Empires Lec 28 Southwest Asia Confluence — Transcript

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1. 0:02foreign
2. 0:03today we're going to continue our
3. 0:06discussion of the post-hellenistic era
4. 0:09last time we looked at changes mostly in
5. 0:12the Greek Isles and in North Africa and
6. 0:15today we're going to push Eastward and
7. 0:16talk about some of the important changes
8. 0:18that are happening in India and in China
9. 0:22we'll look at some of the first codes
10. 0:23for human and animal rights and we'll
11. 0:26also see how some of those philosophies
12. 0:28that we had spoken about the eastern
13. 0:30philosophies such as Confucianism are
14. 0:33going to be incorporated into the newest
15. 0:35empires in China
16. 0:38foreign
17. 0:43let's talk about what's been going on in
18. 0:45India the last time we looked at this
19. 0:47region we had seen an expansion of urban
20. 0:50centers the creation of some
21. 0:52proto-kingdoms
22. 0:54and this region was benefiting from
23. 0:57increased trade
24. 1:00agriculture Maritime trade through
25. 1:03networks that are being established
26. 1:04along the Indian Ocean
27. 1:06but the first really large-scale Empire
28. 1:09is going to be called the mauryan Empire
29. 1:11and it will be chandragupta Who is
30. 1:14credited with establishing that Empire
31. 1:17in the 300s BC there had been a number
32. 1:20of people who had Glade claimed to India
33. 1:23particularly in the northwest region
34. 1:25remember that under Darius the Persians
35. 1:28had expanded into this area and had
36. 1:31ruled it as part of the ahmedid empire
37. 1:35this Empire is itself going to be
38. 1:37displaced by Alexander the Great
39. 1:39remember that he moves out of Greece
40. 1:41across Mesopotamia and eventually ends
41. 1:45up in Northwest India where he is going
42. 1:48to begin to build an Empire there also
43. 1:52whatever his plans for India were
44. 1:54however are going to be cut short
45. 1:56remember that on his way back towards
46. 1:58Saudi Arabia he is going to die and the
47. 2:01entirety of his Empire that he had
48. 2:03established up until that point will be
49. 2:05divided into three big chunks the
50. 2:08antigonids the ptolemids and the
51. 2:10seleucids
52. 2:12So within this environment we have
53. 2:16Chandra Gupta
54. 2:17Gupta have a lot of cooperating evidence
55. 2:19for his younger years but traditionally
56. 2:22it's thought that he was the son
57. 2:25of a minor nobleman probably a military
58. 2:28man and this man died living leaving the
59. 2:32family in relative poverty this causes
60. 2:35chandragupta to spend a bit of time
61. 2:37bouncing around
62. 2:39um working as a servant perhaps working
63. 2:41as someone
64. 2:43um as a herdsman
65. 2:44and then eventually he's going to be
66. 2:46either adopted or purchased by this
67. 2:50advisor chanakria who is really going to
68. 2:53be an influential person in his life
69. 2:57they begin to have a very tutor teacher
70. 3:00relationship and uh chanakria
71. 3:04has a lot of ideas about the way good
72. 3:07government should work and the way that
73. 3:09someone should have be a successful
74. 3:11leader and he records a lot of those
75. 3:14ideas into the famous treaties that
76. 3:16arthashastra which in many ways is going
77. 3:19to be a really foundational text for the
78. 3:21way that the mauryan Empire works
79. 3:25so as he becomes into he becomes a man
80. 3:27and he seems to have been able to get
81. 3:30enough local support to begin
82. 3:33um
83. 3:34consolidating
84. 3:37a claim to the throne and he actually
85. 3:39ascends the Throne of mogada in 325 BC
86. 3:44and then in the next couple of years
87. 3:46he's going to extend that control over a
88. 3:49Punjab so at this point he has a
89. 3:51relatively large empire in the works
90. 3:55he also however has to get rid of some
91. 3:59foreign presence we have the remnants of
92. 4:02the seleucids that have been part of
93. 4:04that division of Alexander's Empire and
94. 4:07by 305
95. 4:09there is a seleucid general
96. 4:12um necator who is pressing that claim in
97. 4:15Northwest India and Shadow Gupta very
98. 4:19decisively beats him and at this point
99. 4:22we have the establishment of the rule
100. 4:24the mauryan Empire which will be quite
101. 4:27large extending of course down into
102. 4:30everything but the very tip of Southern
103. 4:32India and then North all the way to
104. 4:35Afghanistan so it's one of the largest
105. 4:37Indian Empires that will ever exist
106. 4:41one of the things that Chandra Gupta has
107. 4:45to do right away is something that we've
108. 4:47seen other Empire Emperors do also which
109. 4:50is to establish clear lines of
110. 4:52communication and safe trade routes
111. 4:57you can claim to have control over a
112. 4:59whole region but if you have no real
113. 5:02mechanism for making sure that your
114. 5:04decrees are carried out and that the
115. 5:06taxes are coming in reliably you're
116. 5:09really just kind of kidding yourself so
117. 5:12he begins to invest in the
118. 5:14infrastructure of his Empire
119. 5:16building roads maintaining canals making
120. 5:19sure that trade routes are well policed
121. 5:21so that Merchants feel safe carrying
122. 5:24goods from one place to another
123. 5:26and again we'll also see during this
124. 5:27period the expansion of Maritime trade
125. 5:37Chandra Gupta lays the foundation then
126. 5:40for a very large and successful Empire
127. 5:44and so it's kind of interesting then
128. 5:46that he doesn't die in perhaps the way
129. 5:49we might expect either in the saddle
130. 5:51leading troops or you know surrounded by
131. 5:53his his courtiers and a royal palace
132. 5:57toward the end of his life he seems to
133. 5:59have gotten a prophecy that there was
134. 6:01going to be a famine and he was so
135. 6:04grieved by this and grieved by his
136. 6:05inability to help his people that he
137. 6:08begins himself fasting
138. 6:10and he Embraces Jainism which we've
139. 6:13talked about before Jainism this very
140. 6:16pacifist approach to life and he fast to
141. 6:21the extent where he actually dies he
142. 6:23Stars himself to death and that is going
143. 6:25to be the end of chandragupta
144. 6:28his son will succeed him and rule for a
145. 6:32period of Time begin expanding the
146. 6:33Empire even a little bit further but
147. 6:36it'll really be his grandson ashaka who
148. 6:39is going to leave a real Legacy in terms
149. 6:42of this mauryan Empire and Beyond
150. 6:44under ashaka the Empire is going to
151. 6:47reach its its Zenith become the largest
152. 6:51that it will ever be
153. 6:53and he does another thing which has left
154. 6:56a legacy not only for India but also for
155. 7:00the World At Large
156. 7:02sometime during his life he begins to
157. 7:04follow Buddhism and remember that prior
158. 7:07to that his predecessors would have been
159. 7:10Hindu but he begins to follow Buddhist
160. 7:13teachings and
161. 7:15begins to display a really sincere
162. 7:18interest in making sure that he is
163. 7:21governing in a correct way and that he's
164. 7:24creating a society which is in keeping
165. 7:26with some of those Buddhist tenets of
166. 7:29living in a way that really brings no
167. 7:32harm to anyone else
168. 7:35um
169. 7:35and as part of that he issues a series
170. 7:38of very uh famous edicts ashaka's edicts
171. 7:43and they're inscribed on Stone
172. 7:46um most notably on large pillars the the
173. 7:49circular or cylindrical pillars and the
174. 7:52text wraps all the way around these
175. 7:54pillars and then they were erected all
176. 7:56throughout the mauryan Empire
177. 7:58and a lot of these texts have to do with
178. 8:02civil and human and even animal rights
179. 8:06as we'll see in a minute
180. 8:08one of the things that he is in favor of
181. 8:11is to promote Buddhism and these are
182. 8:14some of the earliest texts that we have
183. 8:16talking about uh the Buddha and his
184. 8:20earliest teachings
185. 8:22so although he begins his reign in a in
186. 8:25a pretty military way and
187. 8:28um taking on some very bloody conquests
188. 8:30of areas that were resisting his control
189. 8:33toward the end of his life he too is
190. 8:37going to begin to question some of these
191. 8:39more violent actions he took as a young
192. 8:41man and begin to embrace a much more
193. 8:45peaceful way of life
194. 8:54many of these edicts have survived
195. 8:57because of course they were etched in
196. 8:58stone and we have these various pillars
197. 9:00and rocks that you can use to see some
198. 9:03of the edicts and here are a couple that
199. 9:05give you a sense I think of the types of
200. 9:08things that he was interested that
201. 9:10ashaka was interested in thinking about
202. 9:12and interested in forming a society
203. 9:14which preserves some of these values
204. 9:17um edicts on one of the Rocks known as
205. 9:20rock five
206. 9:22talks about the policy towards slaves
207. 9:25and he makes this statement that every
208. 9:27human is my child and again remember
209. 9:30that we we're dealing with a society
210. 9:32which is very stratified as as most
211. 9:35ancient societies were
212. 9:38um and so this is somewhat revolutionary
213. 9:40to think about humans as children even
214. 9:44children even humans that have been
215. 9:46designated as slaves or sutras or people
216. 9:48that are doing
217. 9:50um the very basic work of society are
218. 9:52still being given worth here in this
219. 9:54edict
220. 9:57edict 6 talks about how the king wants
221. 10:01to be informed about the conditions of
222. 10:03the people
223. 10:04so again showing a reflection of I I
224. 10:07need to know how my people are doing and
225. 10:09it's
226. 10:10I think it implies that it's the ruler's
227. 10:12responsibility to make sure that their
228. 10:14welfare is being taken care of
229. 10:17very notably he talks about religious
230. 10:19tolerance requesting tolerance for all
231. 10:22religions to Foster one's own sect
232. 10:26um depreciating the others out of
233. 10:29affection for one's own to exalt its
234. 10:32Merit to do the worst harm to one's own
235. 10:35sect
236. 10:37um so I think that it's it's asking that
237. 10:39people be aware of their own beliefs and
238. 10:41be free to grow those beliefs but that
239. 10:44don't do anything to harm anyone else's
240. 10:46beliefs and throughout his Reign the
241. 10:48emphasis is definitely going to become
242. 10:50Buddhist and those people that are in
243. 10:53line with that are probably going to do
244. 10:55the best in his Imperial Court and get
245. 10:58the best positions in fact ashaka is
246. 11:02credited with spreading Buddhism in part
247. 11:05it was his um
248. 11:07patronage which allows Buddhism to
249. 11:09spread Beyond India and he actively
250. 11:13sends sends Buddhist monks further east
251. 11:15into Sri Lanka and Eastward into China
252. 11:18which possibly contributes to the spread
253. 11:21of Buddhism in those areas as well
254. 11:30after ashaka's death
255. 11:33the Empire is going to begin to contract
256. 11:35from that Zenith point and over the next
257. 11:39several centuries you're going to see
258. 11:41some defections of Southern princes
259. 11:43there will be invasions from some
260. 11:46Outsiders there will be quarrels over
261. 11:48Ascension which are really going to
262. 11:49prevent it from reaching that Peak that
263. 11:52it had under the mauryan Empire until
264. 11:54later
265. 11:55and the 8th and 9th centuries uh CE
266. 11:59so the core of the Indian kingdom is
267. 12:04going to remain in maganda which we can
268. 12:06see by the uh by the map there is in the
269. 12:09eastern corner of India and there will
270. 12:14be a series of short-lived dynasties
271. 12:17um however the culture is going to
272. 12:19remain quite rich and influential you
273. 12:21have this unique situation where you
274. 12:23have indo-culture mixing with Persian
275. 12:26and Greek culture so although the
276. 12:29political entity is not going to revive
277. 12:32for a number of centuries the cultural
278. 12:34influence uh particularly Buddhism is
279. 12:37going to be something which impacts the
280. 12:39greater world
281. 12:48many of the groups that are going to
282. 12:50benefit from this period of
283. 12:52decentralization in India are nomadic
284. 12:57tribes and these contributions from
285. 13:00peoples that are essentially transitory
286. 13:02they're moving from one place to another
287. 13:04are going to be really felt in the Silk
288. 13:08Road something we'll talk about here in
289. 13:10a minute as trade begins to connect
290. 13:12between the farthest reaches of East
291. 13:14Asia to the Mediterranean World these
292. 13:16nomadic tribes are going to play a very
293. 13:18important role in moving goods and also
294. 13:21as a conduit for different ideas that
295. 13:23are going to be moving from east to west
296. 13:26perhaps one of the most successful
297. 13:28groups are the cush the cushion Empire
298. 13:31which is located as you can see in that
299. 13:35Northwestern area of the Indian
300. 13:37subcontinent is going to play a really
301. 13:39integral role in facilitating the Silk
302. 13:42Road it reaches its peak in about the
303. 13:45second to third centuries CE and they're
304. 13:48going to attain great wealth by uniting
305. 13:50sea trade from the Indian Ocean with the
306. 13:53Overland trade of the Silk Road