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| 114603997 | Alexander the Great | successor of Philip II; successfully conquered Persian Empire prior to his death in 323 BCE; attempted to combine Greek and Persian cultures | 0 | |
| 114603998 | Aryans | Indo European nomadic pastoralists who replaced Harappan civilization; militarized society | 1 | |
| 114603999 | Mauryan Dynasty | dynasty established in Indian subcontinent in 4th century BCE following invasion by Alexander the Great | 2 | |
| 114604000 | Ashoka | Grandson of Chandragupta Maurya; completed conquests of Indian subcontinent; converted to Buddhism and sponsored spread of new religion throughout his empire | 3 | |
| 114604001 | caste system | rigid system of social classification first introduced into Indian subcontinent by Aryans | 4 | |
| 114604002 | Hinduism | a religion of India that emphasizes freedom from the material world through purification of desires and elimination of personal identity; Hindu beliefs include reincarnation | 5 | |
| 114604003 | Buddhism | a religion, founded by the Buddha, that emphasizes physical and spiritual discipline as a means of liberation from the physical world; the goal for the Buddhist is to attain nirvana, a state of complete peace in which one if free from the distraction of desire and self-consciousness; Buddhists are found in the greatest numbers in eastern Asia | 6 | |
| 114604004 | untouchables | low social caste in Hindu culture; performed tasks that were considered polluting- street sweeping, removal of human waste, and tanning | 7 | |
| 114604005 | Ramayana | one of the great epic tales from classical India; traces adventures of King Rama and his wife, Sita; written 4th to 2nd centuries | 8 | |
| 114604006 | gurus | originally referred to as Brahmans who served as teachers for the princes of the imperial court of the Guptas | 9 | |
| 114604007 | dharma | the caste position and career determined by a person's birth; Hindu culture required that one accept one's social position and perform occupation to the best of one's ability in order to have a better situation in the next life | 10 | |
| 114604008 | Upanishads | later books of the Vedas; contained sophisticated and sublime philosophical ideas; utilized by Brahmans to restore religious authority | 11 | |
| 114604009 | karma | the sum of merits accumulated by a soul at any given point in time; determined the caste to which the soul would be assigned in the next life | 12 | |
| 114604010 | Mahabharata | Indian epic of war, princely honor, love, and social duty; written down in the last centuries BCE; previously handed down in oral form | 13 | |
| 114604011 | reincarnation | the successive attachment of the soul to some animate form according to merits earned in previous lives | 14 | |
| 114604012 | nirvana | the Buddhist state of enlightenment, a state of tranquility | 15 | |
| 114604013 | Guptas | Dynasty that succeeded the Kushans in the 3rd century CE; built empire that extended to all but the southern regions of Indian subcontinent; less centralized than Mauryan Empire | 16 | |
| 114604014 | Sanskrit | the sacred and classical Indian language | 17 | |
| 114604015 | Buddha | creator of a major Indian and Asian religion; born in 6th century BCE as son of local ruler among Aryan tribes located near Himalayas; became an ascetic; found enlightenment under bo tree; taught that enlightenment could be achieved only by abandoning desires for all earthly things | 18 | |
| 114604016 | Chandragupta Maurya | (332-298 BCE) founder of Maurya dynasty; established first empire in Indian subcontinent; first centralized government since Harappan civilization | 19 | |
| 114604017 | Himalayas | mountain region marking the northern border of the Indian subcontinent; site of the Aryan settlements that formed small kingdoms of warrior republics | 20 | |
| 114604018 | monsoons | seasonal winds crossing Indian subcontinent and southeast Asia; during summer bring rains | 21 | |
| 114604019 | Vedas | Aryan hymns originally transmitted orally but written down in sacred books from the 6th century BCE | 22 | |
| 114604020 | Varnas | clusters of caste groups in Aryan society; four social castes- Brahmans (priests), warriors, merchants, and peasants; beneath four Aryan castes was group of socially untouchable Dasas | 23 | |
| 114604021 | Kushans | dynasty that succeeded the Mauryas in northwestern India; sponsors of Buddhism; empire did not extend to Ganges River valley | 24 | |
| 114604022 | Bhadavad Gita | a portion of the sacred books of Hinduism; the name means "the song of God"; It contains a discussion between the deity Krishna and the Indian hero Arjuna on human nature and human purpose | 25 |
