Ancient India vs. Ancient China

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Ancient India vs. Ancient China
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India Geography North
ChinaSouth Asian Plain of Indus Huang He
(Yellow River)

• Periodic floodingrenewal of fertile soil
• Humid subtropical climatedifficulty storing food
• Himalaya Mts.shielded from winter cold and
  invasions
• Monsoons and snowmeltabundant water supply and
  maritime trade (later)
• Passes in northwestcontact with Middle East

• Floods carry loessrenewal of soil fertility
• Much mountainous and semidesert landsettlement
  only along rivers
• Violent floodingdike building for control
• Mountain, desert, and jungle barrierscultural
  isolationunique/homogeneous culture
• Climate split between arid, cool north and wet,
  warm south

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India Political Patterns China

• Centralized govt evident in prominence of
  logically planned cities with public buildings
  and services

• Small feudal kingdoms later unified by Zhou
  Dynasty
• Expansion from Shang?Zhou?Qin
• Highly centralized autocracy and unification
  later under the Qin Dynasty
• Dynastic Cycle and idea of Mandate of Heaven

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Mandate of Heaven
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India Social/Economic China

• Trade with Mesopotamia, South India, and
  Afghanistan
• Uncertainty about how society was organized
  small republics, rule by priests, or early form
  of caste system(Minimal evidencelittle definite
  knowledge)
• Undecipherable writing
• Elaborately planned cities, standardized weights
  and measures, architectural design
• Unlike other civilizations, it produced no
  palaces, temples, elaborate graves, kings, or
  warrior class

• King, aristocratic ruling class, and bureaucracy
  made up of warrior families
• Peasant farmers and slaves
• Artisan/craft workers
• Merchants
• Patriarchal
• Impressive cultural continuity into modern times

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India Religious China

• Importance of fertilityworship of mother goddess
• Clay tablet images of godsprototypes of Hindu
  deities?
• Clay animal figuresgreat respect for livestock
  such as cows?

• King worshipped as mediator between people and
  godsruler was son of heaven
• Early written language with oracle bones as early
  documents
• Early worship of dead royalty set pattern for
  ancestor veneration
• Confucianismsecular belief in ethical conduct
  and social harmony
• Taoismphilosophy focusing on living in harmony
  with laws of nature

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Interactions/technology

• Decline of Indus valley due to change in
  geographic patterns shifted people east
• Aryans migrate from Central Asia into northwest
  India (modern day Pakistan) bringing language and
  cultural traditions including the Vedas, caste
  system, and beliefs that would become Hinduism
• China is isolated due to geographylack of
  outside contactself-sufficiency, unique culture,
  ethnocentrism (middle kingdom)
• Gradually populations move to warmer, wetter
  climates that can sustain bigger populations on
  rice
• Crossbow, horses and the chariot from Central
  Asia will become essential to military victories
• Bronze used in weapons and religious vessels

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