Terms : Hide Images
| 19642741 | monsoon | Seasonal winds in the Indian Ocean caused by the differences in temperature between the rapidly heating and cooling landmasses of Africa and Asia and the slowly changing ocean waters. | 0 | |
| 19642742 | Vedas | Early Indian sacred knowledge long preserved and communicated orally by Brahmin priests and eventually written down. Our main source of information about the Vedic period along with Rig Veda. | 1 | |
| 19642743 | varna | Four major social divisions. | 2 | |
| 19642744 | jati | Within the system of varna. Regional groups of people who have a common occupational sphere, and who marry, eat, and generally interact with other members of their group. | 3 | |
| 19642745 | karma | Residue of deeds performed in past and present lives that adheres to a "spirit" and determines what form it will assume in its next life cycle. | 4 | |
| 19651011 | moksha | Hindu concept of the spirit's "liberation" from the endless cycle of rebirths. | 5 | |
| 19651012 | Buddha | Indian prince named Siddhartha Gautama, who renounced his wealth and social position. After becoming "enlightened" he enunciatedthe principles of Buddhism. | 6 | |
| 19651013 | Mahayana Buddhism | Branch of Buddhism followed in China, Japan, and Central Asia. Focuses on reverence for Buddha. | 7 | |
| 19651014 | Theravada Buddhism | Branch of Buddhism followed in Sri Lanka and much of Southeast Asia. It downplays the importance of gods and emphasizes austerity and the individual's search for enlightenment. | 8 | |
| 19651015 | Hinduism | Term for a wide variety of beliefs and ritual practices that have developed in the Indian subcontinent since antiquity. | 9 | |
| 19651016 | Mauryan Empire | First state to unify most of the Indian subcontinent. Founded by Chandragupta Maurya. | 10 | |
| 19651017 | Ashoka | Third ruler of the Mauryan Empire in India. He converted to Buddhism and broadcast his precepts on inscribed stones and pillars, the earliest surviving Indian writing. | 11 | |
| 19651018 | Mahabharata | Vast epic chronicling the events leading up to a cataclysmic battle between related kinship groups in early India. | 12 | |
| 19651019 | Bhagavad-Gita | Most important work of Indian sacred literature, a dialogue between the great warrior Arjuna and the god Krishna on duty and the fate of the spirit. | 13 | |
| 19651020 | Tamil kingdoms | Kingdoms of southern India, inhabited primarily by speakers of Dravidian languages, which developed in partial isolation, and somewhat differently, from the Aryan north. | 14 | |
| 19651021 | Gupta Empire | Powerful Indian state based on a capital at Pataliputra in the Ganges Valley. Controlled most of the Indian subcontinent through a combination of military force and its prestige as a center of sophisticated culture. | 15 | |
| 19651022 | theater-state | Term for a state that acquires prestige and power by developing attractive cultural forms and staging elaborate public ceremonies to attract and bind subjects to the center. | 16 | |
| 19651023 | Malay peoples | Became the dominant population in Southern Asia. | 17 | |
| 19651024 | Funan | Early complex society in Southeast Asia between the first and sixth centuries C.E. | 18 |
