formed a "distinct but related cultural complex," as exemplified by the Painted Grey Ware, which did not spread past the Ganga-Yamuna Doab. It was the area of the earliest known rice cultivation in South Asia, and had reached the Chalcolithic when the Aryans first entered northwestern India. According to Hopkins, the Aryan societies and this eastern Gangetic culture formed two separate sources for the development toward iron-working and urbanisation. The Brahmins of the Aryan, Vedic cultural sphere perceived this eastern, non-Aryan, Jain-Buddhist cultural sphere as wholly different, with a religion of fertility and female deities which dominated this area.
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