UGC 111 1st Edition Lecture 13 Outline of Last Lecture I Islam cont Outline of Current Lecture 1 Ancient India Current Lecture Ancient India Indus Harappan Period 3300 1700 BC Indus River Civilization 3300 1700 BC Modern day Pakistan and India People were literate had a spoken language but it cannot yet be deciphered Harappa Mohenjo Daro o Cities in Indus River Valley o 20 000 25 000 people o Had an acropolis and a lower town o Had sewer systems very advanced o Special plans for each city very organized organized by neighborhoods and each neighborhood had a craft i e bronze working pottery o No palace or monumental structure except in citadel communal not royal o Public baths in center of cities hygienic purposes maybe religious purposes o Citadel contained an assembly hall o Buildings made with bricks ALL bricks were the same size o Traded overseas Mesopotamia maybe Egypt o Possibly could have been a ruler Lothal harbor o Streets platform blocks of homes etc Vedic Aryan Period 1700 500 BC Major cities in Indus River Valley were abandoned believed to be either due to migration to get away from a drought or influx of people coming in from north These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute Tribes coming in from north semi nomadic warrior tribes spoke of themselves as Aryans and used the swastika Rig Veda Writings from tribes Written in Sanskrit Indo European language of the northern people o All Indo European languages are similar same structure common words tenses word order Hymns sung to the gods Best evidence of their language Made to be sung to the gods described sacrifices and society Pray for rain children protection of their cattle long life Spoke of heroism fighting drinking Indra main leader God envisioned as a weather god Dyaus father of the gods same name as Zeus Upanishads philosophical writings Central concepts describe a system of priesthood a religion that was ascetic withholding yourself from things like a hermit responsible for communicating with the gods preached a way of life that emphasized meditation in which salvation was reached through mystical knowledge Four main concepts o Maya idea that the sensory world is deceptive and temporary o Brahman only thing that is real infinite power from which the world arises universal life force that exists beyond what the changing world can see infinite eternal reality o Atman an individual s Brahman soul or spirit o Samsara cycle of birth death rebirth can be reborn into a higher caste by having good Karma bad Karma will land you in a lower class Karma sum of all the deeds in your life good or bad Epic literature Ramayana prince who grew up and was coronated to be king of his kingdom put into exile by an evil family member married a woman and they spent a long period of their life in the forest in exile gained allies and eventually got his kingdom back his wife was kidnapped by a demon king and he had to get her back Caste system 4 castes Brahmins intellectuals priests Kshatrivas warriors Vaishyas merchants tradespeople farmers Shudras laborers slaves History of Hindu India Persian conquest 513 BC Alexander the Great conquers the Indus Valley 326 BC Mauryan Empire 322 BC Ashoka 269 232 BC o Famous for converting to Buddhism o Left famous columns around his kingdom inscribed with Buddhist virtues compassion for others detachment from the world self control etc o Introduced Buddhism it became very popular o Gather the bones of Buddha and put them in sanctuaries all across India used for meditation Gupta Empire period of centralization taxes collected fixing roads etc o Came in contact with Arabs o Learned concept of zero and place system from India Mughal Empire 1200 AD centralized Islamic empire o Hindus had to pay a special tax confined them to the south Taj Mahal built by a Mughal emperor for his late wife o Covered with inscriptions and vegetable patterns o Tomb of emperor s wife o Part of a large garden with 4 streams based on a description of paradise in the Koran