Like Mesopotamia and Egypt, India lived off of two rivers: Ganges and Indus.

Mountain snow melted or

the monsoon wind caused floods. The majority of the people lived in the Indus valley or Harappan (huhra-pan) civilization. 2500-2000 B.C.E, the cities had working-class districts, barracks, brick houses with
courtyards and bathrooms; ingenious systems of pipes bringing water from upriver and depositing
downstream. Mohenjo-Daro was built of mud brick and had a population of 35,000.
They cultivated wheat, rice, barley, sheep, cattle, chickens, goats & pigs. They developed clothing and
placed importance on family, nature, and fertility. They traded with the Mesopotamians. They built fine
bronze and stone sculptures. Historians believe that they lived less prone to warfare because of the lack of
metal weapons found. How did this society decline? Climate changes, diseases, deforestation & soil
exhaustion. Movement in the earths plates opened floods and earthquakes.
Indo-Europeans called Aryans, because of their language, moved in with metal weapons and horse-drawn
chariots. Aryan is in the family of Greek, Latin, the Romance and Germanic languages, the Slavic
tongues, and the Indo-Iranian languages, including Persian and Sanskrit and their derivatives. The Aryans
were seminomadic warriors who reached India in small tribal groups through the mountain passes of the
Hindu Kush. They provided a new language, social organization, techniques of warfare, and religious
forms and ideas. There were two social divisions: noble and common.
Vedic culture stemmed from the Vedassacred hymns from Aryan priests. They were passed down
verbally, not written down. Indo-Aryans seemed to serve a number of gods.
Caste systems derived from the Varnasa class distinction systembased on functions fulfilled in
society.
Priests or Brahmins;(Absolute, transcendent reality)
Warrior noble
Peasant, tradesmen
Servants, Untouchables; work with dead and waste
In this system, early on, existed some interclass mobility & marriage, but it became rigid, because many
wanted to protect their status. Also, this system endured due to religious notions of purity. Explain. The
Brahmins viewed as pure for their handling of spiritual matters and the untouchables because of their
handling of peoples dung.
The Brahmins fostered Brahmanism. Samsara (sam-sah-ruh), the endless cycle of existence.
Reincarnation: each soul after death will be reborn into a new body. Dharma, being faithful to the duties
of station in life or caste. The right order of things and moral law or duty. Karma, ones fate in the
incarnation. Every action has an inevitable effect. Those who dutifully carried out their dharma would
thereby have good karma and thus be reborn through samsara into a higher status.
Buddhism was created by Siddhartha Gautama, the Enlightened or Awakened One. He was determined to
find the meaning of aging, illness, and deathhe leaves his wife and begins to live an ascetic life. He
lived for six years without indulging in pleasures and became enlightened.
Buddhism is based on four noble truths. 1) life consists of pain and suffering 2) Pain and suffering are
caused by desire 3) To escape from suffering, one must curb desire 4) desire can be curbed by righteous
living.
Veda means knowledge and for Hindus, Veda is the eternal wisdom of primordial seers preserved for
thousands of years in an unbroken oral tradition. Hindu means Indian. Hinduism is a flexible faith with

a wide array of divinities, doctrines, and devotions. Hindus worshiped a multitude of deities. Brahman,
supreme creator and universal being. Shiva, the mighty destroyer. Vishnu the valiant preserver and
protector of the world against demonic powers.
518 B.C.E. the Persians invaded northwest India, polluting the culture of the Indians. Alexander the Great
invaded India as well, but died and therefore the invasion. Maurya (mow-re-ah), gained power in Ganges
and Indus region. He unified India and expanded its trade posterity. He built roads, bureaucracy, standing
army, laws, and spies. Ashoka (ah-SHO-kah) spread Buddhism and political control. Corruption, revolt
and money ruined the empire. East-West trade route, Silk Road.
Indian society focused on family, procreation, and patriarchal. Vedic era, women had more status with
men. Stupas, massive domed edifices of stone built for holding relics and used as temples for pilgrimage.
They accurately plotted the paths of the planets and starts. Earth is a sphere revolving on its axis.
Method of expressing numbers based on the #10.
Indian literature, the Upanishads (oo-pah-ni-shahdz) were philosophical and religious texts composed in
Sanskrit, Aryan language; used for literary purposes. Upanishads emphasize knowledge over ritual and
stress immortality in terms of escape from existence itself.
In what ways was the Harappan civilization like, and unlike, the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt?
What were the advantages and disadvantages of the caste system?
Which religion adapted better to Indian society, Buddhism or Hinduism?

Even at the beginning of this century it was believed that the first Indian cities of any importance
developed only during the first millennium B.C. The discovery of the immense ruins of two cities at
Mohenjadaro and Harappa in 1925 necessitated the rewriting of early Indian history. The cities were
located on the banks of the Indus and the Ravi respectively and flourished during the third millennium
B.C. No mention of these cities is made in the ancient literature, and their script has not been deciphered
to this day.

The houses of these cities were solidly built of bricks and many were multi-storied and equipped with
bathrooms and lavatories. The high quality of the pottery, along with hoards of gold and silver found at
Indus Valley sites, suggests great the accumulation of great wealth. The city was amazingly well planned
with broad main streets and good secondary streets. There were enormous granaries which served as
store-houses for the entire community. Finds in excavations of the Mesopotamian civilization indicate
that trade flourished between the two civilizations. What is interesting, though, is the total lack of public
monuments, obelisks or statues. Moreover, there was no single house which served as a palace, which can
be construed as meaning that there were no great inequities in that society, and that a certain democratic
spirit prevailed. It appears that merchants might have been individually responsible for safeguarding their
wealth from marauding brigands.

The Indus valley civilization belongs to the Bronze Age. Excellent tools made of bronze (an alloy of
copper and tin) have been discovered. They also exported copper, along with peacocks, ivory and cotton
textiles in return for silver and other commodities. However, the inhabitants of the various towns and
cities in the Indus Valley were essentially farmers, and depended on the periodic floods to irrigate their
land. The grain would be collected and distributed at the temple, of which the granary formed a part.
Adjacent to the finest group of houses and raised on 10 meter high platforms are the "citadel" mounds.
The Mohenjadaro citadel was a many- roomed building built around a large rectangular tank. This seems
to have been used for ritual baths.

The twin cities of Harappa and Mohenjadaro, which are the two most famous of the Indian Valley
civilization sites, are now in Pakistan; both seem to have been built fully planned, and have identical
layouts, neither changed until near the end of the period. Though there was a long period of gradual decay
towards 1750 B.C., the actual end was sudden, and remains unexplained though the evidence suggests
that the Indus may have changed its course and floods might have followed. Some cataclysmic event, in
any case, appears to have struck Harappa, and the cities and town were emptied of their inhabitants. At
Mohenjadaro, the city was burnt and the inhabitants killed, and people who were far less advanced than
the inhabitants of the Indus Valley seem to have taken possession of the towns. Thus it is possible to
argue that the way was paved for the Aryans by the victory of barbarism over an older and more advanced
urban culture.

1. What suggested that there were no inequities in their society?

2. As it relates to the products they traded, what does this suggest about their civilization?
3. What possibly ended their civilization?