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Page 3 of 9
2300 years ago.
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The further development of Buddhism
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The Hindu Scriptures are added to.
Prior to this time India, which we can take to include Pakistan,
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, was divided into many small city states and
rural communities. The main centres were still around the Indus river
(now in Pakistan) and the Ganges river valley covering both modern
northern India and Bangladesh. Northern territories were very much in
the hands of the Aryan race and many of the original Dravids had been
pushed to the south and across the sea to Sri Lanka. Tamils (as in
Tamil Tigers) are descendants from the Dravids and still speak and
write using the old Dravidian Sanskrit roots. These diverse city states
were loosely tied together with the common Hindu religion as laid down
in the ancient Vega "scriptures"
Vega "Scriptures"
At this time Hindu scriptures were orally passed from one generation to
another by professional reciters or singers. It was considered that the
act of writing them down might be seen as sacrilegious. In spite of
this the "scriptures" had a name the "Vegas" and were divided into
three:
- Rig Veda: Some 3500 years old. Contains 1028 poems and hymns to be
used mainly to accompany a sacrifice.
- Brahmanas: About 2500 years old and a commentary on sacrifice and
reincarnation.
- Upanishads: About 2400 years old and followed much self searching
amongst the Hindu sages concerning the uselessness of sacrifice;
Contains some 200 prose and verse providing a metaphysical and
philosophical commentary on the Vedas and the higher or ultimate God
concept of Brahman.
321 BC India effectively adopts Buddhism for 500 years
This was a true milestone in the history of India commenced by the
arrival of Alexander the Great as he extended his empire eastwards from
its origins in Macedonian Greece. In a short campaign he annihilated
any local resistance in the form of local city leaders or warlords. He
didn't stop long enough to swap cultural concepts, decided not to leave
any significant standing army and headed back west leaving a political
and military vacuum.
A young prince Chandragupta Maurya filled this vacuum and created the
first pan Indian Empire. His grandson Ashoka came to the throne in 269
BC and extended this Maurya Empire to cover almost the whole of the
sub-continent. (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh). After a particularly
brutal battle in 260 BC, Ashoka reflected on the cruelty of his world
and converted from Hinduism to Buddhism and vowed to live the life
prescribed by Buddha of peace and non violence. Indeed Ashoka was the
first Indian ruler to travel the length and breadth of the huge country
to learn about his subject's difficulties together with spreading the
concepts of the Buddhist faith.
Buddhism remained the dominant religion in India until the fall of the
Mauryan dynasty in 185 BC. There being no immediate successor, India
remained in limbo and open to invasion again for about 500 years that
is until the emergence of the Gupta dynasty in the Ganges valley in AD
320.
2000 YEARS AGO
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The Romans ruled the whole of Europe south of the Rhine and the Danube
including England in the west and Israel/Palestine as their eastern
front.
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Buddhists from India expanded eastwards to China and on towards Japan
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India commenced the period without a strong leader.
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Persians ruled the lands between Jerusalem and India.
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Jews persecuted by their Roman rulers produced the founder of
Christianity, Jesus
India particularly in the north and east is overrun again and again by
peoples from the north and western borders and becomes a cultural
melting pot of Hindu and Buddhist followers together with Persian,
Greek, Roman and Chinese immigrants and traders. Silk comes from China
passes through Mathura near modern day Delhi onwards to the port of
Barbaricum near present day Karachi. India exports diamonds, turquoise,
indigo and tortoise shell and imports pearls, copper, gold and slaves
from the Arab traders and later Muslim Arab traders and their Jewish
translators and financial advisers.
The huge Kushana Empire AD 60-225
Another Aryan nomadic tribe, which had settled in the valley of the
river Oxus which runs from the Hindu Kush north to the Aral sea,
expanded east to the Indus valley and then even further east towards
the Ganges. This was the start of the huge Kushana empire covering much
of present day northern India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan
(110 BC). Their leader Kaniska became a Buddhist. Kushana was to be
overrun by the indigenous Guptas.
India returns to Hinduism. AD 320-550
The Gupta dynasty brought a golden age for Hinduism in India for more
than 200 years where art, architecture, literature, science, medicine
and mathematics flourished. Poets and artists were sponsored and
invited to an audience with the Emperor Chandra Gupta 2nd who was the
greatest of the Gupta Kings and the ancient, sacred, classic Sanskrit
became the official court language. Even though the official religion
was Hindu, Buddhist art continued, still to be seen in the Buddhist
cave temples in Ajanta in the west of the country.
1500 YEARS AGO
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India invaded by Mongolian "Huns"
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The most famous Hindu philosopher is born-Sankara.
Following the fall of the Gupta Dynasty the weakened north of India was
attacked by Huns. Huns is the name given to the Mongolian nomadic
armies of the time who were roaming Asia in a similar manner to the
more famous Genghis Khan but 600 years earlier. However the next 500
years in India saw these raiders being repelled again and again. The
country split into three separate states of roughly equal size all
following the Hindu religion but permitting Buddhists to live
peacefully amongst them. Indeed the Buddhists built a university in
their temple at Nalanda on the easterly reaches of the Ganges.
C. 700 AD
(Note this is the time that Mohammed the founder of Islam was born in
Saudi Arabia.)
About this time India's most famous philosopher was born, Sankara, who
made the largest single contribution to the Hindu religion. Born in
Kerala in the far south of India into a high cast Brahmin family, he
renounced the comforts of life and travelled the country as a preaching
hermit. Some say he was a human manifestation of one of the top three
Hindu gods, Shiva. Sankara provided most of the input for the last of
the four Hindu scriptures (Vedas) called the Vedanta which is an
important commentary on the previous three. He founded the Smarta
Brahmin Hindu sect and a number of Hindu monasteries.
Sankara's work underlined the metaphysical nature of the Hindu faith:
The world we live in is not real, more like a dream. This is because it
is constantly changing. To be real it must never change and this is the
ultimate reality or God or in Hindu terms Brahman. Putting this another
way; we know when we wake from a dream that indeed we have been
dreaming. We have had an experience which is unreal and on waking we
regain reality. Sankara said that when we wake we only move to a higher
state of reality. To achieve the Absolute Reality (a Western Heaven or
a Hindu Release-Moksha) we must move to a higher plain again and this
might not be achieved until we die.
1000 YEARS AGO
Hindu and Buddhists live in relative peace, side by side, but are soon
to be subjected to Islamic invaders.
At this time in India the two main faiths, Hinduism and Buddhism lived
side by side. The larger, Hinduism can be seen as having four branches.
- The Yoga elements probably practiced over 3000 years ago by the
ancient Dravids
- The Philosopher Shankar's views, laid down as commentaries in
Vedanta. To these we must add:
- The Bhakti or Devotional sect which is main stream Hinduism
- Tantric movements. Followers believed that sexual ecstasy was a path
towards higher mystic levels.
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