Chapter 7
Ancient India
Buddhism/Mauryan Empire
Lesson 3 Continued….The Maurya Empire
 How did the Maurya rulers unite northern India into the first great Indian empire?
 Used “peace”---followed the Buddhist way of thinking with Asoka
 Before—separate areas battled each other until Chandragupta Maurya became king
in 550 BC
 Used spies to get info and used army to keep the people in line (lots of taxes )
 After—Asoka becomes King.
 Rule by law and Buddhist ways
 Examples: encouraged people not to kill living things (carved on pillars);
officials planted trees cleaned up wells/roads---better living
 Changes in Hinduism---because Buddhism more popular
 Poems/teachings are written in everyday languages for common people—
becomes popular and renews interest in Hinduism
 Eventually, Hindu leaders were against Buddhism and it lost followers in India
to Hinduism
 Who were the Guptas and when did they rule India?—500 years of fighting between Asoka
and Guptas
 Gupta Empire—320 AD Chandra Gupta becomes king and India has golden age (lots of
advanced learning/achievements)
Examples:
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Art and Literature—artists like Kalidasa wrote many plays/poems; many
murals/paintings/temples created (religious)
Math— developed number system we use (decimals, 0, pi π studied)
Science-- new practice of Ayurvedic—promotes health/good diet/exercise
Metallurgy—methods of metal working—iron pillar in Delhi (23 ft tall—never rusted in
1600 years)
o Indian Culture Spreading
Merchants and missionaries spread Indian culture when they bought and sold
goods/traveled to new places like Central Asia/China/Sri Lanka/Southeast Asia
Chapter 7
Ancient India
Buddhism/Mauryan Empire
Lesson 4 The Legacy of India
 Religious Legacy: How did the religions of India affect other cultures?
 Hinduism and Buddhism religions today
 4 out of 5 Indians (country only) are Hindus, 1 million people around the world are
Hindu
 Buddhism is only 1% of people in India, but religion popular in Asia/W. Europe/U.S.
 Influences of religion
 Mohandas Gandhi—1940s/50s used non-violent protest (not eating food) to
fight against British rule (Britain/UK/England claimed India as a colony once)
 Martin Luther King Jr. was inspired by Gandhi in his own non-violent
protests in the US against segregation and for all human rights
 Meditation and Yoga practiced by many people
 Artistic Legacy: How have the Indian arts influenced other cultures?
 Plays performed in Southeast Asia based on Sanskrit epic poem—Mahabharata and the
Bhagavad Gita translated into many languages.
 Artists create symbols for Buddhism that many recognize
 Architecture Hindu temple designs like in Cambodia:
Angkor Wat
 Mathematics Legacy: How does the ancient Indian mathematical knowledge affect us?
 Numbers we use to write with: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, and 9 (Hindu-Arabic numerals used for
2,000 years)
 Decimal System: (tens place, ones places…) Created a value for zero “0” to show that a
place value was empty like 504 (nothing in the tens place)