THE GROWTH AND SPREAD OF ASIAN CULTURE, 3001300

1
CHAPTER 9

• THE GROWTH AND SPREAD OF ASIAN CULTURE, 300-1300

2
Cycles of Civilizations

• Civilizations, like people, undergo stages
• growth
• maturity
• decline.

3
Mongol Impacts

• Chapter 12 describes the beginning of the
  maturation of civilizations in India and China.
• The emergence of civilization in Japan as a "spin
  off" from China.
• How the Mongol conquest empire impacted these
  civilizations.

4
India and China Fruitful Civilizations

• The Gupta age in India and T'ang and Sung
  dynasties in China brought full shape to all the
  fruits of civilization.
• They absorbed ideas from other cultures.

5
India and China Religion

• India Hinduism borrowed from Buddhism.
• China Neo-Confucianism borrowed from Taoism and
  Buddhism.

6
India and China Culture

• These countries were the leading lights of the
  world at a time when the West was still in its
  dark ages.
• There was an outpouring of creativity in
• science
• technology
• literature and art.

7
India and China Disruptions

• Political disruption and warfare can divert
  civilization from its course of development.

8
India Challenged by Islam

• Hinduism demonstrated much creativity under the
  Guptas.
• But turned inward and defensive when faced with
  the challenge of Islam.

9
Caste System

• Solidifying the caste system rituals did prevent
  Hindus from converting to Islam in large numbers.
• Also forfeited intellectual creativity.

10
China Challenged by Mongols

• Confucian China likewise was swept off its
  cultural foundations by the Mongol conquest.
• Thereafter it became suspicious of outside
  contacts.

11
Japan

• The newcomer to the civilized ranks.
• Had the advantage of choice.

12
Chose Chinese Civilization

• Never conquered
• The Japanese chose the civilization they wanted
  from T'ang China.
• When, after three centuries, their Chinese-style
  imperial government began to weaken, they reacted
  in a similarly purposeful way.

13
Feudal Dictatorship

• Did not seek to restore a "Golden Age" as the
  Chinese had.
• They evolved a new political system based on a
  feudal dictatorship.
• The Kamakura Shogunate boosted its legitimacy by
  keeping the imperial line as "appointers" of
  shoguns.

14
Smart Political Adaptions

• The political adaptations of the Japanese and the
  modern-sounding reforms of Wang An-shih remind us
  to look for innovation among these ancients.

15
Same Problems as Today

• They faced many of the same basic problems of
  governments today
• national productivity
• cost of living and wage fluctuations
• credit
• taxes
• balance between the interests of the state and
  those of the citizen.

16
YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND

• The Gupta Empire in India with its remarkable
  science, literature, and influence on other parts
  of Asia.
• The Muslim invasions of India that led to the
  powerful Delhi Sultanate, which was destroyed by
  Tamerlane.

17
YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND

• The T'ang and Sung dynasties with their effective
  governments, skilled poets and artists, and
  religious philosophers.
• The Mongol Empire whose military might imposed a
  Pax Mongolica through Asia from China to the
  Danube River.

18
YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND

• The buildup of a Japanese imperial state out of a
  competing group of clans, the decline of that
  form of government, and the emergence of a new
  structure embodied in the Kamakura Shogunate.