Name:____________________________________________________
Unit 4 – India Vocabulary (24 terms)
Term
subcontinent
Definition
A large landmass that is smaller than a continent.
monsoons
Seasonal wind patterns that cause wet and dry
seasons in India and southeast Asia.
Harappans
The first civilization in India. It formed along the Indus
River.
Aryans
Nomadic group that invaded India after the collapse of
Harappan civilization.
Sanskrit
caste system
The most important language of Ancient India.
System that divided India into groups based on a
person’s birth, wealth, or occupation.
Hinduism
Largest religion in India today.
reincarnation
The process of the soul’s rebirth into a new body.
karma
The effects that a person’s good or bad actions have
on their soul.
Jainism
Form of Hinduism that focuses on nonviolence and the
protection of all life.
Siddhartha
Gautama
“Buddha”
Hindu prince who became the founder of Buddhism.
fasting
Going without food for religious reasons.
Explanation
India is located on a subcontinent.
Due to its geography, the climate in
India is different than the rest of the
continent.
These winds bring a lot of rain
during the spring months to provide
water for crop production. They shift
and keep the area dry during the
harvest months.
The Harappans had advanced cities
such as Harappa and Mohenjo Daro.
The culture mysteriously collapsed in
the 1700s BCE.
The Aryans brought many of India’s
modern-day cultural traits to the
region such as Sanskrit and
Brahmanism.
While no longer used, most of the
languages in southeast Asia come
from this language.
Whichever caste you are born into
determines what job you will have,
who you can be friends with, who
you can marry, etc.
Much of India’s culture is
determined by this religion, so it still
has a big impact on them today.
Hindus believe someone will
actually have their soul reborn into
many different bodies and live many
different lifetimes.
Karma determines what kind of life
you will have when you are
reincarnated.
This group focuses less on the
rituals of Hinduism and more on
action, such as nonviolence.
He felt Hinduism could not give a
good answer to what causes
suffering. Siddhartha’s own answers
to the question became the basis of a
new religion called Buddhism.
Many religions believe fasting
meditation
The focusing of the mind on spiritual ideas.
Buddhism
Religion from India based on the teachings of Buddha.
nirvana
A state of perfect peace.
The Eightfold Path
Process by which Buddhist seek out and attain
Enlightenment and reach nirvana.
Candragupta
Maurya
Military leader who first united most of India into the
Mauryan Empire.
missionaries
People who travel to other land to spread religious
ideas.
Asoka (Ashoka)
Maurya
Most powerful emperor of the Mauryan Empire.
Converted to Buddhism after the Battle of Kalinga.
Candra Gupta II
First emperor of the Gupta Empire in India.
alloys
Mixtures of two or more metals.
Hindu-Arabic
numerals
The numbering system used in our culture today.
inoculation
Injecting a person with a small dose of a disease to help
the person’s body build an immunity to the disease.
astronomy
The study of stars and planets.
shows how serious someone is about
getting an answer from their god or
gods.
Hindus use meditation to focus the
mind’s power on one issue. They also
use it to try to “see through the
illusion of the world.”
Greatly changed the culture and
beliefs in India. Started in India, but
spread to China, Japan, Korea, and
many other Asian countries.
Reaching nirvana allows Buddhists
to escape the process of
reincarnation. All Buddhist want to
achieve nirvana through
Enlightenment.
The Eightfold Path guides Buddhists
in their religion. It helps them
achieve nirvana.
He began uniting the different parts
of India helping give it one common
culture.
These are the people that spread
religions into other civilizations. They
helped spread Buddhism outside of
India.
Was emperor when India was its
most powerful. Helped spread
Buddhism throughout India and
southeast Asia by paying for
missionaries.
The Gupta Empire made Hinduism
the most dominant religion in India
once again and brought back the
caste system.
By mixing metals together, India
learned how to make better armor
and weapons.
Hindus finished off the common
sense of numbering by adding a
symbol that stood for nothing (0).
This made modern math possible.
This is still used today and keeps us
from getting certain viruses like
chicken pox and the measles.
India was one of the first to identify
all nine planets, identify the sun as a
star, and realize the sun was the
center of the solar system, not Earth.