Chapter 3: India Flashcards

30844246	untouchables	lowest catse in Indian society; performed tasks that were polluting	0
30844247	Ramayana	great epic tale from classical India; traces adventures of King Rama and his wife Sita	1
30844248	gurus	Brahmans who were teachers for the princes of the imperial court of the Guptas	2
30844249	Kushans	dynasty that succeeded the Mauryas in norhtwestern India; sponsors of Buddhism	3
30844250	Tamils	seafaring people along southern coast of India; traded cotton and silks, dyes, drugs, gold, and ivory	4
30844251	reincarnation	successive attachment of the soul to some animate form according to merits in previous lives	5
30844252	nirvana	Buddhist state of enlightenment, as state of tranquility	6
30844253	Mahabarata	Indian epic of war, princely honor, love, and social duty; written down in last centuries BCE; previously handed down in oral form	7
30844254	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	8
30844255	Mauryas	dynasty established in Indian subcontinent in 4th century BCE following invasion by Alexander the Great	9
30844883	Buddha	creator of major Indian and Asian religion; born in 6th century BCE as son of local ruler among Aryan tribes located near Himalayas; taught enlightenment could be achieved only by abandoning desires for all earhtly things	10
30844884	Chandragupta Maurya	founder of Maurya dynasty; established first empire in Indian subcontinent; first centralized government since Harappan civilization	11
30844885	Ashoka	grandson of Chandragupta Maurya; completed conquests of Indian subcontinent; converted to Buddhism and sponsored spread of new religion throughout his empire	12
30844886	Kautilya	political advisor to Chandragupta Maurya; one of the authors of Arthashastra; believed in scientific application of warfare	13
30844887	Arthashastra	political treatise written during reign of Chandragupta Maurya; advocated use of spies and assassins, bribery, and scientific forms of warfare	14
30844888	Guptas	dynasty that succeeded the Kushans in the 3rd century BCE; built empire that extended to all but the southern regions of the Indian subcontinent; less centralized than Mauryan empire	15
30844889	Sanskrit	the scared and classical Indian language	16
30844890	Skanda Gupta	last of able rulers of the Gupta dynasty; following his reign the empire dissolved under the pressure of nomadic invasions	17
30844891	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	18
30844892	Upanishads	later books of the Vedas; contained sophisticated and sublime philosophical ideas; utilized by Brahmans to restore religious authority	19
30844893	mandala	a religious symbol associated with meditation, usually created with geometric patterns and shapes	20
30844894	Kamasutra	written by Varsayana during Gupta era; offered instrustions on all aspects of life for higher caste males, including grooming, hygiene, etiquette, and selection of wives	21
30844895	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	22
30859210	Alexander the Great	invaded India but did not establish a durable empire; allowed important Indian contacts with Hellenistic culture	23
30859211	monsoon	torrential rains crucial for farming; vary from year to year sometimes bringing too little rain or too late	24
30859212	Vedas	literary epics developed by Aryans; initially passed down orally; most of what we know about preclassical period in Indian history comes from these sacred books	25
30859213	Rig-Veda	the first epic of the Vedas; consists of 1028 hymns deticated to the Aryan gods and composed by various priests	26
30859214	Vishnu	hindu god; the preserver	27
30859215	Shiva	hindu god; the destroyer	28