Helen Santos
April 14, 2016
History 110A-Section 4
MWF 11:00 am
Chapter 16: India and the India Ocean Basin
Chapter 16 in the book Tradition & Encounter: A Global Perspective on the Past written by Jerry H. Bentley and Herbert F. Ziegler is mainly about Islam and Hindu kingdoms, and the meetings of their traditions, production and trade in the Indian Ocean Basin, and the influence of Indian society in Southeast Asia.
The chapter starts with the kingdoms of Islamic and Hindu, and it begins with the quest for the centralized imperial rule. Starts with talking about the tension among regional kingdom in North India, and how the Nomadic Turks was mixed with Indian society. However, the Harsha Kingdom temporarily restored and unified rule in
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north India in 606 C.E, but ended quickly in 648 C.E. Islam also forced itself into India through Sind because it was conquered by Arab Muslims, which started the Abbasids Dynasty. While they dynasty was on Muslims merchants started to form small communities in big cities throughout the coastal India, which had influence throughout India. Turkish migrants were affected by Islam to the point where they converted in the tenth century. Turkish were even moving to Afghanistan and started to establish and Islamic state. The Turk leader mad expedition to northern India, who was Mahmud of Ghazni, and established the sultanate of Delhi, which was in power from 1206 to 1526 C.E. Mahmud’s successors conquered north India in 1206 C.E, but their power did not go farther than their capital, which is Delhi. However, Islam slowly started to permanently be part of India. The Hindu kingdoms ruled southern India; as for the south their politically they are divided, but they are peaceful people. There were two kingdoms in the south, and they were Chola and Vijayanagar. The Chola Kingdom, ruled from 850 to 1267 C.E, was in the Deep South and was the larger kingdom; it ruled the Coromandel Coast. The kingdom’s highest point was when they conquer Ceylon and snips of Southeast Asia. Their Navy dominated the waters of South Asia, specifically China and Arabian Sea. The kingdom was not a centralized state, but a local autonomy, which was strong. However, it started to fall in the twelfth century. The other kingdom is the kingdom of Vijayanagar, ruled from 1336 to 1565 C.E, near the norther Deccan. It was established by two Indian brothers, and got rid of Islam in 1336 and put again the faith of Hindu. The chapter continues with the production and trade in the Indian Ocean Basin, and starts with agricultural in the monsoon world.
The monsoons mean it rains in the spring and summer. Irrigation systems were necessary to have dry months, so there would not be big rivers in the south, and there were water saved from the pervious rain months. All of this lead to population growth and urbanization was a part of Delhi. In Indian Ocean Basin, it had development in trade and economic in the southern India. It began with internal trade with self-sufficient in staple food; like, metals, and spices crops found only in certain regions. Hindu temples were become a place where trade happens and serves as economic and social centers. Hindu temples had large tracts of land that helped make hundreds of employee, and the administrators of the temples had to maintain order and deliver taxes. The also served as banks and engage in business ventures. There was a cross-cultural in Indian Ocean basin was between Dhows and junks; they were huge ships involved n maritime trade. There were two places were clearinghouses of trade and cosmopolitan center, which were Emporia and Indian port cities. There were specialized production during this time, and some were high quality cotton textiles. There was a kingdom in the center of Emporia known as the kingdom of Axum and it was a Christian empire. They were a kingdom who resisted to the pressure of Islam and stayed prosperous through …show more content…
trade. The chapter moves on and talks about the meeting between Hindu and Islamic traditions. The northern part of India was Islam and the southern part was Hinduism. Two cults rose during this period, and they were Vishnu and Shiva. While Buddhism decline Hinduism started to benefit because they started to become popular. The purpose of a cult is to achieve a mystic union with gods as a way of salvation. There were two famous philosophers Shankara, from the ninth century, and Ramanuja, from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. However, Islam did seem appealing to some people, but the conversion to become Islamic was slow and gradual way. Some reasons for people to convert were to improve their lower social statues, and often an entire caste or sub caste adopted Islam. The also did Sufis, which was the most effective missionaries. Also there was a bhakti movement, and an important bhakti teach was Guru Kabir. The chapter ends with talking about the influence of Indian society in Southeast Asia, the way Indian influence the Southeast of Asia is by bring faith to it, political traditions, and Hinduism and Buddhism.
The first to have a big influence and reflect it was Funan during the first to sixth century C.E. They drew enormous wealth by controlling their trade, and adopting Sanskrit as their official language, but they started to decline in the sixth century. Then came the Srivijiaya and Angkor Kingdoms that had influences from India and other too, but it change when Islam came into the Southeast Asia and people started to convert into Muslims and Melaka was
powerful.
“Rituals and Traditions; It Takes a Tribe,” written by David Berreby and “Indians: Textualism, Morality, and the Problem of History” written by Jane Tompkins, both exemplify a typical controversial topic in the United States of America today. The US prides there self on the basis of freedom, and how Americans are made up of individuals with backgrounds from all around the world. Many consider the US to be a “melting pot”, a society where cultures are just blended together and not recognized fully on their own, where as others consider the US to be a “salad bowl”, where people of international cultures hold fast to their traditions and practices and coexist with the cultures around them. Both authors of the readings propose that generally speaking,
...ng religion and foreign to the people of India, yet there is a defied truth that Islam’s spread peacefully throughout India with the alliances formed between the Indian people, the Turks, and the Mongols. The encounters that the ancient Indian people had to endure with the Turks, Mongols, and Islam have had the most memorable impact and impression on Indian culture and other societies throughout the east. Ancient Indian history is often overlooked within our society, but perhaps there should be a second look at how the Indian people have became who they are today, what attributes that have given society, and what pandemonium they have overcame as a civilization to stay in existence and stand against the test of time.
During 660-1200 CE the time of Tang dynasty and Song dynasty, these Chinese civilization began to spread out to other areas around the civilization. Some was influence by them and some adopted their ideas and culture. Korea, Vietnam, Japan were the three civilization that were influence by China. Chinese had a really big impact on all of these three cultures.
The relationships of the Axumite Empire with the world outside its borders was almost entirely based on trade and military conquest. The key location of Axum in the horn of Africa, which is now Ethiopia, near The Red Sea and the Indian Sea made Axum one of the most important trading posts of the time. In the documents “The Periplus of the Erythraen Sea”, “The Christian Topography” by Cosmas and “Inscription on a Stone Throne” The authors describe different features of the trading practices and military campaigns of Axum that had a significant impact in the neighboring empires. From the grandeur of the Axumite port Adulis and the products that were available for import and export. To how they conducted the trading of materials and resources for gold with the neighboring African peoples. And military conquests that expanded the wealth of Axum.
It is often said that history is written by the victor, and in the race to industrialization of the past two centuries, Western Europe and the United States have emerged as the victors. This enabled them to write a history in which their rise to power was preordained and inevitable and in which Eastern cultures are viewed as backward and intolerant. These Eurocentric histories have so fully permeated the global psyche that the stereotypes they have perpetuated inform our cultural interactions to this day. However, an unbiased look at the premodern history of Asia and the Middle East reveals the inaccuracy of the Eurocentric paradigm. Contrary to the Eurocentric view, there is nothing inherently intolerant about Islam or Middle Eastern and East Asian culture. In fact, many of the societies that have existed in the East have been extraordinarily tolerant and heterogeneous.
Oxtoby, Willard G. World Religions: Eastern Traditions. Oxford University Press; 4 edition. March 11, 2014
1.) Intro: I decided to focus my Religious Ethnography on a friend whom I recently have become close with. Adhita Sahai is my friend’s name, which she later told me her first name meant “scholar.” I choose to observe and interview Adhita, after she invited me to her home after hearing about my assignment. I was very humbled that she was open to this, because not only was it a great opportunity for this paper, but it also helped me get to know Adhita better. I took a rather general approach to the religious questions that I proposed to the Sahai family because I didn’t want to push to deep, I could tell Hinduism is extremely important to this family. Because this family does not attend a religious site where they worship, I instead listened to how they do this at home as a family instead.
The Islamic Empire contributed to globalization during the Islamic Golden Age, when the knowledge, trade and economies from many previously isolated regions and civilizations began integrating through contacts with Muslim (and Jewish Radhanite) explorers and traders. Their trade networks extended from the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Indian Ocean and China Sea in the east. These trade networks helped establish the Islamic Empire as the world’s leading extensive economic power throughout the 7th–13th centuries.
Stewart Gordon is an expert historian who specializes in Asian history. He is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan and has authored three different books on Asia. Gordon’s When Asia Was The World uses the narratives of several different men to explore The Golden Age of medieval Asia. The fact that this book is based on the travels and experiences of the everyday lives of real people gives the reader a feeling of actually experiencing the history. Gordon’s work reveals to the reader that while the Europeans were trapped in the dark ages, Asia was prosperous, bursting with culture, and widely connected by trade. This book serves to teach readers about the varieties of cultures, social practices, and religions that sprang from and spread out from ancient Asia itself and shows just how far Asia was ahead of the rest of the world
Adas, Michael, Marc Jason Gibert, Peter N. Stearns, and Stuart B. Schwartz. “Abbasid Decline and the spread of Islamic civilization to south and south Asia.”World civilizations. The Global Experience. 6th ed.Vol combined. New Jersey: Longman, 2011. 270-90. Print.
The history of the British colonization of India, from a commercial trade relationship to a relationship of control, is deeply tied to the manipulation of Islamic law as was previously practiced by the Mughal Empire. With the development of a 19th century sovereign nation state in India, the British found themselves increasingly in need of developing strategies of centralization and control. They responded to this need by borrowing preexisting concepts from Sharia that they modified in utilitarian ways to redistribute power from the hands of the Moghul rulers to British ones, and developed Orientalist philosophies that justified the colonizing project. In the process, the original application of Sharia was irrevocably changed, and remains to date substantially influenced by British common law. I will discuss these changes and manipulations in the light of the Ijtihad-taqlid controversy, Orientalism, and the dynamic between Sharia and the modern nation state.
I met this "different person" at the periodical section of the Good Library of State College. After asking the person for my article that I had requested I ask his name, he answers with his Indian accent, "Ajai Ahulalia." I say, "What?s that?" "Ajai Sanhi," he responds back. "What?" I say, being embarrassed because I cannot understand his name. "Ajai Ahulalia" he tries for the third time. "Oh Ajai," finally I understand. I ask, "Were do you live?" "Yoder First" he answers, then I fell a fool again, "Really, me too." What has happened to Ajai?s life when he lived in India and now here in the U.S.?
...nese control, a southern Vietnamese state, called Funan, spread out over much of Indochina and the Malay Peninsula—providing a trading and cultural circle for Indian merchants, Brahman priests, and Buddhist monks. This Indian influence continued even after the decline of Funan, as did Indian influence in the independent state of Tai and the Khmer Empire of Cambodia. Also drawing on Indian tradition and Sanskrit writing was the maritime empire of Srivijaya based on the island of Sumatra, and dominating the waters in that area and extending up to the Malay Peninsula. After 800 it was the early Indian form of Buddhism (called Theravada Buddhism) that dominated in Southeast Asia. Finally, it was not direct Indian control that was the key to the expansion of Indian culture, but an extension of trade and religious networks.
The Indus Civilization evolved near the Indus River due to the spacious and fertile land. The people were able to grow crops
Kenneth Jost. 2005. “Understanding Islam.” Annual Editions: Anthropology 11/12, 34th Edition. Elvio Angeloni. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.