CSET Practice Test History Subtest I

Arabian Civilization

The Arab world stretches some 5,000 miles-nearly twice the
distance between New York and San Francisco-from the
Atlantic coast of northem Africa in the west to the
Arabian Sea in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in
the north to Central Africa in the south. It covers an
area of 5.25 million square miles, compared to the 3.6
million square miles of the United States.

With seventy-two percent of its territory in Africa and
twenty eight percent in Asia, the Arab world straddles two
continents, a position that has made it one of the world's
most strategic regions. Long coastlines give it access to
vital waterways: the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean
Sea, the Arabian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Men,
the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. While the Arab world is
dominated by dry climatic conditions, the existence of
mountain ranges permits seasonal rainfall. The Atlas range
in northwest Africa (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia) forms a
barrier between the Sahara Desert and the coastal areas.
Other important mountain systems are the Lebanon and Anti-
Lebanon ranges and the Zagros Mountains to the east of
Iraq.

Given the preponderance of arid conditions, reliable
sources of water are immensely important-be they springs,
from which oases are formed, or rivers. Foremost among the
river valleys are the Nile and the Tigris-Euphrates.

The population of the Arab world-approximately 150
million-is a youthful one. Almost half of the population
is under fifteen years of age. Given the current annual
rate of increase, the population will be approximately 280
million by the year 2000.

The concept of average population density has little
meaning when applied to the Arab world. Since significant
human settlement is found only where water supplies are
adequate, the overwhelming majority of Arabs lives in
relatively high concentrations along coastal areas and
major river valleys. The most striking example of this is
Egypt, where more than ninety percent of the population
lives on less than five percent of the land. 

Agriculture is the primary economic activity in the Arab
world. The most important food crops are wheat, barley,
rice, maize and millet. These are largely consumed within
the region, while cotton, sugarcane, sugar beets and
sesame are exported as cash crops.

The distribution of petroleum and natural gas is highly
localized, so that the Arab countries which possess these
resources are relatively few. Other natural resources
include iron, ore, lead, phosphate, cobalt and manganese.
The Arab world is the region where man first moved into a
settled form of society, cultivating grain and raising
livestock, establishing cities and promoting diverse
skills and occupations. In such a setting, rich and
complex cultures were nourished: ancient Egypt, Sumer,
Assyria, Babylonia and Phoenicia were great civilizations,
legends even in their own day, whose traces continue to be
uncovered in archeological sites throughout the region.

It was in this same area that the three great monotheistic
religions-Judaism, Christianity and Islam-were
established, in time spreading to all corners of the
world. The followers of those faiths lived in harmony
throughout the centuries in the Arab world, since all
considered themselves the children of one God.

The Prophet Muhammad appeared in the seventh century,
A.D., carrying the message of Islam. His Arab followers
soon spread the new faith in the West, across North Africa
into Spain and France, and in the East, to the borders of
China. But these Muslim believers were not merely
conquerors. They rapidly established a new and dynamic
civilization that for centuries was the only bright light
in an otherwise culturally and intellectually stagnant
world. Indeed, while Europe was experiencing its "Dark
Ages," the Arab/Islamic empire was at its apogee. It was
the same Islamic civilization, with its many contributions
to science and the humanities, that paved the way for the
rise of the West to its present prominence. 

The Arab world today is a rich composite of many and
diverse influences. Various ethnic, linguistic and
religious groups inhabit the region. Yet, Islam and the
Arabic language constitute its two predominant cultural
features. The Arab people, spread over a vast area, enjoy
common bonds of history and tradition. Members of twenty-
two different countries, the Arabs consider themselves to
be part of one nation.

The Arab people are further united through their
membership and participation in the League of Arab States.
One of the oldest regional organizations in the world, the
Arab League was founded on March 22, 1945, even before the
formal establishment of the United Nations. The primary
objectives of the Arab League, as it is commonly called,
are maximum integration among the Arab countries through
coordination of their activities in the political sphere
as well as in the fields of economics, social services,
education, communications, development, technology and
industrialization.

The headquarters of the Arab League is in Tunis, Tunisia,
which also hosts some of the League's specialized
agencies-some of which are based in other Arab capitals.
The twenty-two member states of the League, in
alphabetical order, are: Algeria, Bahrain, [Djibouti,
Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania,
Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia,
Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen Arab
Republic and Yemen Peoples Democratic Republic.

The Arab world in the twentieth century is a region in
transition-developing, modernizing and building the
foundation for its own renaissance. Its great and ancient
cities-Cairo, Damascus and Baghdad-with populations well
into the millions, are rapidly expanding their municipal
services, communications and other facilities. New
construction is evident everywhere as high-rise buildings
replace the covered bazaars of former times.

Those Arab countries with natural resources, especially
petroleum, are devoting large funds to development
programs in nearly every field while, at the same time,
providing their less fortunate sister states with
financial assistance to help them modernize. Scores of
thousands of young Arabs are studying in old and new
universities in their own countries or abroad,
particularly in the United States where there are an
estimated 60,000 Arab students. They are specializing in
professions and disciplines which will enhance the
progress of their homeland.

With all of this development and modernization, the Arab
world is also determined to preserve its traditions and
values, largely rooted in Islam. Its people are reaching
out for progress but without the dislocation that so often
accompanies rapid change.

While the great urban centers of the Arab world are
reaping the benefits of the space age, including satellite
communications with other parts of the world, many retain
the flavor of the past in architecture, arts and
traditions.

In sum, the Arabs today are still drawing cultural
sustenance from their great past, fueling their efforts to
move on into the future.

Since the seventh century, A.D., the culture of the Arab
world has been dominated by the last of the three great
monotheistic religions to have emerged from that region:
Islam. Islam, faith of the vast majority of Arabs, is more
than just a religion; it is the focal point of Arab
society for Muslims and non-Muslims alike permeating that
culture at every level-political, social, economic, as
well as private. To appreciate the enormous force of Islam
in the Arab world, one must understand the basic tenets of
the faith, how it emerged and grew.

Islam originated in the Arabian Peninsula, present-day
Saudi Arabia in 622 A.D. According to Islamic tradition,
God (Allah) conveyed to Muhammad, a tradesman, a series of
revelations which were to form the basis of the new faith.
Islam means submission-submission to the will of God; a
Muslim, in turn, is one who has submitted to Allah and who
acknowledges Muhammad as His prophet.

Muslims consider Muhammad to be the last in a series of
prophets which included Abraham, Moses and Jesus, to whom
God revealed His Divine Message. Islamic tradition, in
fact, takes into account the doctrines of both Judaism and
Christianity which preceded it; for example, Muslims
believe, as do both Jews and Christians, in one God and in
an afterlife. Islam also acknowledges Jews and Christians
as "people of the Book" (ahl alkitab), "the Book" meaning
the Bible, and grants them privileged status from the
early days of the Islamic empire into modern times. For
this reason, religious minorities throughout the Arab
world have survived and flourished during periods of
severe cultural and religious repression elsewhere.

The body of revelation which Allah delivered to Muhammad
through the Angel Gabriel is contained in the Qur 'an, the
holy book of Islam. The Qur 'an, written in Arabic, the
language of Allah's divine transmission, provides the
Muslim believer with all he or she needs to know to lead a
good and pious life. In addition to its obvious religious
significance, the revelation of the Qur'an represents the
crowning literary achievement of the Arabic language. It
has been both an immeasurable influence on the development
of Arabic literature and an inspiration for all branches
of literature and scholarship. Islamic acts of devotion
and worship are expressed in the Five Pillars of Islam.
These involve, not only profession of faith, but also,
recognition of God in all aspects of human conduct.

While most people know that Arabic is the written and
spoken language of more than a million inhabitants of the
Arab world, few realize that the Arabic script is also
used by one-seventh of the world's population.

Millions of people in Africa and Asia write their
languages in the Arabic alphabet. Farsi-the language of
lran- and Urdu-the language of Pakistan and some parts of
India-are written in the Arabic script. The Turkish
language employed Arabic characters until the 1920's. In
addition, Arabic script is used today in Afghanistan,
Indonesia, Malaysia, sections of China and even in the
Muslim areas of the Philippines and the USSR.

The reason for the extensive use of Arabic dates back to
the emergence of the Islamic faith in 622 A.D. The Qur'an,
the Holy Book of Islam, was revealed to the Prophet
Muhammad and subsequently, recorded in Arabic. Thus, for
the Muslim Arab of that time, as well as today, his
language and the language of God (Allah) are identical.
Arabic remains the primary vehicle for prayer in Islam.

As the new believers, or Muslims, spread out from the
Arabian Peninsula to create a vast empire-first with its
capital in Damascus and, later, in Baghdad-Arabic became
the administrative language of vast sections of the
civilized world. It drew upon Byzantine and Persian terms
and its own immense inner resources of vocabulary and
grammatical flexibility. By the eleventh century, A.D.,
this language was the common medium of expression from
Persia to the Pyrenees-the language of kings and
commoners, poets and princes, scholars and scientists.
Arabic became the principal reservoir of human knowledge,
including the repository for the accumulated wisdom of
past ages, supplanting previous cultural languages, such
as Greek and Latin. 

Arabic belongs to the Semitic family of languages, of
which Hebrew is also a member; thus, the term "Semite,"
referring to anyone who speaks a Semitic tongue. Arabic
script reads from right to left and its alphabet contains
twenty-eight characters. While it is universally written,
read and understood in its classical form, spoken Arabic
has undergone regional or dialectical variations.

The Arabic language developed through the early centuries
in what is today Saudi Arabia until, in the era
immediately preceding the appearance of Islam, it acquired
the form in which it is known today. Arab poets of the
pre-Islamic, or Jahiliyyah period, had developed a
language of amazing richness and flexibility, despite the
fact that many were desert bedouins (nomads) with little
or no formal education. For the most part, their poetry
was transmitted and preserved orally. The Arabic language
was then, as it is now, easily capable of creating new
words and terminology in order to adapt to the demands of
new scientific and artistic discoveries.

As the Empire spread, the Arabic language-and, indeed,
culture-was enriched by contacts with other civilizations:
Greeks, Persians; Copts, Romans, Indians and Chinese.
During the ninth and tenth centuries, a great translation
movement, centered in Baghdad, was in force, in which many
ancient scientific and philosophical tracts were
transposed from ancient languages, especially Greek into
Arabic. Many were enhanced by the new wisdom suggested by
Arab thinkers; other texts were simply preserved; only to
re-merge in Europe during the Renaissance.

Modern European languages, such as Spanish, Portuguese,
French, Italian and English owe a great debt to Arabic.
The English language itself contains many words borrowed
from Arabic: algebra, alchemy, admiral, genius, ghoul,
mare, sherbet, soda and many others. 

The Prophet Muhammad said "it is the duty of every Muslim
man and woman to seek education," and under his influence,
the Arabs were encouraged to pursue knowledge for its own
sake. Fulfilling the duty to pursue knowledge gave Muslims
a head-start in education. Among the early elementary
educational institutions were the mosque schools which
were founded by the Prophet himself; he sat in the mosque
surrounded by a haiqa (circle) of listeners, intent on his
instructions. Muhammad also sent teachers to the various
tribes to instruct their members in the Qur'an.

The formal pursuit of knowledge had existed in one form or
another since the time of the Greeks. The Arabs translated
and preserved not only the teachings of the Greeks but
those of the Indians and the Persians as well. More
importantly, they used these basic teachings as a starting
point from which to launch a mass revolution in education
beginning during the Abbasid dynasty (750-1258 A.D.).

During the Abbasid period, thousands of mosque schools
were established throughout the Arab empire and the
subjects of study were increased to include hadith (the
science of tradition), fiqh (ju-risprudence), philology,
poetry, rhetoric and others. In tenth century Baghdad
alone there were an estimated  3,000 mosques. Fourteenth
century Alexandria had some 12,000 mosques, all of which
played an important role in education.

In the mosque school, the teacher sat on a cushion and
leaned against a column or wall as his students sat around
him listening and taking notes. Only Muslirns were allowed
to attend the Qur 'an or hadiih sessions, but non-Muslims
could attend all other subjects. There was no age limit,
nor were there any restrictions on women attending
classes.

Historians such as Ibn Khallikan reported that women also
taught classes in which men took lessons. Few westerners
recognize the extent to which Arab women contributed to
the social, economic and political life of the empire.
Arab women excelled in medicine, mysticism, poetry,
teaching, and oratory and even took active roles in
military conflicts. Current misconceptions are based on
false stereotypes of Arab life and culture popularized by
some journalists and "Orientalists."

In the mosque schools, rich and poor alike attended
classes freely. Classes were held at specific times and
announced in advance by the teacher. 

Students could attend several classes a day, sometimes
traveling from one mosque to another. Teachers were
respected by their students and there were formal, if
unwritten, rules of behavior. laughmg, talking, joking or
disrespectful behavior of any kind were not permitted.

Different teachers used various methods of instruction.
Some preferred to teach from a text first and then to
answer questions. Others allowed student assistants to
read or elaborate upon the instructor's theories while the
teachers themselves remained available to comment or
answer questions. Still others taught without the benefit
of texts.

In 1066 A.D., Nizam al-Mulk, a Seljuk vizier, founded the
Nizamiyya Madrasa in Baghdad which became the forerunner
of secondary/college level education in the Arab empire.
Madrasas had existed long before Nizam al-Mulk, but his
contribution was the popularization of this type of
school. The madrasa gave rise to various universities in
the Arab empire and became the prototype of several early
European universities. Founded in 969 A.D., AI-Azhar
University in Cairo preceded other universities in Europe
by two centuries. Today it attracts students from all over
the world. The madrasas, which literally mean "places for
learning," were the beginning of departmentalized schools
where education was available to all. The physical
construction of the madrasas provided student dormitories.
Each madrasa, depending on its location, had a specific
curriculum. The subjects taught were the religious
sciences (.e.g, the study of the Qur'an, hadith,
jurisprudence and grammar) and the intellectual sciences
(e.g. mathematics, astronomy, music and physics). As these
schools began to attract distinguished teachers and
specialists from all corners of the Arab empire, the
number of disciplines increased. Teachers received
substantial salaries and scholarships and pensions were
available for students. Funds for operation of the
madrasas came from both the government and private
contributions. Since the government played an important
role in promoting these institutions, the subject matter,
choice of teachers and allocation of funds were closely
supervised and regulated.

The development of the madrasa evolved from the various
elementary and secondary schools which were prevalent in
the Abbasid empire: the mosque school and other
traditional institutions; makiabot, or libraries, which
originated in the preIslamic Arab world; tutoring houses,
palace schools haiqa, discussion groups in the homes of
Muslim scholars; and the library salons in the palaces of
wealthy men and courtiers who were patrons of learning and
scholarship. In addition, there were the majaits or
meetings which were presided over by learned men at
various social institutions and private homes. The majalis
covered a wide range of topics and subjects. In the
current revivals of traditional Islam, many of these "old"
institutions and customs are being resuscitated.

Traveling to other cities to seek knowledge under the
direction of different masters was a common practice in
the early centuries of Islam. From Kurasan to Egypt, to
West Mrica and Spain, and from the northern provinces to
those in the south, students and teachers journeyed to
attend classes and discuss social, political, religious,
philosophical and scientific matters. The custom was later
popularized in Europe during the Renaissance.

Academies began to emerge in the eighth century, serving
as centers for the translation of earlier works and for
innovative research. Each academy provided rooms for
classes, meetings and readings. The Bay: al-Hikma of the
Caliph al-Ma 'mum (813-833 A. D.) and the Dar a!- 'fim of
Cairo founded by al-Hakim (996-1021 A.D.) are the most
notable. Books were coUceted from all over the world to
create monumental libraries that housed volumes on
medicine, philosophy, mathematics, science, alchemy,
logic, astronomy and many other subjects. 

Along with the introduction of paper and textbooks in the
eighth century came the antecedent of "teacher
certification." An instructor would give his permission to
competent students to teach from one or all of his
textbooks. Because of this practice, an individual could
have an ijazah to teach a subject although he himself
might be a student in another class. Consequently, the
distinction between teacher and student was often
minimized.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as Arab influence
spread to Spain, Sicily and the rest of Europe, Europeans
became increasingly aware of Arab advancements in many
fields, especially education and science. Books were
translated from Arabic into Latin and, later, to
vernacular languages. European schools which had long
limited learning to the "seven liberal arts" began to
expand their curricula.

For some five hundred years, Arab learning and scholarship
played a major role in the development of education in the
West. The Arabs brought with them well developed
techniques in translation and research and opened new
vistas in areas of medicine, the physical sciences and
mathematics. Application of empiricism in all fields of
study was rapidly incorporated into the learning system of
those who became familiar with Arab methodology. Long
before the popularization of the phrase "transfer of
technology," a term used to describe advanced expertise
which developed nations offer to Third World countries,
the Arabs shared their accumulated knowledge and
institutions with the rest of the world.

The Ancient Civilization of India

From the earliest settlements along the Indus River, the
Dravidians and later the Aryans spread their settlements
deep into the sub-continent. Protected by geographic
barriers, the valley inhabitants had limited contact with
the outside world. Farmers cultivated cotton and processed
it into cloth which became a valuable trade commodity.
Their cities were well planned with shops, granaries,
extensive sewer systems and protective walls. Two major
religions, Buddhism and Hinduism, developed in India and
spread throughout Asia. 

Art served religion well in India. The artists of the area
cut unique Buddhist Temples from rocky cliffs with facades
and interiors intricately carved to imitate the wooden
constructions of the period. From the earliest simple
structures to the ornate and imposing later ones, the
Hindu Temples must be appreciated as sculpture as well as
architecture. Their paintings, particularly from the Gupta
dynasty, are classed as some of the finest in history.

Indian culture is an ancient and dynamic entity, spanning
back to the very beginnings of human civilization.
Beginning with a mysterious culture along the Indus River
and in farming communities in the southern lands of India,
the history of the sub-continent is one puncuated by
constant integration with migrating peoples and with the
diverse cultures that surround India. Placed in the center
of Asia, Indian history is a crossroads of cultures from
China to Europe, and the most significant Asian connection
with the cultures of Africa. 

Indian history, then, is more than just a set of unique
developments in a definable process; it is, in many ways,
a microcosm of human history itself, a diversity of
cultures all impinging on a great people and being
reforged into new, syncretic forms.

The most striking element of Indian geography is the
natural barrier formed by the mountain ranges in the north
of India. For India is a continental plate that is
crashing into the Asian continental plate. As it does,
both continental plates push up the earth where they meet
into a forbidding range of mountains. The central mountain
range, passing across in the shape of a sword near the
northern edge of the Indian subcontinent, is the Great
Himalayas. These northern mountains, which are less of a
barrier in the west, have naturally isolated India from
its neighbors. 

All along the southern edge of this great mountain wall
are rich soils that are generously rained on; even though
this region lies in the temperate zone, it is lush and
subtropical. To the south are the extensive flood plains
of the Indus River in the west and the Ganges in the east.
With rich soil renewed every year by river flooding and
with generous summer rains, these plains in the north are
among the richest agricultural areas in the world. It was
here that Indian civilization first arose, in the fertile
flood plains adjoining the Indus River. This vast stretch
of flood plain has been the home of the great Indian
empires as well, the Mauryans and the Guptas. 

The southern portion of India is a large peninsula with a
forbidding mountain range all along the western coast and
a large flat plateau called the Deccan in the center of
the sub-continent. The eastern coast is flat land and
affords many opportunities for harbors; from this area
Indian culture had the widest contacts with foreign
peoples. The western portion, however, being walled from
the sea and hard to reach by land, subsequently became the
seat of the powerful empires of the south, such as the
Muslim kingdoms. 

India is one of the most culturally, linguistically, and
ethnically diverse regions one can imagine. Four major
peoples, distinguished by the languages they speak, make
up the population of the region. The majority of the
population are Indo-European speaking a variety of
languages related to European languages such as Greek,
German, or English. Precisely when these peoples arrived
is subject to much debate, but they seem to have arrived
somewhere between 2000 BC and 1600 BC, and they brought
with them their own religion and social system. The bulk
of Indian religion and almost all of its literature is
Indo-European. Second to the Indo-Europeans, but more
ancient in India than the later immigrants, are a people
who speak languages from the Dravidian family of
languages. While we cannot be certain, the Dravidians were
probably the authors of the great Indus River
civilizations contemporary with the Mesopotamian
civilizations to the west. In addition, the peoples in the
northern mountains speak languages related to Chinese,
Tibetan, or Mongolian. Finally, the smallest group, but
most likely the oldest inhabitants of India, speak
languages from the Australoid family, which are the
languages spoken by indigenous peoples scattered
throughout southeast Asia and Australia. Australoids are
still present throughout the mountainous forests of the
Deccan, but their traditional way of life, which was still
vital only forty years ago, is beginning to die out. 

Each of these peoples speak a bewildering variety of
languages; each region of India is dominated by a single
language. The major languages, most of which are Indo-
European, are: Hindi Urdu (which is very closely related
to Hindi but uses Arabic script) Bengali Marathi Assamese
Sindhi Oriya Punjabi Kashmiri Nepali Telugu (Dravidian)
Tamil (Dravidian) Kannada (Dravidian) Malayalam
(Dravidian) Despite this variety of languages, Indian
culture is remarkably fluid and the contacts between
peoples frequent and productive. Very few cultures are so
tied into the overall geography of their region; Hinduism
requires frequent pilgrimages as part of one's spiritual
perfection, so the intercourse between different peoples
has been constant throughout Indian history. 

In the north, the great mountain barrier. To the south,
the great river plains of the Indus and the Ganges, and
the large, high plateau of the Deccan. This is the stage
on which a complex history took place, and the first act
began along the Indus River. 

Although agriculture seems to have come late to India,
arriving sometime around 5000 BC, India was one of the
first regions to give birth to civilization. Only a few
centuries after the first Mesopotamian cities sprang up, a
people living along the northern reaches of the Indus
River discovered urbanization, metalwork, and writing. It
is a mysterious civilization and one with no discernible
continuity, for it thrived for just several centuries and
then disappeared. The Indo-European immigrants who settled
the region did not adopt most of the aspects of this
civilization, and what precisely they did adopt is
difficult to ascertain. So while Egypt, Mesopotamia, and
the Yellow River civilizations lasted for millenia and
left their mark on all subsequent cultures, the Indus
River civilization seems to have been a false start. 

For the overwhelming majority of human history, this early
culture was truly a lost civilization. The mounds which
stood where great cities once thrived excited interest in
observers, but no one in their wildest dreams could have
imagined that beneath those large mounds lay cities that
had been lost to human memory. 

In the 1920's, excavations began on one of these mounds in
Harappa in Pakistan. While the archaeologists expected to
find something, they did not imagine that a city lay
beneath the earth. Archaeologists would later discover
another large city to the recovery of at least eighty
villages and towns related to this newly discovered
civilization. They named it Harappan after the first city
they discovered, but it is more commonly called the Indus
River civilization. While we have stones and tools and
fragments and bones, we really have no one's voice or
experience from the bustling days of the great Harappan
cities. We don't know who the people were who built and
lived there. We don't know, either, when they first built
their cities; some scholars argue that Harappan
civilization arises around 2250 BC, while others argue
that it can be dated back to 2500 BC or earlier. 

Like the civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece,
Harappa grew on the floodplains of a rich and life-giving
river, the Indus. The original cities and many of the
towns seemed to have been built right upon the shores of
the river. The Indus, however, is destructive and
unpredictable in its floods, and the cities were
frequently levelled by the forces of nature. Mohenjo-Daro
in the south, where the flooding can be fairly brutal, was
rebuilt six times that we know about; Harappa in the north
was rebuilt five times. 

The Harappans were an agricultural people whose economy
was almost entirely dominated by horticulture. Massive
granaries were built at each city, and there most
certainly was an elaborate bureaucracy to distribute this
wealth of food. The Indus River valley is relatively dry
now, but apparently it was quite wet when the Harappans
thrived there. We know this because the bricks that they
built their cities with were fired bricks; since sun-dried
bricks are cheaper and easier to make, we can only assume
that over-abundant humidity and precipitation prevented
them from taking the cheaper way out. In addition, many of
the Harappan seals have pictures of animals that imply a
wet and marshy environment, such as rhinoceroses,
elephants, and tigers. The Harappans also had a wide
variety of domesticated animals: camels, cats, dogs,
goats, sheep, and buffalo. 

Their cities were carefully planned and laid out; they
are, in fact, the first people to plan the building of
their cities. Whenever they rebuilt their cities, they
laid them out precisely in the same way the destroyed city
had been built. The pathways within the city are laid out
in a perpendicular criss-cross fashion; most of the city
consisted of residences. 

Life in the Harappan cities was apparently quite good.
Although living quarters were cramped, which is typical of
ancient cities, the residents nevertheless had drains,
sewers, and even latrines. There is no question that they
had an active trade with cultures to the west. Several
Harappan seals have been found in excavations of Sumerian
cities, as well as pictures of animals that in no way
could have existed in Mesopotamia, such as tigers. There
is not, however, a wealth of Mesopotamian artifacts in
Harappan cities. 

We know nothing of the religion of the Harappans. Unlike
in Mesopotamia or Egypt, we have discovered no building
that so much as hints that it might be a temple or involve
any kind of public worship. The bulk of public buildings
in the city seemed to be solely oriented towards the
economy and making life comfortable for the Harappans. We
do, however, have a number of tantalizing figures on
various seals and statues. What we gather from these
figures (and we can not gather much), is that the
Harappans probably exercised some sort of goddess worship.
There is, however, some sort of male god (maybe) that has
the head of a man with the horns of a bull. In addition,
we believe from various artifacts that the Harappans also
may have worshipped natural objects or animistic forces,
but the circumstances of this worship can only be guessed
at. 

We know that the Harappans were eventually supplanted by
waves of migrations of Indo-Europeans. These new peoples,
however, did not seem to adopt the religious practices of
the Harappans, so it is not possible to reconstruct
Harappan religion through the religion of the Vedic
peoples, that is, the Indo-Europeans who constructed the
rudimentary Indian religion represented by the Vedas. 

Right at the heart of the mystery, like a person speaking
behind sound-proof glass, are the numerous writings on the
artifacts that have been unearthed. Harappan writing was a
pictographic script, or at least seems to be; as of yet,
however, no one has figured out how to decipher it or even
what language it might be rendering. The logical candidate
is that the Harappans spoke a Dravidian language, but that
conclusion, which may not be true, has not helped anybody
decipher the script. Like the rest of Harappan
civilization, the writing was lost to human memory after
the disappearance of the Harappans. 

And finally they disappeared. And they disappeared without
a trace. Some believe that they were overrun by the war-
like Aryans, the Indo-Europeans who, like a storm, rushed
in from Euro-Asia and overran Persia and northern India.
Some believe that the periodic and frequently destructive
flooding of the Indus finally took its toll on the
economic health of the civilization. It is possible that
the periodic changes of course that the Indus undergoes
also contributed to its decline. All we know is that
somewhere between 1800 and 1700 BC, the Harappan cities
and towns were abandoned and finally reclaimed by the rich
soil they had sprung from. 

The Aryans

They called themselves the "noble ones" or the "superior
ones." Their names are lost; their tribal names are lost.
But when they found themselves conquerors, they gave
themselves the name "superior" or "noble." 

They were a tribal and nomadic peoples living in the far
reaches of Euro-Asia in hostile steppe lands barely
scratching out a living. They were unquestionably a tough
people, and they were fierce and war-like. Their religion
reflects it dominated as it is by a storm-god or sky-god
that enjoins warfare and conquest. This god was called
something like "Dyaus," a word related to "Zeus," "deus"
(the Latin word for "god"), "deva" (the Sanskrit word for
"god"), and, of course, the English word "divine." Their
culture was oriented around warfare, and they were very
good at it. They were superior on horseback and rushed
into battle in chariots. They were a tribal people ruled
over by a war-chief, or raja (the Latin word "rex" (king)
comes from the same root word, along with the English
"regal"). Somewhere in the early centuries of the second
millenium BC, they began to migrate southwards in waves of
steady conquest across the face of Persia and the lands of
India. 

There, they would take on the name "superior" or "noble"
to distinguish themselves from the people they conquered.
Their name is derived from the Indo-European root word,
"ar," meaning "noble." In Sanskrit, they were the "Aryas"
("Aryans"); but that root, "ar," would also serve as the
foundation of the name of the conquered Persian
territories, "Iran." This concept of nobility, in fact,
seems to lie at the heart of Indo-European consciousness,
for it appears in another country's name, "Ireland," or
"Eire." You can bet, however, that when a people go around
calling themselves superior that it spells bad news for
other people. 

And there is no question that they were bad news for the
southern Asians. They swept over Persia with lightening
speed, and spread across the northern river plains of
India. Their nature as a warlike, conquering people are
still preserved in Vedic religion, the foundation of
Hinduism. In the Rig Veda, the collection of praises to
the gods, the god Indra towers over the poetry as a
conquering god, one that smashes cities and slays enemies.
The invading Aryans were originally nomadic peoples, not
agricultural. They penetrated India from the north-west,
settling first in the Indus valley. Unlike the Harappans,
however, they eventually concentrated their populations
along the Ganges floodplain. The Ganges, unlike the Indus,
is far milder and more predictable in its flooding. It
must have been a paradise to a people from the dry steppes
of central Asia and Iran, a paradise full of water and
forest. When they arrived, the vast northern plains were
almost certainly densely forested. Where now bare fields
stretch to the horizon, when the Aryans arrived lush
forests stretched to those very same horizons. Clearing
the forests over the centuries was an epic project and one
that is still preserved in Indian literature. 

The Aryans, or Vedic civilization were a new start in
Indian culture. Harappa was more or less a dead end (at
least as far as we know); the Aryans adopted almost
nothing of Harappan culture. They built no cities, no
states, no granaries, and used no writing. Instead they
were a warlike people that organized themselves in
individual tribal, kinship units, the jana. The jana was
ruled over by a war-chief. These tribes spread quickly
over northern India and the Deccan. In a process that we
do not understand, the basic social unit of Aryan culture,
the jana, slowly developed from an organization based on
kinship to one based on geography. The jana became a
janapada, or nation and the jana-rajya , or tribal
kingdom, became the jana-rajyapada, or national kingdom.
So powerfully ingrained into Indian culture is the jana-
pada , that Indians still define themselves mainly by
their territorial origins. All the major territories of
modern India, with their separate cultures and separate
languages, can be dated back to the early jana-padas of
Vedic India. 

The earliest history of the Aryans in India is called the
Rigvedic Period (1700-1000 BC) after the religious praise
poems that are the oldest pieces of literature in India.
These poems, the Rig Veda, are believed to represent the
most primitive layer of Indo-European religion and have
many characteristics in common with Persian religion since
the two peoples are closely related in time. In this early
period, their population was restricted to the Punjab in
the northern reaches of the Indus River and the Yamuna
River near the Ganges. They maintained the Aryan tribal
structure, with a raja ruling over the tribal group in
tandem with a council. Each jana seems to have had a chief
priest; the religion was focused almost entirely on a
series of sacrifices to the gods. The Rigvedic peoples
originally had only two social classes: nobles and
commoners. Eventually, they added a third: Dasas , or
"darks." These were, we presume, the darker-skinned people
they had conquered. By the end of the Rigvedic period,
social class had settled into four rigid castes: the
caturvarnas, or "four colors." At the top of the
caturvarnas were the priests, or Brahmans. Below the
priests were the warriors or nobles (Kshatriya), the
craftspeople and merchants (Vaishya), and the servants
(Shudra), who made up the bulk of society. These economic
classes were legitimated by an elaborate religious system
and would be eventually subdivided into a huge number of
economic sub-classes which we call "castes." Social class
by the end of the Rigvedic period became completely
inflexible; there was no such thing as social mobility. 

In the early centuries of Later Vedic Period or Brahmanic
Period (1000-500 BC), the Aryans migrated across the Doab,
which is a large plain which separates the Yamuna River
from the Ganges. It was a difficult project, for the Doab
was thickly forested; the Aryans slowly burned and settled
the Doab until they reached the Ganges. While the Rig Veda
represents the most primitive religion of the Aryans
during the Rigvedic Period, the religion of the Later
Vedic period is dominated by the Brahmanas, or priestly
book, which was composed sometime between 1000 and 850 BC.
Later Vedic society is dominated by the Brahmans and every
aspect of Aryan life comes under the control of priestly
rituals and spells. In history as the Indians understand
it, the Later Vedic Period is the Epic Age; the great
literary, heroic epics of Indian culture, the Mahabharata
and the Ramayana, though they were composed between 500
and 200 BC, were probably originally formulated and told
in the Later Vedic Period. Both of these epics deal with
heroes from this period and demonstrate how Aryan cultural
values, as we can understand them from the Rig Veda , are
being transformed by mixing with Indus cultures. 

What did the Aryans do with their time? They seem to have
had a well-developed musical culture, and song and dance
dominated their society. They were not greatly invested in
the visual arts, but their interest in lyric poetry was
unmatched. They loved gambling. They did not, however,
have much interest in writing even though they could have
inherited a civilization and a writing system when they
originally settled India. We do not know exactly when they
became interested in writing, but it may have been at the
end of the Brahmanic period somewhere between 650 and 500
BC. Still, there are no Aryan writings until the Mauryan
period-from Harappa (2500-1750 BC) to Maurya (300 BC) is
quite a long time. The script that the Mauryans used is
called "Brahmi" script and was used to write not only the
religious and literary language of the time, Sanskrit, but
also the vernacular languages. This script, Brahmi, is the
national alphabet of India. 


The Vedic period, then, is a period of cultural mixing,
not of conquest. Although the Aryans were a conquering
people when they first spread into India, the culture of
the Aryans would gradually mix with indigenous cultures,
and the war-religion of the Aryans, still preserved in
parts of the Rig Veda, slowly became more ritualized and
more meditative. By 200 BC, this process of mixing and
transforming was more or less complete and the culture we
call "Indian" was fully formed.  

In 331 BC, Alexander the Great of Macedon began one of the
greatest conquests in human history. After conquering
Egypt and defeating the Persian Empire Alexander had
pushed his army to the very limits of the world as the
Greeks knew it. But he wanted more; he saw that the world
extended further. By conquering the ancient lands of the
Mesopotamians, he came into contact with cultures to the
east, such as Pakistan and India. After almost a millenium
and a half, from the period of Harappa (2500-1750 BC), to
the end of the Brahmanic period, the peoples of India
entered into no commerce or trade with the Mesopotamians.
But starting around 700 BC, the Indians began to trade
again with the Mesopotamian cities, and by the time of
Alexander, that trade was dyanmic. Partly out of
curiosity, and partly out of a desire to conquer the
enitre world within the boundaries of the river Ocean (the
Greeks believed that a great river, called Ocean,
encircled all the land of the world), Alexander and his
army pushed east, through northern Iran and all the way to
Pakistan and India. He had conquered Bactria at the foot
of the western Himalayas, gained a huge Bactrian army, and
married a Bactrian princess, Roxane. But when he tried to
push on past Pakistan, his army grew tired, and he
abandoned the eastward conquest in 327 BC. 

Alexander only made it as far as the region of Gandhara,
the plain which lies directly west of the Indus River.
Alexander himself seems to have had literally no effect on
Indian history, for he left as soon as he reached the
Indus. Two important results, however, arose because of
Alexander's conquests: first, from this point onwards
Greek and Indian culture would intermix. But most
importantly, the conquest of Alexander may have set the
stage for the first great conqueror of Indian history,
Chandragupta Maurya (reigned 321-297 BC), who, shortly
after Alexander left, united all the kingdoms of northern
India into a single empire. 

The Mauryans

Chandragupta Maurya (321-297 BC)

He was an adventurer rather than a king. Like Alexander,
he began with almost no army whatsoever; with this army he
seized the region of Magadha just south of the lower
Ganges and then steadily conquered the whole of the Ganges
basin. Chandragupta Maurya had started his empire. When
Alexander the Great departed from Gandhara, a power vacuum
was left in western India which Maurya took advantage of.
Marching westward, he quickly conquered the whole of the
Indus Valley, and eventually gained Gandhara and Arachosia
(the mountainous region west of the Indus) after defeating
the Greek rulers of Persia and Bactria, the Seleucids. 

Hand in hand with this ambitious conqueror was a shrewd
and calculating Brahman named Kautilya. While Chadragupta
Maurya built his empire by the force of his arm, Kautilya
designed the government. Together they created the first
unified state in Indian history. The government Kautilya
and Chandragupta created strictly regulated economic
activities. The laws were harsh and the death penalty was
applied to a myriad of offenses. 

Bindusara (297-272 BC)

Chandragupta's son Bindusara extended the conquests even
further by setting his sights south to the Deccan. By the
end of Bindusara's reign, the Mauryan Empire included at
least a third of the peninsula and stretched all the way
from Bangladesh to the Hindu Kush mountains. 

Asoka (272-232)

Of the great conquering kings of the Maurya Empire, the
only one we know much about is Asoka, for it is in the
reign of Asoka that the first samples of Indian writing
since the fall of Harappa appear. Asoka kept careful
records of his edicts, so we have an excellent source for
the history of his reign. 

He seems to have been forged from the same mold as his
illustrious fathers. Once he rose to the throne, he began
an aggressive campaign to conquer the remainder of the
subcontinent. The last major regions yet to be conquered
were the Dravidian regions in the far south and the
Kalinga in North India. 

The conquest of Kalinga, which extended Mauryan rule to
its farthest boundaries, seems to have been a tremendous
shock to Asoka. War and conquest are always bloody and
cruel, and the experience of massive homicide is often an
experience that shakes people to their very souls. Asoka
was so troubled by the conquest that he underwent a
religious conversion. In the latter years of the Brahmanic
period, several religious movements arose in reaction to
the power and abuse of power by the Brahmans. The most
significant of these religious reactions was Buddhism,
which is discussed in more detail in the chapters on the
religious history of ancient India. Buddhism was really
much less of a religion and more of a philosophy–or,
better yet, a philosophical therapy. Its founder,
Siddhartha Guatama, the "Buddha," or "Awakened One," was
the son of a noble who, when he first encountered death
and sickness, resolved to find a way to end human
suffering. After years of struggle and meditation, he
"awakened" to the truth of things: that all human
suffering is caused by human desire and that human desire
can be quenched when one understands the impermanence of
all things, including the self. Unlike Brahmanism,
Buddhism eschews elaborate rituals and magic; unlike the
Rig Veda, Buddhism advocates a non-striving, non-coercive
and meditative life. 

The Buddhist way of life was a way out of Asoka's crisis.
He converted to Buddhism and strove to achieve the
Buddhist "middle way" between extremes. He became a
vegetarian, renounced all warfare, and attempted to build
a state based on Buddhist principles. First and foremost,
the state would strive for nonviolence, or ahimsa; in
place of violence, the state would rule by "law" or
"right" (dharma). 

Asoka, of course, could not put all of these reforms into
practice. He found that some level of violence and
retribution was necessary and declared as much. Although
he made the laws less harsh, they still involved physical
punishment and, in some cases, execution. Still, Asoka
began a process of transformation in Indian society. He
represented first and foremost the possibility of
exemplifying religious idealism in a lived life rather
than in a merely formal position. Although he took the
vows of Buddhism and even joined the order, he chose to
remain active in the real world and exemplify his religion
in his actions as king. He also demanded religious
toleration; under Asoka, all competing religious systems
were allowed to co-exist peacefully. The stunning ability
of Indian culture to tolerate competing religions
throughout its history begins with Asoka. Finally,
although he could never really fully translate Buddhist
ideals into government, he began a process of cultural
transformation that would completely remake India. By the
start of the Gupta dynasty, the bulk of Indian society had
become vegetarian and no laws carried the death penalty. 

His greatest achievement, however, was cultural. For he
was dedicated to his new religion and fervently patronized
its expansion. Under Asoka, Buddhist monks were sent in
every compass direction: to Burma, Tibet, Nepal, Persia,
Mesopotamia, Syria, and Israel. The eastern evangelical
missions were extremely successful; Buddhism spread very
quickly from Nepal and Burma into Tibet and China where it
was fervidly embraced. The western missions, however, were
less successful. However, Buddhism left traces in Middle
Eastern and even European culture. For instance, one of
the Catholic saints of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
was Barlam, whose life is based on that of Siddhartha
Gautama, the Buddha. Not only is this Catholic saint the
Buddha, but one of the stories of Barlam is the conversion
of a cruel king, Iosaphat; this king, in many ways,
corresponds to Asoka, who is presented as intolerant and
cruel before his conversion in the Indian epic,
Asokavadana. So there is tantalizing evidence that
Buddhism has had some influence on Christianity, though we
are not quite sure to what extent. 

Needless to say, the spread of Buddhism under Asoka
greatly influenced the religious history of Asia. Asoka's
conversion also produced the first written literature in
India; it was not Vedic literature but the Buddhist
scriptures that were first committed to writing. Finally,
Asoka's zeal in spreading Buddhism beyond the borders of
India ensured its survival, for when the Muslims defeated
the Hindus and took control of India, Buddhism is
destroyed as an organized religion in India. 

Asoka was the last of the great kings of the Mauryan
dynasty. His successors were less energetic and capable;
in 184 BC, the last of the Mauryan kings was assassinated,
and the first empire of India came to an end. When the
last of the Mauryan kings was assassinated in 184 BC,
India once again became a collection of unfederated
kingdoms. During this period, the most powerful kingdoms
were not in the north, but in the Deccan to the south,
particularly in the west. The north, however, remained
culturally the most active, where Buddhism was spreading
and where Hinduism was being gradually remade by the
Upanishadic movements, which are discussed in more detail
in the section on religious history. The dream, however,
of a universal empire had not disappeared. It would be
realized by a northern kingdom and would usher in one of
the most creative periods in Indian history. 

The Gupta Dynasty (320-550)

Under Chandragupta I (320-335), empire was revived in the
north. Like Chandragupta Maurya, he first conquered
Magadha, set up his capital where the Mauryan capital had
stood (Patna), and from this base consolidated a kingdom
over the eastern portion of northern India. In addition,
Chandragupta revived many of Asoka's principles of
government. It was his son, however, Samudragupta (335-
376), and later his grandson, Chandragupta II (376-415),
who extended the kingdom into an empire over the whole of
the north and the western Deccan. Chandragupta II was the
greatest of the Gupta kings; called Vikramaditya ("The Sun
of Power"), he presided over the greatest cultural age in
India. 

This period is regarded as the golden age of Indian
culture. The high points of this cultural creativity are
magnificent and creative architecture, sculpture, and
painting. The wall-paintings of Ajanta Cave in the central
Deccan are considered among the greatest and most powerful
works of Indian art. The paintings in the cave represent
the various lives of the Buddha, but also are the best
source we have of the daily life in India at the time.
There are forty-eight caves making up Ajanta, most of
which were carved out of the rock between 460 and 480, and
they are filled with Buddhist sculptures. The rock temple
at Elephanta (near Bombay) contains a powerful, eighteen
foot statue of the three-headed Shiva, one of the
principle Hindu gods. Each head represents one of Shiva's
roles: that of creating, that of preserving, and that of
destroying. The period also saw dynamic building of Hindu
temples. All of these temples contain a hall and a tower. 

The greatest writer of the time was Kalidasa. Poetry in
the Gupta age tended towards a few genres: religious and
meditative poetry, lyric poetry, narrative histories (the
most popular of the secular literatures), and drama.
Kalidasa excelled at lyric poetry, but he is best known
for his dramas. We have three of his plays; all of them
are suffused with epic heroism, with comedy, and with
erotics. The plays all involve misunderstanding and
conflict, but they all end with unity, order, and
resolution. 

The Guptas tended to allow kings to remain as vassal
kings; unlike the Mauryas, they did not consolidate every
kingdom into a single administrative unit. This would be
the model for later Mughal rule and British rule built off
of the Mughal paradigm. 

The Guptas fell prey, however, to a wave of migrations by
the Huns, a people who originally lived north of China.
The Hun migrations would push all the way to the doors of
Rome. Beginning in the 400's, the Huns began to put
pressure on the Guptas. In 480 they conquered the Guptas
and took over northern India. Western India was overrun by
500, and the last of the Gupta kings, presiding over a
vastly dimished kingdom, perished in 550. A strange thing
happened to the Huns in India as well as in Europe. Over
the decades they gradually assimilated into the indigenous
population and their state weakened. 

Harsha, who was a descendant of the Guptas, quickly moved
to reestablish an Indian empire. From 606-647, he ruled
over an empire in northern India. Harsha was perhaps one
of the greatest conquerors of Indian history, and unlike
all of his conquering predecessors, he was a brilliant
administrator. He was also a great patron of culture. His
capital city, Kanauj, extended for four or five miles
along the Ganges River and was filled with magnificent
buildings. Only one fourth of the taxes he collected went
to administration of the government. The remainder went to
charity, rewards, and especially to culture: art,
literature, music, and religion. 

Because of extensive trade, the culture of India became
the dominant culture around the Bay of Bengal, profoundly
and deeply influencing the cultures of Burma, Cambodia,
and Sri Lanka. In many ways, the period during and
following the Gupta dynasty was the period of "Greater
India," a period of cultural activity in India and
surrounding countries building off of the base of Indian
culture. This medieval flowering of Indian culture would
radically change course in the Indian Middle Ages. From
the north came Muslim conquerors out of Afghanistan, and
the age of Muslim rule began in 1100.