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The History of
India
Animated map of Inda 2800s BC from to AD 2016
(12 min. 5 sec.)
------------------------------
India
Location, Weather, Sea & Himalayan
Range
Class Teacher
------------
Rivers of India
Class teacher
Drainage System of India
Rivers
of India
JeethBharat
Indus
Valley
Generally, academics place the Indus Valley civilisation, i. e., the cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, ca. 3,500
- 3,300 to 1,500 - 1,300 BC.
During and after the demise of this civilisation, the Indus River Valley was invaded by the Indo-European Aryans
from the north and northwest (present-day Iran and Central Asia).
Civilisation
then developed in the east - along the Ganges River.
Ancient Indian History
Episode from the documentary series Religions of the World
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvcsY75HPpk
Hindu Mythology
The
Story of the Swastika
BBC
documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_reuMKpgow
The
Vedas
On the Vedas
Excerpt
from the documentary series Cosmos with Carl Sagan (1980) (15:07)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugyrzr5Ds8o
Hindu Ideas of Creation
Discussion
on thr weekly BBC radio programme In Our Time hosted by Melvyn Bragg (43 min.)
With guests
Jessica Frazier, Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad and Gavin Flood
13 December 2005
BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03k289f
You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRHqD6PZymk
An
Introduction to the Vedas
by Uttara
Nerurkar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcrZr6aNHfw
Hinduism
From
the series Brief Histories
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx9FcRfJZmo
The
Gods of India
Part
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJBGKcqtBXg
Part 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YldFSOmOms
Suriya
From the
series The Gods of India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCk4XiE0mQ8
Indra
From the series
The Gods of India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS-D-RK-TuU
Agni
From the
series The Gods of India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxyHgArrNsA
The
Hindu Trinty (Trimurti)
Brahma
Vishnu
Shiva
Brahma,
the God of Creation
From the
series The Gods of India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZh7QA4T0Js
Vishnu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_js1UK04Im4
The Ten
Aavatars of Vishnu
Matsya (fish)
Kurma (tortoise)
Varaha
(boar)
Narasimha (half-man half-lion)
Vamana (dwarf)
Parashurama (warrior)
Rama (Prince of Ayodhya)
Krishna (cowherd)
Buddha (priest)
Kalki (future, eternal)
Parallels
10 Avatars of Vishnu and Darwin's Theory of Evolution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0X4dM1ve4g
Origin
of Goddess Lakshmi, Consort of Vishnu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h8HKtHg6w4
Lakshmi
Discussion on thr
weekly BBC radio programme In Our Time hosted by Melvyn Bragg
With guests Jessica
Frazier, Jacqueline Suthren-Hirst and Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad
6 October 2016
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07wtggv
Krishna - The Avatar of Vishnu
From
the series The Gods of India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYzUReJqxuQ
Krishna - History or Myth?
Documentary
(34:25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLQ9ijVTKcI
Shiva
From
the series The Gods of India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2I_Xjn0JyI
Shiva
A Traditonal Tale
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtvkTvoPjwY
Unlock the Mysteries of Shiva
Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev08hnIcV6U
Parvati
From
the series The Gods of India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih0KzO2ESgY
The Upanishads
Discussion on the weekly Thursday BBC radio programme In Our Time hosted
by Melvyn Bragg (41:30)
With guests Jessica Frazier, Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad and Simon Brodbeck
8 November 2012
BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nq7ct
You Tube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxPKdf3z9j4
The Mahabharata
Episode
from the documentary series Myths of Mankind (52:01)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13KdR1pVsdc
The Bhagavad Gita
Discussion
on the weekly BBC radio programme In Our Time hosted by Melvyn Bragg
With
guests Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, Julius Lipner and Jessica Frazier
31
March 2011
BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zt235
You Tube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuUP6Mz0K5o
The Ramayana
The Story of Rama
By Valmiki (22:05)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBiWDKuEalE
The Ramayana
The Legend of Prince Rama (of Ayodhya)
1992 animation
(2:10:56)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5B1wKHT_hY
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWZCmVOevZY&feature=related
The oldest known surviving texts of the Ramayana:
Caste System
Life
in Ancient India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERxLSURibeQ
The
Caste System Explained in Four Minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16va-U3h8gI
The
Caste System
From the
lecture series World Religions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvFou_lK7oo
Dailit
Muslims of India
Al Jazeera
World documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2XktzecBYo
The Ganges
Gangetic Plain
Drainage
basins of the Ganges (yellow), Brahmaputra (violet) and Meghna (green)
Map
by Pfly based on Natural Earth data
India: Orthographical Features from the Imperial Gazetteer of India, volume 26,
Atlas (Map Number 3) (1908)
The Ganges River civilization was the second major civilisation in India Ca. 1500 BC - 500 BC.
Ganges
River
of Life
3-part
2007 BBC documentary (2 hrs., 25 min., 5 sec.)
1. Daughter
of the Mountains
2. River
of Life
3. Waterland
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TivVW67iSTs
or
1. Daughter of the Mountains
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM9aPy7H534
2.
River of Life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDKZSpDyn-Y
3. Waterland
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0NnJsEROU0
Jainism
Jains
Documentary
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPscKFV5yKU&feature=related
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHMQRmRKh_U&feature=relmfu
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a96nz4DvRRE&feature=relmfu
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=670KFhISeUk&feature=relmfu
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbheKLJl8GI&feature=relmfu
The Buddha
The Story of
the Buddha
Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFbjDcz_CbU
The Buddha
Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLMZNmxFUZU&feature=related
Buddhism
Short lecture from the
World Religions series
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkTuM0dwLOY
Siddhārtha
Gautama Buddha
From the series The
Gods of India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrwqMeUKU30
The Buddha
Discussion on the weekly BBC radio programme In Our Time
hosted by Melvyn Bragg
With guests Peter Harvey, Kate Crosby and Mahinda Deagallee
14 March 2002
BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00548br
You
Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65EerWhzI8g
Siddhartha
1972
movie based on the 1922 novel Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0JqOzG9uYs
Ajanta Caves
200s BC - c. A. D. 650 (?)
Ellora Caves
c. A. D. 600 - c. A. D.
1000
Seven Wonders
of the Buddhist World
2011 BBC-TV documentary with Bettany Hughes
Visit to famous Buddhist
temples in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan and the U. S.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7ZIpVKZaI4
The Power of Ideas
Episode # 2 from the 2007 6-part documentary series The Story of India with
Michael Wood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcT5J0l3HNU
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL5KioTqBWY
Ages of Gold
Episode # 4 from the 2007
6-part documentary series The Story of India with Michael Wood
About the Gupta empire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNK2vIBTlPU
Chandragupta Maurya
The Mauryan Empire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ISmwH6ShrE
Maurya
Warriors of the Elephant
Episode
from the documentary series Ancient Warriors
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn6H7-Mrx2Y
Ancient Rulers and Sects:
Unifiers of India - Chandragupta and Asoka
Lecture
# 21 by Gregory Aldrete from History of the Ancient World
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwTCTvcmgHc&feature=relmfu (Removed from You Tube)
The
Mauryan Empire
Class Teacher
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ISmwH6ShrE
Ashoka
Chakra, one of the numerous pillars erected by Ashoka throughout the sub-continent. The edicts inscribed on the pillars are
the oldest examples of writing in India.
Ashoka
Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTuNKCU0oLE
A clip from
Michael Wood's Story of India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH63aG1af5E&feature=fvwp&NR=1
Ashoka, on the left, with his Queen in a relief on the Kanaganahalli stupa from the first to third century CE.
Ashoka
the Great
Discussion on the
weekly BBC radio programme In Our Time with hosted by Melvyn Bragg
With guests
Jessica Frazier, Naomi Appleton and
Richard Gombrich
5 February 2015
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0511tm1
The Indians
Episode
from the BBC documentary series with Adam Hart-Davis What the Ancients did for us
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTn1iONBVD0
India
Episode from the
2007 documentary series What the Ancients Knew
Ancient India and
planned cities, houses with bathrooms and toilets, yoga, meditation, medicine, chess, science, maths, the numbers 1 to 9 and
zero, plastic surgery, eye operations and inoculation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMXXILYpGaQ
The Kama Sutra
Discussion on the weekly Thursday BBC radio programme In Our Time hosted by Melvyn Bragg
With guests Julius Lipner, Jessica Frazier and David Smith
2 February
2012
BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01bb9c9
You Tube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wlSf_Us7v0
The Huns
Hun attacks and rule of northwest
India (454 - 567)
Ancient Indian Ocean Trading Network
The Lakshmana temple in Khajuraho (c. AD 930 - 950)
Dedicated to Vaikuntha Chaturmurti or Vaikuntha Vishnu,
a four-headed aspect of Vishnu
----------------
Christianity
in India
There is an old tradition
that Thomas and Batholomew, two of the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ, travelled to India and converted Jews on the southwest
coast of India in the mid-first century AD.
Saint Thomas and Saint Batholomew
in a portrait from Bohemia circa 1390.
St. Mary's Orthodox Church in Tamil Nadu is believed to be the oldest church in the world, built by St. Thomas in
the mid-first century A. D.
Continue to next page, 7. Yellow River (Haung He/Huang Ho)
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Underworld
Episode # 1 from the documentary series Flooded
Kingdoms of the Ice Age with Graham Hancock
About Dwarka, 12,000-year-old City of Krishna (48:37)
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The History of Hindu India
Documentary by Hinduism Today with Raj Narayan
----------------
Indian Civilisation
26-lecture course by Vinay Lal, Introduction to the History
of India (History 9A), UCLA, Spring 2012
All 26 lectures:
Required reading (selections from): an history of early India by Romilla Popper; shortened versions of the Ramayana
and the Mahabharatha (William Bucks); an introduction to Hinduism by Vinay Lal; and an history of India (from
the beginning to the present) by Thomas and Barbara Metcalf
Other reading (selections from): The Discovery of India
by Jawaharlal Nehru; etc.
Website
with additional details about South Asia: Manas: India and its Neighbours
(lecturer's subject website)
https://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/index.html
Lecture 1.
Introductory lecture
-
Course requirements and course overview
-
General
discussion about the interpretation of Indian history
-
Religion in Indian history
-
Indian civilisation
-
The name 'India'
-
Sources of study
- Problems with translation
-
Rendering one culture into terms familiar to another culture
- Possible difficulties in
studying Indian history
-
South Asia as a field of study
- Roland
Barthes' Empire of Signs (1970)
Note: T. A. = Teaching
Assistant (Teaching Fellow)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93JMjX1XECo
Lecture 2.
- The problem of 'Orientalism'
- Problems in the interpretation
of Indian history
- The relationship of knowledge to power
- the politics of representation and the institutionalisation
of certain forms of representation, their relation to colonialism, etc.
- The nature of Orientalist discourse: 'The Black
Hole of Calcutta' (1756) as an illustration
- Physical geography of India
- Different names for India (Bharat,
Aryavarta, Hindustan . . . )
- Indus Valley Civilisation: an urban civilisation with town planning (3300 BC - 1300 BC)
Lecture 3.
- Indus Valley Civilisation (Harappan Civilisation) (3300 BC - 1300
BC)
- Harappa and Mohenjo-daro (2600 BC - 1300 BC)
- Undeciphered script of the Indus Valley
- Seals and their figures
- Demise of Indus Valley Civilisation and the coming of the Aryans
(c. 2000 BC)
- Import of the Aryan horse in India
- Creation of hierarchies with the horse and chariot
- The nature of the Rig Veda (1700/1500 BC - 1200/1100
BC), its status in Indian thought and some comparisons with the Koran
Note: The Four Vedas: Rig-Veda, Sama-Veda, Yajur-Veda, and Atharva-Veda
The Rig-Veda is the oldest known text in an Indo-European language
Lecture 4.
- Aryans and the Rig Veda (1700/1500 BC - 1200/1100
BC)
- Changing nature of Indian texts
- Oral tradition
- Sir William Jones and Indo-European languages (1786)
- Three language families in India: Indo-European
(I-E), Dravidian and Austro-Asiatic
- Importance of Sanskrit
- The Rig Veda's account of creation and a comparison with the Biblical account in Genesis
- The Aryan conception of four social castes
(caturvarna) - Brahmins
(priests), Kshatriyas (warriors), Vaishyas (merchants), and Shudras (laborers)
- four stages of life - Brahmacharya (student),
Grihastha (householder), Vanaprastha (retirement) and Sannyasa (renunciation);
- and the four Vedas - Rig-Veda, Sama-Veda, Yajur-Veda,
and Atharva-Veda
- Varna, caste hierarchies, notions of pollution and purity
-
Difference between varna (literal meaning of caste) and jati (actual significance of caste)
- Aryan
social organisation
- Stages of life
- Distinction between sruti (revealed) and smriti (remembered)
- The four ends of life according to the Aryans: artha (money and material well-being), kama (sexual
gratification), dharma (righteousness, virtue), and moksha (liberation, spiritual emancipation)
- Indra as an Aryan God -
chief god, destroyer of cities, god with the thunderbolt, god of rain, god of weather . . .
- Other Aryan Gods
- Agni, god of fire; Vayu, god of wind; Varuna, god of rivers and seas . .
Note: Arya = fair-skinned, noble; dasa = slave, servant
Lecture 5.
- Aryan Society
- Early Vedic Period (c. 1800/1700 BC - c. 800 BC)
- Later Vedic period (c. 1100 BC - c. 500 BC)
- Idea of Varsnasrama Dharma
-
Theory of Moksha (liberation)
- Political and social organisation of the Aryans - tribes, clans,
rajahs (chief), sabha (assembly), and samiti
- The illiterate Aryans and the oral tradition
- Transition from Vedas to the Upanishads (vedanta) (c. 800 - 200
BC )
- Social context of the Upanishads and theory of moksha (spiritual liberation)
and knowledge
- Story of Svetaketu in the Upanishads
- Meaning of the word Brahmin
- Worldview of the Upanishads
- Problems in using European categories to understand Indian texts and philosophical
traditions
- Upanishads as dialogic texts
- Shankaracharya's interpretation of the
Upanishads (600s AD)
- Avidya (ignorance) and vidya (knowledge)
- The affinity of the atman
(individual soul) and the Brahman (universal soul)
- Distinction between real and unreal, permanent and transient
- The story of the Buddha (563 BC -
483 BC) - Siddhārtha Gautama/Shakyamuni Buddha - birth, childhood,
enlightenment, teachings, disciples and death
- Buddhism spreads on the Gangetic Plain
-
Buddhism gives us the first concrete details of India
- The Buddha's conception of suffering and freedom
from the trappings of life;
- his idea of the four noble truths and the eightfold path
- The four noble truths: 1. all existence is suffering, 2. the cause of suffering is
ignorance, 3. if there is suffering there is a cause for it, 4. to alleviate suffering one must follow the eightfold path
- The eightfold path: 1. right beliefs, 2. right speech, 3. right conduct, 4. right mode
of livelihood, 5. right effort, 6. right mindedness, 7. right meditation, 8. right aspirations
Note:
Vedic Period: 1500 BC - 800/500 BC
Early Vedic Period: 1500 BC - 1100 BC
Late Vedic Period: 1100 BC - 800/500 BC
Upanishads: c. 800 - 200 BC
Lecture 6.
- The Upanishads and the notion of individual moral
responsibility
- Buddha (The Enlightened One) (563 BC - 483 BC) and Buddhism
- Mahavira (The Great Hero) (599 BC - 527 BC) and origins of Jainism
- key ideas, including dharma (law), sangha (community), ahimsa (non-violence), aparigraha
(non-possession)
- Jains
- Jaina theory of syadvada (perspective)
- John Godfrey Saxe's version of the parable of the six blind
men and the elephant (1872)
- Polity in India c. 600 BC - c. 350 BC
- Patna (Pataliputra), centre of the Magadha Empire (from
400s BC)
- Taxila (a university) (400s BC)
- Indian mathematics (zero, use of letters to designate unknown
quantities such as x, y ... ), astronomy, Panini's grammar of Sanskrit (300s BC) and surgery
- Alexander the Great's invasion of India (326 BC - 324 BC)
-
Alexander the Great's encounter with the gymnosophists (sadhu, fakir) in Vikram Chandra's novel Red Earth and Pouring Rain (Love and Longing
in Bombay) (1997)
Lecture 7.
- Alexander
the Great (326 BC - 324 BC) and the gymnosophists (naked sage or holy man) (sadhu, fakir)
- Mauryan empire (322 - 185 BC); unites
the Indus and Gangetic civilisations for the first time
- Chandra Gupta Maurya (ruled 324 - c. 297 BC), a Brahman (Hindu),
becomes a Jain;
- The Arthasastra (Science of Material Wealth) by Kautilya (aka
Chanakya and Vishnugupta) (The Machiavelli of the East) (100s - 200s AD), chief
minister of Chandra Gupta, one of two
sources for studying the Mauryan empire
- Bindusara
(ruled c. 297 - 273 BC), son of Chandra Gupta, remains a Brahman (Hindu) (Brahmanism), extends empire east and south, and
- Emperor Ashoka (ruled c. 268/273
to 232 BC), son of Bindusara, extends empire to the east and south, doubling its size
- Ashoka's conversion to Buddhism after the war in Kalinga (in Orissa) (c. 262 - 261
BC)
- Ashoka's edicts
- Ashoka's rock pillar edicts in
India (19 survive) - in Pakrit (vernacular language) in Brahmi script, one edict in Aramaic and Greek and one
edict in Greek;
- The Lion Capital on top of the pillar at Sarnath
- Ashoka's life, ecumenism, tolerance
and non-violence
- Ashoka's attempts to put together a corpus of Buddhist texts
- A political unity in India
- The spread of Buddhism to East Asia and Southeast Asia
- South India - The Tamil country in South India at the time of
Ashoka (Tamil inscriptions); the god Murugan (Karthikeya), son of Shiva, worshipped by Tamils;
- Development of popular Hinduism; the trinity or trimurti
- Brahma the creator, Shiva the preserver and Vishnu the destroyer; disappearance of Brahma
- Iconography
of gods and consorts/goddesses
- Example of Ardhnarisvara
(half-woman-god), Shiva as half-male and half-female; Vishnu has avatars (incarnations) but Shiva does not
- Ten incarnations (avatars) of Vishnu (dasavatara): Matsya (fish), Kurma
(tortoise), Varaha (boar), Narasimha (half-man and half-lion), Vamana (dwarf), Parashurama (warrior), Rama (main character
of the Ramayana), Krishna (main character of the Mahabharata), Buddha and Kalki (the furture and eternal god)
Note: Vedas - Upanishads - Shramanic (heterodox) religions (Buddhism, Jainism)
- Classical Hinduism - Trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva)
Note: Rama and Krishna are the most important avatars of Vishnu in India today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqpYe-bHScg
Lecture 8.
- Mauryan dynasty after the death of Asoka (322 - 185 BC)
- Political history of India
- 200 BC
- Political turmoil (200 BC - )
- History of South India and the Sangam period (c. 300 BC - c. 300s/400
AD)
- Tamil country (c. 300 BC - ), inscriptions
- Sangam literature (poems - main source on the Tamils
for the period) (c. 300 BC - c. AD 400)
- Hindu myths
- Vishnu and Shiva; Followers of Vishnu are called Vaishnavite and followers of Shiva are called Shivaite; the Vaishnavite
and Shivaite
sects and conflict between them.
- The Ramkatha or Ramayana is the story of Rama, an avatar of Vishnu, and Ravana, a devotee of
Shiva
- The Puranas - Puranic literature - sectarian literature
- Vishnu Purana (Vishnu) and Shiva Purana (Shiva) and Shaktu Purana (Shakti)
- The myth of Nara-simha (the man-lion) and story of Prahlad (story of the sectarian Vaishnavite and Shivaite
conflict)
- Gods and demons (asuras)
- Liminality
- Incarnation (avatar)
- Story of Vamana (the dwarf), an avatar of Vishnu
- The idea of many Ramayanas - A. K. Ramanujan and a Kannada (the language of Karnataka)
folktale
- Valmiki, a sage, composed the original
Ramayana c. 500 - c. 100 BC
- Some differences between the Ramayana (a poem) and Mahabharata (a history)
- Difficulties in viewing Ramayana as a work of history
- Tendency in recent years to historicise
Rama and his story
- Rama is an avatar of Vishnu
- Distinctions between history and myth
- The dispute over the Ramjanmasthan/Babri Masjid in Ayodhya:
Babur, Mughal emperor (ruled 1526 – 1530), destroyed the
Hindu temple to Rama in Ayodhya, birthplace of Rama in the Ramayana, and built the Babri Masjid mosque on the spot in
1528
Hindu nationalists destroyed the Babri Masjid mosque in 1992
Note: Samgam literature is a collection of secular literature
by literary asembies of Tamil poets from c. 300 BC to c. AD 400
Note: Ramkatha is another name for Ramayana
Lecture 9.
- Ramayana (the story of Rama)
- Many versions of the Ramayana
-
Gods, humans, demi-gods and asuras (demons)
- Hanuman
- A. K. Ramanujan's article about the many Ramayanas
-
Hindu nationalist readings of the Ramayana
- Agnipariksha (the trial by fire) and dharma
-
The two Krishnas of Indian tradition and the view of the Bengali writer Bankimcandra Chatterjee
- The Krishna of history
and myth
- Krishna and the gopis
- Episode of the vastraharana (theft of the clothes)
- Nationalists
and Indian history
- The British fascination with history
- Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (c. AD 200)
- Dialectic on freedom and discipline
- Yoga
- Cessation of thought
Lecture 10.
- Hindu gods and goddesses
- Iconography of the deities
-
Krishna as a cowherd with a flute to lure gopis (milk maidens)
- Iconography of Rama and the masculinisation of
the god by Hindu nationalsists
- Shiva, Nara-simha (lion king) and traditions of Indian miniature painting
- Shiva and his consort Parvati
- The episode of the vastraharana,
the theft of the clothes of the gopis (female cowherds) by Krishna
- the idea of nakedness, being shorn of one's
ego (ahamkara)
- Krishna's Rasleela (Rasa lila or Ras Leela)
-
Dasavatara (the ten avatars
of Vishnu)
- Scenes from the Mahabharata - the sermon called
the Bhagavad Gita
- Patanjali's
Yoga Sutras
- Different conceptions of yoga - eight limbs of yoga, including asanas (postures), pranayama (control of
breath) and the cosmology of breath; yama, ahimsa, celibacy
- Yoga and abstentions and affirmations.
- Yoga and the understanding and attainment of freedom
- Gita and yoga
- Schools of yoga espoused by the Gita
- Transition from
Vedas to Upanishads and Buddhism to the Gita
-
Bhakti yoga, karma yoga, jnana yoga
- Krishna's status - counselor to Arjuna
-
Importance of devotion (bhakti)
- Krishna's universal form (Vishwarupa).
- Mahabharata, the story of Draupadi and the allegorical
reading of polyandry (a woman having more than one husband) (polyandry was not an Aryan practice)
Lecture 11.
- Mahabharata, its structure; a story within a story
- Bhagavad Gita - a part of the Mahabharata (a story within a story)
- The wager
- Draupadi (a non-Aryan or pre-Aryan story) at the Assembly Hall
- Aswatthama and the death of Drona
- Krishna
and the death of Jayadratha
- Yaksha Prasna
- Yudisthira and his reputation for truthfulness
- Importance of vows and meaning of a
promise
- The supreme question of dharma
- Deception by Krishna (i. e., the false sunset)
- So-called 'Dark Ages' of India
(232 BC - AD 320) (from the death of Asoka to the establishment of the Gupta empire): period of fragmentation
of the empire
-
Significance of the 2nd cent. AD:
- four
key texts take their final shape: 1. Manusmriti (Laws of Manu), 2.
Kama sutra, 3. Arthasastra, 4. Yoga sutras
- The medium of expression
becomes stone
- End of the Mauryan empire (AD 185); the Shungas assassinate the Mauryan emperor and rule;
- The Shakas (Sakas, Scythians, Indo-Scythians) descend into India from the
central Asia in the northwest and succeed the Shungas (rule: c. AD 50 - AD 405)
- Tamils in the
south of India (Cholas in the north and Pandayas in the south) leave India for Southeast Asia (early first century AD)
- Indianisation of Southeast Asia (begins in early first century AD)
- The spread of Buddhism by the Silk Road over the Korakoram into Central Asia and China and by the Tamils traveling
by sea to Southeast Asia
- The "poetry in stone" - sculpture created
by Satavahanas in western India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRupnfB3gbk
Lecture
12.
-
Political history of India to c. AD 300 - 400
- The Shunga Dynasty (187 - 78 BC)
- Indo-Greek
dynasty in Gandhara (in the northwest), Gandhara school of sculpture
-
Classes of Indian literature: dharmasastras, arthasastra, nitisastras (on/about conduct) and kamasastras
-
Indian writers' obsession with classification
-
Vatsyayana's Kamasutra (as, for example,
the
sculptures of Khajuraho), Panchatantra (300 BC - ) (a nitisastra) and secular literature
-
The marga (high-brow) and the desi (low-brow) Indian culture
-
The Hindu tradition of the Goddess: Indian folktales
- Thomas Mann's Transposed Heads (1941) - the
notion of identity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAC01R1QWmE
Lecture 13.
- Niti Sastras (1200s
AD); contrast with Dharma Sastras
- Niti Sastras
deal with 'conduct'
- Indian folktales; India
is the source of many later folktales in other cultures, the Smith-Thompson index, the Pancatantra and the Kathasaritsagara
- A Biblical story
of Solomon's justice appears in earlier Indian folktales;
- There might be a common source to
the Jataka tales, Mahabharatha and Pancatantra
- The story of the four
Brahmins and the lion
- History of Indian art
and architecture with slide show of images of the Buddha, Gandhara sculpture, Khajuraho, Ajanta, Ellora
- Boddhisattva
painting of Ajanta
Note: Smith Thompson Motif-index of folk-literature: A classification of narrative elements
in folktales, ballads, myths, fables, medieval romances, exempla, fabliaux, jest-books, and local legends Published 1955
- 1958
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVdVGcuDKPk
Lecture 14.
- Problems with the periodisation of Indian history
- James Mill, son of John Stuart Mill (both worked for
the East India Company)
- James Mill's History of British India (first published in 1818)
- Mill's division of Indian history into three periods:
ancient, medieval and modern
or
Hindu, Mohammedan and British
In fact, Buddhism was the dominant religion - or one
of the two dominant religions - on the Gangetic Plain for the 700 years from c. 200 BC to c. AD 500/600.
The 500-year-period from the end of Ashoka's Mauryan Empire (180
BC) to the Guptas (AD 320) was one of great cultural dynamism.
- Indian history before the
Guptas: Indo-Greeks (c. 2nd. cent. BC - 1st. cent. AD); Shakas, Kushanas (AD 30 - 375); and the reign of Kanishka
(AD 120 - 144)
- Indian calendrical systems and the Vikrama era (began in 58 BC)
- Evidence from Pliny the
Elder
of Indian trade with Rome (Naturalis Historia [c.
AD 79]);
- the Sanskrit
Cosmopolis extends into Southeast Asia
- The Guptas (c. AD 320 - 550) and the so-called "Golden"
or "Classical" age of India
- Astronomy
- Chess
- Kalidasa and Indian literature
- Reigns of Chandra
Gupta I (c. 320 - c. 335), Samudra Gupta (c. 335 - c. 380) and Chandra Gupta
II (380 - c. 415)
- The political system Rajamandala
- Cultural capital (Pierre Bourdieu, 1977)
-
Gradual shift from Buddhism to Hinduism (Guptas become Hindus)
- Fa-hien's observations of India (c. AD 400)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfx1YcMiE2s
Lecture 15.
- the Guptas (c.
320 - 550); The Golden or Classical Age of Indian History
- Kalidasa (the
greatest of nine court poets) (perhaps in the early 5th century);
- reign of Chandragupta
II (380 - 413)
- the consolidation of
Puranic literature (in final form).
- Hun attacks (from
454 to 515) from the northwest repelled by Harsha
- Rajamandala
- the Indianisation of
Southeast Asia: Borubodor, Prambanan, Angkor, Pagan;
- various theories on
the spread of Indian influence to Southeast Asia
- reasons for the disappearance
of Buddhism from India:
- sectariansim,
-
Importance of Shankaracharya (788 - 820) and his revival of Advaita Vedanta;
- Buddhism and Brahminism;
- synthesis of Hinduism
under Shankara (AD 788 - 820)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzY4GqrEzLM
Lecture 16.
- Decline and disappearance of Buddhism from India and the different
competing narratives about the causes
- Shankaracharya
(788 - 820), a Brahman from South India, and his attempt to consolidate
Hinduism; his synthesis of popular Hinduism, Brahmanism,
Mahayana Buddhism and the Upanishads; his establishment of the supremacy of Hinduism; and
his establishment of a matha
(monastic order) in the four corners of
India: Jyothi (north), Shringeri (south), Puri
(east) and Dwarka (west); Advaita and Bhakti
- Buddhism is driven out to the north and east (and eventually
out of the east in the 900s and 1000s)
- Political history of India - the
political "fragmentation" of India: the Rajputs in Rajastan,
the Pratiharas in Madhya Pradesh, the Chalukyas in Gujarat,
the Rashtrakutas in the western Deccan and
the Palas in Bengal
- The Cholas and Pandayas in south India; the Chola bronze sculptures
- History of South India, the relationship of Tamil and Sanskrit
and loan words from Sanskrit
- Indian Ocean trading network - the importance
of the Cholas - the spread of Sanskrit to Southeast Asia
- decline of trade with the Eastern Roman Empire from 200s to 400s AD
- The predominant prsence of Gujaratis in trade
- The coming of Islam to India
- Elementary aspects of Islam:
monotheism, against idolatry, salat, the hajj, zakat, a month-long fast in Ramadan
-
Early Islamic invasions of Sind by sea (644)
- another
invasion repulsed by Chalukyas (730s)
- Theory of communalism and problems with the communalist interpretations of Indian history (Hindu and Muslim communities are formed
and defined by religion and opposed to one another)
- Mahmud of
Ghazni (ruled 998 - 1030), invaded India some twenty times to loot
- Hegel (1770 - 1831) on India
- Mahmud's attack on Somnath and pillage of the temple (1024)
- The Politics of Conquest
Continued at the bottom of Page 18.
Turks, Crusaders, Mongols, Moors, Explorers and Conquistadors
----------------
Champa
Treasures of the Champa Kingdom
Documentary
-------------
Angkor Wat
Secrets of Angkor
Episode from the documentary film series Secrets in the Dust
(50 min.)
or
or
or
------------
Angkor Wat
In Our Time
BBC radio progamme (every THursday)
Hosted by Melvyn Bragg
With guests
Piphal Heng, Postdoctoral scholar at the Cotsen Institute and the Programme for Early Modern Southeast Asia at UCLA
Ashley Thompson, Hiram W Woodward Chair of Southeast Asian Art at SOAS University of London
Simon Warrack, Stone conservator who has worked extensively at Angkor Wat
23 June 2022
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0018hd7
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