AP World India

1. Chapter 3 - India
Early and Classical India
AP World
Hals

2. Indus Valley
 Geography of Indian Subcontinent
 Juts out from the continent
 Includes modern day India, Pakistan, Sri
Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh
 Northern border, Hindu Kush and Himalayas
 Passage ways in between
 Limited contact, but by no means isolated

3.  3 Regions
 1 – Well-watered Northern
plain
 Indus, Ganges, and
Brahmaputra Rivers
 Rivers seen as sacred (river
“lokmata” or “mother of the
people”
 2 – dry, triangular Deccan
 Raised area of level land,
juts into Indian O.
 Arid, unproductive, and
sparsely populated
 3 – coastal plans on either
side of the Deccan
 Separated from Deccan by
low-lying mountains (E and
W Ghats)
 Seas for fishing, highways
for trade

4. Monsoons
 “seasonal wind”
 October – blow from NE – bringing hot dry air
and withering crops
 Late May, early June – blow from SW –
bringing moisture form the Indian Ocean
 Monsoon rains are all about balance
 By the time they come people are desperate for rain
 Too much rain floods and wrecks crops
 Too little or late rains causes famine and starvation

6. The monsoon season in India is always awesome and erratic. The death
toll in flooding so far this year has surpassed 500 across India. A
rickshaw puller in Calcutta coped with a particularly heavy downpour
this week.
NY Times July 2007

7. Indus Valley
Civilization in present day Pakistan c.
 Emerged
2500 BCE
 Archaeologists pretty sure they had
well organized government
 Powerful leaders would have made
sure that the thousands of city-dwellers
had supply of grain
http://www.semp.us/images/Biot576PhotoC.gif
 Uniform bricks suggest government
planners
 Suggest skills in mathematics and
surveying to lay cities out so precisely
 Indian vessels sailed to Sumer by
hugging the coast

8. Indus Valley Religion
 Clues –
 Polytheistic
 Mother goddess, source of creation,
seems to be widely honored
 Worshiped sacred animals – esp. the bull
**probably beginnings of the veneration of
cattle**

9. Disappearance?
 By 1750 BCE quality of life declining
 Orderly cities were not as well kept (pottery got cruder)
 Damage to local environment?
 Too many trees cut down to fuel the ovens of brick makers?
 Volcanic Eruption?
 Did they find tons of river mud in the streets because a
volcanic eruption?
 Devastating Earthquake?
 Probably fell completely ~1500 BCE – nomadic people
arrived in even larger numbers from the N
 Aryans had slowly migrated with cattle, sheep, and goats,
horse-drawn chariots and superior weapons
 Indus River Valley cities were abandoned and forgotten

10. Aryan Civilization
 Group of Indo-European people who
migrated across Europe and Asia
 Priorities – seeking water and pasture for
horses and cattle
 Didn’t build cities or statues

11. The Vedas
 collection of prayers, hymns, and other religious teachings
 Memorized and recited by priests for over a thousand years before recorded
 Vedic Age – 1500 BCE – 1000 BCE
 Very little about Aryans is known, most of it is derived from the Vedas

12. Aryans as depicted in the
 Vedas
Appear as warriors who
fought in chariots with bows
and arrows
 Loved eating, drinking,
music, chariot races, and
dice games
 Nomadic herders who
valued cattle (provided food
and clothing)
 Even once settled, farmers
measured their worth in
cows and bulls http://www.indhistory.com/aryan.html

13.  Rig-Veda is the first epic story, 1028 hymns
dedicated to the Aryan gods
 Attributed the rise of the caste system to the gods
 Social Classes – people divided by occupation
 Brahmins – priests
 Kshatriyas – warriors
 Vaisyas – herders, farmers, artisans, and merchants
 Sudras – Dravidians and non-Aryans, farmworkers,
servants, and low level laborers
**warriors initially most prestigious, but priests
eventually gain upper hand b/c Brahmins alone
could conduct ceremonies to win favor with the gods
Untouchables

14.  Aryans felt superior to those they conquered
 (Dravidians – who might have been the
descendents of the original Indus Valley people)
 Class divisions slowly evolved to reflect social
and economic roles more than ethnic
difference between Aryans and non-Aryans
 A more complex system of castes emerges
 Castes – people are born into social groups and
cannot change (no social mobility)

15. Aryan Religious Beliefs
 Polytheistic – gods and goddesses that embody natural
forces (sun&sky, storm&fire)
 Indra – god of war – chief deity
 Varuna – god of order and creation
 Agni – god of fire – who communicated human wishes to the
gods
 Aryans also honor animals like monkey gods and
snake gods
 Brahmins offer sacrifices of food and drink
 Aryans thought correct rituals and prayers could call on
the gods for health, wealth, and victory in war

16. Evolving beliefs
 Some religious thinkers were moving
towards idea of a single spiritual force
above the gods of Vedas called
“brahman”
 Brahman believed to reside in all things
 Trend toward mysticism
 Mystics – people who devote life to seeking
spiritual truth (often through meditation and
yoga)

17. Expansion and Change
 Over centuries, waves of Aryans went
through the mountain passes into NW
India
 Led by chiefs called Rajahs
 Rajahs – skilled war leader elected to his
position by an assembly of warriors
 Ruled with advice from a council of elders
made up of heads of families

18. Nomads to Farmers
 Settle in the Ganges basin
 By ~800 BCE started using iron
 Built walled cities with multistory houses
 ~500 BCE new Indian civilization emerges
 Consisted of rival kingdoms
 Aryan and Dravidian traditions have blended
 Sanskrit has developed and priests start writing
down sacred texts

19. Epic Age – 1000 BCE – 600
BCE
 Mixes of history, mythology, adventure, and
religion
 These epics depict a more settled and
agricultural society with better organized
political units than during the era describe in the
Vedas.
 Evolved over time, priests-poets added new
morals to the tales to teach different lessons

20.  Mahabharata – India’s greatest epic
 100,000 verses of battles of rival Aryan tribes fighting to
control the Ganges region
 5 royal brothers – Pandavas, lose their kingdom to their
cousins
 An 18 day battle put the Pandavas back in control and the
brothers restore peace to India
 Ramayana –
 Story of a hero named Rama and his beautiful bride Sita. Sita
is kidnapped by demon-king Ravana
 Rama gets help from Hanuman, the monkey general, and
rescues Sita
 Rama is an ideal king and Sita is an ideal woman b/c she
remained loyal and obedient to her husband through many
hardships

21. Hinduism and
Buddhism
 Chart and group time!

22. Hinduism
 Vedas, most importantly Rig Veda
 Upanishads – appeared 800-400 BCE,
speaks of a universal spirit known as
Brahman
 Believe reincarnation – and that the atman
(human spirit) could eventually join the
universal spirit if the human being behaved
ethically
 Beliefs eventually called Hinduism
 Karma, dharma, gods and goddesses

23.  Cremation considered proper burial
ceremony
 Cows considered sacred animals, not to
be consumed

24.  Founded by Siddharta
Buddhism Gautama (563-483 BCE)
 Left his comfy life as a
prince to seek the
meaning of life
 Eventually experienced
an enlightenment
 Became called the
Buddha, meaning
“Enlightened one”
 Shared with his followers,
never claimed to be a god
 After death some of his
followers consider him a
deity
 Buddhism spreads slowly

25. Two main sects
 Theravada Buddhism
 strongest in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Thailand,
Laos and Burma (Myanmar). It is sometimes
called 'Southern Buddhism‘
 Mahayana Buddhism
 strongest in Tibet, China, Taiwan, Japan,
Korea, and Mongolia
 Includes Zen Buddhism, Pure Land
Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism
 (source BBC: Buddhism 101)

26. The Four Noble Truths
 The essence of the Buddha's teachings
 It was these four principles that the Buddha came to understand
during his meditation under the bodhi tree.
 The truth of suffering (Dukkha)
 The truth of the origin of suffering (Samudāya)
 The truth of the cessation of suffering (Nirodha)
 The truth of the path to the cessation of suffering (Magga)
 The Buddha is often compared to a physician. In the first two
Noble Truths he diagnosed the problem (suffering) and identified
its cause. The third Noble Truth is the realization that there is a
cure. The fourth Noble Truth, in which the Buddha set out the
Eightfold Path, is the prescription, the way to achieve a release
from suffering.
 (Source: BBC: Buddhism 101)

27. Buddha’s Six Positions

28. Regional Developments
 By 600 BCE, 16 major states existed
 Monarchies, republics, you name it
 Magadha, a regional state, begins
establishing dominance
 Dates: 327 BCE Alexander the Great
pushed into NW India
 322 – Changragupta Maurya siezes power
along the Ganges River

29. Chandragupta Maurya
 First to unify a bunch of the
subcontinent
 Maintains large armies with
thousands of chariots and
elephant-borne troops
 Develops bureaucracy
http://www.vishwakala.net/uniportal/info/
info.asp?
 Very autocratic
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30. Ashoka
 269-232 BCE
 Chandragupta’s grandson
 Governor of two provinces, continues to
use his military to extend his lands (quite
brutally)
 Inspired by Buddhism
 spread Buddhism throughout India,
while honoring Hinduism
http://www.freeindia.org/biographies/ashoka/ashoka.jpg
 Sent Buddhist missionaries to the ME
and Sri Lanka
 Builds up infrastructure (trade,
communication, road networks with wells
and rest stops)

31. Successes and Decline
 Successes
 Buddhism’s presence in India grows and
persists
 Reasons for Decline
 After Ashoka dies, the empire falls back
into its regional kingdoms
 Kushans invade from the NW
 Rule until about 220 CE, emphasize
Buddhism, but actually make it less
popular (by associating it with foreign
http://moinansari.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/ashoka-empire.jpg
rule)
 About 100 years of instability

32. The Guptas
 320 – 535 CE
 Greatest period of stability
 Autocratic kings and emperors, trying to
negotiate with regional leadership
 Many regions had aristocratic assemblies as
well
 Claimed religious appointment
 Although that idea only appealed to Hindus

33. Not exactly uniformity
 No single language, many regional
languages
 Sanskrit only the language of the
educated people
 Create a demanding tax system
 Allow regional leaders to control their
region if they acknowledged the Guptas
authority

34.  Uniform law codes
 Road building
 Developed universities
 Kautilya – Chandr.’s advisor had legalist-
ish advice for how to lead; stressed
efficiency

35. The Caste System
 The true caste system sets in
 Subcastes established; nearly 300 jati
(livings)
 Could actually marry down
 Caste rules governed marriages,
permissible jobs, social habits (like eating
and drinking)
 No state could command full loyalty from
subjects – their first loyalty was to caste

36. Religious Beliefs
 Hinduism continues to become the dominant religion of India
 Can encourage political and economic goals (artha) and
worldly pleasures (karma)
 Very fluid – adaptable to the needs of various groups and can
change with circumstance
 Bhagavad Gita – classic sacred hymn about a warrior doing
battle against relatives
 “he will not really be killing his victims because their divine
spirit will live on” - Stearns
 Ethical concept of dharma much less detailed and prescriptive
than Christianity or Islam
 Inner study and meditation

37.  Buddhism
 Denies validity of the caste system
 Upholds idea of reincarnation
 Argue holy life could be achieved through
individual effort by people at every level of
society
 Denies spiritual value of castes, rituals and
priests
 Organize monasteries and monks

38. Nalanda
 University Center
 Religion, philosophy, medicine,
architecture and agriculture
 Over 100 lecture halls, 3 libraries,
astronomical observatory, and a model
dairy

39. Astronomy and
Medicine
 Aryabhatta – calculates length of the solar year and improves
mathematical measurements
 Earth rotates daily on its axis
 Predicted and explained eclipses
 Theory of gravity
 Identify seven planets
 (religion banned dissection, but…)
 Bone setting and plastic surgery
 Smallpox vaccine
 Sterilization of wounds

40. Math
 Arabic numbering system
 Concept of zero
 Decimal system
 Concept of negative numbers
 Square roots
 Table of sines
 Calculated pi more accurately than the
Greeks

41. Society
 Very tight family unit
 Husband dominant
 But mutually respectful relationship
between the husband and wife
 Young children are doted on
 Children expected to work hard
 Adults obliged to care for older relatives

42. Economics
 Produced fine cotton cloth, calico, and
cashmere goods
 Merchants - enjoy fairly high caste
system and the flexibility of the Hindu
ethic
 Tamils – S. India traders
 Traded cotton and silks, dyes, drugs, gold,
and ivory
 Brought in pottery, wine, metals, some
slaves, and gold