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A while ago a China expert online (JamesCat on RPG.net I think, for the few who might recognize that) said that people tended to know China or India, but not both. Admittedly, both are huge. Admittedly, I'm nothing like an expert in either. But it did occur to me that I had a slightly better mental skeleton of China than of India, and so last week I checked out a bunch of India books, rather than reading Wikipedia. So far I've read one and the intro of a second. (India, Michael Wood; A History of India, Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund, to be referred to as K&R to the confusion of the C programmers.)
It's been interesting reading, and also interesting is the difference between the two books. Wood is very personal: he talks about the history, but also about his personal trips and experiences to historical places, as well as ritual and culture, with lots of photographs and one colored but not completely labeled map. K&R have no pictures, several maps (still not completely labeled with all the names used), and the intro dives straight into causal history, how environment and technology shaped things. Chapter 1 of Wood starts "The rain has stopped... Outside my room I can hear..." He's at a tourist resort in Kerala, setting some mood before talking about the very prehistoric beachcombers who may have followed the coasts and continential shelves from east Africa through south Asia and into Australia. K&R start in on environment and technology: the first people with their stone tools living in places later empires didn't, changes in rainfall creating and then destroying the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC), rice and chariots...
I'm not going to boil down even one book to a LJ post with any fairness, but I'll pass on some highlights of note, drawing from both books:
* The beachcomber migration, and southern India perhaps still being descended from them, genetically and linguistically and religiously.
* The IVC (but old hat to me now), falling by 1800 BC.
* Aryan arrival after that, supposedly passing down a word-perfect Rig Veda, which non-Hindu nationalists can date to maybe 1500 BC, bounded by bronze use, related Mitanni texts in the west and by Rig Veda ignorance of the IVC except as mysterious ruins.
* Chariots letting the Aryans conquer, but also fight each other; war elephants later enabling strong kings, for the same reasons as cannon in Europe, effective but expensive.
* Mountains and deserts inhibiting communication and language spread, such that you can supposedly go "Hindi is north of this mountain range".
* The Mughals introducing the first really centralized empire, and also cavalry (with recurrently imported Arabic and Persian horses, India supposedly being bad for breeding them) that allowed more effective extraction of land tax; that's K&R, but Wood noted how the Mughals were almost an Islamic enlightenment in religious tolerance for a while, but bad for the economy, extracting 1/3 of produce in land tax and the monarchy+nobility collecting 15-20% of the economy, high by European standards.
* The British introducing superior bureaucracy -- even better than what they had at home, unencumbered by rights and traditions -- allowing similar collection but more efficiently -- and, being foreign, exporting much of that surplus rather than spending it among the peasants who produced it, which touches on older stuff I've seen about the economic disaster for India of colonialism. (E.g. stagnant or declining GDP/capita for 150 years.)
* India not having writing between the IVC and the 3rd century BC, though with orally administered (that sounds wrong) kingdoms nonetheless.
* Archaeology advances!: The red-headed Tarim Basin mummies, the translation of the Bactrian language of the Tocharians, their identification with elucidation as the little-known but huge Kushan empire.
* The khumba mela, a massive religious gathering of pilgraims and holy men, with 70 (seventy) million people at the biggest one. Take that, Burning Man.
* The Kali Yuga or current age being 5000 years old. Related to the 5700 year Jewish epoch, and the development of writing or of more intensive agriculture? Not that the Aryans are noted for either...
* Greco-Roman maps and gazetteers including Zanzibar and India up to the mouth of the Ganges; China was mysterious.
* "India" being rather artificial, in a way. The British were the first to ever control the whole subcontinent. Before you might have 1 or more northern rulers, and souther ones, but no one who controlled north and south. Wood quotes people as claiming there nonetheless was an idea of India; given a lack of historical unity and shared language, I wonder why. Germany at least had a closely related language family and religion (well, religions after Reformation) and the Holy Roman Empire; southern India doesn't even speak Indo-European. Not sure about the religion side...
* "Hinduism" also being artificial, a result of the British trying to categorize and simplify what they studied and controlled. Wood talks frequently about Vaishnavism, Saivism, brahminism... there's Vedic bases, but grouping them all together might be like grouping Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, Karaites, and Samaritans all under "Abrahamism" as a single religion. I need to read more about how the south got incorporated into this.
Historical points:
* IVC
* Aryan invasion and domination of the north
* Alexander, Greco-Bacterian kingdom
* Ashoka and Mauryans in the 3rd centuury BC. coming out of the east Ganges and controlling much of the north, Ashoka becoming a big promoter of Buddhism, with edict-pillars and stupas all over, and missionaries to the Mediterranean.
* The Tocharians or Yueh-chi getting kicked out of China and taking over the Bactrian area, aka Afghanistan and Pakistan, pushing the Greeks into the Indo-Greek kingdom, and forming the Kushan empire, with a high point around 140 AD under Kanishka the Great, a pillar of Buddhism, villain of India, and evil genius of the manga Berserk. Eurasia being mostly at peace from the Yellow River to Hadrian's Wall in Scotland, formation of the silk road, India having 1/4 of world population and maybe 30% of the economy. Lots of religious eclecticism, with Kanishka blending Iranian fire gods, Greek gods, Vedic gods, and Buddhism, or at least juggling them all. Ayurveda was Kanishka's guru. Gandharan art developed in this period, and the human representation of the Buddha (vs. a wheel, or empty throne) and possibly various representations of Hindu gods as well. Gold coins minted on Roman weights. Embassies with the Han and with Antoninus Pius. Spread of Mahayana Buddhism (Ashoka was Theravada/Hinayana).
* The Vaishnavist Guptas, with lots of poetry and little monuments; revival of Brahminism and Vedic kingship and decline of Buddhism; writing of the Kama Sutra; visit of Hsuan Tsang
* Cholans being a southern Tamil dynasty lasting 1600 years, but peaking in power in 1000-1300 AD, conquering various islands out to Indonesia. Rajaraja the great king, embassies to China.
* Mughals, some details above, plus a few generations of religious tolerance from Akbar and even innovation (religion of light, esoteric readings of the Koran, trying to "meet the two oceans" of Islam and Hinduism) on until orthodox Islamic backlash under Aurangzeb
* British, acquiring empire by accident. Trading posts, factories, tax farming rights; then the "Mutiny" of 1857 and suppression by atrocity, and Parliament taking it all away from the East India Company.
* Independence, and the Italian Catholic Sonia Gandhi as prime-minister elect, yielding to a Sikh swearing the oath to a Muslim president in a majority Hindu nation.
Great books:
* Rig-Veda: oldest Indian text, preserved by and long secret to Brahmin families, with gods much more like the Greek gods than later Indian ones
* Athashatra: text on statecraft, written under the Mauruan Chandragupta.
* Mahabharata, Aryan Iliad, tale of war of two great clans, death of almost everyone, 100,000 verses (longest poem) (but updated to mention the Romans, Antioch, and even 5th century AD Huns.)
* Ramayana, myth of kingship, elevated by the Guptas, supposedly set 1 million years ago but set in places with pottery post 600 BC.
Hmm, Wood mentioned castes, but not a whole lot, and reincarnation not at all.
It's been interesting reading, and also interesting is the difference between the two books. Wood is very personal: he talks about the history, but also about his personal trips and experiences to historical places, as well as ritual and culture, with lots of photographs and one colored but not completely labeled map. K&R have no pictures, several maps (still not completely labeled with all the names used), and the intro dives straight into causal history, how environment and technology shaped things. Chapter 1 of Wood starts "The rain has stopped... Outside my room I can hear..." He's at a tourist resort in Kerala, setting some mood before talking about the very prehistoric beachcombers who may have followed the coasts and continential shelves from east Africa through south Asia and into Australia. K&R start in on environment and technology: the first people with their stone tools living in places later empires didn't, changes in rainfall creating and then destroying the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC), rice and chariots...
I'm not going to boil down even one book to a LJ post with any fairness, but I'll pass on some highlights of note, drawing from both books:
* The beachcomber migration, and southern India perhaps still being descended from them, genetically and linguistically and religiously.
* The IVC (but old hat to me now), falling by 1800 BC.
* Aryan arrival after that, supposedly passing down a word-perfect Rig Veda, which non-Hindu nationalists can date to maybe 1500 BC, bounded by bronze use, related Mitanni texts in the west and by Rig Veda ignorance of the IVC except as mysterious ruins.
* Chariots letting the Aryans conquer, but also fight each other; war elephants later enabling strong kings, for the same reasons as cannon in Europe, effective but expensive.
* Mountains and deserts inhibiting communication and language spread, such that you can supposedly go "Hindi is north of this mountain range".
* The Mughals introducing the first really centralized empire, and also cavalry (with recurrently imported Arabic and Persian horses, India supposedly being bad for breeding them) that allowed more effective extraction of land tax; that's K&R, but Wood noted how the Mughals were almost an Islamic enlightenment in religious tolerance for a while, but bad for the economy, extracting 1/3 of produce in land tax and the monarchy+nobility collecting 15-20% of the economy, high by European standards.
* The British introducing superior bureaucracy -- even better than what they had at home, unencumbered by rights and traditions -- allowing similar collection but more efficiently -- and, being foreign, exporting much of that surplus rather than spending it among the peasants who produced it, which touches on older stuff I've seen about the economic disaster for India of colonialism. (E.g. stagnant or declining GDP/capita for 150 years.)
* India not having writing between the IVC and the 3rd century BC, though with orally administered (that sounds wrong) kingdoms nonetheless.
* Archaeology advances!: The red-headed Tarim Basin mummies, the translation of the Bactrian language of the Tocharians, their identification with elucidation as the little-known but huge Kushan empire.
* The khumba mela, a massive religious gathering of pilgraims and holy men, with 70 (seventy) million people at the biggest one. Take that, Burning Man.
* The Kali Yuga or current age being 5000 years old. Related to the 5700 year Jewish epoch, and the development of writing or of more intensive agriculture? Not that the Aryans are noted for either...
* Greco-Roman maps and gazetteers including Zanzibar and India up to the mouth of the Ganges; China was mysterious.
* "India" being rather artificial, in a way. The British were the first to ever control the whole subcontinent. Before you might have 1 or more northern rulers, and souther ones, but no one who controlled north and south. Wood quotes people as claiming there nonetheless was an idea of India; given a lack of historical unity and shared language, I wonder why. Germany at least had a closely related language family and religion (well, religions after Reformation) and the Holy Roman Empire; southern India doesn't even speak Indo-European. Not sure about the religion side...
* "Hinduism" also being artificial, a result of the British trying to categorize and simplify what they studied and controlled. Wood talks frequently about Vaishnavism, Saivism, brahminism... there's Vedic bases, but grouping them all together might be like grouping Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, Karaites, and Samaritans all under "Abrahamism" as a single religion. I need to read more about how the south got incorporated into this.
Historical points:
* IVC
* Aryan invasion and domination of the north
* Alexander, Greco-Bacterian kingdom
* Ashoka and Mauryans in the 3rd centuury BC. coming out of the east Ganges and controlling much of the north, Ashoka becoming a big promoter of Buddhism, with edict-pillars and stupas all over, and missionaries to the Mediterranean.
* The Tocharians or Yueh-chi getting kicked out of China and taking over the Bactrian area, aka Afghanistan and Pakistan, pushing the Greeks into the Indo-Greek kingdom, and forming the Kushan empire, with a high point around 140 AD under Kanishka the Great, a pillar of Buddhism, villain of India, and evil genius of the manga Berserk. Eurasia being mostly at peace from the Yellow River to Hadrian's Wall in Scotland, formation of the silk road, India having 1/4 of world population and maybe 30% of the economy. Lots of religious eclecticism, with Kanishka blending Iranian fire gods, Greek gods, Vedic gods, and Buddhism, or at least juggling them all. Ayurveda was Kanishka's guru. Gandharan art developed in this period, and the human representation of the Buddha (vs. a wheel, or empty throne) and possibly various representations of Hindu gods as well. Gold coins minted on Roman weights. Embassies with the Han and with Antoninus Pius. Spread of Mahayana Buddhism (Ashoka was Theravada/Hinayana).
* The Vaishnavist Guptas, with lots of poetry and little monuments; revival of Brahminism and Vedic kingship and decline of Buddhism; writing of the Kama Sutra; visit of Hsuan Tsang
* Cholans being a southern Tamil dynasty lasting 1600 years, but peaking in power in 1000-1300 AD, conquering various islands out to Indonesia. Rajaraja the great king, embassies to China.
* Mughals, some details above, plus a few generations of religious tolerance from Akbar and even innovation (religion of light, esoteric readings of the Koran, trying to "meet the two oceans" of Islam and Hinduism) on until orthodox Islamic backlash under Aurangzeb
* British, acquiring empire by accident. Trading posts, factories, tax farming rights; then the "Mutiny" of 1857 and suppression by atrocity, and Parliament taking it all away from the East India Company.
* Independence, and the Italian Catholic Sonia Gandhi as prime-minister elect, yielding to a Sikh swearing the oath to a Muslim president in a majority Hindu nation.
Great books:
* Rig-Veda: oldest Indian text, preserved by and long secret to Brahmin families, with gods much more like the Greek gods than later Indian ones
* Athashatra: text on statecraft, written under the Mauruan Chandragupta.
* Mahabharata, Aryan Iliad, tale of war of two great clans, death of almost everyone, 100,000 verses (longest poem) (but updated to mention the Romans, Antioch, and even 5th century AD Huns.)
* Ramayana, myth of kingship, elevated by the Guptas, supposedly set 1 million years ago but set in places with pottery post 600 BC.
Hmm, Wood mentioned castes, but not a whole lot, and reincarnation not at all.