Robert W. Strayer
Ways of the World: A Brief Global
History with Sources
Second Edition
Chapter 4
Culture and Religion in Eurasia/North Africa
(500 B.C.E.–500 C.E.)
Copyright © 2013 by Bedford/St. Martin’s
I. China and the Search for Order
A. The Legalist Answer
1. High rewards, heavy punishments
2. Qin Shihuangdi
Zhou used the Mandate of Heaven to justify them
overthrowing the Shang
500 BCE China no longer united
403-221BCE Age of warring states
Legalism – China’s solution was in rule of law – strictly
enforced with harsh punishments
Legalist felt people were stupid and short sighted
Only leadership could take care of the country’s long
term needs
Promote farmers and soldiers and suppress merchants,
aristocrats and scholars
Shihuangdi used Legalism when he united China. The
Qin dynasty did not last long
Future dynasties - use the teachings of Confucius
I. China and the Search for Order
B. The Confucian Answer
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Confucius, Analects, & Confucianism
Moral example of superiors
Unequal relationships governed by ren
Education and state bureaucracy
Filial piety and gender expectations
Secular
Confucius (551-479 BCE) solve China’s problems
Teaching -profound effect on Chinese history
Moral leadership would lead to social harmony
Father superior to son
Husband to wife
Oldest brother to youngest brother
Ruler to the subject
If the superior acted correctly- the inferior would be
motivated to do the same
Human heartedness, benevolence, goodness, nobility of
heart – ren
Education important and key to moral betterment
Language, literature, philosophy, and ethics
Improvement requires personal reflection
Ancestor veneration – visiting graves, offerings, shrines
Filial piety – honoring of one’s ancestors, parents
Ban Zhao – Let women yield to others, fear, humble
and guard chastity, wash and scrub, sew and weave,
not gossip, prepare wine and food for guests
He also called for education for young girls – so they
could better serve their husbands
Boy’s education would help them learn to control
their wives
wen referred to qualities of rationality, scholarship,
literary and artistic ability
wu focused physical and martial achievement
Superior men eligible for civil service exam, political
office = high prestige
Soldiers and merchants lower status
Emperors should keep taxes low administer justice and
provides for the needs of the people / Those who failed
would lose the mandate of heaven
I. China and the Search for Order
C. The Daoist Answer
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Laozi’s Daodejing and Zhuangzi
Withdrawal into nature
Spontaneous natural behavior not rigid education
Dao (“The Way”)
Contradict or complement Confucianism?
Daoism - Associated with legendary figure Laozi
Daoists ridiculed the importance of education and
striving for moral improvement
Encouraged behavior that was spontaneous and
individualistic
Dao – ways of nature – all life comes from it and it wraps
everything with love
Daoism – withdraw from the world and social activism,
disengage from public life, and align self with nature
Daoism -compliments Confucianism – yin and yang
II. Cultural Traditions of Classical India
A. South Asian Religion: From Ritual Sacrifice to
Philosophical Speculation
1. Vedas (1500–600 B.C.E.), Brahmins, and rituals
2. Upanishads (800–400 B.C.E.)
3. Atman and Brahman
India - Hinduism
Vedas – sacred texts – a collection of hymns and
poems and rituals and written in Sanskrit around 600
BCE
Suggested a patriarchal society but afforded upper
class women greater opportunities
Participated in religious sacrifices
Allowed scholarship and religious debate
Sometimes marry a man they wanted
Brahmins – priests performed sacrifices and rituals
and gained great power and wealth
Upanishads 800-400 BCE – composed by different
thinkers - new concepts
Brahman – World Soul – the final and ultimate reality
Atman or individual soul is a part of Brahman
II. Cultural Traditions of Classical India
A. South Asian Religion: From Ritual Sacrifice to
Philosophical Speculation
4. Samsara, moksha, and karma
5. Gender and the Laws of Manu
6. Cults and deities as different paths
Moksha - one strives to find union with Brahman
Reincarnation – samsara – rebirth
Law of Karma – a person’s action in life
Caste system – ranked social structure and each has
special duties
500 BCE- 500 CE the second wave-Women seen as
unclean below the navel
Not allowed to learn the Vedas, excluded from
public rituals
Law of Manu
All embryos were male but weak semen caused
female babies
Advocated child marriages for girls to men much
older
Wife should serve her husband like a god
Declared in childhood a female is subject to her
father, in youth to her husband and after his death to her
sons
Sexual pleasure a goal for both men and women
Kama sutra – sexual techniques
II. Cultural Traditions of Classical India
B. The Buddhist Challenge
1. Siddhartha Gautama (ca. 566–ca. 486 B.C.E.)
2. The Buddha’s teachings and nirvana
3. Relationship to Hinduism
Siddhartha Gautama 566-486 BCE
he was a prince in India
6 year quest – he finally gained enlightenment
He gained followers who called him Buddha (the
enlightened one)
Taught people should lead a moral life / meditation
One who followed the path of Buddha could achieve
enlightenment (nirvana)
Enlightened person was free of hate, greed and have
love for all beings
Rejected - The authority of Brahmins, Caste system
II. Cultural Traditions of Classical India
B. The Buddhist Challenge
4.
5.
6.
7.
Restrictions and opportunities for women
Popular appeal
Theravada
Mahayana’s bodhisattvas
Buddhism still practices the patriarchy system
Buddha finally gave in an allowed women to become
nuns but they were still subordinate to men
Buddhism spread – appealed to lower classes taught
in local language (Pali)
Transformed by Common Era
Mahayanna (Great Vehicle)
Buddhism became a religion of salvation
Buddha became godlike and the religion
supported the concept of heaven and hell
Acts of piety, devotion and contributing to the
monastery could lead to salvation
Buddhism eventually declined in India but spread to
other areas
The growth of a new form of Hinduism was part of
the reason for this decline
New Hinduism
Without the elaborate sacrifices
Mahabharata and Ramayana – epic poems
II. Cultural Traditions of Classical India
C. Hinduism as a Religion of Duty and Devotion
1. Mahabharata, Bhagavad-Gita, and Ramayana
2. Bhakti
3. Buddhism absorbed back into Hinduism
III. Toward Monotheism: The Search for
God in the Middle East
A. Zoroastrianism
1. Zarathustra (seventh to sixth century B.C.E.)
2. Persian state support, Achaemenid Dynasty (558–
330 B.C.E.)
3. Ahura Mazda versus Angra Mainyu
4. Human free will, struggle of good versus evil, a
savior, and judgment day
Zoroastrianism
Persian Empire Prophet Zarathustra (Zoroaster to
Greeks) 6th or 7th century BCE
Single god Ahura Mazda ruled the world
source of truth and light and goodness
was in a constant struggle with evil
god would win aided by a savior and restore the
world to purity and peace
Day of Judgment – people who were good would go
to eternal paradise – those who were evil faced
eternal punishment
Religion spread – Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Anatolia
Alexander the Great - Greeks ruled Seleucid dynasty
330-155 BCE - spelled disaster
Religion survived and grew again during Parthian
dynasty 247-224 CE and the Sassanid dynasty 224-651
CE
The religion finally dies out with the arrival of Islam
Small group fled to India known as Parsis their religion
continues to present time
Some concepts of Zoroastrianism / found in Judaism
and later to Christianity and Islam
III. Toward Monotheism: The Search for
God in the Middle East
B. Judaism
1. Migrations and exiles of a small Hebrew community
2. One exclusive and jealous god
3. Loyalty to Yahweh and obedience to his laws
Judaism
According to Hebrews texts they migrated from
Mesopotamia to Canaan led by Abraham
Some went to Egypt where they were enslaved
They eventually escape and join their kinfolk in
Palestine
This was an area dominated by Assyria, Babylon and
Persia
Lived in tiny Hebrew communities
Conquered by Assyria 722 BCE many were deported
to distant lands
586 BCE Judah /Babylon control and elite put in exile
Jews called their God Yahweh – a powerful and jealous
God “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”
Jews continued to pray to other gods
Prophets would push the people to turn away from
other gods
Eventually the one God theory won out
Jews have a covenant with God / chosen people
Sacred text – Torah
Yahweh transformed from a God of War to a God of
compassion
Foundation of Christianity and Islam
IV. The Cultural Tradition of Classical
Greece: The Search for a Rational
Order
A. The Greek Way of Knowing
1. Questions, not answers
2. Socrates (469–399 B.C.E.), Plato (429–348 B.C.E.), and Aristotle
(384–322 B.C.E.)
3. Rational and non-religious analysis of the world
B. The Greek Legacy
1. Alexander the Great, Rome, and the Academy in Athens
2. The loss and recovery of Greece in Europe
3. Greek learning in the Islamic world
Cultural traditions of Classical Greece
Mount Olympus
Home of the gods
They had human characteristics
Greeks develop a way of thinking
Greek Rationalism 600-300 BCE
Emphasis on argument, logic, and questioning
Socrates 469-399 BCE
Philosopher –Critical of Democracy
Executed for corrupting the youth
Democritus – atoms form matter
Pythagoras – formula to solve the right triangle
Hippocrates – doctors should care and heal
Herodotus –historian /Persian Wars
Plato – 429-348 BCE
Society should be ruled by highly educated
people led by a philosopher king
Aristotle 384-322 BCE
A student of Plato
He wrote about – logic, physics, astronomy,
and weather
V. The Birth of Christianity… with
Buddhist Comparisons
A. The Lives of the Founders
1. Encounter with a higher level of reality
2. Messages of love
3. Jesus’ miracles and dangerous social critique
Christianity compared to Buddhism
Jesus – lower class family / Buddha from wealth class
Both were teachers of wisdom
Both taught love of others
Jesus believed in a god who gave miracles and
Buddha did not believe in this
Jesus spoke against Roman rule and was executed/
Buddha lived to old age
V. The Birth of Christianity… with
Buddhist Comparisons
B. The Spread of New Religions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
New religions after their deaths
Paul (10–65 C.E.)
Lower social classes and women
Non-European Christianity
Christianity as a Roman religion
Buddha and Jesus did not attempt to form new
religions
Mahayana Buddhism – Buddha became a deity
Followers of Jesus
Paul, John etc. -saw him as the son of God
Christianity -transformation to a world religion starts with
Paul 10-65 CE
He became a missionary and founded small Christian
communities
Women should subject to men – the husband is the
head of the wife
Jesus Mother Mary became a focus of devotion
Religion spread very slowly
Armenia adopted as state religion
Orthodox Christianity took hold in Constantinople
First 3 centuries Common Era – Christians face
persecution
Constantine 4th century – He converted to
Christianity –
Religion spreads faster
New rulers use Christianity as a way to hold their
kingdoms together
Christian religion spreads and develops a
hierarchy
Patriarchs, bishops, and priests