Video Transcript: Lesson 16

 Unit 11 01 Mongol Invasion

 

Hello, welcome again to the Christian leaders Institute, course history 101 history of the world. And we're focusing on the section on the time period between 1001 1500 ad. And where last time we looked at some of the major conquests that went on during that period of time, selecting those in particular that had some lasting significance for later developments. So we looked at the Norman conquest of England, we looked at the Turkish invasion of the Middle East and later on the Ottoman Empire. We looked at the Incas and the Aztecs. And today, we'll enter into the Mongol conquest, which is probably the most significant of all of them in just in terms of its long lasting effects, and just the size of the conquest. And when we finish out, we'll go into the next topic, which is about the different ways religions have the time period interacting. So again, today with the Mongol conquest, and here's your reading assignment, the Mongol invasion and conquest, in the Wikipedia, Link, make sure you read that. You don't have to know every detail in it. But to get a general idea of how the Mongols went about their warfare, and some of their history and so on that story, is what I'm looking for you to understand. So, when we talk about the Mongols, the primary person we're talking about is Ganga is Khan, who was born in 1162, and died in 1227. So the earlier part of our time period, Genghis Khan was a, he was the son of a aristocrat, a priest, princely figure, but his parents were murdered. And he grew up as an orphan and in a very, very difficult childhood. One of the things that was really true of the culture, his culture was that your family it's very family centered, clan centered, and all the favors went to your clan members, whether they were capable of it or not, in particularly in terms of leadership, and one of the things that Genghis Khan did, and he really changed that. And a lot of people attribute that to his growing up without a father. Another is that he began to reward merit, people's accomplishments, their abilities, rather than birth, as a road to achievement as one author puts it. As he smashed a feudal system of aristocratic privilege and birth, he built a new and unique system based on individual merit, loyalty, and achievement. Now, this is mostly true. However, it is also the case that time went on. And after he died, it was his sons and his grandsons and his nephews, who generally became leaders, so it's not exclusively true. But he shared the wealth of their conquests much more broadly. He didn't just award the aristocratic families, give them all the booty, he spread that out to his troops. And that was one of the reasons that they loved him so much. This is a portrait of gangs con. As you can see, clearly Asian descent and he is from Mongolia. This is a picture of Mongolia and sees the map moves, you see the conquest of the Mongol Empire. But as we start out, we see that it's just basically they're in North Eastern, North Eastern China, Russia, Siberia, and that's where he begins. See, the Empire spreads quite quickly. So a little bit about Angus Kahn around 1200. He's a clan warrior. His real name is Temen Gen. Genghis Khan is actually a title inside his name. Before the clans were not necessarily unified, they didn't. They often fought against each other, they raided each other, stole things from each other. But around 1200 He began to unite them. And in 2006, he was awarded the title dangus Calm which meant universe or leader and it became recognized as the leader of all the Mongol tribes model culture is a nomadic culture they didn't necessarily live in was city and

 

expand from there they had various places where they moved around. And it had everything to do with being a horse culture, the horses, the primary animals in the Mongol culture. And they would take their horses and such to new pasture lands wherever they could find grazing. One of the things that they had that was a great to their advantage over other people is they learned how to laminate the bow that is made of thin strips that are glued together. And it's estimated that their their bow can probably shoot 1/3 farther than other people's bow at the time. You can imagine what a great advantage that is. In their warfare. They grew up in a very harsh climate. They wore clothing made out of mostly horse skins and horse felt. One of the interesting little things about the Monroe culture is as they spread, people began to observe that they they, the men, the warriors didn't wear the tunics that everybody else wore, you know, sort of the kilts are the dresses that other people wore but they were leggings, pantaloons trousers, and one of the last two sets is that this trend spread throughout Europe. The reason that many of us wear pants today is because the Mongols brought that from their host horse culture in Mongolia. As I mentioned, they're a family clan, base. And loyalty to family is the number one virtue. Their religion is amorphous. It's not very well defined. They're able to accept virtually any other gods that the people that conquer worship, however, they themselves have a supreme deity who is the sky God, the Eternal God, the great blue, and they they do their worship of that Chief deity. They grew up in the clans making raids on their neighboring neighboring peoples, they did that for revenge, primarily driving motivation. You attack my brother, I'm going to attack you sort of thing, and also to steal to collect booty. And as I mentioned, the booty is shared under Genghis Khan, in distinction from previous leaders, is shared with all the troops. And that made him very popular among his lawyers. One of the main one of the first things that they did was they attacked the Jurgen Gen Empire, which is a Chinese, north eastern China. And they, the Jerkins were constantly harassing the Mongolian people often oppressing them, making them slaves capturing them. And dangus con and the Mongolian warriors had had enough of this, and fight and began to attack them around 1215. So he begins this expansion out of Mongolia, into Asia. And first of all goes against the jerky. This is a painting of a Mongolian warrior. You see the laminated bow, you see the trousers that he's wearing? The clothes that he's wearing. He's fierce. He's ruthless. known to be uncannily bloodthirsty. When they would, when they would attack an area. They would generally first of all send emissaries to say to a town or a city or place. Surrender, and we'll let you go. Do not surrender, and we'll wipe you out. Well, some places try to resist them. None of those places stood. And indeed they Mongolian warriors wiped out. Men, women, children, animals. They would just devastate the town level and turn it into dust. They would say well news soon spread of this is how these people operate. And to the next town when the deal came to surrender or be annihilated. Surrender was often the option. That's one reason they were able to spread so fast and so quickly. They didn't spend years and years and years and years attacking one town and after they conquered that move to the next. They can move very quickly on their horses. They can move very quickly because many people surrendered to them ahead of time and they came in as conquerors.

 

This map demonstrates a number of the, the spread of the Mongolian empire, I mostly at this point just would like you to observe here, they began in Mongolia. And they first of all go to the Jurgen Gen Empire, and they take control all the way to the sea. They never actually controlled Korea, the Korean Peninsula, but they came very close to it. And by 2015, they have control this entire area. At that point, Ganga is Khan turns his eyes westward, and moves into the land of the Tigers, who become actually allies of his, and then into the Western Lyle Empire, and to guerras. So within the span of a very short period of time, 1015 years, the Mongolian empire spread here from Mongolia, all the way to the sea, and all the way actually to what we would call today Russia. That was during the time of Ganga Khan. So he he dies around 1217 or so. No, I'm sorry, he dies around 1227. So he's actively engaged in his warfare for about 25 years, 20 years, more or less. As I indicated during that period of time, he expanded tremendously. The Empire all the way to Persia. It was really, this map again shows under gangers Khan, how far he went still from his main site in correct Gorham. He spread out here in just a few years. He goes south, down into the Himalayas, northern Himalayas, he goes west, and all of Central Asia all the way to the Caspian Sea, and in very significant ways to rains. He challenges Kiev, which is where the roof people lived, later Russians and they were in control of this large area Russian principalities, he threatens them tremendously, such that they have to move their capital from Kiev. Pretty soon they'll move it up to Moscow. So he himself led his armies have his generals read his armies in the tremendous conquest in all of Central Asia. Following Genghis Khan after he dies, his generals takeover, and his sons and grandsons begin to take over. One of the more important battles that they have is a battle of Baghdad. They Baghdad is the center of power for most of the Middle East at this time. And if you capture Baghdad, now you've captured virtually all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. In 1258, they do capture Baghdad, and pretty well annihilated and destroy the Islamic Caliphate at that time. As I mentioned, characteristic of Mongolian warfare, very mobile because of the horse. They do have lots of local infantry, but those are mostly people who may take from the local population and impress into military service. One of the things that they did that others didn't do so much as they engage in winter warfare, most of the time warfare was a summer event. And in the winter, you would shore up your supplies, you would mend your wounds, you would make your weapons, you would prepare your battle plans, but no fool attacks in winter, except the Mongols, who of course, are from a very harsh climate, very winter cold climates. They knew just how to do that in winter time. And they surprised very many people that way. They were very adapted there, you know, their nomadic culture, so they don't have a high degree of technology on their own. But as they observed others technology, particularly the Chinese, when they capture the Juergen Gen, they noticed the use of for instance, Siege machines, and they built various kinds, and they took Chinese engineers with them as they went west. So that the Chinese engineers, they didn't drag all these machines, all these warfare machines with them. But when they would get there if they needed them, they have the Chinese engineers who knew just how to build them. Again, their message was surrender or be destroyed. And it didn't take too long before most people understood that To surrender was the better of the two options.

 

Particularly in the early period of time, the Mongols were not interested necessarily in conquering and governing and controlling certain areas to do their history, they were mostly interested in just raiding taking whatever valuables and treasure whatever booty they could find, particularly if it were silver, or gold, and taking that back with them to Mongolia, rewarding their troops with that. So they weren't all that interested in setting up governments or that sort of thing. Most of the time, therefore, they left local governments in the hands of the local people. And as long as those cities and places and countries would pay tribute to the Mongols, they pretty well let them govern themselves. There are some exceptions. Following the death of gangs con, the Empires splits into four sections, we've seen that phenomenon before we saw that, for instance, with Alexander the Great after he dies, the Macedonian Empire splits into four separate sections. So after Tom dies, cat gang has gone, either one of his sons or his grandsons becomes a ruler. However, there is constant disputes over which one is supreme ruler, and sometimes they fight each other. But often they've learned to just leave each other alone and just expand in their own directions. Conquest certainly continued. But they are very, they become very four very separate regions. Those regions are the Golden Horde. That's North Asia and Eastern Europe. In in a minute, I'll show you a map of these four, but the Golden Horde are the North Asia and Eastern Europe. The con tiga ta con he controls Central Asia, and they do that into the 1600s. So that's a long period of time, the ill cannot, which is basically the Middle East last until the 1335, when the Ottoman Turks take over. And the great one, which is in China and Southeast Asia, down into Vietnam, last until the 1370s when the Ming Dynasty takes over. So those are the four the Golden Horde, the Congo Khanate, the economy, and the great one, that divide up gang is Khan's empire. So here's a map of the four. This is the one. Basically now what we think about is China and Southeast Asia. This is the Golden Horde up here. This is the economy. And this is the cargo tonnage. So the these four areas all become known in history as the Mongolian empire. But in a sense, there's really four of them. And as you can see, they stretch from the Pacific Ocean, all the way into Eastern Europe, places in Poland, Ukraine, Russia, are all under their control. And this is why the Mongolian empire is the largest contiguous land empire that the world has ever seen. They also have significant influence in northern India, both in this area as well as here. These folks are known as the moguls and they are in charge of India, in that northern area. There you go. So the areas of northern India, the moguls, descendants of the Mongols, ruling that area and that is a very significant part of their politics and their conquests until 1600s. These are the legacy empires those that follow the four that I mentioned. Tamar lane is a name you should know she is a significant figure in Islamic history, as well as world history. He rules from 1370 until 1405. He's based out of Central Asia. Basically what we think of today is Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. He is very solidly Islamic. Most of the times the Mongols allowed people to retain whatever religions they want. And often they, as a matter of fact, supported the different religions. I think that a gang is Khan himself had Buddhist monasteries build Buddhist temples Built Islamic mosques built and Christian churches built

 

in places where he ruled they, they allowed folks to worship whoever they wanted. Timberlane and others were a resurgent Islamic group. And they re conquered much of that Central Asian area that the Mongols had held and spread Islam back there to northern India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, all the stands, and Timberlane had influence all the way into the Middle East and so that once more becomes solidly Islamic. Finally, the Ming Dynasty in China follows the WAN, Mongol Dynasty. And they are one of the more significant Chinese dynasties from 1370 to 60 and 44. They show the Ming Dynasty shows a time of really tremendous cultural advancement and political stability. And as I mentioned, the Ottoman Empire as we mentioned in the last session, becomes the empire that takes over after the the Mongols are basically absorbed into the local culture in Asia Minor and then later into the Balkans and into Eastern Europe. And mentioned tambling This is it, this is the area that he controls. So you can see here is Asia Minor, so much of the the Caucasus region, Central Asia, Afghanistan, to the Persian Gulf, just a huge amount of area, which means among other things, that he also has controlled primarily of the silk routes, which run generally either around the Caspian to the north or to the south, and come out here in Asia Minor. So he becomes very, very wealthy. And a very significant historic figure in those in that time period was spent just a second talking about the importance of the Mongol invasion in to the development of Russia. As I said, prior to the Mongols, Kiev is a center of the roost people. They have dominance in that area Ukraine, Belarus today and into the Ural Mountains to some extent. When the Mongols come, particularly the gore golden whoa horde comes, they basically overwhelmed and Kiev is forced to move to Moscow as a center of the roost people to escape being under the domination of the Mongols, but the Mongols, under the Golden Horde are mostly in charge of what goes on in the Russian lands. This was around the middle of the 14th century, so 1315 to 1400. And they said, a series of events in motion that that determine the way Russia Russian history is going to unfold in significant ways. I thought this quote was worth putting in my hand a scene and let me just read it for you. Russian and models Russian. As the evidence stands, the effects of the Mongol invasion were many spread across the political, social and religious facets of Russia. While some of those effects, such as the growth of the Orthodox Church generally had a relatively positive effect on our lands are the other results, such as the loss of the vet system and the centralization of power, assisted in halting the spread of traditional democracy and self government for the various principalities. Let me pause here and just unpack that a little bit. Prior to the coming of the Mongols. Much of Russian life, it was decided by the locals. They had something called events system where locals would vote for representatives who in turn would make their decisions.

 

Just a building blocks of democracy and Russia was on its way to becoming a democracy in significant ways. When the Mongols came, they did interfere and replaced that with their own authoritarian system. They put leaders in charge who were more or less local dictators. And they decided how the people would live and the people did not decide for themselves. So that's what he means by the loss of the vet system. We talked about the rise of the Orthodox Church, people. The Orthodox Church is an expression of the eastern part wing of Christianity coming out of Constantinople, and it becomes the really only stable force left in the lands of the rousse. Once the Mongols come, economy falls apart, the leadership falls apart, there's the political systems fall apart, but the church again, because the Mongols are pretty tolerant religiously, the church becomes the center institution, Russia, what we can now call Russian culture. And that is going to hold true all the way at least until the Russian Revolution, and still in many respects, significant today. So that's what this Daniel is referring to, Dustin is referring to, we'll pick it up here. From the influences on the language and the form of government, the very impacts of the Mongol invasion are still evident today, perhaps given the chance to experience the Renaissance, as did other Western European cultures. So because the Golden Horde is there, they, the Russian people did not experience the European Renaissance, the same way that Italy and Germany and France and England do. And that changes the entire view of politics, of economics, of art of literature, of really the meaning of being human, the dignity and freedom that human beings should be given. They'll become the real scenes of a Western democracy of Western culture. So Russia doesn't experience this because the Mongols are in charge. This gentleman is saying. Perhaps given the chance to experience a renaissance, as did the other Western European cultures, the political, religious, and social thought of Russia would greatly differ from that, of the reality of today. The Russians, though, through the control of the Mongols, who had adopted many ideas of government and economics from the Chinese, that is a very authoritarian very one person that they had at the top following the confusion, the model of Confucianism, where the head of the Father is the head of the household is the father and has complete utter only authority. So the emperor is head of the nation and is the only one who has any say about anything, actually. So from that Chinese became perhaps a more Asiatic nation in terms of government, while the deep Christian roots of the Russians established and helped maintain a link with Europe. The Orthodox Church, as a Christian church is really one cultural link that remains between the Russian people and the rest of Europe. It was a Mongol invasion, which perhaps more than any other historical event held to determine the course of the development that Russian culture, political geography, history and national identity would take. And that's really significant. The Russian people now do mean Russia stretches all the way through Siberia all the way to the Pacific Ocean. That would not have happened without the Mongols. They would have stayed separate cultures separate countries. But the notion that they can be one unified people really got to start from the Mongols and the Golden Horde horde. This is just a map of the Golden Horde and how significant they are. They don't really get as far as Moscow, but they get very close to it. And they control really the wealthy regions, Russia, the green bearing regions, as well as the silk trade that comes through from China. And here's their capital, the Mongol capital in sorry.

 

So let me just reflect a little bit on the lasting significance of the Mongol invasion. As I mentioned, they were the largest contiguous land empire history. One of the things that they love to become wealthy and they love portable wealth, they love gold and silver, something they could put on their horses and carry with him. And for that reason they love the money they can make on the trade. And it was incredibly important to them to keep the silk routes open the land routes between eastern China and Europe during the Mongol time that the goal was a gang as Khan said that he wanted to a woman alone with just her purse to be able to travel safely from one end of the Mongol Empire to the other, no fear of being robbed no fear of being exploited, no fear of being attacked. And that was pretty for the most part true. And so trade during this period of time between East and West tremendously flourishes. This is by the way, later on, Kugler Khan is one of the one Emperor's the first of the white Emperor's there in China. He's a grandson dang time, and is doing his rule in China that Marco Polo, famous figure in Western history. Marco Polo spends his time in China documents, much of his silk route. And what life is like, really was the publication of his diaries, and of his reflection that linked the east and the west, not just among a few of the great traders, that in the popular imagination, Markopolos travels, was a best seller of his day. And his stories circulated widely through a Europe. That's how they, the average person, or even the Kings began to know about who people called. So they call the cafe. China was called Cafe and from Europe, who these people were what they were like, That's really very late in the sales, Silk Road. History story, Marco Polo, it had been in business for eight 900 years already. So it isn't like Marco Polo, open trade between the East and the West. Is that true at all. But he did become he didn't make it popularly known. The welds in China and Europe go back and forth, and those become tremendously wealthy. And the Italian city states, particularly Venice and Genoa, on the Adriatic Sea, the eastern coast of Italy, become huge commercial centers in the West, and they become hugely important. Politically, Venice and Genoa began to call the shots in many respects for the next few 100 years. Because they have so much wealth, and so much power through this trade with China. As I mentioned, they were religiously tolerant. And that has to be said to them boundaries, because later Tamar land, and the like, insist on an Islamic life and not other religions. But they were, for the most part, religiously tolerant. They were essential to the exchange of technologies between the East and the West, cannot be demonstrated, historically, that many suspect that this period of time this is when gunpowder from China makes it to Europe. This is when paper and the production of paper is a production of books, which had been going on for hundreds of years, with block printing from in China makes its way to Europe. This becomes a very important time in which other technological improvements begin to happen, particularly in mathematics, and astronomy, in culture, in weaving in production of cloth, in the minting of coins, all of that gets a huge boost during this period of time because of the Mongol peace that's established. There's also an exchange of disease. Critically smallpox, and what becomes the central one of the central dynamics of medieval Europe, the coming out, Black Death, or robotic plague likely originates in southern southeast China, maybe northern Vietnam area. it devastates much of that area as well. Not that people were immune from it.

 

But then begins is spread to the caravans through the Silk Route, and makes its way to Europe so that in the 14th century. The story of 14th century Europe is, in many respects the story of dealing with the plague. The plague resurfaces time and time and time again. And changes like smallpox as well. And smallpox will become a central to the story when Europeans come to North and South America, and the devastation that smallpox and tolerance and tolerance, typhoid wreaked on the native populations in the Americas. And as mentioned, one of the things that gets into our system is that advancement should not be based on one's family connections, cronyism or the like, but should be based on merit. Some folks take that more seriously than others, I think. No, we'll talk about some lasting significance of the Mongol invasion. It really helps competing powers in Europe. There were many England and France we've talked about are always at each other's throats. The Italian cities are often in conflict with others, it really helped them to unite against sort of a common enemy. That's particularly true when you get up into the Germanic people and the Slavic people in Poland, and Prussia and Eastern Germany, they have to unite to have fighting forces against the Golden Horde in particular, and many alliances are built in Europe at this time to help ward off the Mongols. The Mongols are sort of the quintessential scary man. If you want to scare your children, for some unknown reason, you would tell them stories that the Mongols are going to get you. They were, they were the bad guys in Eastern Europe. With with some war, they were indeed often ruthless. They created their empire rule by a common law. And that is, we haven't seen that phenomenon much. Since Alexander the Great rule. His was a common notion of the polis and the Greek citizen, the notion of citizenship. But Genghis Khan, promotes a law called the Yassa. And really began just as a series of rules about how you live a nomadic life and how you treat each other. The Ganga is Khan expands that to cover marry many other areas of life. And the Asel law becomes the fundamental blueprint of how the entire Mongolian empire is supposed to treat each other. And as citizens, they also established as sort of a Pony Express for their cure for their male system says that within 10 days or so, a message from the Pacific Ocean could reach all the way into into Europe. Maybe it was two weeks, rather than 10 days, but that's a tremendously short period of time to consider being carried all on horseback. But of course, the Mongols are expert horsemen, and they have relay stations. I think that I read somewhere that the horse is courier was expected to ride 120 miles in a day. If you know anything about horses, it's kind of an unimaginable for a single horseman to ride but what they were expected to do to cover 120 miles a day and pass on the important dispatches. That kind of mass communication begins is sort of the model of how it can be. The West can talk to the east and the East can talk to the west and get messages through in a relatively short period of time. This final slide on the Mongol Empire is just to demonstrate that this is a map of the world how large an area the Mongol Empire actually encompasses all the way from the Pacific Ocean. So we have Korea In South China and northern Vietnam, Siberia, all the way well into Poland, into Prussia into Austria into Eastern Europe. Influence way down into the Persian Gulf, Gulf and northern northern India, well down into Southeast

 

Asia. Surely, Chile the 13th century belong to the Mongols and worldwide They belong to the models. And we often under appreciate how significant they were. Let's take a breath, Roman will change gears move away from the theme of the conflict and clash among nations a conquest theme. Just a move into some awareness of what was going on religiously, in the world at this period of time, and I've had to really cut that down. Can't talk about every culture, of course, or even very many, but I thought we would look at Buddhism and Confucianism, particularly as it comes out in China, and then talk about the Christian West, and its conflict with Islam, primarily. So Buddhism and Asian Buddhism is a religion that links virtually all of Asia, China, all the way down to Thailand and Southeast Asia. You remember, early on in the course, we talked about Buddhism as really being a reform movement, Hinduism, and it gets a start right around 500 BC. So it's had 1000 years history by the time our period even begins, around 1000 ad, focused on the teachings of Godzilla, otherwise known as Buddha, and the fundamental goal of the religion of Buddhism is to for the individual, for the person to attain enlightenment, to understand what is real, what is true about himself and about the world, and about God. And once one does that one can enter into a state of Nirvana, which is similar to the notion of a Christian heaven. But in Buddhism, it doesn't. One does not have to be reincarnated. Again, one doesn't have to leave. It's sort of the final state of blessedness. Well, during this period of time, have been built to seal grounds as well as the spouse rights. Remember, we use spice routes to talk about the sea routes didn't spreads really throughout Asia, their Buddhist missionaries are aggressive. They spread their faith, they build monasteries, they build temples. They become involved in local politics, and welfare people. They're really a life shaping kind of religion as it moves. And while but by the time we reach our time period, 1015 100 there really are two primary forms of Buddhism. That the law Hey Anna, and Sara Radha the Theravada Buddhism is really found mostly in South and southern Asia, and often it's called Southern Buddhism. So today's countries, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Burma, Myanmar, Laos, the kind of Buddhism that's practiced there is Theravada. It's much more a traditional, linked back to the, to the texts that came from northern India. The texts of Buddhism, and it retains as its primary goal, as I mentioned, the emphasis on the individual, the person to seek enlightenment, in order to enter into a Nevada nirvana. notion I should note that I mentioned that it's about the, the individual the person in Mahayana, Buddhism, which is also called northern Buddhism, that's primarily in Tibet and China, Taiwan, Korea, Mongolia, parts of Southeast Asia like Vietnam, and that is often sometimes it's divided into Tibetan Buddhism as well, but we're just going to call it northern Buddhism, and and lump it all together. No offense to those who might be

 

Tibetan Buddhists. Mahayana Buddhism, similar to southern Buddhism, has an emphasis on the person seeking enlightenment. But after that, there's much more to embrace of both the historical and non historical, both Esteban and the boat just are history. Rather, the boat history are beings who themselves have reached the point of enlightenment. But rather than enter into Nevada, they have made the choice to stay in this world in this realm, and help others go through the path in order to become enlightened, to reach Nirvana. So they become sort of like mentors or guides. Yoga, for instance, they become the holy people who help you move through the various stages of life in order to reach Nirvana. And one of the things that northern Buddhism was able to do was, in contrast to southern Buddhism was pretty kept kept a very limited notion of who could be a Buddhist average of that done at two, basically, just a few historical figures that want to pray to and ask for intercession and help prompt in doubts in southern in northern Buddhism, they were able to embrace many of the local gods, maybe, maybe, maybe some of the local heroes, some of the people there was much more adaptable to local conditions. And in that way, by incorporating those older former gods into their, into Buddhism, they were they became much more attractive, particularly to the masses to the local population. And throughout China, for instance. Buddhism is almost always primarily a practice by the local people, whereas Confucianism is going to be practiced primarily by the aristocracy.

 

Just a map to help us understand a little bit of the geographical separation between northern and southern Buddhism. So southern Buddhism is more of a pinkish area, down to Cambodia, and here, it's much more closely connected to, to India, whereas northern Buddhism encompasses all of the China, Korea, Japan, even was known as Zen. It also in the Tibetan form, is very important here, throughout the Central Plains and Central Asia. So and that distinction between northern and southern Buddhism still is true today. Buddhism is practicing distinctive ways. Not only are they different in how they view the goal of life, and go to this step, the help that you can receive, they also differ some in some of their liturgical practices and a few other ways. So here again, is just a restatement of the main difference. In the southern The goal is for the person to attain nirvana, by going on the path of enlightenment. To the north, the goal is not only for oneself, but also to help others reach Nirvana as well. And in that way, it's a bit more of a communal, and a bit more of a compassionate kind of Buddhism. There is in a sense in a turtle conflict between these two kinds, I don't need to describe that very much. It was true in the beginning and is still true today. The northern and southern kinds of Buddhism that's practice. While they don't, at the moment, practice open wherever warfare, they do have very significant differences of opinion among them.

 

Just want to say a thing about Buddhism and Confucianism, particularly as that is true in China. There's there's an on again off again, struggle between these two religions, for the heart and soul of China, particularly for leadership, their culture and in their politics. Confucianism is often associated with the aristocracy. As I mentioned earlier, central to the notion of Confucianism is that the father figure is unquestionably the authority. Everything goes to the father figure. Everyone's job is to show great honor and respect to the father figure. And even a lot whether alive or dead. There's really Ah worship of ancestors that goes on because the ancestors are very significant intermediaries with whatever powers or Gods there might be. Confucianism doesn't really define a divine being any more than Buddhism does. But it does recognize that there's something greater than just oneself, or just humanity. And the way to touch that greatness, the way to be in communication with that greatness is through the authority of the Father. The political system of China, throughout the Imperial periods in various dynasties, often appeals to this Confucian model, not just that the emperor is in charge, but also how, as he delegates his authority to others, the people are supposed to respond. The notion is that authority is just never to be challenged. Once the father figure has said, This is it, that's it, and that sort of patriarchal notion of things, sets the cultural, religious man, ground for much of China, and still, in some respects, is true today. The aristocracy loved Of course, Confucianism for the most part, there are some exceptions for some of the some of the nobility become Buddhists and promote Buddhism and during some periods of time that's greater than others. But for the most part, Confucianism is choice religion of choice religion of decision for the aristocracy, one can understand why it helps establish their authority. So in some respects, Confucianism is the dominant religion, and often it's the official religion. For the most part, the religion of the people, up until the 19th. For the most part, the religion of the people is going to be Buddhism. So I should mention, by the way, that Confucianism becomes sort of the intellectual legal framework for 1000s of years in China, and really, until the 1930s. It's the way of use the world, the way of US administration, the way of US economy, the way of us leadership, are all central to the training, the civil service, and the civil servants in China, basically ran everything that worked on the local level.

 

I should mention, there were periods of times that Confucianism and Buddhism were in military conflict, times of persecution, particularly Confucianism, against Buddhism times the Buddhist monasteries, were burned in the light. This is not just a religious clash, it often was a political economic class, there were periods of times with Buddhism was a very favored religion. In China, times for you in the states supporting the monasteries, gave them relief from all taxation and like, gave them certain investment rules where wealthy people would put their money into a monastery, and then they wouldn't have to pay taxes on it, kind of attacks and shield attacks and dodge. And this did not, of course, go over well, with the rulers and many monasteries are attacked and destroyed. Again, not primarily because of religious conflict or spiritual conflict, but more of an economic one. The moral of the story is a lesson and the story is that whenever, whenever throughout culture, whenever religion and politics become entangled, religion loses. It becomes corrupt, it becomes compromised. It cannot pursue a spiritual truth. What if it becomes a vessel of the state? And the state then controls it? It's just a warning to all of us as we think about how do how does our phase interact with whatever political system we might happen to be living under. I am profoundly grateful that early on founders in the United States, Jefferson and Madison in particular, but others saw the danger, a state church and saw the danger of mixing religion and politics. And as the Virginia House of Burgesses said, there is a unbreakable in separate little wall, between church and state. That's to the church's great advantage. History teaches that over and over and over, not just about Christianity, but just about how religion and politics, religion and economics, religion and the world works. To have that great wall of separation is a profound blessing. The next section turns during this period of time to what's going on in the Christian church. So that's primarily a Western European story. And I think that we'll save that until the next time. So until our next session, God bless you and we'll see you soon.