WH 1111 Ancient india

1. Ancient India

2. MOHENJO-DARO AND HARAPPAN CIVILIZATION
• Around five thousand years ago, an important civilization developed on
the Indus River floodplain.
• -The Indus Valley Civilization (Harappan Civilization) dates to 5000
BCE and grew steadily throughout the lower Ganetic Valley region
southwards and northwards to Malwa.
• -The cities of the Indus Valley Civilization were well-organised and
solidly built out of brick and stone. Their drainage systems, wells and water
storage systems were the most sophisticated in the ancient world.

3. • -The most famous sites of this period
are the great cities of Mohenjo-Daro
and Harappa both located in present-
day Pakistan.
• -Harappa has given its name to the
Harappan Civilization (another name
for the Indus Valley Civilization)
which is usually divided into Early,
Middle, and Mature periods
corresponding roughly to 5000-4000
BCE (Early), 4000-2900 BCE (Middle),
and 2900-1900 BCE (Mature).

4. Mohenjo-Daro
• -Mohenjo-Daro was an
elaborately constructed city with
streets laid out evenly at right
angles and a sophisticated
drainage system.
• -Mohenjo-Daro and the
recently partially excavated
Rakhigarhi, this urban plan
included the world's first
known urban sanitation
systems

5. • Decline:
• - Around 1800 BCE, signs of a
gradual decline began to emerge, and
by around 1700 BCE, most of the
cities were abandoned.
• -Aryan Hypothesis
• - Today, many scholars believe that
the collapse of the Indus Civilization
was caused by drought and a decline
in trade with Egypt and Mesopotamia

6. The Aryans During the Vedic Age (1500-500B.C.)
• -After the decline of the Harappan Civilization, a people who called themselves
Aryans became dominate in northern India.
• - While it is widely accepted that the Aryans brought the horse to India, there is some
debate as to whether they introduced new deities to the region or simply influenced
the existing belief structure. The Aryans are thought to have been pantheists (nature
worshippers) with a special devotion to the sun and it seems uncertain they would have
had anthropomorphic gods.
• - The Aryan influence gave rise to what is known as the Vedic Period in India (c.
1700- 150 BCE) characterized by a pastoral lifestyle and adherence to the religious texts
known as The Vedas.

7. The Vedas
• - These are the most ancient religious texts which define truth for Hindus. They got
their present form between 1200-200 BCE and were introduced to India by the Aryans.
• - Hindus believe that the texts were received by scholars direct from God and passed on
to the next generations by word of mouth.
• - Contents of the Vedas: The Vedas are made up of four compositions, and each veda in
turn has four parts which are arranged chronologically.
• -There are four Vedas:
• 1. Rig-Veda “Knowledge of the Hymns of Praise”, for recitation.
• 2. Sama-Veda “Knowledge of the Melodies”, for chanting.
• 3. Yajur-Veda “Knowledge of the Sacrificial formulas”, for liturgy.
• 4. Atharva-Veda “Knowledge of the Magic formulas”, named after a kind of group of
priests.

8. • - Each Veda has been sub-classified into four major text types –
• 1. the Samhitas (mantras and benedictions),
• 2. the Aranyakas (text on rituals, ceremonies, sacrifices and symbolic-sacrifices),
• 3. the Brahmanas (commentaries on rituals, ceremonies and sacrifices),
• 4. and the Upanishads (text discussing meditation, philosophy and spiritual
knowledge)
• - As part of its mythology, Vedic texts contain multiple creation stories, most of them
inconsistent with each other. Sometimes the Vedas refer to a particular god as the greatest
god of all, and later another god will be regarded as the greatest god of all.
• -An important social aspect of the Vedas is that it introduces the caste system into
Indian society.

9. • - Society became divided into four classes (the Varnas) popularly known as `the caste
system’ which were comprised of the
• 1. Brahmana at the top (priests and scholars),
• 2. the Kshatriya next (the warriors),
• 3. the Vaishya (farmers and merchants),
• 4. and the Shudra (labourers).
• 5. The lowest caste was the Dalits, the untouchables, who handled meat and waste,
though there is some debate over whether this class existed in antiquity.
• - At first, it seems this caste system was merely a reflection of one’s occupation but, in time, it became
more rigidly interpreted to be determined by one’s birth and one was not allowed to change castes nor to
marry into a caste other than one’s own.

10. Hinduism
• The underlying tenet of Sanatan Dharma is
that there is an order and a purpose to the
universe and human life and, by accepting this
order and living in accordance with it, one will
experience life as it is meant to be properly
lived.
• - Hindus accept—and indeed celebrate—the
organic, multileveled, and sometimes pluralistic
nature of their traditions.
• - This expansiveness is made possible by the
widely shared Hindu view that truth or reality
cannot be encapsulated in any creedal formulation, a
perspective expressed in the Hindu prayer “May
good thoughts come to us from all sides.”

11. • -Nevertheless, there are central concepts that unite all
basic hindu beliefs:
• 1. Hindus believe in brahman, an uncreated, eternal,
infinite, transcendent, and all-embracing principle.
• - Brahman contains in itself both being and
nonbeing, and it is the sole reality—the ultimate
cause, foundation, source, and goal of all existence.
• - Hindus differ, however, as to whether this ultimate
reality is best conceived as lacking attributes and
qualities—the impersonal brahman—or as a personal
God, especially Vishnu, Shiva, or Shakti (these being the
preferences of adherents called Vaishnavas, Shaivas, and
Shaktas, respectively).

12. • 2. Atman, ( Sanskrit: “self,” “breath”) one
of the most basic concepts in Hinduism, the
universal self, identical with the eternal core
of the personality that after death either
transmigrates to a new life or attains release
(moksha) from the bonds of existence.
• - While in the early Vedas it occurred
mostly as a reflexive pronoun meaning
“oneself,” in the later Upanishads
(speculative commentaries on the Vedas) it
comes more and more to the fore as a
philosophical topic.

13. • 3. Samsara, Karma, moksha. Hindus generally accept the doctrine of transmigration
and rebirth and the complementary belief in karma.
• - The whole process of rebirth, called samsara, is cyclic, with no clear beginning or
end, and encompasses lives of perpetual, serial attachments.
• - Actions generated by desire and appetite bind one’s spirit (jiva) to an endless series of
births and deaths. Desire motivates any social interaction (particularly when involving sex
or food), resulting in the mutual exchange of good and bad karma.
• - In one prevalent view, the very meaning of salvation is emancipation (moksha) from
this morass, an escape from the impermanence that is an inherent feature of mundane
existence.
• - In this view the only goal is the one permanent and eternal principle: the One, God, brahman, which is
totally opposite to phenomenal existence.

14. The Buddha
• Historical Background
• - In the 6th century BCE, the religious reformers Vardhaman Mahavira (549-477
BCE) and Siddhartha Gautama (563-483 BCE) broke away from mainstream
Sanatan Dharma to eventually create their own religions of Jainism and
Buddhism.
• - These changes in religion were a part of a wider pattern of social and cultural
upheaval which resulted in the formation of city states and the rise of powerful
kingdoms (such as the Kingdom of Magadha under the ruler Bimbisara).
• -Increased urbanization and wealth attracted the attention of Cyrus, ruler of the
Persian Empire, who invaded India in 530 BCE and initiated a campaign of conquest in
the region.

15. • At the time when Siddhartha Gautama lived, Northern India was
composed of numerous and small independent states competing for
resources.
• - This was a time when the traditional religious order in India was being
challenged by a number of new philosophical and religious schools that
were not in line with the orthodox Indian religious views.
• - The Vedic philosophy, theology and metaphysics, along with its ever
growing complexity of rituals and sacrificial fees, was being questioned.
Materialistic schools were running wild in India, undermining the
reputation and authority of the priestly class, leading to a temporary
religious anarchy which contributed to the development of new religions.

16. • -Siddhartha Gautama (also known as the
Buddha “the awakened one”) was the leader
and founder of a sect of wanderer ascetics
(Sramanas), one of many sects which existed
at that time all over India.
• - The teachings of Siddhartha Gautama are
considered the core of Buddhism: after his
death, the community he founded slowly
evolved into a religious-like movement
which was finally established as a state
religion in India by the time of Emperor
Ashoka, during the 3rd century BCE.

17. • - The accounts of the Buddha's life are filled with myth and
legendary stories that slowly but surely changed the initial attributes
of the biography of the Buddha. The final form of these texts were
written down many centuries after the death of the Buddha.
• - There is no agreement on when Siddhartha was born, however,
modern scholarship agrees that the Buddha passed away at some point
between 410 and 370 BCE, about 140-100 years before the time of
Indian Emperor Ashoka’s reign (268-232 BCE).
• - The realization that he, like anyone else, could be subject to
different forms of human suffering (disease, old age, and death)
drove Siddhartha into a personal crisis. By the time he was 29, he
abandoned his home and began to live as a homeless ascetic.

18. • - After leaving Kapilavastu, Siddhartha practised the yoga discipline
under the direction of two of the leading masters of that time: Arada
Kalama and Udraka Ramaputra.
• -Siddhartha did not get the results he expected, so he left the masters,
engaged in extreme asceticism, and he was joined by five followers. For a
period of six years Siddhartha tried to attain his goal but was unsuccessful.
• -After realizing that asceticism was not the way to attain the results he
was looking for, he gave up this way of life. After eating a meal and taking
a bath, Siddhartha sat down under a boda tree, where he finally attained
Nirvana (perfect enlightenment) and became known as the Buddha.

19. • -The four Nobel truths are as follows:
• 1. The truth of suffering
• 2. The truth of the origin of suffering
• 3. The truth of the cessation of
suffering
• 4. The truth of the path to the
cessation of suffering

20. • The final Noble Truth is the Buddha's prescription for the end of suffering.
This is a set of principles called the Eightfold Path.
• -The Eightfold Path is also called the Middle Way: it avoids both
indulgence and severe asceticism, neither of which the Buddha had found
helpful in his search for enlightenment.
• 1. Right Understanding
• 2. Right Intention
• 3. Right Speech
• 4. Right Action
• 5. Right Livelihood
• 6. Right Effort
• 7. Right Mindfulness
• 8. Right Concentration

21. Mauryan Empire
• -(c. 321–185 bce), in ancient India, a state centered at Pataliputra (later Patna) near the junction
of the Son and Ganges (Ganga) rivers.
• - In the wake of Alexander the Great’s death, Chandragupta (or Chandragupta Maurya), its
dynastic founder, carved out the majority of an empire that encompassed most of the subcontinent
except for the Tamil south.
• - The Mauryan empire was an efficient and highly organized autocracy with a standing army
and civil service.
• -This bureaucracy and its operation were the model for the Artha-shastra (“The Science of
Material Gain”), a work of political economy similar in tone and scope to Niccolò Machiavelli’s
The Prince.
• -What is significant about Chandragupta reign is that, for the first time in history, one man
governed most of the subcontinent, exercising his control through his system of delegated power.

22. • Ashoka
• - Contemporary historians consider Chandragupta's grandson Ashokavardhan Maurya,
better known as Ashoka (ruled 273-232 B.C.E.), as perhaps the greatest of Indian
monarchs, and perhaps the world. H.G. Wells calls him the "greatest of kings."
• - As a young prince, Ashoka served as a brilliant commander who crushed revolts in
Ujjain and Taxila. As an ambitious and aggressive monarch, he re-asserted the Empire's
superiority in southern and western India.
• - But his conquest of Kalinga proved the pivotal event of his life. Although Ashoka's
army succeeded in overwhelming Kalinga forces of royal soldiers and civilian units, an
estimated 100,000 soldiers and civilians died in the furious warfare, including over
10,000 of Ashoka's own men.
• - Although the annexation of Kalinga was completed, Ashoka embraced the teachings
of Gautama Buddha, and renounced war and violence.