The foundation of Indian society, achievements, and spread of Hinduism and Buddhism.

1. ANCIENT INDIA:
GUPTA DYNASTY
Standard 6-3.3

2. MAURYAN EMPIRE UNIFIES INDIA
• Founder: Chandragupta Maurya (250 BC)
• Complex government with spies & a huge army
• His army had thousands of war elephants and
chariots
• Farmer paid heavy taxes to be protected by the
army
• 301 BC, Chandragupta decided to become a
Jainist monk; giving up his throne to his son who
expanded the empire

4. ASOKA
• 270 BC- Chandragupta’s grandson Asoka becomes king
• He is the strongest of all Mauryan rulers; conquering
other kingdoms and expanding to include most of India
• He watched many bloody battles until he converted to
Buddhism
• After this he vowed to never launch any more wars for
conquest

5. • He then devoted his time and
money to improving the lives
of his people through public
works: wells, rest houses,
roads, planted shade trees,
ect
• He encouraged the spread of
Buddhism through India and
Asia by sending missionaries
• He died in 233 BC- his sons
fought each other leaving
India divided into smaller
states

6. GUPTA DYNASTY
• For 500 years Buddhism prospered
and spread throughout India as it was
divided into separate states
• The Gupta Dynasty took over India
around 320 AD, uniting India once
again
• They were Hindu rulers, building many
Hindu temples throughout India
• Chandra Gupta I (picture)

7. • They promoted the revival of
Hindu writing and worship
rituals, supported religious
ideas of the Buddhism and
Jainism, built Buddhist
temples, and built a
university in Nalanda that
focused on Buddhist studies
• The Guptas remained in
control until the late 400s
when the Huns conquered
India

8. Hindu
Temples
influence
architecture
throughout
India society.

11. YOUR TURN
•Create a graphic organizer of The Four
Varnas
•Give an example of two occupations for
each of the castes
•Explain why a person would be considered
“untouchable” or without a caste?

12. ACHIEVEMENTSSculptures:
• Hinduism & Buddhism
influences artist in creating
statues of Buddha and the
many gods associated with
Hinduism
• They made statues of kings
• Impressive carvings were
made in the walls of temples
and important homes and
buildings

13. ACHIEVEMENTS
Sanskrit Literature:
• Religious epics- long poems about struggles and
triumphs of heroes and Gods
• Plays and poetry
• Panchatantra: a book of stories meant to teach lessons;
each story ends with a moral
“The good and the bad of given schemes
Wise thought must first reveal:
The stupid heron saw his chicks
Provide a mongoose meal” –Panchatantra story

14. ACHIEVEMENTS
Medicine:
• Cure people with medicines
• They also protected people against disease with
inoculation: injecting a person with a small dose of a virus
to help him or her build up defenses to a disease.
• They also wrote textbooks on medical procedures

15. ACHIEVEMENTS
Metallurgy:
• The science of working with metal
• They made high quality tools with
these metals
• They knew the process of mixing
metals to create alloys
• They are stronger and sometimes
easier to work with than pure metals
• During the Gupta dynasty, metal
workers built the iron pillar near Delhi
that still stands today with no rust-
showing the ancient Indian’s
advance techniques

16. ACHIEVEMENTSMath
• Indian mathematicians were some of the most talented
in their day
• The very numbers we use today are called Hindu-Arabic
numerals –created by these mathematicians
• Created the concept of zero-modern math is not
possible without it

17. ACHIEVEMENTS
Astrology:
• Astrologers knew of 7 of the 9
planets in our solar system
• They knew the sun was a star &
the planets revolved around it
• They knew the earth was round
and rotated on its axis
• They could predidct eclipses of
the sun and moon