1500 BCE

1
1500 BCE 600 CEIndia and Southeast AsiaTracy
Rosselle, M.A.T.Newsome High School, Lithia, FL

• Including the Vedic Age and the rise of Buddhism
  Hinduism

2
Foundations of Indian civilization

• As we have seen, the earliest Indian civilization
  one with a high degree of social organization
  and technological sophistication emerged along
  the Indus River Valley but died out around 1900
  BCE, probably due to an environmental crisis.
• Attempts to link the characteristics of that
  ancient Harappan civilization to later Indian
  civilizations cannot be done conclusively because
  the Harappan writing has not been deciphered
  but what today is India may originally have been
  a blend of the Harappan and Aryan cultures.
• What is clear is that India from ancient to
  modern times has been highly diverse, made up
  of many ethnic and linguistic groups and
  fragmented political structures yet with an
  overarching set of shared views and values,
  especially with regard to its relationship with
  religion.

3
The Indiansubcontinent

• India is called a subcontinent because it is so
  large (about 2,000 miles long and wide) and is
  set apart from the larger continent of Asia.
• Capped in the northeast by the Himalayas, the
  worlds largest mountains, and in the northwest
  by the Hindu Kush Mountains.
• Surrounded to the south, east and west by the
  Indian Ocean.

4
Monsoon mania

• Sheltered by mountains from cold Arctic winds,
  India has a subtropical climate.
• A major source of moisture are the monsoons
  (seasonal winds) temperature differences between
  the land (varying significantly from hot to cold)
  and the slow-to-change Indian Ocean create a
  bellows effect ? wet monsoon winds from southwest
  to northeast June to September dry monsoon
  winds from northeast to southwest October to May.
• Indian mariners learned to ride these winds in
  carrying out trade with other regions.

5
Indo-Europeans group of nomadic peoples from
the dry grasslands north of the Caucasus
Mountains who spoke different forms of a language
called Indo-European.
At around the time the Harappan civilization was
crumbling, a group of Indo-Europeans called the
Aryans migrated down through the Khyber Pass of
the Hindu Kush Mountains and into the Indian
subcontinent.
6
The Vedic Age

• The Aryans left almost no archaeological record
  but brought with them (only in oral tradition
  initially) their sacred literature, the Vedas ?
  four collections of prayers, magical spells and
  instructions for performing rituals. Historians
  thus call the period from 1500 to 500 BCE the
  Vedic Age because these religious texts provide
  most of the information about this period.

7
Kinship groups and a move east

• After the Harappan civilization collapsed, no
  central authority to organize irrigation projects
  ? region home now to patriarchal kinship groups
  relying on herds of cattle, small-scale
  gardening.
• Warrior class relished combat, celebrated with
  lavish feasts and heavy drinking, filled free
  time with chariot racing and gambling.
• After 1000 BCE some groups armed now with iron
  tools holding a harder edge than bronze pushed
  east into the Ganges Plain ? could fell the trees
  in this more fertile land, work it with plows
  pulled by oxen.
• Similar thing happening in Greece ? must have led
  to major population growth.

8
A conflict of peoples

• The Aryan migration into India was not an
  organized invasion.
• Taller and lighter-skinned, the Aryans interacted
  and intermarried with the darker-skinned
  Dravidian population already there, laying the
  cultural and social foundations that would
  influence India to this day.
• They also fought amongst themselves, and with the
  Dasas (another name for the speakers of Dravidian
  languages), pushing many into central and
  southern India, where their descendants still
  live Dravidian speech prevails in the south
  today while Indo-European languages are spoken in
  northern India.

9
Caste and varna

• Aryans brought with them a class system that
  determined each persons role in society.
• Over time, to regulate the closer contacts with
  non-Aryans, it became more strict and the basis
  of Indias caste system.
• Based initially on varna, a Sanskrit term meaning
  color and referring to skin color (later the
  term meant something akin to class), the four
  classes were
• Brahmins (priests)
• Kshatriya (warriors and officials)
• Vaishya (merchants, artisans and landowners)
• Shudra (peasants and serfs).

10
Shudra and the Untouchables

• The bottom class, Shudra, may have been reserved
  for Dasas, who were given menial jobs the Aryans
  didnt want to do (dasa, in fact, came to mean
  slave).
• A fifth group was later added the Untouchables
  people excluded from the class system and to be
  avoided because their touch endangered the ritual
  purity of others (this because of their
  occupation butchers, gravediggers, trash
  collectors, etc.).

11
Many birth groups emerge

• Within broad class divisions the population was
  further subdivided into numerous birth groups
  called jati (the English term caste came from
  casta, Portuguese for breed, and was used after
  European sailors first reached India in 1498 CE).
• Each jati had proper occupation, duties and
  rituals ? lived with, ate with, married ONLY
  members of that group.
• Since purity became all important, elaborate
  rules governed interactions of jati ?
  higher-status individuals feared the polluting
  effects of contact with lower-status individuals,
  so the taint had to be removed ritually.

12
Life after life

• The caste system connected to prevailing belief
  in reincarnation.
• Brahmin priests said every living creature had
  the atman (breath) ? immortal essence that
  separated from body at death and later reborn in
  another body.
• People generate good or bad karma based on their
  deeds in life (governed by the dharma, or the law
  ? good deeds are those conforming to expectations
  of ones caste) and determine whether
  reincarnation is as insect, animal or human and
  whether a higher or lower caste (or even male or
  female, which was considered evidence of bad
  karma in former life).

13
Vedic Age sacrifice

• The essential ritual was sacrifice (the
  dedication to one of the many gods predominantly
  male of a valued possession, often a living
  creature ? offering meant to invigorate the gods
  and thus help their creative powers, bring
  stability to the world.
• The priestly class, the Brahmins, played key role
  in ceremonies using their knowledge (the
  translation of the very term veda) a knowledge
  handed down orally from one generation of priests
  to the next ? their hording protection of this
  knowledge may explain why writing was not
  widespread until the Gupta period (320-550 CE).

14
Divisions with a purpose

• The sharp internal divisions of Indian society
  and the conveyance of superiority from one group
  down to the next doesnt comport with modern
  notions of egalitarianism, but it did serve
  important social functions by providing
• each person with a clear identity and role.
• the benefits of group solidarity and support.
• a mechanism to work out social friction.
• This elaborate system of castes was not entirely
  static, either some evidence suggests groups
  were sometimes able to upgrade their status.

15
Challenging the Vedic order

• After 700 BCE, some began to balk at Brahmin
  power and privilege and the constraints of the
  rigid class system and retreated to the forests
  surrounding a community.
• Charismatic individuals offered alternative path
  ? individual pursuit of insight into the self,
  nature and universe through physical and mental
  discipline yoga.
• By distancing oneself from the desires of this
  world one could achieve moksha a state of
  perfect understanding, a release from the cycle
  of reincarnations (the wheel of life) and union
  with the divine force that animates the universe
  perfect insight to how atman relates to
  Brahman, the world soul that contains and unites
  all atmans.

16
Challenging the Vedic orderUpanishads and Jainism

• Upanishads a collection of more than a hundred
  mystical dialogues between teachers and disciples
  that reflect the questioning of Vedic religion
  written sometime between 750 and 550 BCE.
• Jainism (JINE-iz-uhm) a religion established by
  Mahavira (540-468 BCE), who was known to his
  followers as Jina (the Conqueror) ? emphasized
  holiness of the life force animating all living
  creatures.

17
Challenging the Vedic orderJainism (cont.)

• Mahavira and followers practiced strict
  nonviolence.
• Wore masks to prevent even the accidental
  inhalation of bugs.
• Zealous adherents practiced extreme asceticism
  (self-denial) and nudity, ate only what others
  gave them eventually died of starvation.
• Less zealous followers, restricted from
  agriculture by the injunction against killing,
  lived in cities and engaged in commerce, banking
  ? no missionaries today, nearly all 5 million
  of the worlds Jains live in India, forming one
  of that countrys wealthiest communities.

The hand with a wheel on the palm symbolizes the
Jain vow of nonviolence.
18
Challenging the Vedic orderBuddhism

• Another religion that arose as a threat to Vedic
  religion and of far greater significance to
  history than Jainism was Buddhism, founded by
  Siddhartha Gautama (sihd-DAHR-tuh GOW-tuh-muh).

• Known as the Buddha, the Enlightened One,
  Siddhartha lived from 563 to 483 BCE and
  historians struggle with separating fact from
  legend in the stories told about him.
• Came from a Kshatriya family living in the
  foothills of the Himalayas ? eventually gave up
  princely life of his upbringing for the life of a
  wandering ascetic searching for enlightenment.

19
Challenging the Vedic orderBuddhism (cont.)

• After six years of wandering, concluded ascetic
  life no more likely than a life of luxury to
  produce spiritual insight.
• Decided to adhere to a Middle Path of
  moderation, which he set forth as Four Noble
  Truths

A guide to behavior to be mastered one step at a
time, the Eightfold Path consists of right views,
aspirations, speech, conduct, livelihood, effort,
mindfulness and meditation.
20
Challenging the Vedic order Buddhism (cont.)

• By following the Eightfold Path, anyone could
  reach either in this lifetime or across
  multiple lifetimes the state of nirvana, the
  Buddhas word for the release from selfishness
  and pain ? perpetual tranquility.
• In original form, Buddhism focused on the
  individual ? some early followers took vows of
  celibacy, nonviolence and poverty.
• Although Siddhartha accepted idea of
  reincarnation, he rejected the hierarchal Vedic
  social structure and taught that all human beings
  could aspire to nirvana in this life ? message
  likely helped Buddhism attract support among
  people at lower end of the social scale.

21
Challenging the Vedic order Buddhism (cont.)

• As the Buddhas message spread by missionaries
  and by traders along the Silk Road throughout
  India and into Central, Southeast and East Asia
  following his death, its own successes began to
  subvert the individualistic and essentially
  atheistic tenets of the founder (he rejected the
  panoply of Vedic gods and forbade his followers
  to worship his person or image after his death ?
  which is why many Buddhists view Buddhism as a
  philosophy rather than a religion).
• Buddhist monasteries were established and a
  hierarchy of Buddhist monks and nuns came into
  being.

22
Challenging the Vedic order Buddhism (cont.)
Great Stupa at Sanchi (3rd to 1st century BCE)

• Springing up throughout the countryside were
  temples and stupas initially earthen mounds
  symbolizing the universe but which became over
  time stone towers housing relics of the Buddha.

23
Challenging the Vedic order Buddhism (cont.)

• Buddhism soon split into two large movements
  Theravada and Mahayana.
• Theravada Buddhism (the Way of the Elders or
  the Lesser Vehicle) Buddha himself is not
  considered a god emphasizes meditation,
  simplicity, interpretation of nirvana as the
  renunciation of human consciousness and of the
  self.
• Mahayana Buddhism (the Greater Vehicle)
  Buddha is a godlike deity other deities appear,
  including bodhisattvas (those whove achieved
  enlightenment and are nearing nirvana but choose
  to remain on Earth to lead others) more
  complicated and ritualistic than Buddha intended
  detractors say its too much like the Hinduism
  Buddha disapproved of.

24
The rise of Hinduism

• Challenged by new, spiritually satisfying and
  more egalitarian movements, Vedic religion
  morphed into Hinduism which today is the
  worlds third-largest religion (about 1 billion
  followers) behind Christianity and Islam.
• Its creation cannot be linked to a specific time
  or person there was no Mr. Hindu but rather
  evolved over time by about the fourth century CE.
• The term Hinduism was imposed by others Islamic
  invaders in the 11th century CE labeled the
  diverse range of practices they saw in India as
  Hinduism (what the Indians do).
• Foundation was the Aryan Vedic tradition, but
  Hinduism also incorporated elements drawn from
  the Dravidian cultures of the south as well as
  elements of Buddhism.

25
An evolving religion

• Much of what weve already discussed about Vedic
  religion are components of Hinduism dharma,
  karma, reincarnation, moksha, etc.
• Closely linked with Hinduism, and reinforced by
  the ideas of karma and reincarnation, is the
  caste system.
• The world soul, Brahman, sometimes seen as having
  the personalities of three gods Brahma, the
  creator Vishnu, the protector and Shiva, the
  destroyer.

Brahma
26
A multiplicity of gods

• Reflecting the ethnic, linguistic and cultural
  diversity of India, Hinduism has a vast array of
  gods (330 million according to one tradition),
  sects and local practices.
• Example Vishnu, the protector, also took on
  other forms or personalities (as Krishna, the
  divine cow herder as Rama, the perfect king and
  as Buddha ? a clear attempt to co-opt its rival
  religions founder!).
• Brahma gradually faded into the background, while
  the many forms of Devi, the great Mother Goddess,
  grew in importance.

Shiva is often represented performing dance steps
symbolizing the acts of creation and destruction
both part of a single, cyclical process.
27
Hinduism reigns in India

• Hindus today are free to choose the deity they
  worship (interestingly, Vishnu and its Aryan
  pedigree is more popular in the north while Shiva
  is dominant in the Dravidian south) or choose
  none at all most follow a family tradition that
  may go back centuries.
• They are also free to choose among three
  different paths for achieving moksha, though with
  some exceptions only men of top varnas can expect
  to achieve it in their present life.
• Buddhism in its austere, most authentic form may
  have demanded too much from most people and the
  features that made Mahayana Buddhism more
  accessible (gods, saints, myths) also made it
  easier to be absorbed by Hinduism.
• Thus, Buddhism was driven from the land of its
  birth though well see that it firmly took root
  elsewhere in Asia.

28
Imperial expansion and collapse

• Indias habitual political fragmentation can be
  explained by two things
• geographically diverse zones (mountains,
  foothills, forests, steppes, deserts) on the
  subcontinent led to divergent forms of
  organization because of differences in economic
  activity and those same zones featured
  different languages and cultural practices.
• people identified themselves primarily in terms
  of their caste so allegiance to a higher,
  central political authority wasnt called for.
• Despite this, two empires arose in the Ganges
  Plain to unite much of the subcontinent between
  324 BCE and 650 CE.

29
(324-184 BCE)The Mauryan Empire
Not until the 17th century CE would a single
government rule so much of India.
Winter monsoon

• Indias first centralized empire was founded by
  Chandragupta Maurya when he conquered then
  expanded the kingdom of Magadha, which had a
  wealth derived from agriculture, iron mines and
  its strategic location astride trade routes of
  the eastern Ganges Basin.
• Chandragupta may have been inspired by Alexander
  the Greats foray into the Punjab in 326 BCE.

Summer monsoon
30
Mauryan EmpirePragmatic means to an end

• Chandragupta (r. 324-301 BCE) and his successors
  Bindusara (r. 301-269 BCE) and Ashoka (r. 269-232
  BCE) extended Mauryan control over the entire
  subcontinent except for the Tamil kingdoms of the
  extreme south.
• Chandragupta was guided by a crafty, elderly
  Brahmin named Kautilya, who may be the initial
  source of the Arthashastra, a coldly pragmatic
  treatise on government that
• advocates the so-called mandala theory of foreign
  policy (My enemys enemy is my friend.).
• relates a long list of schemes for enforcing and
  increasing the collection of tax revenues.
• prescribes the use of spies to keep watch on
  everyone in the kingdom.

31
Mauryan EmpireTrade and government

• Mauryan India was characterized by a strong
  military with infantry, cavalry, chariot and
  elephant divisions and royal control of mines,
  shipbuilding and arms manufacturing.
• An extensive trade network anchored by cotton,
  a key Indian export stretched all the way to
  Mesopotamia and the eastern parts of the Roman
  Empire.
• Taxes equal to one-fourth of the value of an
  annual harvest funded Mauryan kings and
  government, administrated by relatives and
  associates in districts based on traditional
  ethnic boundaries.
• Standard coinage fostered support for the
  government and military throughout the empire and
  promoted trade.

32
Mauryan EmpireAshoka promotes Buddhism

• Best known of the Mauryan emperors was Ashoka,
  who led the empire to its greatest heights.
• Ashoka was a great warrior as a young man but
  later became sickened by the brutality of war.
• After hundreds of thousands of people were
  killed, wounded or deported during his conquest
  of Kalinga, Ashoka converted to Buddhism and
  preached nonviolence, morality, moderation and
  religious tolerance.
• He wasnt naïve, however to wit The king,
  remorseful as he is, has the strength to punish
  the wrongdoers who do not repent.

33
Mauryan Empire Carve it in stone

• Until the time of the Mauryans, Aryan buildings
  were made of wood but stone artisans arriving
  from the defeated Persian Empire were put to work
  by Ashoka in building three main types of
  religious structures the pillar, the stupa and
  the rock chamber (carved out of mountainside
  cliffs and resembling Roman basilicas in the
  West).

Ten polished sandstone pillars remain standing
today from the many erected during Ashokas
reign. Erected alongside roads to commemorate the
events in the Buddhas life and mark pilgrim
routes to holy places, they weighed up to 50 tons
and rose more than 30 feet, topped with a carved
capital, usually depicting lions uttering the
Buddhas message.
34
Mauryan EmpireRock and pillar
Mahabodhi Temple

• The inscriptions on Ashokas so-called Rock and
  Pillar Edicts constitute the earliest
  decipherable Indian writing
• Now with the practice of morality by King
  (Ashoka), the sound of war drums has become the
  call to morality. King (Ashoka) desires that
  there should be the growth of the essential
  spirit of morality or holiness among all sects.
• Bulliet, p. 161

Site of the first temple built by Ashoka in the
third century BCE, on the site of Buddhas
enlightenment Bihar, India.
35
After Ashoka

• In the half century following Ashokas death, the
  Mauryan Empire weakened and collapsed, giving way
  to a succession of dominant foreign powers ruling
  in the northwest (present-day Pakistan,
  Afghanistan, Uzbekistan), who extended some
  influence east and south
• the Greco-Bactrian kingdom (180-50 BCE) descended
  from troops and settlers left in Alexanders
  wake.
• the Shakas (50 BCE to 50 CE), an Iranian people
  known as Scythians in the Mediterranean world.
• the Kushans (50-240 CE), originally from
  Xianjiang in northwest China.

36
Fragmented but not floundering

• Despite political fragmentation during the five
  centuries following the Mauryan era (the eastern
  Ganges reverted back to a hodgepodge of small
  principalities), economic, cultural and
  intellectual development remained dynamic, just
  as in archaic Greece and Warring States China
• Economic
• the network of roads and towns that had sprung up
  under the Mauryans fostered trade ? Indians
  became middlemen in the international trade
  routes (over land and, increasingly, by sea)
  linking China, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the
  Middle East, East Africa and the Mediterranean.
• with no central government authority, merchant
  and artisan guilds became politically powerful
  and patrons of culture.

37
Fragmented but not floundering (cont.)

• Cultural
• during the last two centuries BCE the two
  greatest Indian epics the Ramayana and the
  Mahabharata (containing the renowned
  Bhagavad-Gita, which is self-contained and
  perhaps originally separate) achieved final
  form ? based on oral tradition, supposedly
  describing events millions of years in the past,
  probably reflect conditions of the early Vedic
  period when Aryan warrior societies were moving
  onto the Ganges Plain.
• Mahabharata eight times longer than Greek Iliad
  and Odyssey, tells the story of a cataclysmic
  battle between two sets of cousins quarreling
  over succession to the throne.
• Bhagavad-Gita god Krishna tutors hero Arjuna
  (who is reluctant to fight own kinsmen) on the
  necessity of fulfilling his duty.

38
Fragmented but not floundering (cont.)

• Intellectual
• era saw significant advances in science and
  technology.
• doctors had knowledge of herbal remedies.
• following Panini, who had earlier analyzed
  Sanskrit word forms and grammar, Indian scholars
  standardized the language ? paved way for
  Prakrits (popular dialects), the ancestors of
  modern Indo-European languages of northern and
  central India.
• In the turbulent Tamil kingdoms of the south, a
  classical period of literary and artistic
  productivity ? music, dance, drama as well as
  grammatical treatises, collections of ethical
  proverbs, poems about love, war, wealth and
  beauty.

39
(320-550 CE)The Gupta Empire

• More than 500 years after the fall of the Mauryan
  Empire, another power ushered in a golden age.
• The Gupta Empire was founded by a man who called
  himself Chandra Gupta (no relation to the
  Mauryans, but he was clearly modeling himself
  after them) he and successors took title of
  Great King of Kings.
• More decentralized and smaller than Mauryan
  Empire.

40
The Gupta EmpireA good example of a
theater-state

• Also headquartered in the northeast, the Guptas
  were similar to their Mauryan predecessors (25
  tax on agriculture, monopolies on mining of iron
  and salt) but not nearly as capable of imposing
  their will on people outside the empires core.
• Gupta administrative bureaucracy and intelligence
  network was smaller, less pervasive.
• Governors of outlying areas free to exploit
  people.
• The Guptas maintained power by producing a
  so-called theater-state they persuaded others
  to follow its lead through the splendor and
  ritualistic ceremony of its capital and royal
  court ? advertisement for the benefits of
  association.

41
The Gupta EmpireRuler and subjects

• In the Gupta theater-state
• distant subordinate kingdoms (and areas made up
  predominantly of kinship groups) were expected to
  make annual tribute donations.
• the empire set up garrisons at key frontier
  points to keep open the avenues of trade and help
  with the collection of customs duties (taxes on
  goods).
• the empire then redistributed some of the profit
  from trade as gifts to its dependents.
• subordinate princes gained prestige by emulating
  the Gupta center on whatever scale they were
  capable of pulling off, and benefited by visits,
  gifts and marriages to the royal family.

42
The Gupta EmpireMathematical minds

• Gupta rulers supported astronomers, scientists
  and mathematicians and Indian mathematicians
  around this time came up with one of the worlds
  great intellectual achievements the concept of
  zero and the place-value system.
• The Indian method of arithmetic notation using a
  base-10 system (with separate columns for ones,
  tens, hundreds, etc.) was much more efficient
  than the numerical systems of the Egyptians,
  Greeks and Romans and has come to be more
  widely used than even the alphabet derived from
  the Phoenicians.

43
The Gupta EmpireMathematical minds (cont.)

• The power of this new Indian math was immediately
  recognized in other lands when it spread through
  cultural diffusion.
• Muslim Arabs and Persians adopted the Hindi
  numerals in the eighth century, and Europeans
  later learned of it from them hence, the
  misnomer Arabic numerals.
• Some scholars in trying to answer why it was
  the Indians who came up with this system argue
  that it may align with Indian religion and
  cosmology ? they conceived of innumerable
  universes being created and destroyed across
  immense spans of time (trillions of years, which
  is far longer than the estimated age of the
  universe 14 billion years) so the Indian
  number system may have emerged from a desire to
  express concepts of this magnitude.

44
The Gupta EmpireThe role of women

• Evidence suggests that the status of women
  deteriorated during the Gupta era.
• Originally, Indian women were in a subordinate
  situation common among agricultural societies
  (men did most of the work in the fields females
  viewed as economic burden because of need to
  supply a dowry to acquire a husband family unit
  wasnt maintained after wife joined family of
  husband following marriage).
• But in some ways before the Gupta era women
  came to play an influential role in Indian
  society.

45
The Gupta EmpireThe role of women (cont.)

• Hindu code stressed that women should be treated
  with respect.
• Indians appeared to be fascinated by female
  sexuality, and tradition held that women often
  used their sexual powers to achieve domination
  over men (the tradition of the henpecked
  husband is as prevalent in India as in many
  Western societies).
• Paintings and sculptures often showed women in a
  role equal to that of men.

46
The Gupta EmpireThe role of women (cont.)

• But over time women in India lost ground.
• With the rise of increasingly complex social
  structures and the emergence of a nonagricultural
  (i.e., merchant or artisan) middle class that
  placed high value on the acquisition and
  inheritance of property ? women lost rights
  (e.g., the right to own or inherit property) as
  males gained greater control over their behavior.
  Women were
• barred from reading sacred texts and
  participating in the sacrificial ritual.
• treated equal to the lowest class, the Shudra.
• expected, as in China, to obey first her father,
  then husband, then sons.

47
The Gupta EmpireThe role of women (cont.)

• Men came to marry girls as young as 6 so that his
  wifes virginity was ensured, and he could raise
  her to suit his purposes.

The most extreme form of subjugation a widow was
expected to cremate herself on her husbands
funeral pyre to keep her pure in a ritual
called sati (suh-TEE). Women who refused were
shunned, forbidden to remarry and given little
opportunity to earn a living.
48
The Gupta EmpireThe role of women (cont.)

• Not all women found themselves dominated by men.
• Women could retain social status if they
• belonged to a powerful family.
• joined a Jainist or Buddhist religious community
  as a nun.
• became courtesans trained in poetry and music.

Gupta dancing girl
49
The Gupta EmpireOdds and ends

• Whereas the Mauryans had been Buddhists, the
  Gupta monarchs were Hindus though religiously
  tolerant, allowing Buddhist pilgrims from
  Southeast and East Asia to visit the birthplace
  of their faith.
• Coined money served as medium of exchange.
• Artisan guilds played important role in economic,
  political and religious life of towns.
• Because of the Indian conception of time (the
  particulars of a given moment were unimportant),
  historiographic texts werent written.

The classic architectural form of the Hindu
temple evolved during the Gupta era.
50
The Gupta Empire and the final end

• Trade with the merchants and societies to the
  west declined as the Roman Empire weakened but
  commerce increasingly turned to the sea routes of
  the east ? sailors reached the Malay Peninsula
  and islands of Indonesia to exchange Indian
  cloth, ivory, metalwork, exotic animals for
  Chinese silk, Indonesian spices.
• By the late fifth century, the Guptas were under
  increased pressure on the northwestern frontier
  from invading White Huns.
• Although a lack of tax revenue to pay its army
  and the rising power of its regional governors
  may have contributed to the fall of the empire,
  the White Hun invasion was the main reason for
  the final collapse of the Gupta Empire in 550.

51
Southeast Asia, 50 600 CE

• Southeast Asia comprises three geographic zones
  1) the Indochina mainland 2) the Malay
  Peninsula and 3) thousands of islands extending
  east to west into the Pacific Ocean.
• Present day countries Myanmar (myahn-MAH) a.k.a.
  Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam,
  Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei (broo-NIE)
  and the Philippines.
• This region situated between India and China
  was greatly influenced by the ancient
  civilizations and cultures of those two big
  neighbors and it first rose to prominence and
  prosperity thanks to its intermediary role in
  trade.

52
Southeast AsiaGeography

• The region lies along the equator, which gives it
  consistent year-round temperatures around 80
  degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius).
• Rainforest covers much of the land.
• Monsoon winds provide predictable rainfall.
• Islands are the tops of a chain of volcanoes ?
  volcanic soil, and the floodplains of
  silt-bearing rivers, provides fertile
  agricultural potential.
• Add several growing seasons annually and you get
  an area of the world capable of supporting a
  large population.

53
Southeast AsiaThe local foods

• A number of plant and animal species native to
  this region spread elsewhere, which significantly
  transformed societies and economies around the
  world wet rice (grown in flooded fields),
  soybeans, sugar cane, yams, coconuts, bananas,
  chickens and pigs.

A wet-rice field in Bali, Indonesia.
The labor-intensive crop of rice was the staple
food of the region.
54
Southeast AsiaMalay migrations

• Scholars believe that the Malay peoples came to
  dominate the region following several waves of
  Chinese migration south beginning around five
  thousand years ago.
• Indigenous peoples sometimes merged with the
  Malay newcomers, sometimes retreated to mountain
  and forest zones.
• Population pressures coupled with disputes within
  and among communities ? the longest colonization
  movement in history, as Malay peoples in large,
  double outrigger canoes spread across half the
  circumference of the world to settle thousands of
  islands across several millennia, from the Indian
  Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.

55
Southeast AsiaPolitics, commerce and culture

• First political units were organized water
  boards, which met to allocate and schedule the
  use of common sources of water a critical
  resource.
• China exerted political control over northern
  Indochina from the late second century BCE to the
  tenth century CE.
• Farther south, in the early centuries CE, larger
  states emerged thanks to commerce and the
  influence of Hindu-Buddhist culture

56
Southeast AsiaSilk by way of the sea

• When nomadic migrations destabilized the politics
  of Central Asia and compromised the overland
  trade route that merchants used to bring silk
  from China to India, demand was still strong in
  India both for domestic use and transshipment
  to the Arabian Gulf and Red Sea to satisfy the
  seemingly insatiable luxury market in the Roman
  Empire.
• So much of the trade shipments now including
  Southeast Asian goods such as aromatic woods,
  resins, cinnamon, pepper, cloves, nutmeg and
  other spices shifted to the south across the
  South China Sea, by land over an isthmus on the
  Malay Peninsula, and across the Bay of Bengal.

57
Southeast AsiaReligion and trade

• The rising numbers of merchants in the area meant
  a rising awareness of Buddhism ? Southeast Asia
  became a way station for Indian missionaries and
  East Asian pilgrims heading east and west,
  respectively.
• First major Southeast Asian center called Funan
  (FOO-nahn) by the Chinese and centered in the
  delta of the Mekong River in southern Vietnam
  flourished from the first to sixth centuries CE,
  extending control over most of southern Indochina
  and the Malay Peninsula.
• Chinese visitors observed that Funan was
  prosperous and sophisticated, with walled cities
  and palaces, and supported by systems of taxation
  and state-organized agriculture.

58
Southeast AsiaCatering to trade
Portage carrying small quantities of goods and
sometimes the boat itself across an isthmus was
common in early seafaring trade. But larger
cargoes later on made the overland shortcut less
practical.

• For a price, Funan stockpiled food and provided
  security to merchants choosing the portage across
  the Malay Peninsula (instead of the longer, more
  treacherous sea route around it).
• Probably when international trade routes finally
  changed and it no longer held a strategic
  location, Funan declined in the 500s CE.

59
Sources

• The Earth and Its Peoples A Global History
  (Bulliet et al.)
• Traditions Encounters A Global Perspective on
  the Past (Bentley Ziegler)
• World History (Duiker Spielvogel)
• Patterns of Interaction (McDougal Littell,
  publisher)
• AP World History review guides The Princeton
  Review, Kaplan and Barrons