Video Transcript: Lesson 7

 

Unit 04 02 India China

 

Hello, welcome back to Christian leaders Institute, world history course one on one. When we last left discourse we had, we were looking at the years between 500 BC and 1000. At that 1500 year period in world history is, of course, filled with all sorts of amazing things that happen in our human development and political development, cultural development, literary development. And we're only hitting some of the high spots. And only really a few places around the globe and I, each week, I feel how much we're leaving out. And I feel bad about that. But this course would just be as long as history as if we told everything there is to tell when we left last time, we were just had the Persian Greek conflicts during the 490s for ATS, BC, and in Greece said, we saw that Greece had held its own and East is East and West was West and the Persian Empire kept developing, but particularly pushing to the west, I'm sorry, to the east and was halted by the Greek Empire in the east. Today, we're going to shift gears and go to ancient India, in about the same period of time. So basically, between 500 BC, and 100 ad. And what we'll see primarily earlier in this course, we looked at prior to 500 BC in India, and saw that the Indus Valley was really the main place of civilization and the development of different cultures and empires up to that point, and that Indus Valley covers the areas today that we would known primarily as Pakistan, and Afghanistan. So that mountainous region in the north west part of the Asian sub continent, what happens during this period of time is that there is a real shift in political power, cultural power, from the Indus Valley, to the Ganges Valley and the Ganges, drains the eastern side of the Indian subcontinent. So if we can just see that on a map, the second, this is the Indus Valley. And this is where we were prior to prior in this course. And now today, this shift goes here to the gadget server, and this is the Ganges river that flows down here, empties out into the Indian Ocean here. And it is particularly you'll notice, Mogh gah Ha is the one of the primary areas and we'll spend quite a bit of time talking about that area. So what happens? That industry region the Persians and we were in Persia last time, had considerable control on for a few 100 years until about 330 BC. That's when Alexander the Great and when we get to the Greek, more about the Greeks, we'll talk considerably about Alexander. But in Alexander the Great in about 337 BC, took his armies and conquered and captured and assimilated the cultures all the way from Greece, up until actually the Ganges River and had spread Greek culture and Greek influence throughout that area. Later, after Alec and Alexander marshes, true troops as far as the Ganges River had major conflict, their major battles. And finally his troops had said, we've gone far enough. They've threatened to mutiny. And rather than do that, he allowed the armies to return home and they went back to Babylon, where Alexander actually dies shortly after the return. And they took both two different kinds of routes, some overland by the coast and some through the desert. It was that a goddess culture, an area in the Ganges River, that among the many different provinces and smaller kingdoms came to dominance. This is the home of Buddha. Buddhism already is very well established by this period of time. But this area and the people there in North East India, become the dominant group.

 

Again, I'll just point that out. That's this area here. Which new and you'll see many different groups here. But this area became the primary place where the next group and next empires will come from. And that's the my area Empire. They came from that llegada area. And they were in significant ways the the troops and the armies and the generals that fought against Alexander and gained notoriety gained a great reputation from that victory over Alexander. At least, they stopped him. And they came into control around 332 BC, and they lasted until about 185 BC, so a well over 100 years. One of the central themes of India is that there are periods of times in which it is united under one basic rule, when empire and then when that empire fails, sometimes it's a longer period of time, sometimes shorter, it then divides again into smaller kingdoms and different rulers take over. During the my Urja rule, the leader was Shonda Gupta, my euro and he was a primary leader against Alexander and really unified much of India. His grandson was a man by the name of Ashoka the Great, and we'll spend a little bit of time with him. Ashoka was the emperor from 272 to 232 BC, and here is your reading assignment with regard to Ashoka. It's by Christiane Violante. And you'll find that at the ancient European or ancient history website. Ashoka not only unifies, but he also consolidates the Euro empire in India, he becomes very well known particularly through the northern part of India. He is in the beginning of his reign, he is a military conqueror, and he conquers with he's remembered as exercise a great brutality. Not only would he send us troops and soldiers against a city or a place, but he would, he would virtually wiped him out. And it is that ruthlessness that he's remembered for in his early years. And once he came into power, he ruled just as harshly. But around 260 BC, after an especially violent war, in which so many of the people were killed by his armies, and by his troops, Ashoka converts to Buddhism and begins to take that very seriously. And he rejects all violence as according to a Buddhist philosophy. And he embraces a very non violent, non sacrificial notion toward humans and animals. And that gets him in some trouble with the Hindus who live there because they practice sacrifice of animals. A chill guy as the Emperor published for his for his leaders, but he had it written in stone, the Edict of associa. And this is one of the remaining tablets. Actually, you can see that it's written in a couple of different languages, or perhaps you can see the top part I recognize this as these are Greek letters. And this is Sanskrit to make sure that people understood this was going to now be the policy. So this man who went from extreme violence in his rule, change had a complete conversion and complete change of heart and decided instead that it would be a non violent society at least as much as he could make itself. Ashoka is remembered as establishing Buddhism, therefore as the primary religion of his empire, and he is very zealous in sending out missionaries all over, they go in every direction. And so Buddhism at this time really begins to spread this is around 260 BC

 

begins to spread down into Southeast Asia, up into into Tibet into China. It goes into Central Asia, and also because there are in trade with Africa and Egypt. Buddhism begins to spread led into Africa and Egypt and is known as a religion and known as a faith. It at this time Buddhism becomes a really a worldwide religion. And while Ashoka was Buddhist, he did tolerate the other religions. There was no religious persecution, he didn't have to be a Buddhist. But his policy is that the government and his officials would all practice Buddhism. Well, Ashoka after Ashoka the dynasty that he represented, swiftly declined. And between 200 BC and 320 ad, so that 520 year period, India once more became splintered into smaller groups. There were various states all over that gain control. There was some attempts at centralization, but basically they failed. Buddhism takes a backseat in some respects to Hinduism, which really captured the Indian faith. And that was often the preferred religion by the local rulers. This is an important time to remember how much trade was going on. And India was the center of a lot of that trade. They the people from China, in their ships in particular would come down, come around into India, trade with India, India, in turn, would take those goods and trade them with the West, particularly to Africa, they would they would land in Africa and take their goods and commodities, up into into Egypt and from Egypt, it would spread throughout the rest of the world. Often this is a Greek and Roman world. So if one has a notion in that world history, that these are just isolated empires, and they don't have anything to do with each other. I think one of the main things to learn from particularly this period of history 500 BC, to 1000. AD, is that it is a time of great internationalism. It's not that the people, the common people all do about all the different empires and all the light. But the maritime trade in particular, is quite significant, as well as what we'll talk about later as the Silk Route, the Silk Roads following this period of time, so around 350 ad or so. And Empire arose again out of that, that Northwestern Ganges River area called the Gupta Empire. And here's another reading assignment for your Indian history. It is entitled the Gupta Empire by Dola RC and you are required to read that for this course. Under the Gupta Empire, Hinduism was the primary religion and it flourished. Although other religions came as well, Buddhism, Jainism, which we've discussed it for about 300 years out of that Ganges River area was dominant force in northern India. the Gupta Empire is often considered the golden age of India, art, trade, architecture, science, mathematics, all flourished during this period of time. And Indian culture was often the leaders in many of these areas. Almost all of the Northern India is united under the Guptas. And here on the map, you can see how much of that is that's a significant, significant area. Around 650 ad, came in invading force from Central Asia into India known as the Huns. Sometimes they're called the white Huns. And they are not a whole lot is known about exactly who these people are, but they seem to be related to Attila. He's about 300 years before them. Attila went to the Western into Egypt and into Europe, but others came down into India and they harassed the Gupta Empire and other Indian authorities for generations and generations.

 

Until finally they gain some control, or at least some they brought chaos to north western India, and disruption through the rest of India. They destabilize central authorities So once again, that pattern we've seen in Indian history, where there is a period whether united under a central group, and then there's usually an outside influence, that United Empire disintegrates, and they splinter into smaller groups, often for many hundreds of years. Around 712 ad, Muslims begin to from Persia, and later from Turkey, began to have great influence. And they conquered much of India, the Mayan empire and later, for sure, they gain control of the Indus Valley. And from that point after the Indus Valley, so we're talking again, places like Pakistan and Afghanistan, become Muslim. And they, of course, still remain that today. There was constant struggle with the rest of the Indian subcontinent. The Muslim presence was never an easy one. It was never there they were conquerors, but they never really fully integrated into the rest of Indian culture. With Hinduism and Buddhism, in particular, always that conflict among the religions, and among the various peoples, the Islamic folks who came were much less tolerant of the other face. And yet sometimes there is a synthesis of face. If one thinks about the Sikh religion in particular, that's sort of a synthesis of Hinduism and Islam. For the next few hundreds of years, Muslim stayed in control, particularly of northern India, but also along the western coast of India, going all the way down to the southern tip. And the Muslim, Muslim community and Muslim leaders were often a cultural elite. And often, very much and economically, they had control of the trade. And whoever has control of the trade has control of the economy. They traded extensively with Africa, the eastern coast of Africa, and from Africa, again, up into Egypt, and into Europe. They're internationalist, and did spread their Islamic faith from India into lots of other places, including down into Southeast Asia. So that you see countries like Bangladesh, today and a Muslim strong presence in Indonesia, and in the islands in the Pacific. That all gets its roots in this period of time. For the most part, the Muslim community did not integrate well with the Indian natural culture, original culture. And as I mentioned, there will always remain a tension and that tension will play itself out over the next 1000 years. In India, until and including today, we know today there's still tensions between India and Pakistan. And that's not new. They they have been. They have been intention in conflict for 1000 years, and often that's about their faith. I think at this point, we'll leave India it's a we'll leave it around the year 1080. And we'll leave it in Muslims are in control, the culture is still remained highly developed. During this period of time, Indian mathematic mathematicians developed the concept of zero, they begin to use air Arabic numbers and numerals and trade flourishes, they are significantly developed culture. This is when much of the art including much of the literature of India is published that we know about today. But we'll have to leave India behind and move over to China. Here's your reading assignment for this period of time from 500 BC to 100. AD

 

is an article by Joshua Mark entitled ancient China. Now have to read that carefully. It's very these are not lengthy articles, by any means just a few pages, but they are packed full of information and many names with which I'm not particularly familiar. We've already earlier in this course talked about the Qin Dynasty that was short lived but significant from 221 to 206 BC. But just to do a word of review that it becomes the leading forces sort of Imperial China, under Emperor xi, Hong tea. That's when the Great Wall of China gets some early beginnings. The wall is actually began in the north at the border with Korea, but then moves into the East and in the east with Korea, and then into the desert regions in the West. During this period of time, it's already about 3000 miles long as huge. The Qin dynasty is remembered as being very ambitious. They make roads from their capital out into the, to the other areas, large Imperial roads that you they're still uncovering today still exist today. There was a canal there's a couple of different Grand Canals. But there's a canal built between a couple of rivers that really facilitates trade between North and South. The land, the religion of the land, they Confucianism was sort of the accepted religion until this time, but they outlawed extra Confucianism, and put religion called legalism. And legalism in this sense means whatever laws the state says, That's the rule. And that will be your religion. It's really a very much a worship of the state, rather than any kind of gods or any other sort of philosophy is Confucianism. So this is a map of the Qin Dynasty. You'll and the blue areas mark the wall here from Korea, and goes in the north and east. And here it is on more toward the western side. Following the Qin, the next dynasty to come to power and the Qin Dynasty crumbles because it just is so ambitious of bankruptcy itself and tries to extend its powers. Militarily, a clear case of overextension in virtually every way, was very short lived. It's followed by the Han Dynasty and the Han Dynasty began actually with some generals from the ken who fomented a rebellion. And the leader was a person by the name of Liu Bang from the province of hung song, and he conquers the kins because he's behind song province. It's known as the Han Dynasty. General lubang brought great stabilization and significant cultural progress to China. Many things that we associate with early China and developed by Chinese come from this period of time, one of the more important is the invention of paper. You know, prior to that people wrote on animal skins, or they would use papyrus on the light. Now, paper is used, and I believe it is associated with linen. Medicine is highly advanced in this period of time, a lot of the ideas we think about when we think about Chinese medicine, the herbals, acupuncture, things like that, get an early start here during the Han Dynasty. They reject legalism as the religion of the land and go back to Confucianism. However, they are tolerant of other faiths. And as I mentioned, Buddhism is making significant inroads at this period of time. It's a map of the Han Han Dynasty and you can see that it has expanded considerably here from the Korean peninsula in the northeast, but also very much up here into the Mongol, Mongol, Mongolia and Mondal area, and greatly south. So that what we recognize today as modern China, the Han Dynasty has a significant portion of that, under their control.

 

One of the Han emperors was Wu and he's known as Honbu. The great and among other things that he's remembered for is that in the year 138 BC, he sends a UN Ambassador by the name of Zhan clan, to west, they hear of some Empire that's rising in the west and so Han woo the great wants to know about that, so he sends an ambassador, and that empire is what we in the West knows the foundational empire of Rome. And so the ambassadors received in Rome during their period of their republic, and they, they open up a trade agreement, and that really begins was called the Silk Road. They didn't call the Silk Road in the ancient world, that title given to it by 19th century German. person, but it sticks and it's understood and silk is becomes a significant commodity that's traded. Prior to this, and certainly after this, they're trading by ship is very important. The ports of China, down around into India, India, to Africa, Africa to Egypt, Egypt, into the Mediterranean. And then of course, back again. And so that route is well known, and along with the trade goes piracy, which was a huge problem in the ancient world. But now an overland route that would go from China, to the west to rope. And if you think of it, Major, there's major routes, there isn't just one road, it isn't just one Silk Road, there are many different routes. But all of those would come side routes, one went down into India, one went to Babylon. One went to ended in Syria, and from Syria, then items would go west into Rome. And again, Asia, China, India, Saudi Arabia, Africa, Egypt, Europe, are all linked together by this international trade. We'll come back to the Silk Road. I think in the next section, when we began to talk about the the Middle Ages and see its importance there. Silk came over that ideas came over that religions came over that most of the religions that spread Buddhism, later, Christianity, later, Islam all primarily spread along the Silk Road. One could tell the story of this period of time, I think, by focusing on the Silk Road. So know that they're linked. They're not just separate countries all sort of developing, but they are all tied together by trade. The Han Dynasty like all others that have come after and those that came before lasted during a period of time that then it fell. The Han Dynasty fell because of internal rebellions that went on the Han Emperor's as is often the case became opulent, focused on their own imperial policy, power, and prestige and wealth, and overtaxed the simple farmers. One of the patterns that one sees in China in Chinese history is how often the Emperor's come, they establish great control, but then they fail to help the people. And you might remember the Chinese political religious thought says that the Chinese emperor the rulers are have a mandate from heaven. And that mandate is that they are to work for the good of the people. The people never forget this and pattern of farmer peasant revolt comes a time after time after time, once emperors and empires do not take care of their people. This is how the Han Dynasty falls.

 

It fractured in China fractured into numerous smaller kingdoms, various state, and it is not united again for hundreds of years, until the SU dynasty in 589. Ad the Sudan, Syria is again very ambitious and it extends, builds extensively, has military forces out extensively. got that same story that we've seen, time after time, did overextends it cannot support its own ambitions. So there's a rebellion among the generals. And again, that's another very consistent pattern in Chinese history. And if you know, even modern Chinese history of 20th century history, you'll know that peasant revolt, battles between generals fractured into various states, very much the story of 20th century Chinese history. Su dynasty actually lasted a very brief period of time that's followed by the tanks, the tanks are going to bring us basically to the, the close of this age, the Tang Dynasty expanded the borders of China, especially to the west. They also at that time, again, considerable control over East and so when one thinks of Japan and Korea, they're independent cultures, they're separate cultures. But they are very much under the control of China during this period of time. China becomes the most prosperous empire in the world, under the tangs, and it's all about Silk. Now, silk is, of course, a cloth, a very luxurious cloth. And it is seen as the clothing of the great wealthy, if you own silk during this period of time, you are, you have high prestige. And so it's a highly valued commodity, particularly among the courts, in the various empires, whether that's in Asia, or in Africa, or in Egypt, or in Rome, to have silk is to be one of the elite. And so silk is traded from China comes West. But what the Chinese did, and other the tanks before but under the tanks in particular, they made it very clear that how how silk is produced is a state secret. They did not share and would not share how silk was made. And for most of the world, silk was a magical and mysterious thing how what sort of cloth is is where does it come from? Don't know and what a great intrigues go on, spies are sent to try and discover how silk is made. And they can't they can't find out, they can't find out because it's such a closely guarded secret by the Tang Dynasty. They still come courses made spun from the what's leftover from silk worms, who would have guessed cloth for worms. But that's how it's made and special processes which I don't understand at all. were closely guarded. And so silk becomes what one might think of as the oil today for the Middle East in places like Iraq and Iran and Saudi Arabia. Silk was for China, and it made it an incredibly wealthy, prosperous Empire under the tanks. The tanks lasted about 300 years. But they're replaced by the Song Dynasty and 907. And the sons didn't take over right away. They there was a splintering and around 960s His sons gained significant control Oh, this is a map I'm sorry, this is a map of the Tang Dynasty. You can see that they now control not only central China, but they also have increased their powers westward into well, this would be like Kurt Turkistan. Today Kashmir into the into the Indus Kush mountain areas they,

 

China's always wanting to push West and they get very far. Keep in mind the Mongol area, Mongolia and the Mongol tribal areas up here are independent and the Uygurs are independent. That is part of the next story in the next section. I think that is where we'll leave India and China for today. Seems are important to notice how international the world is how much trade goes on DMCA notice or that consistently, empires rise off of under a strong leader, and then there's overextension. People are overtaxed or the military is stretched too thin. Or the government cannot effectively administer the areas that they hold. And there is a rebellion, led by either the peasants, the farmers, or by the generals. And those patterns in ancient history, emerge time after time, after time after time, and not just in Asia, by any means, but consistently, we'll find in the Mediterranean and that's part of Western history as well. I think rather than go on into the South American and Mesoamerican will say that that's good for today. Thank you very much. And God bless