History 3500

Prof. Marc J. Gilbert
Young Hall, Room 116
Office hours: M & W: 2-3 p.m.
Tues & Thurs: 3 -5 p.m.
Mgilbert@ngcsu.edu
(706) 864-1911

I. Purpose and characteristics of the course: The objective of this course is to provide insight into the course of one of the world's foremost civilizations--South Asian Civilization--via the medium of the history of India. This course will also offer you an acquaintance with the tools of historical analysis and enable you to gain some experience in their application. It is assumed that few of you have a good grasp of historical method or have any great knowledge about Asian societies. This course will therefore be presented in the form of an introduction and will concentrate on general principles rather than details. Unfamiliar names, dates, and events will not overwhelm you. The course will, moreover, have an interdisciplinary character: literature and art are essential elements of historical analyses. The class will also blur traditional lines between lecture and seminar formats in that you will be periodically assigned short readings that will serve as the basis of in-classroom discussions. The ultimate purpose of the course is to provide you with the means and opportunity to develop and improve your critical thinking skills, your capacity to build your own vision of the world and your ability to communicate that vision to others.

II. Required reading: Stanley Wolpert, History of India, 6^th edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, and Peter Stearns, et. al, World Civilizations: The Global Experience, New York, Addison, Wesley, Longman, 3^rd revised edition (2001). Copies of Stearns et. al have been placed on reserve at Stewart Library. You will also be required to read three novels: Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha, E. M. Forster's Passage to India, and and Kamala Markandaya' sNectar in a Sieve. These available in the University Bookstore, at Stewart Library, at most public libraries and virtually all bookstores. The content of these novels as they relate to the course will be tested in this order on the first, second, and final examinations, respectively. You will also be assigned web-based exercises and further readings that will placed on reserve. A lecture and readings schedule are attached to this syllabi.

III. Examinations and course reports: There will be three examinations. Test 1 will be worth approximately 30 pts; Test 2 = 30 pts; Test 3 (the final examination) = 30 pts. There are thus approximately 90 possible points to achieve on tests. You will also be expected to complete a class project worth 10 points. This project may be a term paper or a variety of other exercises, but all will entail a writing component. This project will be due Monday December 4, one week prior to the beginning of final examinations. Your grade will be determined according to the 90-80-70-60 percent scale that follows. It is: 100-90 points (100-90%)= A; 89-80 points (89-80%) = B; 79-70 points (79-70%) = C; 69-60 points (69-60%) = D; below 60 points (59% & below) = F. The questions on the examinations are drawn from class lectures, the text, material found at the Student Resources section of the Stearns, et. al. World Civilizations web-support site at www.ablogman.com/ stearns3e/,http://occ.awlonline.com/bookbind/pubbooks/stearns_awl/index.html or study lists that will be provided and also from material handed out in class. Failure to meet any deadline for assignments will result in a deduction of one point from the total points available to you.

IV. Attendance Policy: Attendance is compulsory. You are responsible for being attentive to lectures and class discussions, for taking notes, and for being aware of the content of all class announcements. Please take note of the university's policy on "Class Attendance" (2000-2002 Undergraduate Bulletin, pp. 59-60 which is incorporated herein by reference. A student who accumulates more than seven unexcused absences on this three-class-per-week schedule can expect to receive a "W" or "WF."

V. Plagiarism and Cheating: NGCSU's integrity code-"On my honor, I will not lie, cheat, steal, plagiarize, evade the truth, or tolerate those who do" reflects the university's commitment to academic integrity. The "Academic Integrity Policy" (2000-2002 Undergraduate Bulletin, pp. 66-69) is incorporated herein by reference. Plagiarism and other forms of cheating are expressly prohibited. Any student who commits plagiarism or cheating may receive a reduced grade, which may involve a failing grade, and a report of the incident will be provided to the Academic Integrity Council, which may take additional action, which may include a formal reprimand, probation, suspension, or expulsion.

VI. Quality of Written Compositions: These three components should be the basis of every written composition: Assertion, Evidence, and Evaluation. The assertion clearly states the argument, problem, or thesis. The evidence provides specifics to argue the assertion, solve the problem, or answer questions about the thesis. The nature and use of evidence varies from discipline to discipline, however, in any discipline, presenting evidence should include more than making a list. Lists do not show the relationships among ideas. To show relationships and make the writing more effective, evidence must be organized logically. The evaluation is the part of the writing that expresses its importance. It contextualizes the argument by answering the "so what?" question. It explains why the writing is important and what's at stake. Furthermore, the evaluation shows critical thinking because it relates the parts to the whole and shows the bigger picture. Without critical thinking, a writing assignment is merely an exercise in proving a point, without explaining why it might be important or how the piece of writing fits into a larger whole. Assertion, evidence, and evaluation provide structure for the larger piece of writing as well as for each paragraph. Evidence without evaluation is not nearly as persuasive as evidence that is connected to the larger piece by evaluation. In evaluating your compositions, your instructor will evaluate whether it makes sense in these terms: Is it clear? Does it fully develop ideas? Does it satisfactorily link ideas? Students can learn to write more effectively at the NGCSU Writing Lab. Tutoring can help students at all levels in every discipline. Few of us send out our own writing that has not been read by someone else. At the NGCSU Writing Lab, trained peer tutors help students at any point in the writing process--prewriting, writing, and rewriting. While tutors will not correct or edit writing, they will make suggestions to make the writing communicate more effectively.

VII. Disability Related Situations: North Georgia College & State University is committed to equal access to its programs and activities for people with disabilities. If you believe that you have a disability requiring an accommodation, prior notice needs to be given to the instructor and the Office of Student Disability Resources. In this case, contact its coordinator at Barnes Hall, Room 221 (867-2782).

VIII. Office Hours: I have scheduled regular office hours for only one purpose-to help you with any concerns or problems that you have relating to this course. If you are having difficulty with the material contained in the lectures or readings, please come to see me and let's discuss the problem. If my scheduled office hours conflict with your schedule, please let me know before or after class and we can make an appointment for a mutually convenient time. Please come to discuss your problems as they arise; don't wait until the eve of a test by which time it may be too late to achieve much benefit.

IX. Availability of Grades and Final Exam Dates. Course grades are available on Banner Web 2000 within about two days of the end of final examinations. Except in emergency situations please do not request grades by telephone, E-mail, or similar method. The Final Exam Time is attached to this syllabus.

X. Overview of the course. Read overview carefully, as it introduces many of the themes and issues the course will explore in greater detail.

Indian civilization has very deep roots which stretch back to the Neolithic Agrarian cities of the Indus River Valley in approximately 2000 BCE. These cities were laid out in a grid pattern and had excellent gravity-fed sewage systems and home ventilation systems which used the physics of natural airflow patterns. The religion and art of these cities have suggested to some a sense of seeking the unity of all things by mastering the forces of the physical world through meditation and self-control. This civilization was destroyed by a combination of flooding and earthquakes around 1500 BCE. At about the time of the arrival of nomadic peoples from the north. These Indo-European-speaking peoples, often called Indo Aryans, sang songs of conquest, but the cities were largely deserted.

As the nomadic Indo-Europeans spread throughout northern India, they became a settled people, formed into competing states and so suffered the emergence of warfare springing up between long-allied clans. Such major social transformations were expressed, as it is so often among Indo-European peoples (like the Greek Iliad and Odyssey) in epic poetry, in the Indian case, in the epic story, The Mahabharata. But as this epic literature developed, it also came to reflect changes in religious outlook which evolved from the Indo-Aryan lustful materialist religion (rituals and sacrifices of material things now called Brahminism) toward the possible Indus Valley view that such sacrifices must be of the material world, of a rising above human desire. The burning away the fruits of selfish action and desire (karma) to achieve release (moksha) from rebirth into the material world (samsara) and the ultimate union of the soul (atman) with the Divine Consciousness (Brahman) is described in the Upanishads, a text added to the Vedas and thus often called 'Vedanta". Siddhartha Gautama Shakya (the Buddha--bodhi means enlightened) was an Indian philosopher who achieved this journey toward enlightenment and taught that much of early Aryan religion and its holy books (the Vedas) were mere superstition, and that Indo-Aryan social hierarchy (the caste system or jati, rating groups of families according to the spiritual purity of their occupations in legendary histories) was morally indefensible (one can be born into a low status life because of the karma incurred in a past life, but even a high-born priest was only as good as his heart--birth cannot secure goodness). His four Noble Truths identified the frustrations of a changing world as the source of all human pain and advocated a middle way between asceticism (abandoning all earthy attachments, fasting) and living life as if there was no spiritual dimension beyond mere ritual sacrifice. Ultimately Buddhists came to interpret Buddha's teachings as indicating that through his own enlightenment, Buddha attained the power to guide and sustain all seekers after truth. He, or rather the merit and consciousness he achieved, thus could provide for their redemption through personal devotion to him and his teachings.

Indo-Aryan priests were challenged by all these new religious ideas, but, as they may have possibly absorbed the ideas of the Indus Valley, they certainly absorbed Buddha's ideas, a process suggested by the Bhagavad Gita, a chapter of the Mahabharata written and rewritten over time to reflect the absorption, or synthesis of new ideas into their great traditions without rejecting the old ones. The Bhagavad Gita seems to embrace orthodox reformers such as the writers of the Upanishads and heterodox philosophers such as Buddha by offering four pathways to moksha: karma, jana, yoga and puja (self-less action, pursuit of philosophical wisdom, physical self-discipline as a door to perception, and devotion to God)

A further such synthesis came after Islam arrived in India. Muslim warriors first built a conquest state in north India, but Muslims only expanded their empire and established a lasting presence in India with the great Mogul Empire. This empire began in 1526, but its solid foundations were laid by Emperor Akbar (died, 1605) who built an efficient state based on religious toleration and by making full use of India's native genius in art, government and trade. Even the Muslim fundamentalist zeal of his great-grandson (Aurangzeb) could not destroy this legacy of strength through toleration, but it did weaken the Mogul Empire sufficiently to permit its piecemeal conquest by British merchants, who exploited divisions within India after the Mogul Empire broke up into smaller Hindu and Muslim states, first for private profit and, later for imperial aggrandizement.

The British came to India seeking its vast wealth, but were frustrated, but were initially frustrated, as all who wished to trade with India were, by India's lack of need to buy foreign goods. To trade at all, Britain had to hire India cotton weavers to provide cotton that they could transport efficiently to China to sell for a profit and the use that profit to buy goods in India and China (called the "country trade" and not dissimilar from the "triangle trade" of British North American. Eventually, British traders realized that conditions in India could not stop them from controlling the India cotton growers and other producers directly by conquering their local rulers. They completed this task by 1818, but did little more at first as they learned about India's past achievements and feared to provoke a response that might rally all Indians against them. In 1857, many traditional and conservative Indian leaders did, in fact, lead a great rebellion against the British, but these leaders were themselves divided by tradition rivalries (Hindu and Muslim, for example) and they failed to dislodge the British. In reply, the British traders were replaced by the government of the Imperial Britain, who hired many Western-educated Indians to ostensibly help run the government more sensibly than that which had led to the war of 1857, though they denied them any fo the higher offices which, due to growing racial prejudice, were reserved for whites only.

Lecture 1: Introduction to the Course and the South Asian Landscape.

Review syllabi and Course Overview

Lecture 2: Introducing South Asian Civilization.

View film: "Dadi's Family"

Answer the following questions during the film to prepare for post-viewing discussion.

1. How does the film indicate the "patriarchal" and patrilocal nature of South Asia?

2. Who runs Dadi's family?

 

3. What is the greatest threat to Dadi's family?

Lecture 3: The Birth of South Asian Civilization.

Read Wolpert, Chs. 1-3, Stearns, Ch. 3, pp. 51-61.

Visit the surveys and chronologies of the early history India at:

http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Ancient/ancient.html
http://www.itihaas.com/ancient/index.html

Visit the following web sites and complete the answers to the questions as assigned.

1. http://www.harappa.com/indus/slideindex.html

This site offers a tour of the ancient civilization of the Indus Valley via slides; each slide is provided with a descriptive commentary. An accompanying analytical essay provides interpretive material and gives thrust to the tour's narrative. After exploring the site, answer the following questions:

How do the remains of the civilization of the Indus Valley reflect other early urban civilizations? In what ways are they unique? How do the slides and the essay accessed at this site suggest contacts between the Indus and other cultures via trade?

2. http://www.harappa.com/seal/seal1.html

This site examines the use and meaning of the clay seals that were used in ancient northwest India. The site includes a slide show and other features. After exploring the site, answer the following questions:

What type of markings were found on the seals? What is their meaning as suggested here? Click on "full text" option at the bottom of this page or type in http://www.harappa.com/seal/sealtext.html. Using the text provided, summarize the current debate over the meaning of the seals. Does it suggest possible Harappan influence in the culture of Indo-European speaking people in India?

3. http://www.hindukids.org/namaskar.shtml

This site is designed to introduce Hindu customs to young people. After exploring the site, answer the following questions:

Why do Hindus place their palms together in their customary gesture of greeting or salutation?

4. http://www.Hindubooks.org/wehwk/ch10.htm

This site examines the rituals and sacraments of Hinduism. After exploring the site, answer the following questions:

What is the Upanayana? What other major world religions have a similar ceremony?

Lecture Overview:

Introduction

South Asia's first civilization emerged in the third millennium B.C.E. It developed around two great cities, Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. Although it was a relatively centralized civilization, Harappa was not heavily militarized. Harappan civilization was based on the Indus River system, whose tributaries converged to form the Indus River. In addition to the water supplied by the rivers, monsoons brought summer rains. The region was then capable of supporting a vast agricultural population. By at least 3000 B.C.E. sedentary agricultural villages were situated along the river plains. Pre-Harappan culture included bronze metallurgy and both naturalistic art and symbolist art, including figurines of women.

The Discovery of Harappa

Harappan civilization was discovered by British engineers constructing railways in the Indus valley during the nineteenth century. Subsequent excavation of sites revealed numerous cities that comprised Harappan civilization. Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro were the two capitals of the Indus civilization.

The Great Cities of the Indus Valley

Despite being separated by hundreds of miles, Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro were built utilizing similar grid patterns with citadels and surrounded by enormous walls. Both internal architecture and city walls were constructed of uniform bricks. The standardization of construction suggests that Harappan civilization had a strongly autocratic government capable of insuring uniformity. Strong citadels in both major cities also may suggest the existence of a powerful ruling elite. The citadels evidently contained both centers of government and public use areas, including heated baths. Granaries were located close to the citadels in both cities. The areas of the city reserved for housing were crowded, but employed sensible engineering which cooled buildings during hot weather. Domestic architecture, like the rest of the buildings in Harappan civilization, was constructed of brick. Homes were relatively standardized and typically included a bathing/restroom area connected to a citywide sewer system.

Harappan Culture and Society

An advanced agricultural system, including sophisticated irrigation works to control the monsoon floods, supported the Harappan cities. Harappan urban centers had plentiful commercial contacts with the civilizations of the Middle East and East Asia, often through port facilities at Lothal. Despite exposure to other cultures, the Harappans, like most ancient civilizations, were technologically conservative. They certainly devoted less attention to the military arts other civilizations. The society of Harappa may have been highly stratified, with a powerful priestly class at the top of the social order. Deities and venerated animals demonstrate a concern for fertility. Beneath its probably priestly rulers were the administrative and commercial classes that lived in larger houses located near the temple complexes. Artisans, laborers, and slaves made up the lower orders of society. Outside the cities, numerous farmers populated the countryside and supplied the food for the urban population.

The Slow Demise of Harappan Civilization

Harappan civilization declined gradually around 1500. B.C.E. as a result of flooding, perhaps due to climatic changes that altered the rhythm and severity of the monsoon season. Over centuries, the region in which the Harappan civilization flourished became more arid. There is also evidence of d immigration into the region. Apparently the Harappans were either unconcerned or too weak militarily to prevent incursion from outside peoples. As the irrigation systems failed, pastoralism increased and Aryan immigrants may have replaced the indigenous agricultural population of the countryside.

The Aryan Incursions and Early Aryan Society in India

Among the nomadic peoples who entered the Indus River valley during the decline of Harappan civilization, the Aryans gained dominance. Originally herders who spoke one of the Indo-European languages, the Aryans began migration into South Asia in the third and second millennium B.C.E. Military prowess may have allowed the Aryans to dominate the cultures they replaced. The Indo-European invaders, of which the Aryans were only one group, left a lasting linguistic heritage in both Europe and Asia.

Aryan Society and Culture

The Aryans spread in small bands from the Indus River valley into the lands surrounding the Ganges River system. Like the Indus River valley, the region of the Ganges featured the combination of river systems and monsoon rain patterns that made agricultural communities possible. Although it took many centuries, the Aryans eventually supplemented pastoralism with cultivation. Much of what is known about earliest Aryan culture is derived from the Vedic hymns transmitted orally for centuries until finally transcribed in books called the Vedas during the sixth century B.C.E. Its hymns describe a lustly, martial society whose most active deity was Indra, a god of war. Aryan military technology featured chariots, and metal- tipped weapons that were superior to the indigenous cultures of South Asia. With the exception of military technology, the civilization of the Aryans was cruder than that of the peoples they replaced. Urbanization declined under the Aryans, as major cities were replaced by small villages without monumental architecture. According to the Vedic hymns, gambling and music were two of the most popular pastimes among the Aryans. When they initially entered the Indian subcontinent, the Aryans were divided into three main social groups: warriors, priests, and commoners.

As a result of their conquest of indigenous peoples, a fourth group was added, slaves or serfs. The dividing line between the three Aryan groups and the conquered peoples was rigidly maintained. Attempts to restrict all social relationships between Aryan social groups and the conquered peoples aided in the development of a class system of social organization. Despite social restrictions dividing the two groups, intermarriage did occur. Eventually four social groups or varnas developed: brahmans (priests), warriors, merchants, and peasants. Beneath these four groups were the socially outcast untouchables, most commonly descendants of non-Aryans. Ultimately, within, between and among these groups further divisions evolved based on a perception of each group's status in relation to the keeping of moral law, i.e. rank by degree of perceived ritual pollution. Descent and inheritance were patrilineal in Aryan society. Women left their households upon marriage to enter those of their husbands. Aryan epics do give examples of both polygamy and polyandry, but monogamous households were the norm. Both dowries and bride-prices were exchanged at the time of marriage, suggesting the female children were not yet regarded as economic burdens to their families. Males were favored because of the traditional Aryan emphasis on martial valor and religious ritual.

Aryan Religion

Initially the Aryans were polytheistic in their religious practices. Deities, both male and female, had the power to assist human supplicants and to assure fertility. Male gods were dominant, particularly those deities associated with war. Religious worship involved ritual offerings and animal sacrifices. It was the function of the Vedic priests to perform the sacrificial rituals effectively. In early Aryan religion there was apparently little concern with the afterlife, the purpose of creation, or the nature of the soul. Neither reincarnation nor transmigration of the soul was common to Aryan religious beliefs.

Aryan Dominance

The Aryan incursion into India solidified their place in Indian history. The civilization of the Indus valley passed into the hands of these initially preliterate and pastoral people. Only with the development of sedentary agricultural communities probably and commerce in the Gangetic plan made possible by their use of iron, did the basic elements of civilization reappear among the Aryans. Small kingdoms eventually emerged along the upper Ganges and the foothills of the Himalayas. These kingdoms became the foundation for classic Indian civilization.

Lecture 4: The Later Vedic Age and the First Indian Synthesis

Read Wolpert, Ch Stearns, et. al, Ch. 8, pp. 170-195

Visit: http://www.itihaas.com/ancient/index.html

Visit the following sites and answer the questions posed.

http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/India/Upanishads.html

1. What is the difference in the way in which many Hindus regard the Vedas and the

Upanishads?

http://web.utk.edu/~jftzgrld/MBh1Story.html

2. Why is the Mahabharata considered a study in moral ambiguity? Why and how does

Krishna Vasudeva (Divinity incarnated, but lacking supernatural powers) only make

more difficult the job of choosing good over evil? Why does Krishna urge the heroes

to use trickery and war to defeat the villainous clan of Dhartarashtra? Why does the

hero Yudhishtira, unknowingly the son of dharma or moral law, find the courses that

Krishna suggests to be questionable and troubling? Can two wrongs make a right,

even in order to defeat evil? What tests does Yudhishtira have to pass before the

story is complete and the true, hard path of righteousness is revealed for all mankind?

http://www.san.beck.org/Gita.html#8

3. Read text of the Gita provided. Hindus believe that there are many pathways to

salvation. By the end of this reading, it is made clear by Krishna Vasudeva that there

is a certain pathway that cannot, in the end, fail. What is that pathway?

http://www.humanities.ccny.cuny.edu/history/wciv.html

4. According to the Arthashastra's chapter on kingship, what was the one characteristic

necessary to be a successful king? In what should the King find the greatest

happiness and consider in his own best welfare? An ideal king's suggested round of

daily activities indicate that he was expected to have a command of, or participate in,

many kinds of knowledge. What were some of these? Were science and religion among them?

http://www.prs.k12.nj.us/~ewood/World_History/buddha/Lesson.html

5. What are the four Noble Truths? What is the eightfold path? What is a "mudra?" Why

did images of the Buddha not appear until about a century after his death?

http://www.arthistory.sbc.edu/sacredplaces/bodhgaya.html

6. Why are trees often considered sacred? What is the Bo Tree? What is the Diamond Throne?

http://www.umich.edu/~umjains/overview.html

7. What are the five principles of Jain life? How are they realized? What happens on

Jain "holy week?" In what ways is this period similar to the Jewish observance of

Yom Kippur? (Compare with the treatment of Yom Kippur offered at

http://www.torah.org/learning/yomtov/yomkippur/

http://www.csuchico.edu/~cheinz/syllabi/asst001/spring98/Ashoka.htm

8. What was Ashoka attempting to do with his religious policy or dharma? Why has

Ashoka been remembered when other rulers have been forgotten? Why do some

believe Ashoka should be remembered?

http://www.unipissing.ca/department/history/histdem/indiadem.htm

9. What were the characteristics of republican forms of government in India? Were

these forms of government more widespread than those in ancient Greece? Why

have Western and Indian historians struggled over the significance and meaning of

data about India's ancient republics?

http://www.humanities.ccny.cuny.edu/history/Q/qwomen/indiawomen.htm

10. Do the Laws of Manu suggest that women were important members of society?

What specific duties did they have? What was the relationship between a woman and

her family members? How important were women to the welfare of their families?

Why would the text provided in the link to "Sati" suggest that a woman should follow

her husband by walking onto his funeral pyre?

http://members.aol.com/Donnclass/Indialife.html

11. Daily life during the Mauraya and Gupta empires was rich and varied. What

distinguished India's intellectual life? Diet? Sports? What is a dhoti? A sari?

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Aryabhata.html

12. What were some of the achievements and errors of Aryabhata the Elder in

mathematics and astronomy? Discuss the ways in which his conclusions about the

planets and the sun were more than a thousand years ahead of western scientists.

http://saigan.com/heritage/painting/ajanta.htm

13. What element helped insure that the artistic heritage of Ajanta would be spread

throughout Asia? What characteristics of the Ajanta-Ellora painting style are so

distinct and considered so beautiful?

Lecture Overview

By 500 B.C.E., fairly large kingdoms arose along the Ganges River valley. Urbanization emerged in the capitals of the kingdoms and near major religious temples. The top of the Aryan social hierarchy was occupied by priests, warriors, and merchants. The Vedic priests, or brahmans, utilized an increasingly rigid caste structure to cement their social dominance. By the sixth century B.C.E., however, religious thinkers were beginning to challenge the rituals on which the brahman elite depended. The most important of these thinkers, the Buddha, created a new religion that would have world-wide significance. The rivalry between Buddhism and Vedic religion helped to reshape Indian culture. The revived Vedic religion that was the product of cultural change is called Hinduism. The founding of Buddhism also contributed to the establishment of the Mauryan Empire, India's first centralized government since Harappa.

The Mauryan Empire was as long as the Roman Republic, but still brief and its collapse was followed by another round of nomadic invasions. In the fourth century BCE, the Guptas succeeded in creating another empire in northern India. Unlike the Maurya, the Gupta were dedicated to the restoration of brahman dominance. Indian history during this period was defined by political disunity broken only briefly by imperial unification.

Brahmanic Society

In the millennium after 1500 B.C.E., the caste system with the brahmans at its apex came to define the Indian social order. In the immediate aftermath of the collapse of Harappan civilization, tribes of Aryans settled in the foothills of the Himalayas. Here groups of Aryans formed small states, often extending no farther than a single mountain valley. Most of these states were republics ruled through a council of free warriors. The councils elected kings. The republics were frequently engaged in war with other Aryan states, thus justifying the social position of the warriors. Warriors within the hillside kingdoms kept the authority of the brahmans in check to such an extent that religious exploration began to take place. Buddha was from one of the hillside republics, as were the founders of Jainism.

As the Aryan settlement extended from the Himalayan foothills to the Ganges plains, more powerful kingdoms supported by brahman priests developed. In these river valley kingdoms, the authority of kings was not checked by councils, and many monarchs claimed divine descent.

Monarchies were often hereditary. Lowland kings operated in cooperation with the Vedic brahmans. The position of lowland kings was often subject to challenge from rival monarches and internal factions.

Brahmans, who educated royal heirs and advised reigning monarches, exercised substantial authority in the lowland kingdoms. As a literate group, they were the natural candidates for royal administrative positions. Brahmans were the only group who knew the rituals necessary to crown a new monarch and to confer divine status on the ruler. The position of the brahmans was due to their ability to mediate between deities and humans through offering proper sacrifices. Monopoly over ritual guaranteed the social and political dominance of the brahmans. Not all brahmans served the monarches. Some were private officials, others served in local villages. Regardless of their position, brahmans were exempt from taxation and protected from assault. Between 1200 and 900 B.C.E., the brahmans wrote down the sacred texts of the Vedas in Sanskrit.

In addition to the development of stronger monarchies and the establishment of brahman social dominance, there were other changes in the lowland kingdoms. Towns developed around the capitals of the new monarchies, and commercial centers arose along the Ganges River. With urbanization, merchants and artisans were recognized as separate social groups. Merchants, because of their wealth, enjoyed a relatively high place in the social hierarchy. The peasantry also assumed some importance, as farming replaced herding as the primary subsistence activity of the region. Farming villages, irrigation networks, and technological advance permitted the agricultural system to support a larger population. Only with some resistance did peasants pay taxes to kings.

Social diversification necessitated change in the tripartite social hierarchy warriors, priests, and commoners of the Aryans. Merchants and peasants were added to the social system in broad categories called varnas. Each varna was subdivided by occupation into castes, determined by the degree to which the occupation was considered polluting. At the top of the hierarchy were the warriors, brahmans, and merchants. Most belonged to the artisan and peasant castes. At the bottom of the social order were the untouchables, who performed socially "despicable" tasks such as removing human waste or tanning leather.

The social hierarchy hardened over time, with caste determining diet, marriage patterns, and access to the Vedas. Individuals were born into castes and could not rise above their social status. Whole castes could rise in the social hierarchy. Those who refused to accept their social status were outcast. Rulers proclaimed that the caste system was divinely ordained. The system theoretically provided for a proper exchange of goods and services. The caste position and career of individuals was determined by that person's dharma. It was believed that each soul migrated from one being to another after death. Merit earned during the previous life determined one's karma, which in turn defined the body to which the soul was assigned at the time of rebirth. Failure to accept dharma was considered a great sin.

Two epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, provide evidence for family life and household structure. The socially preferred household structure was extended with all male family members gathered under one roof. Lower-caste groups lacked the wealth necessary to sustain extended-family households. As a result, the greatest number of Indian households were nuclear. Within households, women were subject to patriarchal authority. In the earlier period, women may have had greater freedom than in the last centuries B.C.E. Sources suggest that some women were permitted to read the Vedas. Women were known as teachers, poets, musicians, and artists.

In the millennium after the Aryan migration, Indian civilization was typified by sedentary agriculture which supported urbanization, economic specialization, and social stratification. In the last two centuries B.C.E., still greater changes occurred in Indian civilization.

Heterodox Revolt: Buddhism

The growth of Buddhism challenged the traditional brahman dominance of ritual and religion. The Buddhist challenge was strengthened by the conversion of Mauryan rulers, who established a centralized government in northern India. The subsequent decline of the Mauryan empire made a brahman counteroffensive against Buddhism possible. The period of religious experimentation in India was contemporary with the origins of Confucianism, Daoism, Zoroastrianism, and Greek rationalism in other civilizations. Challenges to the Vedic priests brought the Indian caste system into question and proposed new types of religious experience. The most profound of the religious thinkers was Buddha, who founded a new religion.

Buddha lived from the middle of the sixth century B.C.E. to the second decade of the fifth century B.C.E. He was born into the warrior class in one of the hillside republics, where centralized authority was weak. Buddha left the royal court as a young man, renounced claims to the throne, and became a wandering ascetic. After a series of religious experiments with various theologies and techniques, meditation under a Bo tree led to enlightenment and the discovery of the Four Noble Truths. As all earthly things are transitory, one can escape suffering only by ceasing to desire things of the world. The complete departure from desire allows one to attain nirvana an eternal state of tranquility. Once he understood the means of achieving enlightenment, Buddha attempted to spread this knowledge to all of humanity. He soon attracted a following of students, who transformed his teachings into an organized religion.

After Buddha's death, his followers became monks who dedicated their lives to teaching and contemplation. Over time, groups of monks developed somewhat different theologies that coalesced into rival schools. In order to make their religion more accessible to all men, the monks stressed popular tales of Buddha's life, transformed the ascetic into a deity, and the concept of nirvana as an attainable heaven. Lay people were encouraged to perform good deeds, rather than to spend their lives in meditation.

Buddhism mounted a successful challenge to brahman dominance. Monastic organization proved successful as a foundation for the new religion. Buddhists accepted the Vedic concepts of karma and reincarnation, but opposed the scriptures of the Vedas as divinely inspired. Buddhists criticized the brahmans' emphasis on ritual and sacrifice. The Buddha attempted to do away with the caste system and strict social hierarchy, a teaching that was popular among the lower social groups, including the untouchables. Buddhists also accepted women as followers. Monasteries accepted women as members. Thus in all areas, Buddhism sought to overturn the cultural system on which the brahmans depended.

The Greeks in India and the Rise of the Mauryans

The cultural upheavals of northern India were magnified by Alexander the Great's invasion of the region in 327 B.C.E. Alexander's forces enjoyed military success in the northern Indus River valley, but his soldiers refused to go farther. His forces returned to Persia in 324 B.C.E. The impact of the Alexandrian invasion was largely cultural. Greek astronomical and mathematical ideas entered India. In return, Indian religious ideas filtered back to the Mediterranean. Combined motifs led to new styles of sculpture.

With the withdrawal of the Greeks, one of the indigenous regional lords created a northern Indian empire. Chandragupta Maurya (322-298 B.C.E.) conquered the northern Indus region and then carried his campaigns into the Ganges River valley. Chandragupta created a magnificent court and proclaimed himself an absolute ruler. He maintained a large standing army and was able to replace some regional rulers with imperial administrators. Chandragupta's conquests were completed by his son, Bindusara, and his grandson, Ashoka.

Ashoka

Regret for a violent early life led Ashoka (268-232 B.C.E.) to convert to Buddhism. Following his conversion, the emperor sought to build his empire through internal improvements and social reforms based on Buddhist teachings. He attempted to establish a centralized bureaucracy in order to ensure uniform justice throughout his domain. Attempts to politically unify India stirred resistance from displaced brahmans and local rulers.

India's economy benefited from new commercial relations with Rome and the West to become a major preindustrial manufacturing center. Merchants and artisans supported the Mauryan program, leading to greater patronage of Buddhist monasteries. Women also supported the Buddhist alternative. Monastic complexes and shrines spread throughout the Indian subcontinent. uddhist missionaries carried the new religion from India to Southeast Asia and into the central Asian steppes.

The unified government failed to survive Ashoka. Internal court factions and local rulers soon caused the empire to disintegrate by 185 B.C.E. In this period of political fragmentation, the brahmans were able to reassert their authority.

The Hindu Synthesis

After the fall of the Mauryas, Buddhism and Hinduism vied for religious dominance in India. By the time of the establishment of the Gupta empire in the fourth century B.C.E., Hinduism had emerged as the strongest religious practice. The patronage of the Gupta rulers resuscitated the brahman cultural and political dominance. The political collapse of the Mauryas opened India to new invasions. One of these invaders established the Kushana dynasty in northwestern India. Under the Kushanas, Buddhism temporarily flourished once again. Kushana political influence did not extend to the Ganges River valley or southern India. In those areas, the brahmans were able to reestablish their control among the regional kingdoms.

As Buddhism became more dependent on monasticism, it lost some of its contacts with popular religion. As the Buddhist monks became more remote, the brahmans attempted to introduce religious reforms calculated to appeal to the masses. They stressed the role of devotional worship and small, personal sacrifices. Various groups were associated with specific deities. Temples were established to provide focal points for popular worship. Women and lower caste members were allowed to participate in religious cults. The number of popular festivals was increased. Buddha, himself, was absorbed into the Hindu pantheon. Brahman thinkers placed greater emphasis on the salvationist aspects of the Upanishads, the later books of the Vedas. Buddhism was weakened by the decline of commercial ties to the West, which undermined the position of merchant groups who had traditionally supported the Buddhist monasteries. The collapse of the Mauryan and Kushana monarchies further weakened Buddhist patronage and support. The rise of the Guptas, enthusiastic supporters of Hinduism, led to the final demise of Buddhism in India.

The Guptas

The Gupta family rose to power in the Ganges River valley in the last decades of the third century C.E. The Guptas built an empire that never extended as far as that of the Mauryas, nor was the dynasty able to establish much administrative centralization. Former regional rulers continued to govern, but were required to send tribute to the Gupta emperors. Although internal disputes continued to occur, foreign invasion was minimized until the fifth century C.E.

The Guptas were staunch patrons and defenders of Hinduism and brahmanic privilege. The Gupta era was a period of Hindu temple building in Indian cities. The temples were covered with sculpture and decoration, which stressed symbolism rather than realism. The temples served as massive mandalas, or cosmic diagrams.

Literature and Society

The Gupta era was a creative period for Sanskrit and Tamil literature. The poet Kalidasa, a Sanskrit writer, was active during this era. Advances were also made in science and mathematics. Gupta mathematicians calculated the value of p, utilized the zero, invented the Arabic number system, and used decimals. Indians were also advanced in medical techniques.

With brahman resurgence, the caste system was revived as the basis of the social hierarchy. Social distinctions were more rigorously observed, particularly against lower caste people. Women also suffered a reduction in status. They were strictly subject to patriarchal authority within their households and deprived of the ability to read the Vedas. Women were unable to inherit property and were increasingly seen as a social liability for families. Widows were unable to remarry, and a women's value was calculated by the number of sons born. Outside of marriage there were few occupations open to women.

Elite families lived in large compounds with numerous servants. Males from upper castes were expected to pass through four stages of life: students, householders and husbands, hermitage and meditation, and wandering ascetism. Few actually passed beyond the householder stage. Life for wealthy males was luxurious and pleasurable.

Men and women of the lower castes had little leisure time other than that permitted to attend popular festivals. Most time was spent in work. Lower castes were supposed to show deference to members of higher social groups. The proficiency of Indian agriculture produced sufficient food to support the lower castes without difficulty. Commerce with Southeast Asia and West Asia continued to play a significant role during the Gupta era.

Guptan Decline and Legacy

The appearance of the Huns distracted the Guptas from control of their client kingdoms. By the middle of the fifth century C.E., foreign invaders entered from the north and decimated Gupta military strength. The empire fragmented into numerous regional kingdoms and remained vulnerable to outside assault.

Although Indian civilization after 500 B.C.E. developed several empires, the system of social hierarchy and Hinduism remained the most prominent conservators of Indian culture. Able to withstand the challenge of Buddhism, Hinduism and the caste system was also capable of absorbing and transforming numerous invaders of the Indian subcontinent. Despite its social rigidity, the culture of the brahmans produced great literary classics and innovated in science and mathematics. India emerged as the center of a Eurasian trade system, a source of great wealth and a means of exporting Indian culture abroad.

Lecture 5: The Coming of Islam

Read Wolpert, Ch Stearns, et. al, 13, 317-326 (See Chs. 12-13 269-329 for background on Islam).

Visit: http://www.itihaas.com/medieval/index.html

Visit the following web sites and answer the questions provided:

1. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/asimz/dhistory.htm

How many ancient and medieval capitals, Hindu and Muslim, were established in Delhi? What is noteworthy about the iron pillar now located near the Qubt Minar? Look closely at the Qutb Minar. What do you think it is made of and what style does it suggest? Why was the "third" capital abandoned? What accounts for the decline of the city prior to the coming of the Mughals?

2. http://www.afghan-network.net/rulers/ghaznavids.html

What was the previous status of the first Ghaznavid ruler, Alptigin? How did Mahmud of Ghazni regard the lands and souls of India? What enabled the dynasty to build a magnificent capital at Ghazni?

3. http://goto.bilkent.edu.tr/gunes/KabirPoems.htm

http://www.boloji.com/kabir/mysticsongs.htm

Both Sufi and Bhakti thought was opposed to formalism and embraced knowledge of God as would a lover, not a philosopher. Provide samples of Kabir's poetry that exemplify this approach to salvation. Kabir's poetry is often taken to transcend any one religious denomination, or at least expresses universal religious concerns. How would you illustrate that facet of his work with reference to the poetry provided at these or other web sites?

Lecture Overview:

The coming of Islam to the peoples of India began in the seventh century. This process reflected contradictory trends in Islamic religious tradition. Sufi mystics gave impetus to Islamic expansion, but the traditional ulama scholars slowly began to reject non- Islamic ideas and technology. The ulama scholars became increasingly opposed to the combination of Greek and Islamic ideas typical of theologians such as al-Ghazali. Sufis nonetheless succeed in developing a mystical tradition within Islam and sought a more personal relationship with God. Because of the growing popularity of Sufism, the movement was responsible for the expansion of Islam to new regions such as India, but once established, the ulama was often critical of any attempt at cultural synthesis. As we shall see, Akbar was a patron Sufism and relaxed the head tax on on-Muslims (the jiyze), leading to South Asia's second cultural synthesis and imperial florescence. Aurangzeb was the darling of the orthodox ulama whose religious policies (the reinstitution of the jizya) helped weaken the empire. At all times, however, Islam sought to dominate the political scene, while relying on Hindus to take an active part in the army and administration, even under Aurangzeb.

By the thirteenth century, Islamic dynasties ruled much of northern India. Islam was never able to replace Hinduism entirely, however, and the two religions remained in uneasy equilibrium in South Asia. Until the seventh century, the invaders of India had been absorbed into Indian civilization and converted to Hinduism or Buddhism. Islamic missionaries to India represented a challenge to traditional Indian society and religion. Islam stressed monotheistic exclusivity and social equality before Allah ideas that were totally foreign to Indian concepts of caste and tolerance. In the first stages of Muslim entry into India, conflict between religious beliefs was most common, but over time peaceful interaction between Hindus and Muslims became more normal. Muslims continued to make use of the Hindu administrative elite and were unable to eliminate Hindu places of worship.

Following the collapse of the Gupta dynasty, India remained decentralized until the reign of Harsha in

the early seventh century. At its greatest extent, Harsha's empire included much of the central and

eastern Ganges plain, but fell far short of the territorial acquisitions of the Gupta. Harsha's reign was generally peaceful, the ruler was able to concentrate on the construction of roads, hospitals, temples, and monasteries. The era was economically prosperous and resulted in extraordinary cultural creativity. Harsha was generally tolerant of both Hinduism and Buddhism, although in his later life he may have preferred the latter religion.

After Harsha's death in 646, his empire quickly fragmented into numerous smaller kingdoms. Political disintegration prepared the way for Muslim incursions. The first Muslim military attack on an Indian kingdom was in response to attacks on Muslim sea traders which began in 711. An army under Muhammad ibn Qasim conquered the kingdom of Sind on the western coast of India. The kingdom was temporarily added to the Umayyad Empire. Populations of conquered territories were treated as people of the book and granted religious toleration of their Hindu beliefs in return for payment of the poll tax on non-believers. Most of the administrative elite of conquered territories continued to serve new Muslim masters. The Muslims continued to recognize the Brahmin caste system. Little conversion of conquered populations was attempted.

Through the conquest of Sind, Indian scientific advances were disseminated to the Islamic world. Of great importance was the adoption of mathematical numerals, which spread from the Islamic world to the West. Arabs who migrated to the kingdom of Sind and other Islamic regions of India rapidly assimilated Indian lifestyles. From their enclave in Sind, Muslim traders extended their influence to trading enclaves in Malabar and Bengal.

Mahmud of Ghazni, a Turkish ruler of Afghanistan, initiated the second stage of Muslim conquest in

South Asia. In the eleventh century, Mahmud raided the various kingdoms and principalities of northern India. Mahmud's raids were intended to seize the legendary wealth of the Hindu princes and temples, but Muhammad of Ghur was able to subject much of north-central India to his political control. One of Muhammad's successors established a Muslim capital in India at Delhi on the Ganges. A succession of Muslim rulers of various ethnic extraction ruled much of northern India as the sultans of Delhi. All of these rulers based their power on extensive military organization. The support of large armies and an opulent court was the primary function of the Delhi sultanate. Public works and social welfare were secondary interests. The Delhi sultanate continued to be dependent on the Hindu elite for local administration of their territories.

Under the Delhi sultanate, large Muslim enclaves were established in northern India. Sufi mystics and traders carried the new religion to other areas of India. Most of the Indian converts to Islam came from Buddhist groups, who saw some similarities in the religious practices of the Sufi, and from low-caste groups. The decline of monasteries as centers of Buddhist instruction and belief accelerated the conversion to Islam. Low-caste social groups, including untouchables, were drawn to Islam by the promise of social equality. Some converts may have sought to escape the Islamic tax on non-believers. Little progress was made in converting the masses of the Hindu population, who continued to regard Muslims as foreign out-castes.

Hindus remained socially separate from the Islamic overlords and the few converts to the new religion. Many Hindus assumed that, like previous conquerors of India, the Muslims would be assimilated into Hindu culture and social stratification. Muslims did tend to be separated along Hindu caste lines into new social divisions. Muslims simply placed themselves at the top of the social hierarchy. Muslim-Hindu cultural interaction served to depress the social condition of Islamic women residing in India.

Hindus found that Islam could not be assimilated into traditional Indian religious practices and that Muslims actively sought to convert the indigenous peoples of South Asia. In response, Hinduism became more actively devotional, emphasizing cults of gods and goddesses. Bhaktic cults were open to men and women of all castes. New religious ceremonies stressed emotional connections between the worshipers and the deities. The most popular cults were those of Shiva and Vishnu. The creation of bhaktic cults tended to slow conversion of Indians to Islam.

Attempts to compromise the religious differences between Islam and Hinduism met with resistance from both religions. Hindus became increasingly intolerant of Muslim practices, while the Islamic ulama stressed the differences between Muslims and Hindus. Despite the creation of a sizable Muslim population in India, Hindus retained an overwhelming majority within the population of South Asia. Most Indians demonstrated little interest in conversion to Islam.

Noteworthy is the process by which Islam spread from along trade routes to Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia was a transfer point for goods moving from Chinese civilization to Islam. Muslim traders from India carried Islamic culture into the islands and trading centers of Southeast Asia. With the collapse of the Buddhist trading empire of Shrivijaya on the Strait of Malacca during the thirteenth century, the way

was opened for more direct Islamic penetration of the region.

Trading contacts, not conquest, provided the means for the expansion of Islam into Southeast Asia. The first areas to be converted were ports on the northern coast of Sumatra from which the religion spread to Malaya. The trading center of Malacca, which controlled a trade network that extended into the mainland, was the key to Islamic expansion. From Malacca, Islamic traders carried the religion to Demak on the island o Java. From Demak, Muslims penetrated the interior of Java and spread to nearby island systems. Populations of port cities tended to convert to retain trading relationships with other ports in the commercial network of Southeast Asia. Because Islam came to Southeast Asia from India via Sufi evangelists, the Islamic religion of the Southeast trading ports was suffused with mysticism and tended to be more tolerant of indigenous animist religions. Pre-Islamic law continued to govern the indigenous populations, while Islamic law was restricted to specific religious issues. Women remained important in the economic structure of the region. Some indigenous religious practices were incorporated into Islamic worship. In time, the Hindu epics were given a Muslim veneer and the tales of Arjuna etc. became the staple of Javanese puppet theater (wayang), itself a derived from Indian puppetry traditions.

Lecture 6: The First Mughals

Read Wolpert, Ch Stearns, et. al, Ch. 26 pp. 627-630.

Visit the following web site.

http au/student.projects/tajmahal/mughal.html

Visit the following web sites and answer the questions provided:

1. http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Mughals/Babar.html

Where lay the origins of the Mughals? How was Babur able to defeat both Muslim and Hindu states in India? How centralized was his early Indian empire? Why would babur's name be associated with the term empire rather than Sultan or Sultanate? What is the key record left by his administration? Why is his name so controversial today?

2. http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Mughals/Jehang.html

What were Jahangir's chief concerns in terms of imperial expansion. How does his life reflect or illuminate the difficulties governing political succession in the Islamic world? How did the safavid's exploit janhangir's illness? How did his illness and death expose the intense "harem" politics of the Mughal empire, i.e. how did marriage alliances impact the struggle for the throne?

3. http://itihaas.com/medieval/akbar2.html

What early experiences shaped Akbar's attitude towards religion? What experiences led him to develop the Din-i-Illahi? How well would the values embodied in this semi-official religion have served the Mughal Empire had it been widely adopted? Could it have been widely adopted? Who would have opposed its wider adoption?

4. Visit the following sites and answer the questions below.

http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/Culture/Archit/Fateh.html

http://rohini.ncst.ernet.in/fatehpur/main.html
http://www.visions-net.com/fs.htm

How does the architecture of Akbar's palace at Fatehpur Sikri reflect Central Asian or Mongol style? How does it reflect the synthesis in architecture between Hindu and Muslim styles he favored? Why, according to some, is the site important to Akbar's desire for a male heir? Why was the site abandoned after only ten years?

Lecture Overview

Between 1450 and 1750, the growth of three great empires, continued trading contacts, and the

dissemination of the Islamic faith typified the Islamic zone. Although the growth of the Western trade

system had relatively little internal impact on the Muslim empires, the Western nations were

establishing the commercial bases for economic dominance after the eighteenth century.

In the wake of the nomadic incursion of the Mongols and the armies of Timur, three great empires

coalesced: the Ottoman, Mughal, and Safavid. These three empires were characterized by military power based on gunpowder, political absolutism, and a cultural renaissance. The empires differed in the ethnic complexity of their territories and their allegiance to Shi'ism or Sunni Islam. This was the context for the emergence of the Mughal empire in India.

Babur and the founding of the Mughal empire

Babur, who had lost his kingdom in central Asia to other Turks, invaded India from |Afghanistan. The booty from his raids in India supported unsuccessful campaigns to recover his initial kingdom. Babur's troops defeated the last of the Lodi rulers of Delhi at the battle of Panipat. Within two years of his entry into India, Babur controlled much of the Indus and Ganges River valleys. He established a capital at Delhi, but did little to reform the previous Lodi administration. He was succeeded in 1530 by his son Humayan. Within a decade rival forces led by the 'Afghan" Sher Shah Sur and later, his own brothers drove Humayan into exile with the Safavids. Only in 1556 was Humayan able to restore the Mughal rule in India. He died within a year of his restoration.

In terms of administrative innovation, Akbar built upon some experiments begun by Sher Shah Sur. He reformed the bureacracy though a separation of military (nawab) and financial (diwan) responsiblities and providing disincentives for rack-renting the peasantry. A sliding scale of taxation based on seasonal crop estimates was initiated by Akbar's Hindu finance minister, Todar Mal. The Muslim and Hindu aristocracy were granted mansabs--lands in the countryside in return for pledges of military support, but, theoretically, these positions could be exchanged or rotated to prevent abuse of power or the growth of subordinate centers of power that threatened imperial authority. Local administration remained in the hands of local Hindu rulers who promised loyalty to the Mughals and delivered it. Akbar sat on a throne with two armed Hindus behind him, a powerful gesture indicating his trust in their loyalty and visible proof to a Hindu coming before him that justice awaited his petition to the court.

Akbar sought to improve living conditions through public works, living quarters for the urban poor, and regulation of alcohol. The ruler attempted to improve the condition of women in India. He permitted remarriage of widows, discouraged child marriages, and prohibited the practice of sati. Akbar encouraged merchants to establish separate market days for women.

Akbar also patronized Hindu as well as Muslim cultural institutions. He supported Hindu poetry and placed edicts on Hindu and Jain temples designating them for imperial protection. He also supported the work of Indian architects and stonemasons who developed a syncretic style called mughlai, that blended Hindu and Muslim architectural forms, particularly the Perso-Arabic dome and the Hindu mandapa's (temple entrance and performance hall) elongated pillar. This style is most clearly seen in the chatris (umbrella pavilions) that grace Mughal place and fortress towers.

Despite his administrative and military successes, Akbar failed to achieve the unification of Muslims and Hindu culture he desired, but he succeeded in building a syncretic ethos and an imperial structure that survived all the efforts of his successors to dismantle it. When the British came to power in India, Mughal rule had all but disintegrated, but its reputation was so powerful, that for decades they held themselves out as servants of the Mughal emperor and preserved many of its cultural institutions and administrative traditions, including its architecture and coinage.

Lecture 6: Mughal Florescence and Decline

Read Wolpert, Ch Stearns, et. al, Ch. 26 pp. 631-634.

Visit the following web sites.

1. http://rubens.anu.edu.au/raid1/student.projects/tajmahal/home.html

Discuss the basic questions that surround the Taj Mahal. Why was it built and for whom? How have Europeans tried to claim it as their own? How have Hindu nationalists tried to claim it as a Hindu design

2. http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Mughals/Aurang.html

Using the information provided at this site and its links to Aurangzeb’s religious policies, discuss how Aurangzeb’s religious policies, his intolerance for rival politics on the subcontinent, and his expensive military campaigns eroded the foundations of the empire laid by Akbar without providing a new basis for its administration.

3. http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Mughals/Aurnag_fatwa.html

Read the edict (fatwa) on the re-imposition of the jiyze. Read also the text at the top of the site introducing it. What point is the introduction trying to make about the meaning of this document? Does this point have any relevance to on-going political disputes in India over Hindu-Muslin relations? If so, what are they? If you see such as sub-text (the political ramifications that lay beneath or underlays the author's words) what might it be? If you were a Hindu subject at that time, why might you find fault with the reasoning of the introductory segment?

4. http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Mughals/Shivaji.html

In this selection the sub-text of the earlier site is brought into the open. The site is trying to "demythologize" the life of Shivaji as an anti-Muslim patriot. Why does it have this focus and what is the evidence of this as it appears in what the author stresses, excuses or interprets for the reader? Give an example of this, such as why the author thinks the Afzal Khan story is odd or how he interprets Shivaji's coronation as Chatrapati or universal ruler? What concrete evidence--not interpretive language by the author--indicates that Shivaji may have sought to resist Mughal authority, while not necessarily being "anti-Muslim."

Lecture Overview

Mughal India reached the peak of its prosperity under Akbar's successors, Jahangir and Shah Jahan. The Mughal cities and military power impressed European visitors, although the more perceptive noted the poverty of the masses and the lack of military discipline and advanced technology. Europeans came to India with products from Asia to exchange for the valuable cotton textiles of the subcontinent. Indian cotton became fashionable among all classes in Britain.

Neither Akbar's son Jahangir nor grandson Shah Jahan attempted much administrative reform. Fundamental alliances between the Mughals and the Hindu elite remained unchanged. Both rulers favored an elaborate court. Jahangir and Shah Jahan were renowned patrons of the arts. Miniature painting and building were two of the areas that received much royal largesse. The Taj Mahal is only one of the famous structures completed during this era.

In the reigns of Jahangir and Shah Jahan, royal women played an important role. Outside of the elite, the position of women in Indian society declined during the later Mughal era. Child marriage once again became popular, and widow remarriage effectively died out. Seclusion and veiling were common. Sati spread among upper-class Hindus.

The last of the powerful Mughals, Aurangzeb, inherited an empire in which expenditures for art and architecture rivaled military outlay. He determined to extend Mughal control to the entire Indian subcontinent and purify Islam of its Hindu influences. His successful campaigns to enlarge the Mughal Empire drained his treasury and increased his enemies. Even during his successful campaigns in the south, rebellions broke out in the north. Local rulers became increasingly autonomous. Aurangzeb's religious policies threatened to break the long established alliance between the Mughal administration and the Hindu elite. Attempts to halt construction of Hindu temples and re-impose the tax on unbelievers (jiyze) increased resistance to his regime. Following Aurangzeb's death in 1707, rebellions tore the Mughal Empire apart. Islamic invaders, Hindu separatists, and Sikh revolutionaries caused centralized political control to break down. Regional political control under various rulers became the norm in India. Instability opened the door for European intervention.

Internal weaknesses were sufficient to destroy the Muslim empires in Southwest Asia. The Ottomans and Safavid's also failed to recognize the threat to their dominance posed by the rise of the West until it was far too late. In India, greater awareness of the European threat developed, but not quite quickly enough. Had they responded with greater alacrity, however, it probably would have made little difference for two reasons: internal disunity and military technology. In technology and science, India, like most the Muslim regions, fell behind as European nations advanced. European trade empires in Asia removed one of the sources of profits for Muslim merchants. Thus, when the European threat actually materialized, Indian leaders lacked the capital to purchase an adequate number of advanced weapons to turn back the threat. Not that they did not try. Muslim ruler Tipu Sultan employed European weapons and the Sikh state in the 1840s used enough modern artillery against the British to turn the Punjab into something akin to the Western Front during World War I.

Lecture 7: The Rise of John Company

Wolpert, Chapters 10, 13, 15

View the following websites:

1. http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/British/EAco.html

Questions for further exploration:

What brought the East India Company to the verge of bankruptcy and led to government intervention

in its affairs in the late eighteenth century? What impact did early British rule have on Bengal? What was "indirect rule" and the "Doctrine of Lapse" (which had no basis in India Law as the British well knew)?

2. http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/British/Siraj.html

http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/British/Blackh.html

http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/British/Plassey.html

What was Sirajuddaula attempting to do that led to the Black Hole of Calcutta and the Battle of Plassey?

How was that 'battle" won? What objective did British historians have in their depictions of Sirajuddaula? What objective does the writer of the author of these sites have?

Lecture Overview

In the initial stages of imperialism, Europeans went to conquer new lands, to gain manufactured goods and raw materials not available in Europe, or to win new converts to Christianity. After industrialization, European imperialism changed. Post-industrial imperialists sought raw materials to feed the factories of the home country and new markets for manufactured goods. Religious conversion was not much of a factor. Post-industrial imperialism also resulted in the creation of true empires in Asia and Africa. No civilization was sufficiently powerful to stave off European penetration. By 1850, the new imperialism produced a race to establish empires abroad. The course of British affairs on the subcontinent of India traces this shift in means and objectives.

In the early stages of imperial advance, the great trading companies such as the East India Company sought to avoid involvement in political rivalries in those civilizations brought into the world trade system. Wars and the need to establish political administrations cut into company profits. Inevitably, however, the local representatives of the great merchant companies soon found that their weakness in relation to Asian land powers also meant lower profits as well, as they had to pay for the privilege of participation in the Eastern trade via licenses and duties. As early as they 1620s, European merchant companies began to resort to military force to secure more advantageous trading conditions. The British East Indian Company declared war on the Mughal Empire in 1689 and thereafter sought to exploit any opportunity offered by the declining Mughal authority to secure the political power that would enable them to achieve higher profit margins--ultimately by collecting taxes, rather than paying them. They used regional and international conflicts to justify the fortify their commercial centers (factories) and enter into empire-building wars with local princes who opposed these acts taken in defiance of their laws. Company directors did not always encourage more direct political intervention due to the expenses associated with waging war, but they acquiesced where ever their local agent's actions in expanding their political power led to lower costs. With the slow communications that existed prior to industrialization, local Company officers were free to use their own judgement and eventually conquered large regions and entire kingdoms in the name of their companies. Thus land empires began even prior to industrialization.

The British only gradually assumed a position of superiority over indigenous rulers in India. The establishment of British control in India had much to do with an imperial rivalry with the French that spanned the globe. Both wished to secure political control over the Indian producers of the cotton and other commodities that they were trading to China and other Asian countries (the "country trade). Initially, this was accomplished with great skill by a Frenchman, Joseph Francois Dupliex though the British were to call "subsidiary alliances." However, it was British who emerged as victors and masters of an Asian empire, largely because the French East India Company was too closely tied to the French government that had other global aims in mind than supremacy in India. The British representative of the East India Company who played a key role in defeating the French was Robert Clive. After winning initial victories in southern India, Clive won a major battle over the ruler of Bengal (Siraj-ud-daula) at Plassey in 1757. That ruler had attempted to prevent the kind of competition between the French and Indian merchant companies that had led to the loss of Indian sovereignty earlier in the South of India. Clive had, with the help of Hindu bankers, successfully bought off the chief general and most important allies of this ruler, Siraj-ud-daula. Clive's victory sealed the British supremacy over the French in India.

After Plassey, the British representatives of the East India Company involved themselves in succession disputes and wars among the Indian rulers who bordered Bengal. Bit by bit, the British wrested control of the Indian kingdoms from the declining Mughal Empire. Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta became the administrative centers of the British Presidencies that incorporated most of the territory actually controlled by the East India Company. Other Indian states were left as dependent allies. Despite their awareness of the growing power of the British, Indian princes continued to squabble among themselves and to supply recruits for the British armies. Armies recruited from Indian peoples became a potent force in the creation of a world-wide British empire. By the nineteenth century, Indian armies served British masters throughout the colonial empire.

At first the British colonial representatives simply positioned themselves as governors (nawabs) of the Mughal Emperor and established themselves atop the indigenous social hierarchies. For a time, they even fulfilled traditional obligations of Indian rulers as patrons of traditional art and culture. It took time for Europeans living in tropical climates had to accommodate themselves to an unaccustomed ecology. New types of housing, dress, and work habits were adopted which often reflected Indian custom (khakis, jodhpurs, the bungalow). Because the Company's officials were male, liaisons with indigenous women (bibis) were common and widely accepted. Marriage between Company officials and Indian women was comparatively rare, but not unusual.

By the 1770s, rampant corruption among the Company's servants (private trading!) within the East India Company forced the British government to enact reforms. The most sweeping of these were undertaken by Lord Charles Cornwallis in the 1790s. Cornwallis's reforms resulted in the cleansing of the East India Company's administration, but also distorted Indian social and economic realities and constricted the participation of Indians in their own government. Evangelical religious movements in Britain also induced reform. Slavery was abolished, and campaigns were launched against what were viewed as Indian social abuses. British utilitarians supported the cries for social reform and plans for the "betterment" of the Indian population. This posture was resisted by "Orientalists." Many Briton's in India had come to appreciate the grandeur of India that glistened despite the decline of Mughal rule. Sir William Jones, a British jurist in Bengal, noted that Sanskrit was a member of the Indo-European family of languages. It could thus be argued that India possessed a culture both related to and worthy of the respect of Europeans.

However, Evangelicals and Utilitarians in Britain pressed for the introduction of English-language instruction in India, increased Christian missionary activities and sought an infusion of British technology. At the center of the social reform program was the abolition of the practice of sati. Despite some resistance, the British insisted on an end to the practice. The British intentionally transmitted to India what they regarded as the centerpieces of Western civilization education, technology, and administrative organization in an attempt to recast Indian civilization in the Western image. This process was hastened by the industrial revolution. The sooner Indian's developed western tastes, the sooner they would buy British manufactured goods.

Lecture 8: The Fall of John Company and the Assumption of Crown Rule

Wolpert, Chapters 16-18

Visit the following web sites:

1. http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/British/BrIndia.html

What were the Indian states that were subject to the doctrine of lapse? How did the Black Hole of Calcutta and the Indian Rebellion of 1857-1858 become one in the British Imperial Mind?

1. http://www.harappa.com/engr/delhi1.html

What does the scene offered here depict? Why was it controversial? Why did Americans find it frightening, but the British deemed it essential to their rule in India?

2. http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Alley/5443/indmut2.htm

What possible role did increased communications between India and Europe play in the Indian Mutiny? Why as the "greased cartridge" so inflammatory?

3. http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Alley/5443/indmut3.htm

How did the British effectively use internal dissent within India to re-capture Delhi? What 'atrocities" occurred on both sides?

4. http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Alley/5443/indmut4.htm

Whose was Nana Sahib? What happened at the Bibi ghar? What was its impact?

4. http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Alley/5443/indmut5.htm

Why did the Siege of Kucknow become an important part of British imperial lore?

Lecture Overview

Industrialization heightened competition among European nations and the United States. One of the fields of competition was the race to establish international empires. Colonies were regarded as economic insurance for industrialized nations. They supplied raw materials, markets, and places to which disgruntled workers could potentially be shipped. Improved transportation and communications permitted national leaders to play more direct roles in imperial conquest.

National presses (newspapers, national magazines) gave governments the ability to build up public support to the imperial cause and to publicize victories abroad. Conflicts over imperial possessions justified governments' devotion of increasing amounts of money to military buildups, which in turn raised the stakes of imperial confrontation. In South Asia, this meant the Indian Army was employed as an arm of the British Imperial machine and wars were fought in Afghanistan and Burma for imperial purposes.

By the 1850s, a few British officials in India feared the rush to impose Western values and interests in on so old and entrenched a civilization. These concerns were, however, brushed aside. Missionary work was given clear government support. Indian soldiers (sipahi or sepoys) were forced to accept conditions of employment that threatened their ritual purity. Treaties with Indian princes were broken on flimsy grounds wherever such acts could consolidate British rule (the Doctrine of Lapse). The feared explosion was eventually ignited by a controversy over rifle cartridges greased with pig and cow fat in the late spring of 1857. The Sepoys mutinied and unrest spread throughout India, though not in the maritime provinces. The lack of unity among the "mutineers," the too thin veneer of legitimacy left of the last of the Mughals around whom only some sepoys rallied, and the all too disparate traditional causes subsumed within the "mutiny," doomed this drive to recover the subcontinent's liberation from European rule, though it was a near-run thing.

Engraving depicting of a mass execution at Peshawar of Indian troops found guilty of taking part in the Indian Rebellion of 1857-1858. Twelve men are hanged as a large assembly of British and Indian troops look on. In the background is the Fort of Jumrood and the entrance to the Khyber Pass.

The British response to the Indian Rebellion of 1857-58 was devastating. The administration of the East Indian Company was ended and replaced with Crown rule. The proportion of European troops in the Indian Army was increased at great expense to the Indian taxpayer. The Army itself was reorganized along ethnic and/or regional lines. Europeans in India also developed rules that strictly divided them from social interaction, to the point of creating white and "native" "towns"  in Indian cities. These developments were not unusual. As the nineteenth century progressed, European colonizers the world over exploited indigenous religious or ethnic divisions and rigidified differences by division of indigenous peoples into artificial races, tribes and classes. Social divisions between the rulers and the ruled in Asia increased with steam navigation and the building of the Suez Canal. These changes made it possible for colonial officers to go home to Europe on leave and to marry European women now easily able to visit the subcontinent. In other words, rulers one did not have to adjust as much to "native" life or see a ruler's future intimately connected with those they ruled. As a result, small numbers of Europeans governed masses of indigenous peoples whom they despised, a feeling fostered by growing acceptance of theories of white racial supremacy. These rulers managed to feel ennobled by their "sacrifice" in serving their empires by service among despicable heathen.

This process, however, came a shock to many Indians, particularly those had supported or benefited from British rule, had hoped to participate in the Empire as traders, had sent their children to be schooled in Western ways and, in a few cases, sought to use Western ideas to "modernize" Indian society from within. These now found themselves treated with contempt by British Indian officials. Yet "westernized" Indians were essential to administering the new British Raj, as Crown rule required closer contact between its administrative machine and the populace, and this job could only be carried out economically by employing Indians at the lower levels of the bureaucracy.

Economic administration in India also continued to rely on the support of indigenous subordinates to manage the Indian economy, but these were not treated as partners in empire. Efforts were made to increase the production of exportable products, such as Indigo, opium and cotton, in many cases by coercive means. To facilitate the movement of raw materials and agricultural crops, imperial nations such as Britain built roads and railroads from colonial interiors to ports, but Indians paid for them. Mining and agricultural productivity increased, but profits went to European imperialists. Indian workers scarcely benefited from their labor. Colonial economies were rapidly reduced to dependence on industrialized Europe. Indian officials were prohibited from raising import duties that would help stimulate the local manufacturing sector: Indians were expected to buy British imports, not develop their ability to serve their own markets. The government permitted British businessmen to entice thousands of Indians to go abroad to work on railroad building and other projects, knowing that these workers were being misled and would never receive the benefits their employers promised. The application of Western economic nostrums, the kind that led to famine in Ireland in the 1840s, also led to famine in India in the 1870s. The British interpreted Mughal land revenue policies though the prism of their own experience and without sufficient concern for Indian conditions. As result, Indians paid much heavier taxes and their social system was further disrupted.

Indian foreign policy was also made subservient to British imperial needs. Indian troops became the workhorses for an aggressive British policy in Central and Southeast Asia. Two failed Afghan Wars and the annexation of Burma after three grueling campaigns followed, the last of which almost bankrupted the Indian treasury.

Imperialism took a harsher tone in the nineteenth century. Racism increasingly dictated relations between colonizers and indigenous peoples. Colonial administrators actively pulled peasants into a market economy tilted heavily in favor of the imperial power. Indian human and material resources were squandered in foreign wars paid for by the Indian taxpayer. Yet, British rule in India was dependent on western educated Indians who paid much of those taxes and who would not long tolerate the denial of the inalienable rights that this education instilled in them nor the denial of national identity granted to emerging states such as Italy. When these sentiments first surfaced, the British sought to crush them through legislation designed to muzzle their newspapers and otherwise drive home their inferiority. The combination of famine, costly wars and spirit of resistance among western educated Indians soon forced a reconsideration of imperial policy.

Lecture 9: The Birth of Indian Nationalism and the British Response: 1880-1920

Wolpert, Chapters 17-20.

Visit the following web sites:

       1. http://swaraj.net/iffw/profiles/tilak_bg.htm

What was Tilak's political philosophy? How did it differ from Gandhi's? What events/issue is clearly avoided in this biography? How does the Age of Consent issue reveal the complexity of anti-western social reform and the problem it posed for nationalists like Tilak?

2. http://w3.gwis.com/~ajmani/jalianwalabagh.html,
http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Alley/5461/AMRITSAR.htm and
http://lachlan.bluehaze.com.au/churchill/am-man.htm


British over-reaction at Amritsar in India led to a tragic incident which led in turn to a widespread loss of its reputation and acted as a stimulus to nationalism. Even Winston Churchill, who was to oppose India’s independence on the grounds that Britain needed to exploit India’s resources in order to maintain its own power, criticized the handling of this incident. Why was the Punjab ripe for unrest after the Great War? Why were Indians in general angry with Britain in the aftermath of India’s great sacrifices in the support of the British in that war? What were the circumstances that led General Dyer to act both before and after the massacre? How did most Britons react to news of the massacre? In what typical and unique ways did pro-imperial Members of the British Parliament attack the government’s punishment of Dyer? What were the lasting results of the incident?

3. http://www.eecs.uic.edu/~atalathi/gsands.html

What is Satyagraha? Is it passive? Why is it superior to violence as a means of achieving political or moral ends? How was it to act to liberate India not only from the British, but also from its own forms of prejudice and social oppression.

4. http://www.harappa.com/wall/1930.html

http://www.pbs.org/weta/forcemorepowerful/india/

http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Gandhi/Dandi.html

What are some important characteristics of the Gandhi's Salt March?

3. http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Gandhi/GandhiMother.html

In what senses of the term is Gandhi perhaps best remembered as the mother of modern India, rather than its father?

Lecture Overview:

The beginnings of decolonization lay in the development of Western-educated middle classes in colonized Africa and Asia. Relying on primarily peaceful means, indigenous leaders expelled colonial regimes. World War I served to sufficiently weaken the Western colonialists so that anticolonialist movements became possible. World War II crushed the ability of the European powers to maintain the colonial structure.

India was the first to establish an modern independence movement. Western- educated minorities organized politically to bring about the end or modification of the Raj. However, they faced ciritical problems. They needed to reevaluate what needed to be kept from their own cultures and what accommodations with the West needed to be made. Reinvigoration of traditional beliefs and political structures was critical to the process of decolonization, but had important ramifications as to what the shape of the independent state would be.

British repression in the 1870s led to bitter criticism of the Raj that was further fuelled by Lord Ripon's attempt to defuse Indian nationalism by giving Indians a greater role in the municipal administration of their country. His reforms, however, floundered on the shoals of Indian officialdom's unwillingless tolerate any move in the direction of political devolution, particulary one that hit as close to home as the Ilbert Bill, which would have made Briton's in India's hinterlands--where they often abused Indian workers-- possibly subject to trial by an Indian magistrate. When Ripon's successor as Viceroy failed to follow up on Ripon's precedent and spent the country's Famine Insurance Fund on a imperialist war in Burma, he provided the impetus for regional associations of Western-educated Indians located in major cities to coalesce into the Indian National Congress party.

The first meeting of the Indian National Congress, 1885 Without a base of mass support, the primary function of the early party was to present grievances to the British colonial administration. Most of the issues concerned the Indian elite, not the poor, but they focussed on matters of principle that had wider impact. Thus, despite its limited aims, the Congress party did promote the formation of a sense of Indian identity.

British ham-fisted economic and social policies helped the Congress party attract a mass following. Indians opposed the massive costs for the colonial army, high-salaried bureaucrats, and the importation of British manufactured goods. Problems among the peasantry, including shortfalls of food supplies, induced nationalists to blame British policies that encouraged peasants to shift from the production of food to commercial crops.

Some nationalists, such as B. G. Tilak, emphasized the Hindu basis of the mass movement. Tilak and his supporters used Hindu religious festivals as a means of recruitment. Tilak urged the boycott of British manufactured goods. However, Tilak's conservative Hinduism frightened moderates, Muslims, and Sikhs. When evidence of Tilak's support for violence against the British regime surfaced, he was arrested and deported to Burma. Other Hindus embraced terrorism as a means of ending British rule. Terrorist groups favored secret organizations that targeted British officials and public buildings. Yet, British repression and lack of mass support reduced threats from terrorism prior to World War I. Peaceful schemes for protest against the British rule, such as those developed by Mohandas Gandhi, drew support away from the more violent movements of Tilak and the terrorists. With the repression of the latter groups, lawyers within the Congress party emerged as leaders of the nationalist movement.

World War I bolstered the Moderates in India's nationalist movement by weakening their British overlords. Hundreds of thousands of Indian troops were conscripted for European armies during the war. Colonies such as India also served as important sources of food and raw materials. During the course of the war, European vulnerability became evident. As troops were withdrawn from the colonies for the European fronts and administrative personnel were recalled, Africans and Asians began to fill posts previously reserved for European masters. To maintain support, European nations made many promises for future independence, but often failed to fulfill them after the war. Under these circumstances, even the nationalist leaders of India supported the war effort, but wartime inflation reduced standards of living among the Indian peasants and produced famine in some regions. Following the war, Indian nationalists were frustrated by British refusal to move directly toward independence. The initial promise of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms of 1919 was offset by the Rowlatt Act, which limited Indian civil rights.

These frustrations permitted Gandhi to build a nation-wide protest against colonialism. Gandhi combined an ability to reach out to Indian masses through the employment of traditional sentiments and ideals with the "modern" acumen of a Western-educated lawyer. He thus resolved the Moderates inability to achieve peasant support through mass action that, unlike the Extremists, was secular or at least universal in its appeal. Both peasants and the middle classes supported his leadership. His boycotts and campaigns of civil resistance made him acceptable to both radical and moderate nationalists. The one group that Gandhi found hard to convince were the Muslims, who in 1906 had formed a separate organization, the Muslim League. Just as the Muslims frustrated Gandhi's attempt to create a broad-based opposition to British rule, so did Hindu extremists opposed to religious toleration. Gandhi's attempts to repeal the Rowlatt Act revealed the strengths and weaknesses of his movement. When Gandhi's non- violent opposition turned increasingly violent, he called off the campaign. The British then imprisoned Gandhi.

Lecture 10: Tryst with Destiny: 1920-1947

Civil disobedience was renewed in response to the Simon Commission, which was supposed to lead to a reconsideration of British responses to nationalist movements, but this was blocked by conservative political leaders in Britian, such as Winston Churchill. The Great Depression, occurring just after the Simon Commission, led to the revival of mass movements for nationalism. Gandhi started the renewed campaign with the Salt March of 1930, which forced the colonial government to finally make significant concessions. The British opened all provincial governments to Indian leaders in the Government of India Act of 1935.