Qin Dynasty China 221 BC-205 BC The First Real Empire

1. Qin Dynasty China221 BC-205 BCThe First Real Empire

2. Zhou to Qin: Warring States • Disorder or loose government of Later Zhou devolves into “Warring States Period” • Autonomous smaller regions emerge as largely independent nations • Periodic war ensues • One among the several emerges to establish a new, far more centralized dynasty • Qin Dynasty emerges as the first Chinese “Empire” 221 BC (pronounced “chin”)

3. Qin Shi Huang Di Unifies China by brute force Adopts Legalism as official governing ideology Rules with ruthless, iron fist

4. Qin Dynasty and Legalism Legalism as promoted by Han Fei Zi: 233 BC Humans are selfish and evil; can not be reformed Ruler must establish rule of law Ruler must rule with force and violence Confucian doctrine is misguided and corrupting

5. Qin Dynasty:Qin Shi Huang Di Rejects Confucian Governance Rules Orders Slaughter of 400 Scholars Orders ALL Confucian Documents/Books Burned

6. Qin Dynasty Captures and unifies much of China Builds first Great Wall Builds Canal System

7. Qin Dynasty:Qin Shi Huang Di Builds Great Tomb Terracotta Warriors – 8000 + and still counting

8. Terracotta Army

12. Qin Dynasty: Brutality Pays(but only for a while) Brutality of Legalist Governance alienates: Gentry Not recognized as important Traditional privileges stripped Scholars Confucian knowledge and skills distained Commoners Brutal, forced labor and harsh law enforcement

13. Qin Dynasty: Problems Legalism Provides no Legitimating Myth No Mandate of Heaven Claim Legalism = rule of law --- but by force Force as a source of Power??? Generates Hostility Requires vigilant monitoring Inevitably creates the revolution that destroys it

14. Qin Dynasty: Collapse 205 BC First Emperor, Qin Shi Huang Di, Dies Son, heir not as capable or brutal Alienation leads to revolt and collapse

15. Han Dynasty: 206 BC – 221 AD Han Gaozu – First Emperor • Originally a commoner • Rose to prominence as a general in an army trying to overthrow the Qin • Overthrows his own king to become Emperor when they succeed

16. Governing philosophy drawn from XunZi: The prince is the boat; the common people are the water. The water can support the boat, or the water can capsize the boat. Han Dynasty: Han Gaozu

17. Han Dynasty: Han Gaozu Government of Reconciliation: • Win over gentry by restoring privileges • Win over scholars by reinstating Confucian advisors and Confucian court system • Win over commoners with reduced labor load and more gentle system of government • Make peace with northern neighbors: • Marriages of convenience -send his daughters • Generous dowries • Lavish annual gifts to keep peace

18. Han DynastyCultural Developments • Han period Poetry develops and gains in elegance and complexity • Confucian ideals codified • Confucian based civil service exam developed but never used in official recruitment

19. Han Dynasty: Problem Becomes Opportunity Tax System based on Land and Agriculture Great Families are Tax Exempt Major revenue problem Iron, Salt, and Liquor Monopolies imposed to boost government revenue

20. Han Dynasty: Problem Becomes Opportunity Grain Storage and Arbitrage • Government buys grain in good times • Stores it • Government sells grain in shortage periods Intent: Profit and Government Revenue Outcome: • Price Stabilization • Avoid Famine • Stabilize political system and support Rice

21. Recurring Dynastic Themes: • Empress families • Empresses come from powerful families • She brings along brothers or uncles who are appointed to powerful posts • Clash or power struggle between empress’ family and imperial family • Major power struggles • Solutions… Complex, sometimes violent

22. Recurring Dynastic Themes: • Eunuchs: emasculated male servants • Ensure legitimacy of Imperial Heir • (Empress can’t produce a bastard if she never sees any other men with reproductive equipment intact) • Men without offspring (or testicles) were presumed to lack ambition – hence they were thought trustworthy • Eunuchs sometimes adopted or worked to build inheritance for a nephew

23. Recurring Dynastic Themes: • Eunuchs: Continued • Testicles apparently do not equal ambition (or more precisely, the absence of testicles does not equal the absence of ambition) • Eunuchs built alliances with Empresses • Power battles between eunuchs and other factions, even the imperial family were common

24. Recurring Dynastic Themes: Millenarian Movements ?? Millennium ?? Christian Millennium: heaven on earth, reign of Christ, 1000 years of peace • Millenarian movements are social movements claiming the ability to lead their followers to some ideal world, some heaven on earth. Often also referred to as utopian movements. Tend to arise in times of economic or social stress or chaos: flood, drought, famine, plague, etc.

25. Recurring Dynastic Themes: • Disinterest in military oversight • Confucianism does not value military virtues • Confucian scholar officials avoid military issues • Generals frequently recruited from low status families or even as foreign mercenaries

26. Recurring Dynastic Themes: • Factional fighting • Top families form factions in government and feud for power • Feuding within government creates major weaknesses and vulnerabilities

27. Han’s End • Too-independent generals overthrow Han 221 AD • No new, unified dynast succeeds Han period. • Six Dynasties period until 589

28. The Indo-Europeans

29. Indo-Europeans Migrate • The Indo-Europeans were a nomadic group coming from the steppes north of the Caucasus Mountains, between the Black and Caspian Seas. They were pastoral livestock herders. • No one is completely sure why the migration happened, but the Indo-Europeans migrated outward in all directions between 1700-1200 BC.

32. The Hittites • By 2000 BC, and Indo-European group called the Hittites occupied Anatolia, or Asia Minor. This empire also occupied Babylon, and struggled with Egypt for control of Northern Syria. Neither group won, so they signed a peace treaty offering to help fight off invaders. • The Hittites used their own language with each other, but internationally they spoke Akkadian, taken from Babylon. • Their superior weaponry skills and iron chariots to help conquer their empire. • Despite their prowess, invaders attached and burned the Hittite capital around 1190 BC, ending the empire. Hittite = Red Egyptian = Green

33. Around the same time that the Hittites were establishing themselves in Anatolia, the Aryans were migrating through the Indus River Pass into India. They left little archaeological evidence, but their scriptures, the Vedas, gives an idea of their life through prayers, spells, and instructions for performing rituals. The Aryans called the people they found in India the dasas, or “dark,” which referred to the color of their skin. The Aryians were taller, lighter in skin color, and spoke a different language from the people that they found. They did not have a writing system and were more pastoral than the dasas, who lived in walled cities. Aryans Transform India

34. A Caste System Develops • Aryans were divided into three social classes: Brahmins (priests), warriors, and farmers. They automatically considered the dasas beneath them, so they became the lower class, the sudras. • Class restrictions were ridged – practically permanent. You were part of it for life, and the work they did and people they married were determined by the caste. Cleanliness was important – those considered unclean because of their profession (butchers, gravediggers, and collectors of refuse) were outside the caste system and became known as the “untouchables.” Their touch endangered the purity of everyone else.

35. Aryan Kingdoms Arise • Over the next few centuries, Aryans extended their settlements east and south, Magadha, a major kingdom, emerged out of this expansion and struggle for power. It covered almost all of the Indian subcontinent. • The great epic Mahabharata shows a blending of cultures as the Aryans moved southward. For example, Krishna, a semi-divine hero of the epic, is described as dark-faced. This suggests he is not Aryan. • The Mahabharata’s violence and confusion leads one to speculate about the place of gods and humans in the world. Due to this, religion gradually changed…

36. Hinduism and Buddhism Develop

37. Hinduism Evolves over Centuries • Hinduism is a collection of religious beliefs that developed over a long period of time – some aspects can be traced back to ancient times, but not one founder with one set of ideals. • Hindus share a common belief that religion is a way of liberating the soul from the illusions, disappointments, and mistakes of everyday existence. The achievement of separation from these desires and suffering is detailed in the Upanishads.

38. Hinduism Evolves over Centuries • When a person understands the relationship between atman (their soul) and Brahman (world soul), then they achieve perfect understanding and release from this world. • This understanding does not come usually in one lifetime – reincarnation in necessary. A soul’s karma, or good and bad deeds, follows it from reincarnation to another. • The karma influences life circumstances, such as caste, etc. • Dharma is the religious and moral duties an individual must have.

39. Hinduism and Society • Hindu ideas about karma and reincarnation strengthened the caste system – if someone was born as an upper-class male, it was said that he had good karma, or fortune. If he was born lower-class, it was said that he deserved it because of past misdeeds. • With some exceptions, only men of the top 3 varnas were said to be able to reach moksha (enlightenment).

40. Who do Hindus worship? – the major gods of the Hindu Pantheon Brahma, the creator god

41. Who do Hindus worship? – the major gods of the Hindu Pantheon Vishnu, the preserver god Incarnates as ten avatars (descents) including: Rama (featured in the Ramayana) Krishna (featured in the Mahabharata) (Each shown with his consort, Sita and Radha, respectively)

42. Who do Hindus worship? – the major gods of the Hindu Pantheon Shiva, god of constructive destruction(the transformer) Appears as Shiva Nataraj,lord of the dance of creation… and with his wife, Parvati, and son Ganesha(the elephant headed remover of obstacles)

43. What about the goddesses?Devi – the feminine divine Saraswati, goddess of wisdom, consort ofBrahma

44. What about the goddesses?Devi – the feminine divine Lakshmi, goddess of good fortune, consortof Vishnu

45. What about the goddesses?Devi – the feminine divine Parvati, divine mother, wife ofShiva

46. What about the goddesses?Devi – the feminine divine Durga, protectress Kali, destroyer of demons Plus about 330 million other deities

47. All these deities are but Manifest forms (attributes and functions) of the impersonal Brahman

48. Buddhism It has been said that “as Judaism is to Christianity, so is Hinduism is to Buddhism.” Buddhism arose out of Hinduism as a direct result of the influence of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha or “Enlightened One; the religious worldview of the Buddhist is very similar to the Hindu worldview, but it is important to recognize that Buddhism is very much distinct from Hinduism. Buddhism is the world’s fourth largest religion, comprising around 6% of the world’s population. The 350,000,000 adherents to the religion are found mainly in China, Japan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indochina, Korea, and Tibet. There are around 800,000 Buddhists in the U.S.

49. Siddhartha Gautama The Period of Enjoyment: Siddhartha was born into the warrior caste in the town of Kapilavastu, which at the time was in northeastern India but is now part of Nepal. Tradition says that Siddhartha’s father sought to shelter his son from the suffering of this world (sickness, old age, death, poverty) – for it was foretold that Siddhartha would be a great spiritual leader, and his father wanted to secure his son’s political future. One day however, Siddhartha ventured away from his family’s palace and encountered all four kinds of suffering – a man wracked by disease, a man decrepit with old age, a corpse, and a monk begging for money. This experience had a profound effect on Siddhartha, as it caused him to take a negative view of his wealth and social status and he became deeply concerned with the problem of suffering. The Period of Enquiry: As a result of this experience, Siddhartha left his family (including a wife and a child); he sought to discover the source of suffering and how to eliminate it. Siddhartha took on the life of an ascetic; his meditation on the cessation of suffering was not successful. He then resolved to live on next to nothing. After almost drowning while bathing (he was so weak he could not resist the current of the river), he realized that one has to give the body what is natural and necessary, for while excess is an obstruction to the attainment of enlightenment, so to is self-deprecation. The “middle path” as he called it is the mean between excess and defect.

50. Siddhartha cont. The Period of Enlightenment: After eating to regain his strength, Siddhartha walked to the city of Bodh Gaya, where he sat under a fig tree (the “Bodhi Tree”) and vowed that he would not rise again until he had attained enlightenment. During this deep state of meditation, Siddhartha was severely tempted by Mara, the evil one. After some period of time (some say one night, while others argue for as many as forty-nine), Siddhartha was awakened to the truth, or enlightened; Buddhists call this Nirvana. After sharing his findings with others, it became clear that what Siddhartha had discovered was truly revolutionary. In short, the teachings of Siddhartha challenged Hinduism in the following ways: * Questioned the authority of the Brahmin class * Rejected all caste divisions * Condemned the developing philosophies regarding “religion” (according to Siddhartha, it is only what one does, not what one believes, that matters). * No God, nor any specific ritual, can bring enlightenment