The Indian Culture was located in the central peninsula of South Asia and has a pre-eminent place in the history of human culture for its wonderful spiritual creations and for its contributions to universal culture and art.
Extensive and varied climates, it is still part of a great cultural triangle whose other vertices are Western Europe and Southern Africa. The populations related to Westerners we find entirely different races such as the pygmoids, mundas and mongoloids .
After the Bronze Age civilization of the Indus Valley, another great civilization arose in India, becoming the first empire of this nation. Just as the Indus civilization was influenced by the river of the same name, the Indian civilization was influenced by the mighty Ganges.
For more than a thousand years after the end of the Indus Valley Civilization, around 2000 BC, the ancient peoples of India lived in villages and small towns . During those years some significant changes took place. A new people entered India from the north, bringing with them a new way of life and a new language:Sanskrit. These Vedic tribes (they called themselves Aryans) were herdsmen who gradually conquered the inhabitants of the Gangetic plains and began to settle in small towns.
Lifeform
According to the Vedas (the sacred texts from which these peoples take their name), the people of the Vedic tribes were divided into three classes or castes (varnas ):the priests (brahmins ) were the first, then came the warriors, with landowners and merchants in third place. The conquered natives became the fourth class, the peasants. The Vedic tribes were constantly fighting among themselves.
Little by little, cities began to form again and around 600 B.C. there were already many in North India. They were often the center of a small kingdom or republic . Kausambi is a typical example:some 10,000 people lived there and more people lived in small towns and villages around the city.
The city of Kausambi was protected by a large earth wall that surrounded it . Inside the wall the kausambios worked in very diverse occupations. The potters made a special pottery with a shiny black surface, using a technique that has yet to be discovered. Metal workers made copper objects or iron tools and weapons. Goldsmiths made elaborate beads from shell and expensive stones. Merchants traded from their shops or with merchants in other cities. Government officials collected taxes and supervised public works, while the police maintained order. Most of the villages around Kausambi were for farmers.
Around the same time, as cities grew, local governments began manufacturing silver coins to facilitate buying and selling . Those early coins were small elongated bars with a slight angle at one end.
Writing probably began in the 5th century BC. The oldest Indian writings come from Sri Lanka , the island country that lies south of the tip of India. That's where archaeologists have found pottery shards with letters scratched into them that date to around 400 B.C.
Although no examples have been found, it is likely that north Indian merchants were using the same script to keep their accounts and that its use dates from an earlier date than that found in Sri Lanka. It seems that writing arose as a system to be able to record the details of business. Later, the officials began to collect government affairs with her, while other people wrote down stories and myths that until then had been memorized and transmitted orally.
Local Wars
The Vedic period appears to have been prosperous, but not peaceful. The many existing princes fought among themselves and the victors began to conquer their neighbors. Soon there were four kingdoms that dominated northern India and continued to fight each other for supremacy . In the year 330 B.C. the kingdom of Magadha had become the victor in this struggle and began trying to control other parts of India.
In addition to these wars, society was undergoing many changes. Kings and governments were becoming increasingly powerful, while some people, such as merchants, became very wealthy even though the majority of the population remained peasants . Since the religion of the Brahmins came from simpler times, it soon became unsuitable for the new ways of life in cities and great kingdoms. Some thinkers proposed new religions to adapt to new needs. One of them was Gautama, who created the way of life known as Buddhism. Another was Mahavira, who believed in non-violence. His followers, called Jains, were so afraid of killing a living being that they covered their mouths with masks to avoid swallowing insects.
At the same time that the Gangetic kingdoms were forming, the Persians were conquering almost all of the Near and Middle East, from modern Afghanistan to Egypt and northern Greece. The Persian Empire also included part of India, an area that is now north of Pakistan.
The mighty Persian Empire was overthrown by the young Macedonian king Alexander the Great . At the time of his death, in 323 BC, at only 32 years of age, Alexander had conquered all the Persian lands, reaching as far as the Indus River, having considered the possibility of conquering the mighty kingdom of Magadha. However, after winning a hard battle against Porus, King of the Punjab, near the Jhelum River, Alexander's army returned home. After Alexander's death, his generals fought over the pieces of the Macedonian Empire, but none of them were able to hold northeast India. It was during this period of confusion that the first Indian empire was formed. .
The Mauryan empire
In the year 320 B.C. a young Indian named Chandragupta Maurya overthrew the ruler of Magadha and sat on the throne . Some stories say that Chandragupta helped fight Alexander's army when the Greeks invaded India. If so, the experience may have given Chandragupta the ambition to rule his own empire. Less than a year after Alexander's death, Chandragupta had seized Afghanistan and northwestern India from the Greek generals.
When Bindasura, the son of Chandragupta, came to the throne, he conquered large areas south of the Ganges . In 250 BC, during the reign of his son Ashoka (about 273-232 BC), the Mauryan Empire extended over most of northern India. Ashoka was a powerful and just king, during whose reign India enjoyed peace and prosperity.
The Mauryan rulers built a huge capital at Pataliputra (modern Oatna). The city was about 14 kilometers long on its side parallel to the Ganges and was one of the largest cities in the ancient world. A wall of thick logs surrounded the city, as well as a huge dry moat; in the wall there were 570 towers and 64 gates . Not much of the city has been excavated, so little is known about it. However, the remains of a palace have been excavated:a huge platform with 80 stone pillars to support a six-meter-high roof.
Constructionofpalacesandtemples
The Mauryans built many other cities. Archaeologists have excavated some of them, with orthogonal streets. People lived in spacious houses (some with two floors) with up to 15 rooms. In the middle of the house was a patio where the family could bake bread, cook, and do other outdoor chores. We can imagine windows with elaborate wooden shutters to keep out the strong North Indian sunlight, with balconies over the courtyard and, perhaps, scented trees and flowering vines.
The Mauryan kings also built many religious buildings outside the cities . The Buddhists built monuments of various kinds. The stupas they are domes of earth and brick built to protect sacred objects. At first the stupas they were simple earth mounds, but they were soon enlarged and decorated. Later the stupas they contained relics (objects or remains) of holy people or sacred texts. Around the stupa there was a path for people to walk and meditate. The Buddhists also built large worship halls with vaulted ceilings. Some were round and others elongated, with a rounded end for a small stupa indoor. Many of these early halls were rock-cut, such as the Ajanta monasteries and temples, the earliest of which were built in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC.
The Brahmins They also built temples, mainly to the god Vishnu, although we know less about them. Both the stupas as the temples were the first manifestations of the Buddhist and Hindu traditions of beautiful and spectacular buildings, which flourished in the centuries after the Mauryans.
The Pillars of Ashoka
Ashoka was the first Indian king to write down his orders and record his deeds. The texts were engraved on rocks or on large stone pillars erected in public places . Ashoka's Pillars are among the most famous of the monuments of Indian Antiquity. They are made of a special stone found near modern Varanasi, on the eastern plain of the Ganges. Each pillar is a monolith about 12 meters long, polished and carefully finished.
In the upper part there is a kind of decorated cap and the figure of an animal; often it is a lion, but sometimes it is a bull or a horse. The Sarnath pillar has four lions, a work of art that modern India has adopted as its symbol.
Most of Ashoka's pillars were erected in Magadhan, the heart of the Mauryan Empire, but others were placed in central India and far to the northwest. This means that these gigantic stones had to be transported, probably by elephants, over 1,600 kilometers, crossing plains and mountains.
Decline of the Mauryan empire
Later Mauryan kings faced problems they could not solve and the empire disintegrated when the last Mauryan king died in 185 BC . India was again divided into many kingdoms. Foreigners, including the Greeks from Afghanistan, ruled some of the kingdoms in northeast India.
The Kushans
Around AD 100, the Kushans from central Asia invaded northern India, creating an empire stretching from central Asia to the Ganges basin, including land along the Silk Road, the of caravans that connected China with India and Europe .
The Kushans recaptured some of the greatness of the Mauryan Empire and embraced Buddhism. With his protection, the religion spread throughout Asia and China and many magnificent pieces of Buddhist sculpture were produced. Their empire lasted for about three centuries before breaking up again into small kingdoms.
Despite the political failure of the Mauryan Empire, maritime trade across the Indian Ocean began to flourish. Roman ships loaded with products from the Mediterranean civilizations sailed the Indian Ocean in search of Indian goods, such as spices, ivory and jewelry . They also came down the west coast of India and some even ventured north along the east coast. The kings who controlled central India promoted Indian trade by sea both to Arabia and Africa, to the west, and to East and Southeast Asia.
Although India had lost the political unity of the Mauryan Empire, the people continued to prosper under the many kingdoms that followed . More spacious cities were built. Craftsmen such as potters, carpenters, and blacksmiths formed guilds that established rules, inspected the quality of products, and set prices. Guilds were closely tied to the caste system and helped ensure that sons followed in their fathers' footsteps and remained within their own caste. The guilds became so wealthy that they could afford to donate money for the construction of Buddhist monuments.
The Buddhist prayer halls, the stupas and the monasteries became larger and their ornamentation became more important, being decorated with sculptures, stone railings and elegant passageways . Some Buddhist caves also have elaborate images painted on their walls. Buddhist artists in northwest India borrowed many Greek ideas and created a graceful style of sculpture that had a lasting influence on Indian art. However, Buddhism was not the only religion. The Brahmins they continued to make sacrifices to their gods. The gods of Persia and Greece had worshipers in northwestern India and, according to tradition, the Apostle Saint Thomas founded churches in the south of the country.
The Gupta empire
In 320 AD, a family of wealthy landowners called the Gupta came to power in Magadha. The first king, Chandragupta I, only ruled over the eastern part of the Ganges. However, the second king, Samudra, began to build a great empire by conquering neighboring lands. The power of the Guptas reached its zenith during the reign of Chandragupta II (375-413), when the family controlled all of northern India, from the mouth of the Ganges to the Indus River and northern Pakistan .
Religion
The Gupta kings favored the Hindu religion and revived many Brahmanical rituals. At the same time, Hinduism itself was changing. People began to worship the gods in a more personal way, instead of just making sacrifices to them, and priests became less important. Hindu devotion began to focus on statues of the gods. The statues were symbols of the god and many of them had four or eight arms, each holding an object that represented a different aspect of the god. However, Hindu temples remained fairly small buildings; the impressive temples with towers and elaborate carvings are from a later age.
Hindu philosophers began to write down their thoughts and several different schools of Hindu philosophy developed, which still exist today. The philosophers and priests of the Gupta period wrote many of the most sacred books of Hinduism.
The Guptas were tolerant of other religious denominations, and Buddhist beliefs remained widespread. Kings and other wealthy people gave large amounts of money to both Hindu and Buddhist temples, but Buddhism slowly lost popularity. Today, Buddhism is not very common in India, its birthplace, but it is still the faith of many people in China, Japan, and Southeast Asia.
Knowledge and education
The Gupta period was the Golden Age of classical Indian literature and art. Mathematics and astronomy also progressed a lot . Scientists said that the Earth was a spinning globe and that lunar eclipses were caused by the Earth's shadow covering the Moon. A Buddhist university was so famous that students from China and Southeast Asia came to study there.
Hindu schools taught mostly subjects useful for religious debates, such as grammar, writing, logic, poetry, and oratory. The schools had a lot of money and education was free. However, most of the children did not attend them, but instead acquired a practical education in their parents' professional guilds.
Administration
The Gupta kings left it up to the villagers to solve their local problems, so the chamber of commerce and the guilds were responsible for the administration of many cities . Craftsmanship flourished and India became famous for its delicate dresses, carved ivory, pearls and other special products. Trade with other countries became increasingly important. The cities increased their prosperity, although many poor people still continued to live in slums.
The Hun invaders
This period of peace and prosperity began to decline when the Huns from Central Asia invaded India around 460 BC The Indians held out for some time, but trade was interrupted, reducing the income of the Gupta Empire. Their kings weakened and various parts of the empire declared themselves independent, at which time the Huns invaded the country again.
In the chaos that followed, city life disappeared completely in several parts of India; for Buddhist monasteries these were bad years. The Gupta kings continued to rule for another five decades, but only in their homeland of Magadha .
By around 515, most of northwestern India had become part of the Hun empire of central Asia. Little is known of their rule over India, apart from the fact that they were cruel conquerors who oppressed the native population. Fortunately, they did not rule India for long, as their empire collapsed when they were defeated by the Turks in the mid-6th century.
In 606, a few years after the last Gupta king, a brilliant and dynamic chief named Harsha became the king of Kanauj, a city on the Ganges plain . Harsha created an empire in North India, but much smaller than that of the Mauryans or the Guptas. He failed to defeat the now powerful kingdoms of southern India, so he was content to rule the Gangetic plain. Like the Guptas before him, Harsha was generous with the money and gifts he gave to Hindu and Buddhist organizations. He also promoted the arts. One of the masterpieces of Sanskrit literature is a biography of Harsha written to glorify his exploits. However, when he died after 40 years on the throne, his empire disintegrated. India would have to wait nearly a thousand years for another empire to form.
Southern India
South India is separated from the north by the Vindhya mountain range and the Narmada River, thus it developed isolated from the north. Little is known of its early history, but while the civilizations of the north were located in the vicinity of large rivers, the south was influenced by the sea. Ancient texts speak of the trade in pearls, gold, and precious stones. In the third century B.C. contact was made with the Mauryan Empire and the powerful southern families, or clans, were able to see other political systems . This would influence the development of the first states of the cholas, pandyas and cheras. However, it was not until the 6th century AD. when the first great southern kingdom appeared.
The caste system in India
The varnas (social classes) of the Vedic era were the beginning of the caste system, in which people are born into a certain group, called jati , and they have to marry someone from the same group . The varnas they are groups of jatis . The caste system is closely related to religious ideas regarding ritual purity and uncleanness, so the varnas and the jatis They are ordered according to their degree of purity. It is not surprising to learn that the Brahmins (priests) were the purest, while the shudra (peasants) were the least pure. To prevent purer people from being contaminated by less pure people, there were many rules about proper behavior. Those outside the caste system were considered outcasts and thus "untouchables" .
The changing role of women in India
Before the rise of the Mauryan Empire, Indian society was matriarchal; that is, women were of high status and family name and property often passed through the female line . However, as Vedic influence increased in the north, women came to be controlled by the men in their families, although they still had some property rights; high-ranking women received a good education.
During the Mauryan Empire the role of women was focused on marriage, but upper class women continued to receive a good education . In the Gupta period most women were completely restricted to domestic life. In fact, in some parts of India upper-class widows were expected to throw themselves on the funeral pyre of their dead husband to become sati (virtuous woman). Some upper-class women received education, but only so they could speak intelligibly with their husbands . However, most of the restrictive rules against women applied only to high-ranking families, since peasant women had to work alongside their families in the fields.
The Vedic literature
The Vedas are the oldest Indian religious literature and the oldest texts still used today by a religion . They are written in an ancient version of Sanskrit. The four main Vedas, including the famous Rigveda (the oldest text), are collections of hymns, instructions on how to perform rituals, sacred words (mantras ) for prayer and incantations. The Vedas date back to about 1000 B.C. They were passed down as memorized verses that each generation of brahmins taught the next . The Vedas were put into writing after the Indians invented writing, perhaps around 400 BC.
The two main epic poems of India, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana are dated around 800 BC. and 500 B.C., but they were not written down until a thousand years later.
These epic poems blend history and legend, providing us with a vivid picture of early Indian beliefs as well as clues to early Indian history.
The religions of India
In India there have been many religions since the arrival of the Vedic peoples, 3,000 years ago. The ancient sacred texts, the Vedas, describe a religion in which Brahmins , or priests, performed rituals on different occasions and to different gods. The Brahmins they were the keepers of tradition and the only people who possessed the right to perform sacrifices and other activities for the gods . The role of the Brahmins gave the religion its modern name:Brahmanism.
Hinduism
With the passage of time Brahmanism slowly changed, until it became Hinduism. An early type of Hinduism formed in the centuries after the Mauryan Empire (after 200 BC). The various gods were combined into Vishnu, Siva and his wives. Although Hindus do not believe in an all-powerful god, they do believe in the oneness of creation.
In the time of the Guptas and their successors (300-700 BC), people offered their devotion (bhakti ) to Vishnu or Siva and the Brahmins were slowly losing their role as priests. The moral teachings emphasized the importance of living by the rules that the Brahmins continued to develop. The thinkers gave rise to six philosophies of religion, the world and life. Still today, Hinduism embraces different modes of worship.
Buddhism
Buddhism, however, is a religion of a very different kind. It was founded by Siddartha Gautama (born around 563 BC) . He came from a noble family and grew up in luxury; but he was not happy with that privileged existence and when he was 29 years old he left his family to search for the meaning of life. After many years of wandering, he began to preach. He became known as the Buddha (the enlightened one) and taught that the method for people to avoid suffering was to stop desiring material things. He also offered eight rules for living that, if followed, would bring peace and calm.
Buddhism was popular among the lower castes and in the cities, as the new religion was a way for people to avoid the rigid control of the Brahmins . Buddhism became very popular throughout India when King Ashoka converted to it. It then reached Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, and later China, Japan, and Korea. However, Buddhism virtually disappeared from India in the 12th century, when it was invaded by Muslims.