Ancient+India

=Ancient India: A survey of Indian geography, society, culture and politics=

Ancient Indian geography:
The modern India territory:

India has a good loction for trading which has long coastline. //"India is basically a peninsula, with the Arabian Sea on the west, the Bay of Bengal on the east, and the Indian Ocean to the south."// (Copyright © 1998-2011 Kidport)


 * But the ancient India is not the same as now. Compare to modern India it mostly had a smaller territory, but, as you can see in underneath, The Maurya Empire's territory is much more bigger than now.**

//"With an area of 5,000,000 sq km, it was one of the world's largest empires in its time, and the largest ever in the Indian subcontinent. At its greatest extent, the empire stretched to the north along the natural boundaries of the Himalayas, and to the east stretching into what is now Assam. To the west, it conquered beyond modern Pakistan, annexing Balochistan, south eastern parts of Iran and much of what is now Afghanistan, including the modern Herat and Kandahar provinces."// (Wikipedia n.d.)

Maurya Dynasty in B.C.265
 * It shows that India had a strong government at that time which could dominate a big area of the Asian subcontinent, and it was the first empire formed and settled down the modern territory of India.**
 * Beside, it also means that India is seperated to China by the long mountain chain of the Himalayas. As a result, India didnlt have a big influence from China. Beyond the western part of India, there is flat and has a way connects to the west. Because of this**
 * geographical feature, the west have brought a lot of influences to India such as Hinduism. It makes the India cultue develops in a typical way which have mixed many western culture inside.**

Ancient India society:
//"Ashoka initially practiced Hinduism but later embraced Buddhism, following the Kalinga War, he **renounced** expansionism and aggression, and the harsher injunctions of the Arthashastra on the use of force, intensive policing, and ruthless measures for tax collection and against rebels."// (Wikipedia n.d.) //"Even after embracing Buddhism, Ashoka retained the membership of Hindu Brahmana priests and ministers in his court. Mauryan society began embracing the philosophy of ahimsa, and given the increased prosperity and improved law enforcement, crime and internal conflicts reduced dramatically. Also greatly discouraged was the caste system and orthodox discrimination, as Mauryans began to absorb the ideals and values of Jain and Buddhist teachings along with traditional Vedic Hindu teachings."// (Wikipedia n.d.) The portrait of Ashoka.


 * First of all, Ashoka advocated the citizen believed in Buddhism which can see by Ashoka making Buddhism as the state religion. Buddhism was a religion which encouraged everyone to do good things for helping himself. The thought of Buddhism was mostly talking about the rebirth and sins. Because the citizen got in touch with this thought, they started to being kind and following the rules in Buddhism. Because of the dramatical changing, the society was building up a high civilization which contain a lot of technology.**


 * Let's talk about the improvement of agriculture and the technology of making ironware.**

//"During the Maurya Empire, the productivity increased rapidly. The technology of making ironware was already very common. Many people were using the ironware for different uses. The type of agricultural product had increased which made the agriculture had obvious superiority.The handicraft industry such as weaving, metalworking and shipbuilding had also got a big development."// (Baidu n.d. translated by Johnny Lam)


 * In this paragraph, we can know that how well did the civilization grow. The Maurya Empire had grown in a comprehensive way. When the agriculture was improving rapidly, the developing of handicraft was also following the improvement compactly. It made the society growing in a healthy and incredible way. Therefore, The Maurya Empire is called as three greatest civilization at that time which is as advanced as the Han Dynasty in China and the Roman Empire in Europe.**

Ancient India culture:

 * During The Maurya Empire, because Ashoka make the Buddhism as the state religion, the citizen started to following the belief in Buddhism.**

//"The art and culture of Mauryan Empire deserve mentioning though architectural heritage of the Mauryan dynasty were not momentous enough and did not attain prosperity to the extent trade and commerce had flourished. The architectural idiom of the Mauryas is the hypostyle kind of building, which has been excavated in the Kumrahar region of Patna."// (Free Encyclopedia & Web Portal on Indian Culture & Lifestyle n.d.) The Stupa built during Maurya Empire

Beside the religionary effect by the Buddhism, the culture of Ancient of India was diversification. Their buldings particularly show the Ancient India culture. By watching the drawing on the wall of the building, we can know how they live in the past.

Ancient India politic:
//"Hinduism was the only religion at the time of inception of the empire, Hindu priests and ministers use to be an important part of the emperor's court."// (Wikipedia n.d.)


 * Hinduism was rapidly growing during the beginning Maurya Empire. By following buddhism and hinduism, Maurya Empire started to implement those thinking in the government policy. Also, the king had put the religion's thought into the law. The empire was using //Hindu priests and ministers// to judge the righteousness. As a result, we can know that the religion in India had influenced politically to ancient India.**

//"King was always taking the most power of the country. Under the king, there had a group of official and prince for helping the affairs of state.Furthermore treasurer and tax collector are also used. They had cabinet meeting for collecting different information. Beside, the important areas where were outlying were supervised by governors. As usual, the governors were the princes. From the centre to the town, they set up different levels of official. The whole country was devided in four province (or five province), every province was devided in many small regions. Every single region had one government official which changed every five years."// (Baidu n.d. translated by Johnny Lam)


 * As you can see, Maurya Empire had a very systematic policy to confirm the country would progress to the right way which was under the control of the king. Therefore, the king could protect his power and stabilize the development of the country. This was very important to make a civilization became stronger and stronger. It is because if the citizen were having a good live, they would have more time to think about how to improve himself or how to improve the way of doing something, which means developing some new technologies to help himself. As a result, the society would grow up substantially.**

Citations:
"孔雀王朝_百度百科." //百度百科――全球最大中文百科全书//. Web. 27 Nov. 2011. [].

"Maurya Empire." //Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia//. Web. 27 Nov. 2011. [|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurya_Empire#Hinduism].

"Maurya Empire." //Free Encyclopedia & Web Portal on Indian Culture & Lifestyle//. 8 Nov. 2011. Web. 27 Nov. 2011. [].

by Johnny Lam and Zhang Wei