Chpt 5: Eurasian Cultural Traditions 500 B.C.E. ~ 500 C.E.

Chapter 5 Overview:  



In China's search for order, they were one of the first civilizations, which have been traced back to around 2000 B.C.E.



China, a communist country, had devoted much of it's efforts in trying to discredit Confucius and his teachings. Mao Zedong believed that Confucianism associated with class inequality, patriarchy, feudalism, and superstition, all old things and backward, needed to be discredited, but Confucius, who was a teacher and philosopher, outlasted it's revolutionary hero. China began to modernizing, and the high-ranking political leaders came to accept Confucius and urged "social harmony".



Buddhism, as well as Christianity, has grown rapidly since the death of Mao in 1976 with Christians making up 7% of China's population by 21st century.



The second-wave civilizations surrounding 500 B.C.E. across Eurasia emerged cultural traditions that spread widely that shaped the values and outlooks of most people who inhabited the planet over the past 2,500 years: China, India, the Middle East, and Greece.



Zoroaster:
7th century B.C.E. (?) / Persia (present day Iran) / Zoroastrianism
Single High God; cosmic conflict of good and evil

Hebrew Prophets: (Isaiah, Amos, Jeremiah)
9th - 6th Centuries B.C.E. / Eastern Mediterranean / Palestine / Israel / Judaism
Transcendent High God; covenant with chosen people; social justice

Anonymous writers of Upanishads:
800 – 400 B.C.E / India / Brahmanism / Hinduism
Brahma (single impersonal divine reality); karma; rebirth; goal of liberation (moksha)

Confucius:
6th century B.C.E. / China / Confucianism
Social harmony through moral example; secular outlook; importance of education; family as model of the state

Mahavira:
6th century B.C.E. / India / Jainism
All creatures have souls; purification through nonviolence; opposed to caste

Siddhartha Gautama:
6th century B.C.E. / India / Buddhism
Suffering caused by desire/attachment; end of suffering through modest and moral living and meditation practice

Laozi, Zhuangzi:
6th - 3rd centuries B.C.E. / China / Daoism
Withdrawal from the world into contemplation of nature; simple living; end of striving

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle:
5th - 4th centuries B.C.E. / Greece / Greek
Style of persistent questioning; secular explanation of nature and human life

Jesus:
early 1st century C.E. / Palestine / Isreal / Christianity
Supreme Importance of love based on intimate relationship with God; at odds with established authorities

Saint Paul:
1st century C.E. / Palestine / Isreal / eastern Roman Empire / Christianity
Christianity as a religion for all; salvation through faith in Christ


China and the Search for Order


China and the Search for Order - One of the First Civilizations, dating back to around 2000 B.C.E. or before Zhou dynasty took power in 1122 B.C.E. By 8th century, Zhou dynasty and royal court weakened by 500 B.C.E. weakening China's unity, followed by chaos, growing violence, and disharmony known as "age of warring states". Chinese thinkers considered how order might be restored and from reflections emerged classical cultural traditions of Chineses civilization:

Comparison: What different answers to the problem of disorder arose in classical China?

The Legalist Answer – Solutions to China’s problems lay in rules & laws, clearly spelled out and strictly enforced through a system of rewards and punishments. (A Chinese philosophy distinguished by and adherence to clear laws with vigorous punishments.)

The Confucian Answer – was very different from Legalists. No laws and no punishments, but moral example of superiors to restore social harmony that consisted of unequal relationships: father was superior to the son, husband to the wife, older brother to younger brother and ruler to subject.

Ren - human-heartedness, benevolence, goodness, nobility of heart = tranquil society. Education was path to moral betterment, which consisted of language, literature, history, philosophy and ethics as was ritual and ceremonies.

Lessons for Women - defining the lives of women written by Ban Zhao (45-116 C.E.) - called for greater attention to education of young girls to better serve husband

The Daoist Answer – encouraged people to withdraw from political and social activism world, to disengage from public life and align with the way of nature. Simplifying living, self-sufficient communities, limited government and abandonment of education and active efforts at self-improvement. A perspective regarded by elite Chinese as complementing rather than contradicting Confucian values.

Yin and Yang – Chinese belief in the unity of opposites. During the day Confucian “government by goodness” and returning home in the evening Daoist fashion – simple life, reading, meditating, breathing exercises landscape paintings, magic, fortune-telling and immortality

Yellow Turban Rebellion – utopian society without oppression of governments and landlords
Chinese Landscape Paintings: Focused largely on mountains and water, Chinese landscape paintings were much influenced by the Daoist search for harmony with nature. Thus human figures and buildings were usually eclipsed by towering peaks, watherfalls, clouds, and trees. Beautiful View over the River

Cultural Traditions of Classical India
An Indian civilization different from China that embraced the divine and all things spiritual with enthusiams and philosophical visions about nature of reality. Hinduism had no historical founder, but rather grew up with Indian civilizations that spread into Southeast Asia. Hinduism was not a missionary religion, but was more like Judaism associated with particular people and territory.

Hinduism was never a single tradition, but derived from outsiders, Greeks, Muslims and later British who sought to reduce infinite variety of Indian cultural patterns into a recognizable system. Hinduism dissolved into a diversity of gods, spirits, beliefs, practices, rituals and philosophies, as well as, were diverse people who migrated/invaded the South Asian peninsula over several centuries/millennia giving India's cultural a distinctive quality.


South Asian Religion: From Ritual Sacrifice to Philosophical Speculation

Change: In what ways did the religious traditions of South Asia change over the centuries?

Vedas - collection of poems, hymns, prayers and rituals. Compiled by priests called Brahmins, the Vedas were transmitted orally for centuries and reduced to writing in Sanskrit 600 B.C.E. Sacred writings tell of samll competing chiefdoms or kingdoms, of sacred sounds and fires, of numerous gods, rising and falling in importance over the centuries, and of the elaborate rituals sacrifices required. Sacrifices and Rituals with great precision equaled enormous power and wealth that exceeded kings and warriors for Brahmins, which generated criticism, rituals became mechanical and formal and Brahmins required heavy fees to perform them.

Upanishads - another body of sacred tests, composed of anonymous thinkers between 800 and 400 B.C.E., mystical and philosophical works that probed the inner meaning of sacrifices prescribed in Vedas.

Brahman - world soul, the final and ultimate reality a unitary energy or divine realit infusing all things similar to the Chinese notion dao. "immense diveristy of existence that human beings perceived with their sense was but an illusion".

Atman - individual human soul was apart of Brahman

Moksha - liberation, bubble in a glass, is beyond the quest for pleasure, wealth, power and soical position in acheiving the final goal of humankind - union with Brahman, an end to illusory perceptions of separate existence, some gained moksha through knowledge or study; others by means of detached actions in the world - ones work without regard to consequences; others through passionate devotion, deity or meditation

Samsara - achieving the moksha state involved many lifetimes

Karma - rebirth/reincarnation of Hindu thinking, human souls migrating from body to body over may lifetimes


The Buddist Challenge

The Mahabodhi Temple - Constructed on the rraditional site of the Buddha's enlightenment in norhern India, the Mahabodhi temple became a major pilgrimage site and was lavishly patronized by local rulers

Comparison - In what ways did Buddhism reflect Hindu traditions, and in what wys did it challenge them?

Much of Buddha's teaching reflected Hindu traditions; ordinary life as illusion, concepts of karma and rebirth overcoming incessant ego, meditation and release from cycle of rebirth. Buddhism was a simplified and more accessible version of Hinduism, which challenged Hindu thinking by rejecting religious authority of Brahmins, Buddha ridiculed rituals and sacrifices, people had to take responsibility for their own spiritual development; "be a lamp into yourself", "work out your own salvation" it was self-effort based on personal experience and "awakening" was available to all.

Siddhartha Gautama - Buddha, prince from small Indian state, lived a sheltered and delightful youth, old age, sickness and death shocked the prince. At thirty-five, took six year spiritual quest, achieving insight/"enlightment", remaining of life taught to growing community who saw him as Buddha, the Enlightened One, who said, "I teach but one thing, suffering and the end of suffering."



Nirvana - virtually indescribable state in which individual identity would be "extinguished" along with all greed, hatred, and delusion, and an end to pain and suffering, experience overwhelming serenit, immense loving-kindness/commpassion for all.



"The Laws of Manu" - define positon of women: "In childhood a female must be subject to her father; in youth to her husband; when her lord is dead to her sons; a woman must never be independent", a freedom from three crooked things: mortar, pestle and crooked husband, free from birth and death



Comparison: What is the difference between the Theravada and Mahayana expressions of Buddhism?



The differences in understanding of how nirvana could be achieved.



Theravada (the teaching of the Elders) portrayed Buddah as a wise teacher and model, but not divine, a set of practices rather than beliefs, individuals on their own to search for enlightenment.



Mahayana (Great Vehicle) proclaimed helped for strenuous voyage, bodhisattvas, spiritual people postponed their entry into nirvana to assist those still suffering, believed Buddha was of a god, available to offer help, various levels of heavens and hells, religion of salvation, merit earned acts of piety and devotion, supporting monastery, and merit might be transferred to others.


Hinduism as a Religion of Duty and Devotion


Change: What new emphases characterized Hinduism as it responded to the challenge of Buddhism?



Buddhism died out, transformed into a broader Hindu tradition, spread and flourished in Mahayana form to other parts of Asia, decline due to wealth of monasteries and economic interests of leading figures seperate from ordinary people, Islam competition after 1000 C.E., growth of first millennium C.E. new kind of Hinduism more accessible brought on by challenge of Buddhism, expressed in poems of Mahabharata and Ramayana that provided a path ot liberation.

Bhagavad Gita - Hindu text, Mahabharata a troubled worrior-hero Arjuna anguished over killing of kinsmen, act of devotion lead to "release from the shackles of repeated rebirth", path to gods and goddesses, bhakti (worship)intense adoration and identificaton with deity through songs, prayers and rituals associated with cults emerged through India.

 

Vishnu (right) - most popular deities, protector and preserver of creation, associated with mercy and goodness

Shiva (left) - divine in destructive aspect