India through the Gupta Empire: Land and Sea Trade

[From Jensen, Chapter Five] As the Mauryan Empire declined [after 180 B.C.], a succession of foreign kings built a prosperous trading kingdom in Gandhara, which included parts of Afghanistan and northwest India. Soon, the kingdom of Gandhara was expanded into northern India and became an important link between India, central Asia, and the West. The main overland trade route went across the Hindu Kush into Afghanistan. From there, a trade caravan could either travel to Persia and western Asia or take the Silk Road to China. Sea routes . . . also became the avenues of a thriving trade (106, 108).

How cross-cultural interactions through trade routes, with the transfer of technology and ideas, helped to build our modern world is the subject of Southernization, the first half of which we will read this week. Specifically, we will examine its history of interaction between India, Africa, Arabia and China before the rise of Islam.  We will use this Indian Ocean Trade website to view INTERACTIVE MAPS with trade routes and goods.   Later this quarter, we will return to the second half of this article.   

Source: World History: Patterns of Interaction

Ashoka debate

Today we will debate whether Ashoka was a ruthless conqueror or a enlightened ruler.  You may use the document packet that I provided to you, along with any section of the Dhammapada text.  You may conduct outside research, but you must be able to produce that evidence in written form, along with the source, upon request.  A good source on the Pillars of Ashoka may be found here at Khan Academy.

http://www.mrdowling.com/612-ashoka.html

Ashoka (Asoka), the third emperor of the Mauryan Empire, reigned from c. 269-233 BCE, and his exemplary story remains popular in folk plays and legends across southern Asia. The emperor ruled a vast territory that stretched from the Bay of Bengal to Kandahar and from the North-West Frontier of Pakistan to below the Krishna River in southern India. The year 261 BCE marks a turning point in Ashoka's reign when, in part to increase access to the Ganges River, he conquered the east coast kingdom of Kalinga. By Ashoka's account, more than 250,000 people were killed, made captive or later died of starvation. Feeling remorseful about this massive suffering and loss, the emperor converted to Buddhism and made dharma, or dhamma, the central foundation of his personal and political life.

Throughout his kingdom, the emperor inscribed laws and injunctions inspired by dharma on rocks and pillars, some of them crowned with elaborate sculptures. Many of these edicts begin "Thus speaks Devanampiya Piyadassi [Beloved of the Gods]" and counsel good behavior including decency, piety, honoring parents and teachers and protection of the environment and natural world. Guided by this principle, Ashoka abolished practices that caused unnecessary suffering to men and animals and advanced religious toleration. To further the influence of dharma, he sent his son, a Buddhist monk, to Sri Lanka, and emissaries to countries including Greece and Syria. To some historians, the edicts unified an extended empire, one that was organized into five parts governed by Ashoka and four governors. After his reign, Ashoka has become an enduring symbol of enlightened rule, non-violence, and religious tolerance. In 1950, the Lion Capital of Ashoka, a sandstone sculpture erected in 250 BCE, was adopted as India's official emblem by then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

(Reproduced for educational, non-commercial use only by students of Early World History, the above summary of Ashoka may also be found at http://www.pbs.org/thestoryofindia/)