Empires: Gupta India

 Life in the Gupta Empire

 Society in India
 Complex social hierarchy based on caste membership (birth
groups called jati)
 occupations strictly dictated by caste
 Earlier part of time period - women had property rights
 Decline in the status of women
 corresponding to increased emphasis on acquisition and
inheritance of property
 ritual of sati for wealthy women (widow cremates
herself in her husband's funeral pyre)
 Culture in India
 Hinduism became the dominant religion
 Buddhism began in India during this era;
 Mauryans Buddhist, Guptas Hindu
 Great epic literature such as the Ramayana and Mahabarata
 Extensive trade routes within subcontinent & with others
 connections to Silk Road
 heart of Indian Ocean trade
 coined money for trade
 So-called Arabic numerals developed in India
 employing a 10-based system
 Politics in the Mauryan & Gupta
 The Mauryan Empire, 324 B.C.E.–184 B.C.E.
 The core of was the kingdom of Magadha
 founded by Chandragupta Mauryan
 Fought against Alexander the Great in his invasion
 included almost the entire subcontinent
 capital at Pataliputra
 imperial establishment
 Large Army
 700,000 men, 9000 elephants, and 10,000
chariots 25 % tax on the agricultural products
 state monopolies on mines, shipbuilding, and
armaments.
 Mauryan Emperors
 Chandragupta Maurya (326)
 Secret police
 danger of conspiracy
 Chandragupta lived in strict seclusion
  attended only by women who cooked his
 in the evening carried him to his apartment
 Courts
 Arthashastra (Treatise on Material Gain) by Kautilya
early “mirror for princes”
 Superceded the Laws of Manu (ca. 1500 BCE)
 Later Mauryans
 Ashoka
 Adopts Buddhism
 yet is tolerant
 Rock and Pillar Edicts
 Right behavior, kindness to animals, kindness
to prisoners
 Promote rest areas and travel and those devoted to
Dharma
 Building the Gupta Empire
 Founded by Chandra Gupta
 Title of maharajadhiraja – Great One
 never as strong as the Mauryan Empire
 brought northern and central India under their control,
 but not the south
 Lack of political unity
 geographic barriers and diversity of people
 tended to fragment into small kingdoms;
 political authority less important than caste membership
 numerous small kingdoms ruled the Deccan and south
India
 Structure of the Gupta Empire
 Imperial institutions
 controlled iron deposits,
 and collected a 25 % agricultural tax
 used their army to control the core of their empire
 provincial administration was left to governors
 did not have sufficient military force
 characterized by religious toleration
 to the outside world by extensive trade networks
 Pax Gupta
 Guptas did not produce as dynamic a leader as Ashoka
 did provide classical India with its greatest period of
stability
 Greek-speaking Bactrians ruled in northwest India
 Smaller and more decentralized than Maurya
 Invasion of White Huns weakened the empire