Great Revolutions in Thought and Religion

1000BCE – 350BCE

Comparative Essay

• Compare how political turmoil led to intellectual and cultural creativity, during the period 1000 to 350 BCE in East Asia and South Asia

The World, c. 500 BCE

Most revolutions in thought occurred near one of the four river valley societies.

Mesopotamia

Yellow River (Huang He)

Nile

Indus

The Greeks & their mates

Generalizations

• Fringe regions develop on the borders of the river basin hearths

• Thinkers, teachers, prophets emerge from a world at war

• New types of political & social organizations emerge

• Cultural ideas develop into cultural identities• “Second Generation” societies

– Built on predecessors - tended to keep many original traditions

Commonalities of GREAT Revolutions• Sanctified (Made Holy):

– Time: sacred calendar, rituals, events like marriage

– Space: shrines, pilgrimage sites– Language and literature; Sanskrit,

Tripitaka, Torah– Art: art and music used to inspire religious

feelings– Organization: membership makes you

accepted

Religious Flagellants

CRISIS• Each revolution in thought occurred at a time of

crisis– Iron tools made armies more powerful– Old societies disintegrating

• China - Period of Warring States– Zhou regime fractured– Huge competing Chinese armies– Population rising

• India – Invasion!– Aryans moved into India assimilating much of native

population• Greece – Unrest/search for meaning

– Unsatisfying religion– Warring city states

"We're surrounded. That simplifies the problem!"

Case Study I: China

New Ideas Emerge - “The Hundred Masters”

• Confucius (Kong Fuzi)- Confucianism

– Searches for clues to good governance, society– People are innately good– Government by junzi (superior man)

• Laozi - Daoism

– Follow the order of nature, do nothing

• Xunzi – Legalism

– People are innately bad– Need for strong authoritarian rule and harsh punishment

• Scholars were bureaucrats & not free thinkers as in Greece & South Asia

A person is born with a liking for

profit

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and

is not intent on arriving

Respect yourself and others will

respect you

Kong Fuzi

Laozi

Xunzi

Case Study II: South Asia

• The Vedas - collections of songs and prayers, most important is the Rig Veda

• The Vedas are a priestly perspective (priests would be interested in maintaining their own high positions in society (POV)

Aryan Invasions

• Aryans spread from Indus Valley south across India to Ganges Plain

• Raj- kingdoms- emerged– Ruled by Kshatriyas– Some are oligarchies

• Aryan oral traditions is finally preserved using Sanskrit

• Written alphabet challenged power of Brahmins

Hinduism• Aryan and Dravidian beliefs fused to

create Hindu religion• Very defined social order created stability

(Castes)• Occupation defined role

– Priests and Teachers– Warriors and Nobles– Farmers, Artisans and Merchants– Landless Peasants and Serfs

• Jati - sub-castes, occupationally related• Untouchables are added later (outcastes)• Upward mobility impossible• Foreigners are absorbed into the caste

system-stability

Gender in Vedic Society

• Patriarchal

• Women have no public authority

• Women explicitly under men’s control

• Law Book of Manu -second class status of women

• Sati recommended

When translated the word Sati literally means virtuous woman. also refers to the goddess, Sati, who is the daughter of Daksha

and the wife of Shiva

"The widow of a Brahmana should either immolate herself in

the fire with the corpse of her deceased husband or observe a lifelong vow of brahmacaryam

(celibacy) from that date.“

"That women who follows her husband in death purifies three families – that of her mother, of her father and of her husband."

.

Law Book of Manu - Manusmriti

• deals with four subjects: – the origin of the world – the sources of dharma– the rules of the four social & spiritual orders– karma-yoga

Contemporary views on women• About teaching women to read and write, the Greek

playwright Menander wrote, "What a terrible thing to do! Like feeding a vile snake on more poison."

• Aristotle: "The male is by nature superior and the female inferior...the one rules and the other is ruled.“

• Manusmriti "Those who seek great prosperity and happiness should never inflict pain on women. Where women are honored, in that family great men are born, but where they are not honored, all acts are fruitless”

New Ideas Emerge

• Siddartha Gautama – Buddhism– “Four Truths”– Must follow “Noble Eightfold Path”– No place for the supernatural– Patronized by urban merchants

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one

word that brings peace.

It is better to travel well than

to arrive All living beings long to live.

No one wants to die

Non-violence is the highest religion

V. Mediterranean Region

• Don’t forget the Greeks! (because they’re awesome)

The Greeks

Hellenic to Hellenistic

Wow! Our music is

really depressing.

“Axial Age”

• Similar to Zhou dynasty and developments in South Asia

• Eastern Mediterranean becomes a hybrid society– Mixture of old & new

• Traders carry ideas– Coins, political ideas, alphabet

Legacies of the Greco-Roman World• Rationalism

– Philosophy, science and history

• Humanism– Truth, art and athletics

• Inherent Order– Natural law, physics and taxonomy

• Politics– Government, civic responsibility and democracy

Delphi

Early Philosophy (600-470 BCE)

Is the world permanent or changing?• Democritus – all physical things are

formed by combinations of tiny particles called atoms.

• Sophists – “Man is the measure of all things”

– There is no common objective reality that all persons grasp the same way.”

– Truth is relative to each individual– Pleasure is the highest good - hedonism

Socratic Philosophers (470-322 BCE)

“Truth and reality are absolute”

• Socrates – Truth is in the mind but hidden by false

impressions– You can only know the truth through inquiry– Stressed importance of honor & integrity

“The unexamined life is not worth living”

• Plato– Dualism – the world is imperfect, changeable

and different in appearance to every individual; the world we perceive is an illusion, the real world is a world of “ideal” forms.

– Philosophers will discover the perfect, eternal, real world

– Republic – society should be governed by “Philosopher kings”

There is only one

real tree.

• Aristotle– Reality = form and matter– Logic - key to truth and happiness,

by logic people can gain knowledge

– “Golden Mean” – perfection, virtuous and excellent

• between extremes, when neither adding something nor taking something away will make improvements.

– Government – rule by the middle class, devoted to general welfare of the people.

– Use senses to classify science (taxonomy)

– Develops inductive thinking- The Politics

– Wants to strengthen urban communities

OK, everyone with an

exoskeleton, over there.

The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself

Men create the gods in their own image

Nothing exists except atoms and empty space;

everything else is opinion

Thales

Democritus

Xenophanes

Xenophanes

A great city is not to be confounded with a

populous one

As the builders say, the larger stones do not lie well without

the lesser.

Plato Aristotle

Alexander’s conquestleads to the Hellenistic Age

Hellenistic -derived from Héllēn –Greek word for “Greek”

Influence of Hellenistic Culture• Hellenistic is not one single culture • Political expansion leads to cultural diffusion• Leads to new states leads and more warfare• Leads to stability in trading

– Growth of “Silk Road”– Use of money & common language

Influence of Hellenistic Culture• Language

– “common” Greek spoken– easier communication between Egyptians, Syrians, Judeans

• Religion– Led to worship of Greek gods– Not accepted universally

• ex. Jews in Judea rebelled vs. Hellenistic culture– Judaism Hellenism

One God Gods, Goddesses and Who Knows What!

Man in the Image of God Gods in the Image of Man

Beauty of Balance Beauty as Ideal

Influence of Hellenistic Culture• Arts

– Sculpture more realistic• Cosmopolitan Cities

– Alexandria becomes the model – huge library– Inhabitants become “cosmopolitan” – Not just citizens

of a particular polis• Becomes ultimately the culture of elites

– base of later Roman culture

Hellenistic Philosophers (340 BCE)

• Philosophy becomes accessible to a wider audience

•  Affluent members of the population, including women, begin to study philosophy

• focuses on the problem of human happiness

What is the meaning of

this?

• Epicureans– knowledge originates and stops in the senses – pleasure is the only good and pain is the only

evil – man must moderate himself in reference to

these desires

Cake is yummy!

But, eating an entire

cake would make you

sick. That’s evil.

• Stoics – led by Zeno• The universe functions according to a plan of

goodness – “Natural Law”– Nature is understood through reason– All persons are inherently equal – You can live in harmony with nature but need to

control your passions (Get over it!)

• Cynics – preached a return to nature and a rejection

of society as the key to man's happiness – Did not consider themselves members of

any nations

Diogenes made his home in thestreets of Athens, made a virtueof extreme poverty.Lived in a large tub, walked the streets carrying a lamp in the daytime claiming to be looking for an honest man.

Nice tub, mate!

• Skeptics – by doubting everything, believed that they

could attain a state of perfect tranquility– Bet they didn’t even believe that!

Hellenistic Science• Math

– Pythagoras - The Pythagorean Theorem

Hellenistic Science

• Physics– Archimedes – lever and hydrostatic discoveries– Aristotle's - "Physics" and "Metaphysics”

Not heavy, not heavy, not heavy.

Hellenistic Science

• Astronomy (applying logical thinking and geometry)

– Anaxagoras - cause of eclipses– Aristarchus - the earth goes around the sun– Thales - the earth is round.

Hellenistic Science• Medicine

– You could learn to understand and treat diseases by using careful observation and logical thought.

– Hippocrates - dismissed the notion that Magic or spirits caused or cured disease.

Chant after me:

Black bile,

yellow bile,

phlegm and

blood.

Hellenistic Science• Cartography

– The earth is a sphere– Claudius Ptolemy wrote Guide to Geography

(Geographike hyphygesis)-remained an authorative reference on world geography for 1500 years.

Discuss changes and continuities in intellectual development in Greek-influenced areas from

500 B.C.E. to 30 B.C.E.