Hist 5 8 Notes Ashoka is perhaps the greatest of the Mauryan rulers 269 232 BC and he conquered a lot and under him the Maur empire reached its greatest size most of modern India was under his control he was conquering for 8 years and in his 8th year he comes to the realization that war is BAD and so he takes up a new policy a new way of conquest conquest by dharma in this context dharma means the teachings of the Buddha Ashoka was a Buddhist and this new faith of his transformed how he would govern and rule he was guided by the principle of the dharma principles of non violence he wanted to ensure basic well being of his ppl he built stupa s and he sought to promote Buddhism as a way of helping Buddhism grow in his empire he also published a series of Rock edicts laws written on rocks which outline his concerns with the well being of society ideals associated with the 8 fold path reflect his concerns for true justice so his rock edicts show his principles he also built roads and school for the ppl of India he instituted dharma officers and these guys were supposed to go out and aminsiter what was goin on that all other administrators were doing their jobs right and were living up to the ideal that Ashoka promoted Ashoka was not stupid bc at the same time as he promoted Buddhism he was careful to respect the hindu brahman priets in his realm he did not alienate this imp class in his realm we see here one of the challenges that any gov will face throughout history India is a society of great variety cultural geographics religious so the question is how do we organize things so that this great variety can come together and not splinter apart Ashoka addressed this question by being supportive of non buddhists in his realm he is identified as one of the great missionaries in Buddhist history not him persay he sent out missionaries from his kingdom into diff parts of Asia to spread Buddhism it can be said that the High Point of the Mauryan tradition was reached then things fell apart despite his best efforts Ashoka really pissed off the Brahmans who began to protest against Mauryan rule when we are successful conquorers I don t think this happen it brings us taxes land and subjects and our soldiers get money but now we are conquroing by dharma so our soldiers are not getting as much money as they usually should moreover India is big which means that it is difficult to administer lines of communication is much slower because transportation is much slower takes weeks for Ashoka s word to travel to other part of the Kingdom paying for beaurocracy and military was a drain so growing financial and administrative burdens lead to overthrow of last Maur ruler in 185 at this point India broke up into a series of principalities and this was a time of political fragmentation but this would change in the 4th C A D when the last classical Indian dynasty the Gupta dynasty 320 515 came to power Chandra Gupta Samudra and Chandra III would rule and it is here under the Guptas where we see the last shining dynasty under the guptas that all the trends of the Indian and religious culture comes to a dramatic conclusion under the Guptas where we see a brilliant period these 3 guys were successful rulers CG was a great warrior and conqueror and it was under his leadership that India was organized once again into a large scale entity revising the kind of pol organization that Ashoka once ruled over CG s mil ability was continued by his son and grandson the next 2 guys CG was also clever and another way to conquer besides war was clever marriage alliances he forged marriage ties in order enlarge this great new kingdom and the process of expansion was taken over by his son and grandson to maintain an Empire you have to have an effective governmental system built a large scale beauro and centralizing power in imperial court oversaw polcies driving state and promoting trade export in cotton and economy this was part of what Guptas were all about creating econ and governemtnal institutions that allowed India to thrive under these guys society was so orderly one could walk from one end of the kingdom to the other without fear of attack it was this GOOD the guptas are imp bc it is under them that we seea great pd of cultural flourishing pd of creativity and intellectualism these guys were really smart this was an era of great scientific discovery Gupta thinkers were skilled at mathematics developed a sign for zero quadratic equations skilled in medical sciences and surgery Gupta s supported this tradition and were also great builders developed great infrastructure great Temple builders Hindu Temples this est a pattern of characteristic S Asian architecture the Gupta s were NOT Buddhists but they understood the importance of tolerance and respected the non Hindi ppl int here empire we have Jains currently in the empire so Guptas build Jain temples as well they were open minded and were respectful this occurred in S Asia this is where we see some of the greatest acheivments under the Guptas it was under the Guptas that we begin to see emergence of two distinct forms of Buddhism Theravada and Mahayana 2 distinct forms of Buddhist practice Theravad identified Buddhism as a way of life understoof literal adherence to teadhes of Buddhists meditate avoid evil do good an buddhims was a search for enlightenment Mahayan spoke of the existence of a true heaven that through devotion and faith one could come to reach this Nirvana A more clearly well defined Salvationist religion but here really there is a focus on salvation a salvation through faith here the buddha becomes a divine figure and we have the boddisatva here those that have reached nirvana and help others reach it later one strain of MAahayna speaks of pureland Buddhism quest is for getting to the pureland so here we see the further dev of Buddhism moreover what we call hindu traditions reach a kind of maturity in which we see building upon the traditions of the Vedas and the Brahmanas and the Upanishads the final compilation of great religious texts like the Bhagavad Gita took their standard form expressing great philosophical values in the Hindu tradition notion that the world around us is a false reality and that real reality lies outside of this perceptible world as revelaed in our Gita it speaks of the impermanence of the physical body but the thing we call the soul IS the true thing and when the body dies the soul lives on and will find a neew being and