Religions of South Asia
Buddhism in the Subcontinent
Siddhartha Gautama creates Buddhism
• Siddhartha Gautama was a wealthy Hindu prince who was sheltered
by his father.
• When an adult, he went out for the first time and discovered poverty,
sickness, aging, and death. Was shocked and began to question
Hindu beliefs.
• He left his family and wandered in the wilderness to ponder the
meaning of life and purpose of reincarnation. (Age 29
• After meditating (deep thinking about an answer to a question) he
became “Enlightened.” Buddha means “Enlightened One.” (Age 35)
Video on Siddhartha
• Middle Way: The Eight Fold Path
Buddha/Siddhartha Rejects Basic Hinduism
Rejects the existence of a god. Buddha claims to
be a teacher of enlightenment only.
Rejects the caste system and karma. No purpose.
Claims to be able to get to nirvana without
suffering.
Nirvana = heaven. However, it’s not a place but a
state of being… everlasting peace. You reincarnate
in other human bodies until you learn to live life on
earth in everlasting peace. Reach nirvana, your
soul ceases to exist and your soul combines with
nature. (Like in the movie Avatar!)
All animals have souls and reincarnate, too!
Four Noble Truths: How to get to Nirvana
• 1. Recognize
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that life has pain, physical or emotional.
2. Suffering comes from wanting something you can’t have!
3. Stop wanting something you can’t have. Be happy with what
you’ve got!
4. Follow the Middle Way: The Eight Fold Path to learn how to
do this.
1. Know there is suffering
2. try not to do bad/evil actions
3. Don’t say harmful things
4. Respect life and property. (Don’t kill or mess up anyone
else’s stuff. Hence why they are vegetarians.)
5. Don’t have a job that harms others
6. Resist thinking bad or evil thoughts
7. Control your feelings, keep emotions in check
8. Practice what you preach and meditate
The
Dalai
Lama
Maurya Dynasty
• Maurya empire (1st empire 324-185 BC)
• Emperor Asoka expanded his empire across the subcontinent. He was horrified at the death he saw. He
then vowed it would be his last war- converted to
Buddhism and promoted peace.
• Principals for a just government and how to live a
morale life were carved in stone across empire. He
urged people to learn about other religions to learn
tolerance for others. He encouraged loyalty, self
control, kindness, etc.
• After empire ended, empires were Hindu, Buddhist
migrated north and east to China, Bhutan, Nepal, and
SE Asia.
• The Mughal Empire grew out of
descendants of the Mongol Empire
who were living in Turkistan in the
15thcentury. They had become
Muslims and adopted the culture
of the Middle East, while keeping
elements of their Far Eastern
roots.
• The Mughal Empire ruled most of
India and Pakistan in the 1500s1600’s
• The Mughals brought many
changes to India, two of which
were
• centralizing government to
bring many smaller kingdoms
together
• a style of architecture that was
very intricate and extravagant
(Taj Mahal).
The Taj Mahal marks
the peak of the
Mughal Empire, it
symbolizes stability,
power and
confidence.
• In the beginning……
• Muslim government included many Hindus in positions of
responsibility - the governed were allowed to take a major part in
the governing. People were happy!
• Policy of religious toleration—even further by breaking away from
traditional Islam, creating a new religion, Sikhism.
• Towards the end of the Mughal Empire……
• religious tolerance was outlawed and Hindu community had to live
under Islamic law.
• Hindu temples and shrines were destroyed and restored the
punishing tax for not being Muslim. (Minority ruling the
majority=HINDUS OPPRESSION)
• Purdah requirement for women
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Video CFU!
(checking for understanding)
Muslims felt that Hinduism made a mockery of their
Islamic faith
• The Hindu fought back against the Mughals (Muslims),
supported by the French and British, who used
helping the Hindu as an excuse to take over land.
(Beginnings of Colonialism. Sound familiar?)
• In the decades that followed, Europeans and
European-backed Hindu princes conquered most of
the Mughal territory.
• The last Mughal Emperor was deposed by the British
in 1858.
• The power of the British spread across India and by the 1850’s,
almost the entire country was under its total control.
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The Mughals (Muslims) were helped by the British
and the French to keep control over India
• The East India Company continued its business affairs and India came
to be known as “The Jewel in the Crown”. Sri Lanka and the
Maldives also became colonies. Nepal and Bhutan remained
independent because of Himalayan/ isolation.
• The British army, missionaries, and merchants brought
technology, railroads, telegraphs, steamships, new ways of
farming. Established British laws, and English as official
language.
• Some Indians continued to live as they had, some hated
British customs and laws, some adopted British lifestyle.
• There was a rumor that gun cartridges issued in the army
were greased with beef and pork fat: offensive to both
Muslims and Hindu. Sparked revolt!
• Indian soldiers took over a British fort and killed 200
women and children. However, the Sepoy Rebellion
“strengthened the British hold on India.”
• In 1858, India (and the East India
Company) officially handed power
over to the British crown giving
Queen Victoria a new state and title,
the Queen-Empress.
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The Sepoy Rebellion was successful and weakened
British power in India
• In the decades following the Sepoy Rebellion
and the transfer of power to Queen Victoria,
nationalism began to grow very rapidly, and
there was a boycott of British goods. (British
Salt boycott)
• See Salt protest clip from Gandhi movie
• Gandhi used nonviolence to fight British. He
wanted all Indians to be treated equally.
• World War I did not help the British in gaining
back Indian support, and in 1919 Mohandas
Gandhi gained control of the Congress.
Gandhi Intro
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Gandhi believed that bloodshed and violence was
the best way for India to get their independence.
Passive resistance Video
Salt Marches Video
Self Sacrifice
• Mohandas K. Gandhi was born in
1869. In South Asia he worked
endlessly to improve the rights of
the immigrant Indians. It was there
that he developed his philosophy
of peaceful protest against
injustice and was frequently jailed
as a result of the protests that he
led.
• When fellow Muslim and Hindu
countrymen committed acts of
violence, whether against the
British who ruled India, or
against each other, he fasted
until the fighting stopped.
Independence in 1947 was not
a military victory but a triumph
of human will. To Gandhi's
disappointment, however, the
country was split into Hindu
India and Muslim Pakistan.
• The last two months of his life
were spent trying to end the
horrible violence between
Muslims and Hindu which
followed, leading him to fast to
the brink of death which finally
ended the riots. In January
1948, at the age of 79, he
was killed by a Hindu assassin
as he walked through a
crowded garden in New Delhi
to take evening prayers.
Assassination Video
What other leaders have we talked
about who remind you of Gandhi?
Both MLK and Mandela adopted Gandhi
policy of “Satyagraha” or non-violent protest.
•"Nonviolence
is the greatest force at the disposal
of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of
man." – Gandhi
• Jawaharlal Nehru was elected
president of the Congress. Nehru was
very supportive of the freedom cause,
but was Western in his ideas about
technology and industry, and was
liked by the British. In August of
1947, after a long struggle for
India is currently
freedom and what some say was a
the 2nd most
WWII fighting/ally agreement
populated country
between India and the British, India
in the world, but will
gained its independence and Nehru
soon pass China!
became its first prime minister. India is
now the world’s largest democracy. It’s Independence 1947
a constitutional Democracy.
Independence for India
• The end of 200 years of British rule in India came after
World War II. Britain promised to grant India independence
if it would fight with the British. At the end of WWII Indian
leaders held Britain to its promise.
• A Muslim politician at the time, Muhammad Jinnah,
convinced the British to divided India into 2 countries and
create an area of India for the Muslims who made up about
20 percent of the population. (The Muslims and Hindu didn’t
get along, they couldn’t live among one another without
violence.)
• On August 14, 1947, Jinnah flew to Karachi, the new
capital; the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was born.
• The violence that followed, however, was more than anyone
had bargained for.
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Muslim leader Muhammad Jinnah believed that
Muslims and Hindu could not live peacefully in India
The
partition was planned
by the British without much
thought (does this sound
like the Berlin Conference
and Africa???)
The migrations that
followed pitted Muslims
against Hindus and Sikhs
on the other side.
The mutual hatred and
distrust between the two
rivals has led to three wars
and a race for nuclear
weapons to obliterate the
other side. They’re still
fighting each other
today!
• The territory where 145 million Pakistani Muslims now
live belonged to India and since the Muslims and
Hindu didn’t get along, Muslims had to move out of
India while Hindu had to move out of Pakistan
• The partition that created Pakistan uprooted 10
million Sikhs (a religion that mixes Islam and Hindu
practices) and Hindus, whose ancestors had lived
there for generations or even centuries, and sent them
running to India for their lives.
• Likewise, millions of Muslims fled India into Pakistan,
because they were no longer welcomed in the land of
their birth.
Violence after independence
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When the British partitioned India, they created a
separate county for Muslims
• Approximately 10 million Sikhs and Hindus, not wanting to
end up in Muslim Pakistan, moved south while 7 million
Muslims, fearing a violent backlash in India, moved north
across the newly formed border.
• This exodus created hardship, loss of property and life, and
terror. People were forced to leave their businesses, jobs,
schools, possessions, homes, fields, farm animals, and the
only life they'd ever known.
• As many as one million people
died in the violence. Today stories
of robbery, butchery, and murder
still exist on both sides of the border,
told in vivid detail by the older
generation, continuing to fan the flames of ethnic and
religious hatred more than five decades later.
• Dividing India proved to be a monumental task due
to complications involving location, humanitarian
needs, religious preferences, politics, and language
barriers.
• Two Pakistans, not one: West Pakistan (modern-day
Pakistan) and East Pakistan (modern-day
Bangladesh).
• The creation of the two
Pakistans (East and West)
was doomed to failure from
the start. The two halves,
separated by 1,000 miles of India, had very little in
common. It was HARD to rule being separated!
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Bangladesh was once called West Pakistan.
• When it looked as if East Pakistani representatives would
win a vote for independence in the National Assembly in
1971, the elections were cancelled.
• East Pakistan announced a name change to Bangladesh
and declared its independence.
• War erupted, and Bangladesh asked for India's help. On
December 3, 1971, India sent troops to Bangladesh, and
two weeks later Pakistan surrendered.
• Hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi civilians lost their
lives in a matter of months.
Hinduism today video
• The British awarded this strategic
strip of land, although mostly
Muslim, to India, thus securing
India's route to Jammu and
Kashmir.
• Without Gurdaspur, India would
have been cut off from Kashmir. It
was thought that the award of
Gurdaspur to India would avoid
future wars by allowing the Indian Both sides want
army access to Kashmir, keeping a Kashmir to control
political balance. In fact, the
the source of the
opposite occurred. India and
Indus River. Why?
Pakistan continue today fight
over Kashmir
Video
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India and Pakistan wanted control of Kashmir because the
Indus River was a vital source of drinking water
Illustrations and information courtesy of:
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