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| 49376853 | Alexander the Great | successor of Philip II; successfully conquered Persian Empire prior to his death; attempted to combine Greek and Persian cultures; allowed important Indian contacts with Hellenistic; established a small border state called Bactria | 0 | |
| 49376854 | Monsoon | seasonal winds crossing Indian subcontinent and southeast Asia; during summer, bring rains to hot, dry places in India; favorable=good harvest (critical for farming) | 1 | |
| 49376855 | Aryans | Indo-European nomadic pastoralists who replaced Harappan civilization; militarized society; Sanskirt language | 2 | |
| 49376856 | Sanskirt | the sacred and classical Indian language; first literary language of Aryan culture in India | 3 | |
| 49376857 | Mahabharata | Vedas; Indian epic of war, princely honor, love, and social duty; written down in the last centuries BCE; previously handed down in oral form; tells of real/mythical battles | 4 | |
| 49376858 | Ramayana | one of the great epic tales from classical India; traces adventures of King Rama and his wife, Sita | 5 | |
| 49376859 | Upanishads | later books of the Vedas; contained sophisticated and sublime philosophical ideas; utilized by Brahmans to restore religious authority; religion/mysticism | 6 | |
| 49376860 | Varnas | clusters of caste groups in Aryan society; four social castes - Brahmans (priests), warriors, merchants, and peasants; beneath the 4 Aryan castes was a group of socially untouchable dasas | 7 | |
| 49376861 | Untouchables | lowest classin Indian society; performed tasks that were considered polluting; street sweeping, removal of human waste, and tanning | 8 | |
| 49376862 | Indra | chief deity of the Aryans; depicted as a colossal, hard-drinking warrior God of thunder and strength | 9 | |
| 49376863 | Chandragupta Maurya | founder of Maurya dynasty; established firsrt empire in Indian subcontinent; first centralized government since Harappan civilization; governmental bureaucracy; National Postal System | 10 | |
| 49376864 | Mauryan Dynasty | first ruler was Chandragupta Maurya; unified much of the entire subcontinent; large armies with thousands of chariots and elephant borne troops; developed a substantial bureaucracy with a postal service; autocratic government | 11 | |
| 49381597 | Ashoka | grandson of Chandragupta Maurya; completed conquests of Indian subcontinent; converted to Buddhism and sponsored spread of new religion throughout his empire | 12 | |
| 49390061 | 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 | 13 | |
| 49390062 | Guptas | dynasty the 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; claimed divine rule; demanding system of taxation; established universities | 14 | |
| 49390063 | Guru | Brahman who served as a teacher for the princes of the imperial court of the Guptas | 15 | |
| 49390064 | Shiva | the Brahman, later Hindu, god of destruction and reproduction; worshipped as the personification of cosmic forces of change | 16 | |
| 49390065 | Vishnu | the Brahman, later Hindu god of sacrifice; widely worshipped | 17 | |
| 49390066 | Reincarnation | the successive attachment of the soul to some animate form according to merits earned in previous lives; believed that castes were based upon previous lives and that if you fulfilled your duties, you would move up in the next life | 18 | |
| 49390067 | Buddha (Siddhartha Guatama) | creator of 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 | 19 | |
| 49390068 | Nirvana | the Buddhist state of enlightenment; a state of tranquility | 20 | |
| 49390069 | Stupas | stone shrines built to house pieces of bone or hair and personal possessions said to be relics of the Buddha; preserved Buddhist architectural forms | 21 |
