Chapter 8-The Asian World

1. Chapter 8-The Asian World Section 4-India after the Guptas

2. India after the Guptas Main Ideas • Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam influenced the development of India.  • Its location made India a center for trade, but conflicts among its states plagued its growth and prosperity.  Key Terms • Theravada  • Mahayana Click the mouse button or press theSpace Bar to display the information.

3. India after the Guptas People to Identify • Mahmud of Ghazni  • Moguls  • Dandin  • Rajputs  • Timur Lenk  Places to Locate • India  • Deccan Plateau  • Samarkand • Ghazni  • Sultanate of Delhi  Click the mouse button or press theSpace Bar to display the information.

4. India after the Guptas Preview Questions • What major events marked the Islamic expansion into India?  • What impact did Muslim rule have on Indian society and culture? Click the mouse button or press theSpace Bar to display the information.

5. India after the Guptas Preview of Events

6. Section 4-5 Click the Speaker button to listen to the audio again.

7. In India, as in many other Asian countries, the elephant is the work animal for such projects as clearing land. Cows generally are not put to work in India because Hindus believe they are sacred, a belief that has given us our expression sacred cow. According to legend, the Hindu hero Prithu changed himself into a cow to encourage his countrymen to be vegetarians.

8. The Decline of Buddhism • Buddhism was popular among the Indian people for hundreds of years.  • A split developed in the followers of Buddhism in India.  • One group believed it was following the original teaching of the Buddha.  • Its members called themselves the school of Theravada (“the teachings of the elders”).  • They saw Buddhism as a way of life, not a religion centered on individual salvation. (pages 268–269) Click the mouse button or press theSpace Bar to display the information.

9. The Decline of Buddhism (cont.) • They claimed that understanding one’s self is the chief way to gain nirvana, or release from the “wheel of life.”  • Another view of Buddhism stressed that nirvana was achieved through devotion to the Buddha.  • This school is known as Mahayana Buddhism.  • Its members claimedthat Theravada teachings were too strict for ordinary people.

10. The Decline of Buddhism (cont.) • To Mahayana, Buddhism is a religion, not a philosophy.  • The Buddha was not just a wise man but also a divine figure.  • Nirvana is a true heaven.  • Through devotion to the Buddha people can achieve salvation in this heaven after death. (pages 268–269) Click the mouse button or press theSpace Bar to display the information.

11. The Decline of Buddhism (cont.) • Ultimately, neither sect remained popular in India.  • Hinduism and Islam became more accepted.  • Both schools of Buddhism were successful abroad, however, with monks carrying them to China, Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia, where people still practice Buddhism extensively. (pages 268–269) Click the mouse button or press theSpace Bar to display the information.

12. The Eastward Expansion of Islam • In the early eighth century Islam became popular in the northern Indian subcontinent. • It had a major impact on Indian civilization.  • One reason for this success is that it arrived at a time of political disunity.  • The Gupta Empire had collapsed, and India’s almost 70 states warred with each other. (page 269) Click the mouse button or press theSpace Bar to display the information.

13. The Eastward Expansion of Islam (cont.) • At the end of the tenth century, Islam expanded as rebellious Turkish slaves founded an Islamic state known asGhazni,in present-day Afghanistan.  • The founder’s son, Mahmud of Ghazni,took power in 997.  • He attacked neighboring Hindu kingdoms and greatly expanded his state.

14. The Eastward Expansion of Islam (cont.) • Hindu warriors called Rajputs fought Mahmud in the north.  • Mahmud’s cavalry outfought their slower infantry and elephants, however.  • By 1200, Muslim power was spread over north India, creating a new Muslim state known as the Sultanate of Delhi. • In the next century, this state extended its power into the Deccan Plateau. (page 269) Click the mouse button or press theSpace Bar to display the information.

15. The Impact of Timur Lenk • The Sultanate of Delhi declined by the end of the fourteenth century.  • A new military force raided Delhi and then retreated, but not before massacring 100,000 Hindu prisoners.  • The commander was TimurLenk(Tamerlane). (pages 269–270) Click the mouse button or press theSpace Bar to display the information.

16. The Impact of Timur Lenk (cont.) • TimurLenk ruled a Mongol state based in Samarkand. • He seized power in 1369 and began conquering.  • He placed Mesopotamia and the region east of the Caspian Sea under his control.  • He died in 1405. (pages 269–270) Click the mouse button or press theSpace Bar to display the information.

17. The Impact of Timur Lenk (cont.) • His death removed a major threat from the various states of the Indian subcontinent.  • By the early sixteenth century, two new challenges appeared: the Moguls,a newly emerging nomadic power from the north, and the Portuguese traders arriving by sea searching for gold and spices. (pages 269–270) Click the mouse button or press theSpace Bar to display the information.

18. Islam and Indian Society • Since the Indian Muslim rulers saw themselves as foreign conquerors, they tried to maintain a strict separation between the Muslim ruling class and the mass of the Hindu population.  • Muslim rulers tended to be intolerant of other faiths.  • They generally used peaceful means to encourage people to convert to Islam, however.  • The sheer number of Hindus convinced some Muslim rulers that the population could not be converted to Islam. (page 270) Click the mouse button or press theSpace Bar to display the information.

19. Islam and Indian Society(cont.) • Muslim rulers did impose Muslim customs on the Hindus.  • In general, the relationship between Muslim and Hindu was that of conqueror and conquered, and so marked by suspicion and dislike rather than friendship and understanding.  • Hatred and violence between Hindus and Muslims have plagued Indian history.  • For example, in 1992 a mob of Hindu militants sacked a Muslim mosque in northern India. (page 270) Click the mouse button or press theSpace Bar to display the information.

20. Islam and Indian Society(cont.) • The mosque was built centuries ago on a Hindu sacred site. (page 270)

21. Economy and Daily Life • Between 500 and 1500, most Indians farmed their own small plots.  • They paid a share of their harvest to a landlord, basically a tax collector for the local lord.  • Many people, such as landed elites and rich merchants, during this period lived in cities, however. (pages 270–271) Click the mouse button or press theSpace Bar to display the information.

22. Economy and Daily Life (cont.) • Many rulers were fabulously wealthy.  • One maharaja (great king) had more than a hundred thousand soldiers in his pay, nine hundred elephants, and twenty thousand horses.  • Another kept a thousand women to sweep his palace.  • They went before him as he walked. (pages 270–271) Click the mouse button or press theSpace Bar to display the information.

23. Economy and Daily Life (cont.) • India’s chief source of wealth was agriculture, but it also was a trade center between Southwest and East Asia.  • Internal trade declined during periods of internal strife.  • Foreign trade remained high, especially in the south and along the northwestern coast.  • Both areas were on the traditional trade routes to Southwest Asia and the Mediterranean Sea. (pages 270–271) Click the mouse button or press theSpace Bar to display the information.

24. The Wonder of Indian Culture • Indian arts flourished between 500 and 1500.  • Two of the most important were architecture and prose literature.  • Indian architects built magnificent Hindu temples.  • Each had a central shrine surrounded by a tower, a hall for worshippers, an entryway, and a porch, all set in a courtyard.  • The temples and tower were complex and ornate. (pages 271–272)

25. The Wonder of Indian Culture (cont.) • The greatest temples probably are at Khajuraho.  • Of the 80 built there, 20 are still standing.  • They all are buttressed (supported by stone walls) at various levels on the sides.  • This gives a sense of upward movement similar to the sacred Mount Kailasa in the Himalaya.

26. The Wonder of Indian Culture (cont.) • Prose was established in India by the sixth and seventh centuries.  • By contrast, the novel did not appear in Japan until the tenth century and Europe until the seventeenth.  • One of the greatest masters of Sanskrit prose was Dandin, who wrote The Ten Princes in the seventh century.  • The book fuses history and fiction.  • Dandin’s powers of observation and humor give his writing vitality. (pages 271–272) Click the mouse button or press theSpace Bar to display the information.