other asia developement

• Indus Civilization


  Civilization that emerged along the Indus River had to cope with the cycle of wet and dry seasons brought by the monsoons
• Indus Civilization


  • Encompasses most of Pakistan and western states of India
  • Comprise more than 1,500 settlements – most of them villages or town and few cities
  • Dated back 7000BCE
  • Villages found along the ancient Saraswati River – holiest of all rivers to the Aryans
• Cities of the Indus-Ganges plain

  • Harappa
  • Mohenjo-daro
• Harappa and Mohenjo-daro


  • Well-planned cities – had streets of considerable size and number
• Clay seals


  Described how the Indus valley civilization traded with some other groups of people
• Indus Valley Civilization


  • AGRICULTURE
  • Harappan cities – one of the oldest agricultural settlements in the region
  • Practices in a wide scale – hundreds of settlements and extensive networks of canals for irrigation
  • Wheat and barley cultivated in Indus plain while millet in the region of Gujarat
  • Rice – cultivated for trade
• Rulers of Indus Valley Civilization

  Governed the cities through the control of trade and religion
• Harappan society


  • Stratification identified through the discovery of two sets of materials used for clothing ornaments – such as buttons, combs, and hairpins
  • Cities divided into two: a.) citadel on the western side b.) lower town on the eastern side
• Indus-Saraswati cities


  • Well planned
  • Two sectors: a. upper portion in west part called citadel b. lower portion eastern part called town
  • Citadel – erected on high platform – enclosed by a wall, within are two prominent structures – granary and Great Bath
  • Great Bath- used for ritual bathing ; with brick walls sealed with bitumen; floor slanted toward a corner drain
  • Granary – storage for crops – as offerings or confiscated produce
  • Towns – divided into a number of blocks by a grid straight lines from north to south and from east to west with each block further subdivided into smaller lanes
  • Roads and streets – enclosed by a fortification of gateways
  • Elaborate drainage
  • Some rooms- with wells, bathing rooms, toilets with waste water drains connected to a system of drains built alongside the lase and streets leading to a septic tank or cesspool outside the city
• Religion of Indus Valley Civilization

  • Great Bath or big "swimming pools" – built above ground ; signifies religious practice of purification rites
  • Ghats or bathing steps – in riverbanks
  • Clay seals and figurines – decorated with animal motifs like elephants, water buffaloes, tigers, common unicorn
  • Clay figurines of mother goddess are common in Mohenjo-daro and Baluchistan
  • Tree worship part of the Indus civilization
  • Peepal tree – sacred tree, regarded as celestial plant, has divine spirits
• Economic life of Indus Valley Civilization


  • Harappan expert craftsmen
  • Made beads of carnelian, agate, amethyst, turquoise, lapis lazuli, manufactured bangles out of shells. Glazed faience, and terracotta
  • Baked pottery, excelled in stone-carving, complex weaving and carpet-making, carved seals
  • Seals – very valuable sources of data about economic life
  • They engaged in agriculture and livestock raising
  • Craftsmen used standardized tools and techniques
  • Standard system of stone weights was found – cubes and truncated spheres
• Arts of Indus Valley Civilization

  • Ostrich egg shell engraved with cross-hatched designs and cave paintings on walls, ceilings and archers on rock shelters
  • Mask used for drama
  • Children's toy
• Writing of Indus Valley Civilization


  • Scripts and symbols found in tiny figurines, potteries and other artifacts
  • 30 letters used and over 40 symbols found
  • Written from right to left
• Factors why Indus-Saraswati civilization disappeared


  • Climate change
  • Invasion of the Aryans
• Original inhabitants of Indus Valley


  • Dravidian tribe or Dasyus (ancestors of the Tamils) – first to live in the valleys of the Indus River
  • Dark-skinned people
  • Believers of life-giving gods
• Aryans


  • First people to inherit the legacies of the Indus Valley Civilizations
  • Nomads who came from Iran to northwest India through the Khyber Pass
  • Blending of the characteristics of the Indus civilization and of the Aryan culture resulted in a unique Indian Civilization
• Hinduism


  Result of the blending of Indus civilization and Aryan culture
• Sindhu


  Name given to the Indus
• Sanskrit


  Language of the Aryans
• Vedas


  • Hymns, incantations, and rituals from ancient India
  • Veda means "knowledge" or "wisdom"
  • The four Vedas is called Shruti
  • Samhita means collection
  • Rig Veda – tells about barbarian tribes fighting in battles. It also narrates how these tribes settle in small villages and cultivating crops and graze flocks of goats, sheep and cattle's
• Hindu principle of nonviolence or ahimsa


  Forbids man to kill any of their animals, gave special protection to cows
• The four Vedas


  • Rig Veda
  • Yajur Veda
  • Sama Veda
  • Atharva Veda
• Rig Veda


  The oldest among the four Vedas
• Dasyu


  • Aryan word for slave
  • People the Aryans found in India, called "dark skinned"
• Aryans


  • Taller and lighter in skin color, spoke a different language, did not develop a writing system, they were pastoral, based their wealth in the number of cows they owned, offered sacrifices to heroic nature gods like Indra, the thunder god and Agni, the fire god
• Dasyu


  • Town dwellers, who lived in communities protected by walls, they worshipped life-giving gods like the "Great God" Shiva and various many goddesses
• Aryan social classes


  • Brahman (priests)
  • Kshatriyas (warriors)
  • Vaishyas (farmers or merchants)
  • Shudras (non-Aryan laborers or craftsmen)
• Varna


  Skin color was the distinguishing feature in the Aryan social system
• Caste system


  • Became hereditary
  • Membership determines the work they should do, the man or woman they could marry, and the people they could eat with
  • Ritual purity on the habits of eating and washing that made a person physically and spiritually clean became important
  • Those not considered pure lived outside the caste structure
  • They were called "untouchables" because it is believed that contact with these people endangered the ritual purity of others
• The rice granary explains that the Indus Valley Civilization practiced agriculture on a wide scale
• The inscriptions prove that the Indus Valley Civilization traded with some other groups of people
• Neolithic China


  • Exemplified by the Yangshao and Lungshan traditions
  • Yangshao culture (300-1500BCE) – painted pottery, animal domestication and silk production, dug-pit or semi subterranean houses were built
  • Lungshan culture (2500-200BCE) – black pottery, refined pottery attributed to the use of potter's wheel, lived in walled settlements, large towns with heavy gates, knew how to make bronze tools, weapons and ornaments, use pictographic script as way of writing
• Xia dynasty


  First dynasty in China, ruled by King Yu, known for the teaching the Chinese flood control techniques and initiated the period of clan control, provided a government structure combine with civilian government and harsh legal system
• Shang Dynasty


  • Lasted from 1532 to 1027 BCE, first family of rulers to leave a written records, gave way to a complex society, its people specialized in various trades and crafts as proven by the excavation in Anyang, the capital of the Shang dynasty, revealed bronze work which suggest that Shang dynasty was an age of strong religious feelings, bronze works were shaped and decorated with animals including the bronze bells, bronze axed used for beheading, other bronze materials used for offering food and wines to their ancestors
• Oracle bones


  Scapula or shoulder bones of the water buffalo or cattle or turtle shells with carved inscriptions, used to predict the future or to ask questions involving decision to be made, crack are interpreted by the king or the diviner
• Shang Chen Tang


  Overthrew the Xia dynasty
• Shang society


  • Divided between nobles and peasants, hierarchical political organization, governed by a ruling class of warrior-nobles headed by a king, king – officials were various ranks (mostly belonging to the family or clan) very powerful, some reputed to have committed excesses - torturing captives, committed misdeeds, nobles owned the land, governed the scattered villages within the Shang territories, sent tributes to the Shang ruler in exchange for local control
• Shang economy


  • Engaged in agriculture and domestication of animals, chief crop was at first millet, later wheat and rice, north China was semiarid but there is little evidence of large-scale irrigation, north China has a highly - fertile loeses soil or wind-laid alluvium, pigs and chickens, water buffaloes were raised, silk-making as source of livelihood, bronze-casting technology – perfected by the Shang Chinese, bronze – used for weapons and ceremonial vessels, master of bronze techniques
• Shang religion


  • Worshipped "Shang Di" Emperors or kings – led in worshipping Shang Di, communicated and offered sacrifices during rituals, practiced ancestor worship – believed in afterlife, emphasis for proper burial for the dead, bones of the people who were buried along with the king – captives, slaves, dependents, and relatives – serving the king in life, believed to continue to served the king, Chinese believed that the spirits of family ancestors had the power to bring good fortune or disaster to living members of the family, they did not regard the spirits as mighty gods, spirits were troublesome or helpful neighbors who demanded attention and respect, every family paid respect to the father's ancestor, Shang consulted the gods through the spirits of the ancestors, they worship many lesser gods
• Calligraphy


  Chinese system of writing, started with the inscriptions in the oracle bones, consists of characters which signify things, ideas or sounds, usually written in vertical order, serves as cultural unifier in the midst of the diverse languages and dialects in China, disadvantage has an enormous number of written characters to be memorized, to be a true scholar, one needed to memorize over 10,000 characters