Ancient History

9 notes tagged Ancient History.

• History

  Ancient India Essentials: Harappa to the Guptas

  Harappan sites and artefacts, the Vedic-age shift from Sabha to kingdom, Mauryan district officers, and why Fa-hien's travels matter.

• History

  Buddhism and Jainism: Teachings and Sects

  The socio-religious ferment behind the Buddha and Mahavira, the sangha's own rules, the Tipitaka, why Mahayana and Theravada aren't the same split as Hinayana, and the Chola temple economy terms this chapter's own PYQ tests.

• History

  The Mahajanapadas and the Mauryan Empire

  How Magadha's iron and river routes built an empire, what the Arthashastra says about slavery and its own spies, why Ashoka's Kalinga edicts skip Kalinga itself, and why historians still argue over why it all fell apart.

• History

  The Gupta Empire and Post-Gupta Polity

  Samudragupta's conquests and Chandragupta II's reign, the vocabulary of Gupta land grants, the vishti forced-labour system, and post-Harsha trade.

• History

  The Spread of Buddhism: Councils and Schisms

  How the councils at Rajagriha, Vaishali and Pataliputra produced the key schisms, how Ashoka's and Kanishka's patronage, trade and monasteries carried Buddhism to Sri Lanka, Central Asia and China, and what a stupa's toranas and images actually show.

• History

  Vedic Literature, Archaeology and Historiography

  The four Vedas' layered Samhita-Brahmana-Aranyaka-Upanishad structure, Cunningham's 1861-71 founding of the ASI, and how epigraphy rebuilds ancient geography.

• History

  Buddhism and Jainism: Anatta versus Jiva

  Four Noble Truths versus the Three Jewels, anatta versus the eternal jiva, and why the Bodhisattva is a distinctly Mahayana idea with no Jain equivalent.

• History

  Sangam Age: Trade, Ports and Tamil Literature

  Muziris and Arikamedu prove real Indo-Roman trade in pepper and gold; Ettuthogai and Pattuppattu are the anthologies this chapter actually tests.

• History

  Mahabharata as Source: Kinship and Caste

  The Mahabharata's centuries-long composition, gotra exogamy, Draupadi's polyandrous marriage, and how jati multiplied beyond the four-fold varna.