Ancient India

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Ancient India
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Geography What is a subcontinent?

• Large landmass that juts out from a continent
• Contains 1 ½ million square miles
• Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri
  Lanka
• Less than 1/3 is arable (fertile)

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What are the three major zones of the Indian
Subcontinent?

• The well-watered northern plain
• The dry triangular Deccan Plateau
• The coastal plains on either side of the Deccan

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Northern Plain

• Lies just south of the mountains
• Very fertile
• Watered by the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra
  Rivers

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The Deccan Plateau

• Triangular raised area of level land that juts
  into the Indian Ocean
• Arid, unproductive, and sparsely populated

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Coastal Plains

• Separated from the Deccan by low lying
  mountains-Eastern and Western Ghats
• Rivers and heavy seasonal rains provide water for
  farmers
• Seas available for fishing trade

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The Monsoon

• Significant impact on daily life
• Rain needed for crops
• If late, famine and starvation
• If too heavy, deadly floods occur
• In October, the winter monsoons blow from the NE
  bring hot, dry air that withers crops
• May/June, the wet summer monsoons blow from the
  SW, pick up moisture from the Indian Ocean
  drench the land with daily downpours

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Barriers The Himalayas

• Worlds highest mountain range
• North of the 1500-mile wide Hindustani plain
• Restricts overland entry into subcontinent

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Barriers Jungles
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Barriers Hindu Kush
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Pathway Khyber Pass

• Passes provided the main link with Eurasia
• Allowed numerous invaders to enter and settle
• Contributed to the cultural, racial, linguistic
  diversity

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Indus River Valley

• Western region of the Indus valley
• Indias Neolithic revolution 1st civilization
• 100,000 square miles
• Drained by the snow-fed Indus River and four main
  tributaries
• the Punjab
• the Sind

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Ganges Plains

• Much wetter
• Snow-fed by the Ganges-Brahmaputra river valleys
• 115,000 square miles of Indias best agricultural
  land
• Most populous region
• Rice

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Deccan

• Semi-tropical peninsula
• Large triangular plateau that extends into the
  India Ocean
• Agriculturally inferior to North India
• infertile soil and limited water
• Crops totally dependent on unpredictable monsoon
  rains
• Rain is reduced because of the Western and
  Eastern Ghats
• Navigation on the Deccan rivers very difficult in
  dry season
• Few good natural harbors
• Proximity to SE Asia helped it to have influence
• Distance from Northern India enabled it to
  preserve its own political cultural identity

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What was the Indus Valley Civilization?

• Emerged in Indus River Valley in present-day
  Pakistan about 2500 BCE
• Flourished for about 1000 years-then vanished
• Cities only recently excavated

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Life in Indus River Valley

• Rich soil provided surplus wheat and other grains
• Food surpluspopulation increased
• Population increasedcities
• 2500 BCE-1500BCE, well planned cities flourished
• Mohenjo-Daro
• Harappa

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Harappa Mohenjo-Daro

• Large, well-planned, dominated by hill-top
  structure
• Fortress? Temple?
• Huge warehouses to store grain
• Well-organized government
• Powerful Priests-kings?
• Mathematics, surveying skills
• Uniform weights measure
• Houses built with uniform oven-fired clay bricks
• Modern Indoor plumbing systems
• Baths, drains, and water chutes that led to
  sewers

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Mohenjo-Daro Harappa

• Contemporary to Egypts Middle Kingdom
  Mesopotamias Ur Dynasty
• Covered about ½ million square miles
• Discovered in the 1920s
• Very wealthy
• Bronze tools, copper, pottery, gold and silver

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Economy How did people make a living?

• Barley, melons, dates
• Cultivated cotton for cloth
• Merchants
• Traders
• Ships carried cotton cloth, grain, copper,
  pearls, and ivory combs
• Contact with Sumer inspired them to develop
  writing system

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Religion

• Polytheistic
• Mother goddess
• Sacred animals
• Bull
• Veneration of cattle begun here?

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Why did this civilization disappear?

• Around 1750 BCE, quality of life declined
• Cities fell into disorder
• Crude pottery
• Volcanic eruption?
• mud found in the streets indicates the Indus may
  have flooded
• Earthquake?
• Environmental damage?
• -trees cut down to fuel the ovens for bricks

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The Aryans

• By 1500 BCE, nomadic people from southern Russia
  migrated into the area
• Cattle, sheep, goats
• Horse-drawn chariots and superior weapons overran
  the Indus region
• Warrior culture
• Destroyed and looted the weakened Indus Valley
  civilization

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The Aryans

• Rose in the NE along the Ganges
• One of many groups of Indo-Europeans who migrated
  across Europe and Asia seeking water and pasture
  for their horses and cattle
• No cities
• no statues
• No stone seals
• What we know comes from the Vedas

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The Vedic Age 1500-500BCE

• Collection of prayers, hymns, and other religious
  teachings
• Priests memorized and recited the Vedas for a
  thousand years before they were written down
• Aryans portrayed as warriors who loved drinking,
  music, chariot races, dice games
• Valued cattle

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Aryan Society

• At first, warriors enjoyed the most prestige
• Later, priests gained respect and power because
  they claimed only they could conduct the
  ceremonies needed to win the favor of the gods
• Aryans felt superior to the Dravidians-conquered
  people who may have been the original Indus
  valley descendants

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Aryan Society

• Divided people by occupation
• Brahmins priests
• Kshatriyas Warriors
• Vaisyas herders, farmers, artisans, merchants
• Sudras farmworkers, servants, laborers

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Aryan Society Jati (Caste System)

• Class divisions were social and economic not
  ethnic
• Eventually developed into the complex caste
  system
• People were born into their caste and could not
  change

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Aryan Religious Beliefs

• Polytheistic
• Gods and goddesses embodied natural forces such
  as the sky, sun, storm, fire
• Brahmins sacrificed food and drink
• Rituals and prayers call on the gods for health,
  wealth and victory in war
• Later evolved into a single power of the brahman,
  that resided in all things
• Mystics devoted their lives to spiritual
  truth-meditation, yoga, spiritual and bodily
  discipline
• Sought direct communion with divine forces

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Expansion and Change

• Over many centuries, waves of Aryans went through
  the mountain passes into NW India
• Tribes were led by rajahs
• Most skilled war leader
• Elected by an assembly of warriors
• Ruled with the advice of a council of elders made
  up of heads of families

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Aryans From Nomads to Farmers

• Aryans mingled with people they conquered
• Gave up nomadic ways and settle into villages
• Spread east to the Ganges
• By 800BCE, they learned to make tools of iron
• Iron axes and weapons helped them create villages
  in the rainforests of the NE
• Tribal leaders fought to control trade
  territory
• Some rajahs became powerful hereditary rulers
• Walled cities arose in the jungles

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Expansion and Change

• New civilization emerged in about 500 BCE
• Many rival kingdoms
• Aryan and Dravidian cultures blended together
• Common written language-Sanskrit
• Priests began writing down the sacred texts.

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Epic LiteratureThe Mahabharata The Ramayana

• Despite the development of written language, the
  Aryans continued their strong oral tradition
• Continued to memorize and recite ancient hymns
  and long, epic poems
• Mix of mythology, adventure, and religion

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The Mahabharata

• Greatest epic with 100,000 verses
• Battles of Aryan tribes and how they won control
  over the Ganges region
• Five royal brothers, the Pandavs, lose their
  kingdom to their cousins
• 18 day battle, they regain their kingdom and
  restore peace to India
• Bhagavad-Gita reflects important Indian religious
  beliefs about the immortality of the soul and the
  importance of duty

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The Ramayana

• Hero Rama and his beautiful bride Sita
• Sita is kidnapped by the demon-king Ravan
• Rama rescues Sita with the aid of the monkey
  general Hanuman

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What role do these epics play in Indian society?

• Over the years, priests added new morals to the
  tales to teach different lessons
• Rama virtuous, brave ideal king
• Sita virtuous, loyal, obedient ideal woman

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What was the impact of the Aryans?

• Religious beliefs evolved into major world
  religions
• Hinduism
• Buddhism
• Caste System