Chapter 7 Reading Guide India and China Establish Empires
Chapter Study Guide Questions
As you read both the following essay and the text chapter it is designed to accompany, be sure to pay special attention to the following ID and Larger Study topics. They are your best guide to what topics, from this Chapter, will be covered on the 2nd Section's objective exam. These study terms and topics will be highlighted and/or repeated as they appear below. Your Section objective exam will be on how well you understand the below topics covered both in this essay and the accompanying text chapter.Chapter Map Locations:ID Study Terms
Varna and jati
Vishnu
The Bhagavad-Gita
Ashoka
The idea of "theater state"
Indian mathematics
Funan
Srivijavan KingdomLarger Study Topics Understand Vedic Indian social and religious beliefs and patterns as of c. 500 BCE (the eve of Buddhism). How did varna and jati work? What were Aryan Vedic basic religious beliefs and practices? Assumptions concerning reincarnation? How it related to an individual's class and caste status?
Understand the emergence of Buddhism in India. In face of what problems with established Vedic belief, what basic ideas did Siddhartha Gautama (the historic Buddha) teach, producing what two different schools of Buddhism soon after his death?
Understand Chandragupta Maurya's original creation of his Mauryan Empire. In what situation, how was he able to create what sort of state?
Understand Hindu society in India by the time of the Gupta Empire. Development and workings of caste system? Situation of women?
Make note of all of the following map locations; they will be included on the Section 2 Map Exercise. Most are included on maps within this essay, but for a few (ex: areas of Cartheginian Empire), consult also maps in your text.
Ganges RiverChapter Introduction: Students usually note that India is one of the most "foreign" of all the early civilizations we study. This reaction probably comes from the fact that Classic Age India's pattern of civilization doesn't turn out the same way as did Classic Age patterns in either China or Rome. In India, the two large centralizing empires were the exception, with the later one (the Gupta) smaller and weaker than the earlier one (the Mauryan). This certainly is not the pattern of either the Mediterranean or Chinese lands, in which empires generally grew larger, more stable and more sophisticated. India's dominant religion also stays with a (much upgraded) version of its original many gods (polytheism), while China moved towards the sophisticated political philosophy of Confucianism and the Mediterranean towards eventually three kinds of ethical monotheism. And finally, India keeps her most ancient social patterns in which the population is divided into huge numbers of different lifelong social/cultural subgroups, into which people were born and in which they stayed until death. This certainly was different from the increased (although of course still very limited) social mobility of both imperial Rome and Confucian China.
Himalaya Mountains
Hindu Kush
Thar Desert
Deccan Plateau
Area of Magadha
Area of Indochina
Malay Peninsula
Isthmus of Kra
Area of Funan
Strait of Malacca
Sumatra
Java
So how does India fit into the era which your text identifies as having "the formation of new cultural communities"? The answer is that during this time period India was indeed forming a distinctive identity and culture, although - quite unusually - doing it without having to be permanently under one central political authority, or having to abandon its earliest patterns of belief and society (many gods and caste system).
In good part this was posible because of India geography, which (as with earliest Egypt) gave Indians enough physical separation and barriers to keep them fairly safe from intruders (who might either overturn old ways, or force centralization in self defense), while also allowing enough trade contacts to promote greater prosperity than would be possible on just an agricultural base.
In essence, given this early era's still pretty simple level of sea and land military power, early Hindu India was almost totally surrounded by barriers to frequent invasion. The Himalaya Mountains were a huge barrier to the north, as were the Hindu Kush mountains to the Northwest. The "ice cream cone" of most of India hangs straight down into the Indian Ocean, which was a highway of coastal trade but not one of invasion (seagoing invasions are mostly a pretty recent thing). Beyond the mouth of the Ganges River there were the jungles of what is now Burma directly to the east - again, for most of history, jungles rarely produced serious states that invaded in serious ways. This really left only a western corridor from what is now Afghanistan and Persia, across either southerly semi-deserts more northernly mountain passes (the most famous is the Khyber Pass). In this geographic situation, while civilizations were jelling to both the east (China) and the west (Persia, Greece, Rome), India had several mostly uninterrupted millenia in which to form her civilization (Alexander the Great was a brief exception) without the recurring invasions that pushed both the Middle East and China towards more centralized border defenses.
The Foundations of India Civilization: Vedic India
The age is called "Vedic" for the major source on which we base our very knowledge of the time. "Vedic" refers to the Vedas, or religious sources, of that time. The Vedas were at first songs or odes that were for a very long time passed down orally, but eventually (by about 500 BCE) were written down and so are still available to tell us much of what is known about the earliest Aryan era in India.
Currently there is spirited debate about just what role the survivors of the Indus Valley era played in the Vedic age that replaced it. Until fairly recently, history books taught that Indus knowledge was wiped out by barbaric, intruding Aryan invaders, who trampled fields, burst dams, and enslaved the surviving ordinary population. More recent scholars suggests a much less powerful, destructive role for the Aryan intruders. First, it seems increasingly likely that internal decline had greatly weakend complex Indus civilization before Aryan arrival, so badly so that irrigation and writing had already been lost almost completely lost by then (about 1500 BCE). On the other hand, surviving Indus-era culture may have survived at least at the village agricultural level well enough to have contributed more to the Aryan/Vedic age that was previously believed. Stay tuned on this.
But in the meantime it remains true that, following the end of the Indus Valley's complex ways of life, new patterns of complex civilization took many centuries to reappear again in Aryan-dominated India. When they did, they did so in patterns mostly echoing the style of those originally-nomadic Aryan warriors, although perhaps also including significant cultural patterns picked up from the old Indus cultural base. One parallel people might be the Shang Chinese, who probably entered China sometime around when the Aryans were coming into India. The Shang probably learned agriculture and developed their culture as warrior/priest rulers over subject agricultural people. This is basically what the Aryans seem to have been and done, as over the years c. 1500-500 BCE they spread across the northern strip of India, settled down, and eventually evolved their own very early brand of civilization.
One Study topic asks you to
Understand Vedic Indian social and religious beliefs and patterns as of c. 500 BCE (the eve of Buddhism). How did varna and jati work? What were Aryan Vedic basic religious beliefs and practices? Assumptions concerning reincarnation? How it related to an individual's class and caste status?The very early Aryans were a typical nomad "courage culture" - dominated by men, valuing mostly kinship ties and the physical skills of warriors and herders. As they settled down, like the early Zhou in China and also the Archaic era Greeks (c. 800-500 BCE), their mobile tribal structure began to change. Once they settled permanently, they developed more interest in farming, and generally developed the kind of settled complex culture we call earliest civilization. In political terms, they did the usual thing of forming hundreds of small states, under warrior rulers sharing some amount of authority with either or both priests and their own top warrior subordinates. But in their religion and society, the Aryans developed their own distinct patterns which have continued up into modern times: a caste society and a belief in reincarnation.
The Aryans' caste society probably started out not too different from the early class divisions of Shang China or Hammurabi's Babylon - it is just that while almost all other societies evolved to be more socially mobile, the Indians evolved to be less. By 500 BCE Vedic India was continuing a system probably first established by the Aryan incomers a thousand years before, a system of 4 major Varna or classes. These were defined by occupation and established by the family into which an individual was born. At the top were the two great early Aryan elite classes: priests (Brahmin) and warriors (Kshatriya). Below them came Vaishya, consisting of ordinary Aryan people with occupations requiring some distinct skill - probably these were all the non-elite Aryans when the system was set up. The lowest regular class was that of Shudra, consisting of ordinary laborers and peasants. Many scholars believe that this class was originally made up on non-Aryans who were treated as a dark-skinned subject class. Eventually below the Shudras came "untouchables" - people doing things considered extremely polluting, and so who literally were not supposed to come into direct contact (touch) with higher castes.
While many early civilizations had such class divisions, very often based at least partly on birth, in India even as early as 500 BCE this system had grown unusually complex and entwined with basic Indian religious thought. The complexity came from the subdivision of each large varna class into many smaller birth groups, called jati, as well as the growing number of aspects of life determined by a person's jati. Thus increasingly Indians worked, lived, ate, dressed, and married all within their own jati subdivision of their varna caste niche. During this era women of higher castes seem to have had some abilities to be educated and status within their family properties, but overall women even in this early age were definitely more limited than, and always subordinate to, men.
Religious ideas about reincarnation both explained and justified this. Basically, Vedic beliefs said that individuals had an essence (an atman) that was immortal, that is, that survived death. This atman was then reborn (reincarnated) into another living creature. Whether this living creature was of better or lower status than that of the atman's last host was decided by the record of good and bad deeds (karma) done by the atman in its last life or lives. Thus if one is born into a low jati/varna status, it must be because one deserves it, as a result of an earlier life and karma. Also the best way to move up to a better one next time is to fulfill completely the obligations (dharma) of whatever status one has in this life. Needless to say this was the sort of religious belief that suited those of high status, since it both said that they had earned the benefits bestowed by their birth, and urged those less fortunate to accept their lot not only meekly, but with enthusiasm.
Early Aryans also believed in an array of childish gods. These gods were believed to be invigorated by sacrifices, especially if done through perfectly done rituals. Brahmin priests claimed to be the only ones to fully know these rituals and prayers, and in fact may have delayed the spread of writing just to keep their knowledge from being put down in books, where it could fall out of their control. They taught that anyone hoping to be reincarnated to a higher station in life should both accept current lower caste status (and thus serve Brahmins as inferiors) and pay these Brahmins to carry out the rituals that would also be good deeds of pleasing the gods. (Note: one of your IDs is Vishnu, who will be discussed later, as part of the high Hinduism section.)
Buddhism: Challenge to Early Vedic Beliefs and Practices
The Gautama Buddha and his teachings. By about the 500s BCE, India - as with many early civilizations - was at the point where increasing numbers of people were at least vaguely dissatisfied with childish god and empty rituals, and open to new ideas about both religion and society. (Remember, this was almost exactly the time that serious philosophers were developing in Athenian Greece and late Zhou China, and Judaism had already developed its belief in one ethical god.) In India, two schools of belief emerged to challenge various aspects of early Vedism. These were Jainism and Buddhism. Like your text, we will almost ignore Jainism, beyond mentioning that it was a movement that sought escape from the eternal cycle of reincarnation through extreme asceticism (withdrawal from all bodily pleasures). The other approach was that taught by the historic Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama (563-483 BCE).
A Chapter Study topic asks you to
Understand the emergence of Buddhism in India. In face of what problems with established Vedic belief, what basic ideas did Siddhartha Gautama (the historic Buddha) teach, producing what two different schools of Buddhism soon after his death?At this time, within India there was growing discontent with dry ritual, priestly dominance, the assumed misery of eternal reincarnation mostly into difficult lifetimes, etc. According to popular tradition, Siddhartha Gautama was a prince of a small Himalayan hill country kingdom or estate (so of the Kshatriya, warrior, class). Supposedly his parents were warned that he would someday leave the estate and take up the life of a wandering ascetic, as a way to escape the reality of life's miseries. To stave this off, his parents kept him from all contact with life's uglier side. He saw only healthy, happy people; eventually married and had a son. But (again according to legend) he eventually did see a sick man, and old man, a dead man - and an ascetic who told him that the ascetic life was the only way to excape, permanently, the cycles of reincarnation in which such miseries kept reappearing. So Siddhartha left his family and begin a wandering life in which his own austerities made him so weak that he almost died. He then realized that asceticism brought no more enlightenment than did the unexamined good life, and so sought a "Middle Path" between the extremes of the mindless good life and misery for misery's sake. This Path he suddenly discerned, and then spent the rest of his life teaching to others.
Buddha just after awakening to 4 Noble Truths
Simply put, Gautama's great realization was that of Four Noble Truths, often translated as 1) life is suffering, 2) suffering arises from desire, 3) the solution to suffering lies stemming desire, and 4) this can be achieved by following the "Eightfold Path." The Eightfold Path (note: you do not need to learn or write all of these) includes living a life of right views, aspirations, speech, conduct, livelihood, effortmindedness and meditation. My own understanding of all this (reflecting a lot of effort, but also a natural western difficulty with it) is to think of the Path as a lot of steps that work together to reduce the "hook" of individual consciousness that when strong, survives death only to get "caught" into another rebirth. By not trying to do better than any other individual, whether in the matter of making a better living, boasting more at a party, etc, one reduces that individual consciousness hook. Put more theoretically, Buddhists don't believe there really are immortal atmans, rather there is only the illusion of one, which lasts only as long as the individual keeps up that illusion. So if one can just not feel or act individually special, on death one gets to rejoin the great whole of the universe, in a state of eternal non-existence, or nirvana.
Of course, if there is not eternal atman or individual specialness, than varna classes and their subcastes are just about irrelevant to really important things. If the only way to escape reincarnation is one's own following of the Eightfold Path, Brahmin priests and their rituals aren't worth much, nor are any childish gods. Thus Buddhism was quite revolutionary in its almost disinterest in all of the complexities of both Vedic ritual and its varna and jati classifications. Women and lower caste people especially found it appealing, as did thinkers seeking some meaning in the universe beyond dry sacrifice. Not surprisingly, Brahmins didn't care for it at all. Interestingly enough, some small rulers were quite interested in it, mostly because they had until then been heavily dependent on the support of Brahmin priests to help them build stronger central rule, usually against the opposition of subordinate warrirors who saw themselves as rulers' junior partners, not subordinates. But by depending on priestly help, the up and coming rulers also made themselves vulnerable to the Brahmins, who naturally considered themselves the dominant elite (ahead of warriors) anyway. If rulers could play the Buddhists off against the Brahmins, that might well be to their advantage.
Buddhism Evolves. Again according to tradition, at age eighty Siddhartha Gautama decided his earthy life was over, and that he was ready to achieve nirvana. When asked who would carry on after him, he replied that disciples, having heard his basic teachings, were well equipped to "be their own lamp," that is, go on to apply those teachings in each of their own individual lives. Nevertheless, over the following centuries a complex, structured Buddhist religion emerged. Although the Historic Buddha had presented himself as simply a man who had achieved Enlightenment, he was eventually worshipped as a god, eventually accompanied by other Buddhas, plus many bodhisattvas (enlightened people choosing to delay nirvana to be able to help others achieve salvation - a sort of Buddhist saints). Two major branches of Buddhism emerged and evolved, complete with all sorts of sacred texts, monks and nuns, monasteries and abbeys, and millions and millions of followers. of both Buddhism and Hinduism). One branch is called Hinayana (Lesser Vehicle) or Theraveda Buddhism, which although organized into monasteries and so on, does emphasize seeking salvation through personally following the Historic Buddha's Eightfold Path, mostly through withdrawing from ordinary life and becoming a monk or nun.
Mahayana Buddhism (meaning "Greater Vehicle"), offers individuals more choices and more help - prayers to bodhisattvas are believed helpful in getting closer to nirvana, plus individuals not ready for nothingness are believed able to first experience a very resortlike heaven, in which they do indeed enjoy all sorts of bodily pleasures. [See more on Mahayana Buddhism in Chapter 8 text readings and Instructor Essay, covering its spread to other parts of Asia.] Stupas (large earthern mounds) began to be put up everywhere, all in celebration of some aspect of the Historic Buddha's teachings or life. Buddhism as an organized religion lived.
Buddhist stupa
The Rise of Hinduism: Vedic Beliefs Evolve to Meet the Buddhist Challenge
Certainly the rise of Buddhism offered a serious challenge to polytheistic, ritual-centered, caste-organized Vedic India. In other civilizations polytheism did gradually die out, and new elites surplant old ones. But in India Vedic polytheism survived, although by reinventing to such an extent that outsiders give it a new name, Hinduism. (Most scholars point out that Indian believers say there is no one thing to be called Hinduism, but also admit it is a handy category to use, so we shall.
Basically, Vedic beliefs matured to include more admirable, complex forms of gods, and to add more emotionally-meaningful ways to worship and know those gods (going, thus, far beyond dry rituals administered mostly by remote priests). The old Vedic chief gods tended to be pushed aside by new, sometimes more mature and caring favorites, who were also composites of many different attributes. Two of the main new ones, Shiva (creator/destroyer) and Devi (fertility/wife/destroyer goddess) may have come from pre-Vedic times, and so represent forces appealing to more settled people.
Vishnu is often called the most important of all Hindu gods. Originally only a minor Aryan god, he eventually replaced in importance more warlike gods such as Indra. Vishnu came to be worshiped as the Preserver god, from whom the universe originally came. Hav ing created the universe, Vishnu was then thought to keep on helping believers in time of need - appearing in different earthly forms at different times as Rama, Krishna, and Buddha (here Hinduism showed a lot of nerve, coopting their rival religion's chief character). He was associated with many women, including especially Radha, with whom as Krishna he was believed to have had a very special romance. Thus Vishnu was seen as especially connected with both love and concern with humanity, and so was became very popular as Hindus moved beyond the kind of childish gods originally thought to be approached only through Brahman-administered ritual. Vishnu was one of the gods believed open to being approached directly by believers, especially in the many temples for him built by his worshippers. The cow is sacred to Hindus in good part because Vishnu in his Krishna form appears as a cowherd.
The evolving nature of Hinduism is especially clear in the Great Hindu classic, The Bhagavad-Gita , which is itself one part of the larger classic, The Mahabharata ("The Great Story"), which took on its final written form around the beginning of the CE era when Hinduism was reforming itself in part to meet the Buddhist challenge. In the Bhagavad-Gita, as your text tells you, the warrior Arjuna confronts many of the basic questions facing humankind in terms of the nature of life and death, conflicting loyalty towards one's friends and family as vs. the gods, etc. He is about to go into the decisive battle to end a very long struggle that includes many opponents that he respects. Krishna (remember, one of Vishnu's major forms) has secretly become his chariot driver. Krishna then appears in his godly form to Arjuna to explain the larger meaning of the interconnected universe to him. Your text quotes to you some lines describing the true, multiple appearance of a Hindu god, which the Bhagavad-Gita presents as one form of a larger universe
At the same time, Krishna also describes the evolving Hindu sense of how things fit together. He says:
You grieve for those beyond grief,
and you speak words of insight;
but learned men do not grieve
for the dead or for the living.
Never have I not existed,
nor you, nor these kings;
and never in the future
shall we cease to exit.
Just as the embattled self
enters childhood, youth, and old age,
so does it enter another body;
this does not confound a steadfast man...
Our bodies are known to end,
but the embodied Self is enduring,
indestructible, and immeasurable;
therefore Arjuna, fight the battle!
He who thinks this Self a killer
and he who thinks it killed,
both fail to understand;
it does not kill, nor is it killed.
It is not born,
it does not die;
having been,
it will never not be;
unborn, enduring,
constant, and primordial,
it is not killed
when the body is killed.
Arjuna, when a man knows the Self
to be indestructible, enduring, unborn,
unchanging, how does he kill
or cause anyone to kill?...
Thus Krishna tells Arjuna that for warriors to do battle is a part of the pattern of the universe, and they must fight as part of doing their duty within it. By following established discipline they serve their own dharma (code of behavior required of each station in life) plus serve society as a whole. But they don't really destroy anything eternal, they simply continue to do their duty as part of continuing the order of the universe. This sense of a unifying, underlying ethical order is part of what makes advanced Hindu polytheism in fact something quite unifying and advanced culture. The fact that The Bhagavad-Gita was available to most Indians, and was written in both very beautiful and very understandable language was another way that Hinduism made Vedic beliefs much more important and relevant to the larger population. Compared to the austere traditional Buddhist call for withdrawal from all desire, Hinduism began to look more and more appealing to many Indians. It also increasingly took notice of human questions and fears, and began providing inspiring answers rather than simply calling for mystical rituals and empty sacrifices.
The Mauryan Era, c. 324-184 BCE
Still, Hinduism didn't have everything its way immediately, or easily, nor were India's political and social patterns left to develop without struggle. For a while it must have looked as though India was well on its way to becoming a centralized Buddhist state in which caste was losing its overwhelming dominance. In the end, none of this happened, but lets look at the era in which there was a good try at an alternative pattern. This was the era of the Mauryan empire. A Chapter Study topic asks you to
Understand Chandragupta Maurya's original creation of his Mauryan Empire. In what situation, how was he able to create what sort of state?In essence, the Mauryan era began with the opportunity offered by Alexander the Great's intrusion into, and then withdrawal from, India. His farthest thrust east was across the Indus River into the Punjabwestern India, where by his conquests he disrupted the balance among many Indian warrior states. Perhaps energized by Alexander's example, Chandragupta Maurya, a young warrior on the make (and possibly even not from the Kshatrya warrior class) rose up to seize control first of the eastern Ganges kingdom of Magadha. He then led his forces west into the disrupted area of the Punjab, overturning successor kingdoms to Alexander, and then also conquering various competing Indian rulers. Eventually he took control of the whole east-west river basin swath of India (see map below), ruling increasing areas of it from c. 322-298 BCE.
Map of Mauryan India at time of Ashoka
This of course is the kind of conquest we've already seen a number of times, in late Zhou China, in Babylonian and later Mesopotamia, etc. Chandragupta Maurya then needed a stronger form of rule than the old personal style by which small states had been controlled. He was apparently guided by an elderly Brahmin, Kautilya, who helped him develop new ways of rule, borrowing especially from the Hellenistic patterns and contacts brought into India by Alexander. The result was a large, dominant pattern of rule controlled from the center by a ruler who copied the style of all-powerful, distant Persian rulers.
At the center, Chandragupta was soon ruling in the Persian style. On state occasions he sat on a high throne attended by hundreds of courtiers, each wearing splendid robes (although of course less so than the ruler's). He soon had a special guard to protect him even within his own palace. Fearing for his life, he employed food tasters to check for poison. His palaces had hollow pillars in which spies kept watch and secret passages to let the king move around - probably to check up on the checkers. Parrots were bred to roost in palace garden trees because they attack snakes, and the ruler feared poisonous snakes might be smuggled in. All visitors had to take a bath and be frisked before entering.
All of this was very successful in the short run, but like the Assyrians and the Qin Chinese (although he may well not have been that harsh), very difficult to maintain in the long run. Nonetheless it was continued, still successfully - with expanding conquests - by his son Bindusara and also by his grandson, Ashoka . Ashoka, who ruled the Mauryan lands 268-232 BCE, at first seems to have been a chip off his family's conquering block. He won the throne in a bloody struggle in which he killed several brothers. At first he was a classic bad tempered, harsh warrior-conqueror who gloried in the bloodiest battles. But then, according to tradition, he was sickened by the immense killing and suffering that came with his conquest of Kalinga, a territory in eastern India, the conquest of which completed Mauryan Empire's control over all inhabited areas except the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent. (This souther tip region is separated from the rest of India but desert lands, so in fact is not a logical part of Indian empire, however much it may look so on an outline map.) Anyway, in reaction to this sudden disgust with conquest, tradition says Ashoka converted to Buddhism and undertook to rule his conquered empire with benevolence.
Quite possibly Ashoka's conversion and decision to rule differently took place just as described. But it is worth noting that it was also very well timed, as harshness had gained the Mauryans all the empire they could hope to conquer. If they wanted to keep this empire, finding a gentler, kinder way of rule was also smart (think of Han Confucianism replacing Qin Legalism as the official theory of Chinese imperial rule). Whatever his motives, Ashoka seems to have ruled for the overall benefit of the great mass of his people. He stopped attempting further conquests and instead used tax revenues to build the roads, hospitals, and rest houses that ordinary people might use. He urged Buddhist values but did not force those beliefs on anyone. Instead he urged all his subjects to live ethical, moral lives. Edicts explaining all of this were "published" throughout Mauryan lands, engraved on pillars that were often capped with an identifying triple lion top (or capital). Buddhist monasteries did however get major state support, Buddhist stupas were built across India, and Buddhist missionaries were even set off eastward, towards China.
Triple Lion Capital capping one of Ashoka's columns
Ashoka's rule surely gave centralized rule in India its best shot at replacing the earlier Vedic pattern of politically fragmented, polytheistic, caste rule. Buddhism offered the Mauryans a clearly ethical basis on which to justify their increased power, while also reducing at least somewhat the status and power of Brahmin priests. Centralization from the time of Chandragupta also reduced the power of regional warrior families. Lower castes and women also found at least somewhat expanded opportunities. But this era didn't last. After Ashoka's death in 232, later Mauryans soon fought among themselves, weakening the center. New intrusions through the usual northwest invasion route put pressure on the center while increasing its need for support from traditional regional warriors. By 184 BCE the Mauryan Empire had collapsed, leaving India politically fragmented - but at base economically, socially and religiously vital.
Hindu India by the Time of the Gupta Age 320-550 CE
Overall Characteristics: In the end, the form this economic, social and religious vitality took was Hinduism, not Buddhism, and caste society, not a new social mobility. It is not possible to say why this was, at least with any absolute certainty, or why empire only reappeared periodically in India, and with decreasing size and power. It might be noted that strong centralized rule usually appears to meet some great need for centralization (such as organizing irrigation or defending against nomads). During much of its formative period India, generally safe within its barriers, didn't have any overwhelmingly strong need for centralized military defence. Then later, when central power might be justified by a need to form unifying cultural or social patterns, Hinduism's revitalized religious and social values had already done that. Economically India naturally developed vital trade patterns (so needed no political unity to force the development of such patterns) while the caste systems did offer their many subpopulations the very real economic stability of assigned occupations that no others could carry out. Politically, rulers of small states were likely to turn to established Brahmin elites for help in administration rather than taking the risk of going to less experienced merchants or Buddhist monks for help in creating new patterns of rule. Such willingness to experiment (as shown by Ashoka)
Still, many would say that the most glorious era of classical, high Hindu civilization in India occured when there was at least a little stronger central rule, producing for a shortish while the burst of energy that brought to full flower all the patterns of Hindu belief, culture and society that had been building up over the centuries. This was the Gupta era, 320-550 CE.
Although not related to the Mauryans, the Guptas emerged from the same basic geographic base, in Magadha - and their founder even admired the Mauryans enough to take their founder's name, so calling himself Chandra Gupta. Significantly, the Guptas were Hindu whereas the Mauryans under Ashoka had become Buddhists. This is one clear sign that by the 4th century CE Hinduism had won its struggle to renew itself. But you should also note that the Guptas not only tolerated by actively supported all forms of religion, including Buddhism.
Buddhist Art from about Gupta era
Gupta Empire. The Guptas managed to conquer a sizeable empire, but a significantly smaller one than that of the Mauryans before them (see two maps below for comparative sizes of empires at their territorial heights). The Guptas also had weaker central control over much of the lands formally under their rule - they mostly really controlled a core area, with outlying governors having much greater autonomy over their provinces. This left many governors to abuse their power, at least in terms of living up to the high standards of rule the state said that they should follow.
Your text offers you the useful concept of "theater state," of which the Guptas were a good example. In essence the state is glorious enough, and trades desirable enough goods, that it is worth the while of border areas and rulers to stay associated even if they could perhaps break away.
Not surprisingly, this was an era of cultural achievement in both the arts and sciences as well as religion (all were greatly interconnected, anyway). This was the era in which many people read or at least knew the great stories told in the Mahabharata and also the Ramayana, thus finding much richer, more human dimensions to their faith than in the dry ritual early Vedic era. Almost all men and women of almost all castes could find some diety and some temple that would offer them some satisfying way to establish a relationship with a god, and a way to express their faith. (In contrast, Buddhists increasingly withdrew to their monasteries, separating themselves from the daily lives of the masses, who naturally then turned more and more to Hindu celebrations.)
Both the general population and the ruling elites supported a massive amount of religious architecture. Above left see a photograph of a Hindu temple built, it is true, just after the Gupta era, but still a good example of the Hindu architecture built and perfected during the Gupta period. Above right see a closeup of a temple screen of the Gupta era, showing the great variety of figures, who are embody the many different incarnations of the same god. To western eyes such architecture often appears busy, but to Indian eyes it embodies the rich and varied nature of their religious beliefs. Why, they ask, settle for a single "one size fits all" god, when nature and the universe show us great variety?
Indian science flourished during the whole great Hindu era, and especially under Gupta royal patronage (support). While many areas of astronomy, medicine and the like saw advances, the greatest Indian achievements came in the field of Indian mathematics . In comparative terms, what the Indian mathematical thinkers did was similar to that done by the Phoenicians who invented their much simplified alphabet. Probably by the later time of the Guptas, Indian mathematicians had invented the simplified system of place-value notation later made more stable by using a symbol (zero) as a place keeper. (Note we have no absolute evidence that the zero existed in Gupta times, but most scholars think it did. Anyway, do include Indian Math in your survey of Gupta era achievements.) Basically, before then bigger amounts had been given separate names and symbols than smaller amounts, making combining the two very difficult (imagine multiplying Roman numerals - how does one multiply MCMLXXXVIII by X? ). But with just ten numerals (1-9 + 0), and size indicated by placement (1, 11, 111, etc), mathematical computation is much easier (thus letting us just multiply 1988 x 10). According to your text most using the system may have at first used a counting board, with what we'd call the zero's "place" just left empty. But eventually the zero (which makes clear the "empty" space) became standard.
This system then spread both east and west of India, reaching both the Middle East and East Asia by the 7th century, where it was put to use by mathematicians in those cultures. By the 10th century Europeans were beginning also to learn what we thought of as "arabic numerals," since we learned them from the Islamic lands. Your text suggests that the system might have appeared in the Eastern Hemisphere first in India because of Indian religious tendencies to link i terms of huge amounts of time, leading them to find ways not to keep expanding amounts of named, distinct number "sizes." Of course the other approach would just to say, why not the Indians, who clearly by the Gupta times had a very complex, productive civilization well capable of contributing crucial new concepts to the total world pool of such advances.
One Chapter Study Topic asks you to
Understand Hindu society in India by the time of the Gupta Empire. Development and workings of caste system? Situation of women?If Indian knowledge was opening itself up to new forms, Indian society was hardening (if also multiplying) existing social forms and divisions. By Gupta times the system of lifelong, unbreakable varna class divisions had stabilized and strengthened. Although some Buddhists and other smaller religious groups paid less attention to caste, overall Indian society was organized very firmly along caste lines, with the Brahmans confirmed as the dominant elite, and with Kshatrya warriors still a close second. As seems mostly to have been the case with more complex civilizations developing on top of long-established early patterns, women's status generally declined. Once, in earlier times, high caste women seem have had some access to their caste's privileges in terms of access to ritual, etc. By Gupta times all women seem to have been regarded as barred, by virtue of their gender, from any access to the most important things that the men of their caste did. Thus, specifically, even high caste women were no longer allowed to write, or even read, the sacred documents.
Early Vedic epics sometimes described brave women who at least in case of emergency, did daring and important things. By Gupta times even the most important women's achievements were described in terms of being beautiful and obedient, and in terms of not causing trouble, not having any sexual experience outside of their marriage, etc. Much as were Athenian elite women, Gupta period women were legal minors who would always be under the guardianship of fathers, husbands, sons, etc. Except for personal belongings (jewelry, etc), women did not inherit property. Dowrys passed from the father's to the husband's families, implying that women were an economic liability, rather than a valuable commodity. Marriage was almost the only occupation available to elite women, except for those who became Buddhist nuns. Poorer women also married, or became servants, or in a few cases successful courtesans.
Rama and Sita
One example of the new reduced roles available to even the most accomplished of women is found in the great Ramayana epic. The story centers around Rama's beloved, beautiful wife Sita, who is captured and carried off by a demon, Ravanna. Rama, for his honor must - and does - get her back. But he does not take her back as a wife until he is assured that the demon did not ravish her - no matter what their love or that it wouldn't have been her fault, if she is touched by another, she can't fulfill her basic role as his wife - to be his, and his alone. Sita walks through fire unscathed, proving her purity, and so is taken back (joyously) by Rama. But then later talk about her leads Rama again to feel he must send her away, and she dies before he can again reconcile with her. In this great epic, one of India's most famous, women's successes and failures are presented almost totally in terms of how they meet men's needs, while what happens to them is by men's actions or by their own ability to earn - or avoid - male action.
Southeast Asia: Emerging Civilization Between China & India
Much of Southeast Asia is also called IndoChina because it falls culturally as well as geographically between those two great culture areas (India and China). During the period of SE Asia's first development, however, with the exception of Vietnam, it tended to feel more Indian than Chinese influence.
Geography shaped Southeast Asia also by making it very oriented towards the sea and sea trade. As the below map of the Indian Ocean and Asia shows, Southeast Asia (shown in lighter circle area) is made up of mainland areas with lots of coastlines, plus many islands, and all of it is at the intersection of emerging Indian and Pacific Ocean sea trading lanes. Thus the area was early oriented towards the sea, at first probably just for coastal fishing, but soon also for longer voyages. In addition the whole area is tropical, with the long, warm growing seasons and rain-laden rains to produce the kind of surplus crops and abundant water that would be enough to supply visiting ship crews as well as their own population.
Indian Ocean and Asian Sea Trade
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Before about the first centuries CE there were no large, centralized Southeast Asian states, probably because the area's lushness, combined with the lack of dangerous invaders, meant that there was no pressing need for them. Your text suggests that larger states eventually emerged as a result of both growing sea trade and the expanding influence of Hindu/Buddhist culture from India. By about the beginning of the CE era trade increased both because India wanted to buy more Chinese goods, especially silk, and because barbarian migrations were increasingly disrupting the land-based silk road trading route. Hinduism and Buddhism both sent regular streams of missionaries out east from India, and then attracted streams of pilgrims going west to India. The educated priests that returned to Southeast Asia also probably proved very helpful to emerging monarchs there, just as they had in India.
To conclude this chapter's study, you are asked to be able to focus on ID terms about two of the more important emerging Southeast Asian states and cultures. The first is Funan , which was the first major Southeast Asian center. It's core area was located at the base or southern area of modern-day Vietnam (see map above for pinkish shaded area and name). Funan's heyday was about between the first and sixth centuries CE, when it dominated most of the most southern part of the mainland plus the Malay Peninsula. In terms of trade, the most crucial part of this area was the Isthmus of Kra (see map below, as well as larger one above). In that early seafaring period, sailors still didn't like to sail very far out to sea, or through many areas with dangerous currents. So at that time it was actually the most sensible choice not to try to make one continuous voyage around all of southeast asia. Instead ships sailed along the southern curve of Funan and then transshiped goods (that is unloaded them from one ship and put them on another) after carrying (or "portaging") them across the narrow neck of the Isthmus of Kra.
Funan developed a new source of income from the profits that came from making this process not only possible, but pretty safe and convenient for traders. First of all they controlled access to the Isthmus of Kra. They also supplied the housing for traders who often spent longish periods of time waiting for the correct winds to arrive that would blow them along further on their sea journey. Again, Funan had such surplus food and water available thanks to their lush tropical location. With the profits they made, the Funanese were able to build quite complex, impressive fortress cities in which travellers saw reflections of the influence of their own home cultures, especially those of India. Probably the 6th century CE decline of Funan came when seagoing technology improved to the point where traders increasingly chose to make the whole trip by sea, via the narrow Straits of Malacca (again, see map below as well as earlier one above).
Southeast Asia
This route shift then opened up the opportunity for what became the Srivijayan Kingdom , your last ID term for Chapter 7. Now that traders were going out further into the sea, it wasn't surprising that economic power shifted to a sea-based empire, safe from land invasion and astride sea lanes. (See above Indian Ocean and Asia Sea trade map for extent of empire, shaded green.) Your text points out that, somewhat like Indian empires, the Srivijayan Empire (c. 680s-1025 CE) sought to bring together under one rule various diverse areas - in this case on a number of islands plus the Malay Peninsula. Like the Guptas, it did so by accepting a good deal of local autonomy from its more distant provinces, and offering them the advantages of the "theater state." Local rulers got to share in some of the glories of the central court, and then went home to use more limited versions of them to dazzle their own subordinates. Most of their borrowed culture came from India, and included patronage of both Buddhist and Hindu temples, plus use of Sanskrit (Hindu sacred) writing to make their own bureaucracies more efficient. As your text suggests, this "glory at the center" approach carried its own dangers - including that the peripheries would learn it too well and not need the center, or that the source of outside wealth (paying for center glories) would decline or even dry up. While we don't really know in detail what happened to bring on Srivijaya collapse in the early 11th century, it may have been a bit of all these things. Certainly they must have been affected by shifts in sea trade about then, which may have weakened them and made them vulnerable to attacks from their Indian Ocean neighbors in Chola, in Southeastern India. But whatever the exact mix of causes, it seems clear that the Srivijaya rise and fall, like that of Funan, was shaped mostly by the shifting seagoing realities of southeastern Asia, while their rapid cultural development was mostly the gift of India.
Chapter 7 Reading Guide India and China Establish Empires
Source: https://www.washburn.edu/cas/history/stucker/Chapter%20Essays/100Ch07Essay.html
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