Chapter Two The Foundation of Indian Society, to C.E. 300.

Chapter Two

The Foundation of Indian Society,

to C.E. 300

2

Mohenjo DaroMohenjo-daro, in southern Pakistan, was one of the best-known cities of the Harappan--or Indus--civilization. It was a planned city, built of fired mud bricks. Its streets were straight, and covered drainpipes were installed to carry away waste. From sites like this we know that the early Indian political elite had the power and technical expertise to organize large, coordinated building projects. (Josephine Powell)

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3

Figurine from Mohenjo-daroThis small stone figure from Mohenjo-daro is thought to depict a priest-king. The man's beard is carefully trimmed and his upper lip shaved. The headband and armband have circular ornaments, probably once filled with colored paste. His robe with its trefoil designs was probably also filled with colors to suggest the fabric more vividly. (National Museum, Karachi)


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Bronze statue from Indus ValleyThis small bronze statue from the Indus Valley was found in a house in Mohenjo-daro. It represents a young woman whose only apparel is a necklace and an armful of bracelets. Appearing relaxed and confident, she has been identified by some scholars as a dancer. (National Museum, New Delhi)


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Harappan sealThe Bronze Age urban culture of the Indus Valley is known today, alternatively, as the Harappan civilization, from the modern name of a major city. Archaeologists have discovered some three hundred Harappan cities in both Pakistan and India. It was a literate civilization, but no one has been able to decipher the more than four hundred symbols inscribed on stone seals and copper tablets. The Indus civilization extended over nearly 500,000 square miles in the Indus Valley, making it more than twice as large as the territories of the ancient Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations. This molded tablet, discovered among the many small objects at Harappan sites, depicts a female deity battling two tigers. It provides a glimpse of early Indian religious imagination and daily life. (J.M. Kenoyer/Courtesy Department of Archaeology and Museums, Government of Pakistan)


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Harappan jeweleryAmong the small objects found in the Indus Valley are these pieces of jewelry--made of gold and precious stones--which give some insight into the daily life of the time. (J.M. Kenoyer/Courtesy Department of Archaeology and Museums, Government of Pakistan)


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Jain AsceticVardhamana Mahavira (fl. ca. 520 B.C.E.) was the key figure of Jainism. He accepted the doctrines of karma and rebirth but developed these ideas in new directions. Like many ascetics of the period, he left home to become a wandering mendicant ascetic. The most extreme of Jain ascetics not only endured the elements without the help of clothes but were also generally indifferent to bodily comfort. The Jain saint depicted in this eighth-century cave temple has maintained his yogic posture for so long that vines have grown up around him. (Courtesy, Robert Fisher) Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

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Great Stupa at Sanchi, North GateThe North Gate is one of four ornately carved gates guarding the Buddhist memorial shrine--the Great Stupa--at Sanchi, Madhya Pradesh, Satavahana. The complex at Sanchi, in central India, was begun by Ashoka in the third century B.C.E., though the gates probably date to the first century. The elaborate relief sculpture on the gates includes Buddhist symbols, scenes from the lives of the Buddha, and voluptuous female tree spirits. (Jean-Louis Nou/akg-images)


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Queen Maya's DreamThe stupa erected at Bharhut in the second century B.C.E. depicts stories of the Buddha's previous lives and events in his life as Shakyamuni. In this panel we see the legend of his conception. As a lamp flickers at Queen Maya's bedside, a large white elephant hovers above her before descending into her side. (Government of India, Department of Archaeology)


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Fasting BuddhaThis sculpture of the Buddha, showing the effects of a protracted fast, is from Gandhara in northwest India. It displays the influence of Greek artistic styles emanating from Greek settlements established in that region by Alexander the Great in the late fourth century B.C.E. (Courtesy, Robert Fisher)


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Vishnu asleepIn this stone relief from a temple at Deogarh, in central India, Vishnu reclines on the coiled body of a giant multiheaded serpent that he subdued. The beneficent god of preservation, Vishnu appears in a new incarnation whenever demonic forces threaten the world. The Indian view of the vastness of time is embodied in this mythic image, which conceives of Vishnu as creating and destroying universes as he exhales and inhales. (John C. Huntington)


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Ashoka's columnThe best preserved of the pillars that King Ashoka erected in about 240 B.C.E. is this one in the Bihar region, near Nepal. The solid shaft of polished sandstone rises 32 feet in the air. It weighs about 50 tons, making its erection a remarkable feat of engineering. Like other Ashokan pillars, it is inscribed with accounts of Ashoka's political achievements and instructions to his subjects on proper behavior. These pillars are the earliest extant examples of Indian writing and a major historical source for the Mauryan period. (Borromeo/Art Resource, NY)


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Kushan girlIn 20 B.C.E., a nomadic tribe, the Kushans, began their rule of the region of today's Afghanistan, Pakistan, and west India as far south as Gujarat. During the Kushan period, Greek culture had a considerable impact on Indian art. Here, a young Kushan woman on this second-century stone sculpture wears bracelets, necklaces, and earrings. She is carrying a platter of food, perhaps for a feast. (Courtesy, Archaeological Museum, Mathura)


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Bodhisattva at Bamian, lst B.C.Carved into the side of a cliff at Bamiam, this was one of two monumental Buddhist sculptures near the top of a high mountain pass connecting Kabul, Afghanistan, with the northern parts of the country. Carved in the sixth or seventh century, the sculptures were surrounded by cave dwellings of monks and rock sanctuaries, some dating to the first century B.C.E. (Ian Griffiths/Robert Harding Picture Library)


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Relief, Sailing Vessel, Indian Ocean, from BorobudurShips like this Indian Ocean sailing vessel, in a rock carving in the Buddhist temple of Borobodur in Java (built between 770 and 825), probably carried colonists from Indonesia to Madagascar. (Ancient Art & Architecture Collection)


Map Ancient India

Ancient IndiaMountains and ocean largely separate the Indian subcontinent from the rest of Asia. Migrations and invasions usually came through the Khyber Pass, in the northwest. Seaborne commerce with western Asia, southeast Asia, and East Asia often flourished. Peoples speaking Indo-European languages migrated into the broad valleys of the Indus and Ganges Rivers in the north. Dravidian-speaking peoples remained the dominant population in the south. The diversity of the Indian landscape, the multiplicity of ethnic groups, and the primary identification of people with their class and caste lie behind the division into many small states that has characterized much of Indian political history. (Copyright (c) Houghton Mifflin Company. All Rights Reserved.)


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India from ca. 2500 B.C.E. to 300 C.E.The earliest civilization in India developed in the Indus River valley in the west of the subcontinent. The Ganges River valley was the heart of the later Mauryan Empire. Although India is protected from the cold by the mountains in the north, mountain passes in the northwest allowed both migration and invasion. (Copyright (c) Houghton Mifflin Company. All Rights Reserved.)


Chapter Two The Foundation of Indian Society, to C.E. 300.

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