Your test will consist of the following two questions. Please prepare them in advance and be ready to answer them on exam day. Remember that your grade is mainly dependent upon two things: 1) accuracy of exposition (you have to get the history right); and 2) reasonableness of argument (you have to make good sense of your position, not just B.S. your way through).
China and India
1) Compare the main differences between the Vedic-Aryan social institutions and the social institutions of Ancient China, particularly the Zhou and Qin dyansties. Consider such social institutions as gender roles, marriages, class privileges, education, welfare, etc. Which society would you argue is more just in its social institutions?
2) Consider the political philosophies of Ancient China and the social/religious ideas of the Caste system and the Upanishadic Worldview. Which in your opinion was more successful and why?
Showing posts with label Ancient China. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ancient China. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Monday, December 07, 2009
Chinese Buddhism Lecture
Chinese Buddhism Briefly Explained: will be developed further after we get into Inda
Buddhism originated in India around the end of the 6th century B.C.E.
A. This period is sometimes known as the Axial Age.
1. Around this same time, major philosophical figures lived in several parts of the world.
2. It was the age of Confucius and Laozi in China.
3. This was the age of the great Greek philosophers, including Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
4. In India, this was the period when the Buddha developed his ideas.
B. The founder of Buddhism is known by several names.
1. He was a prince in one of the many royal families living in what is now northern India and southern Nepal.
2. His given name was Siddhartha, and he was also called Gautama.
3. He is sometimes known as Sakyamuni, which means “the light of the Sakya family.”
C. Siddhartha was raised in relative luxury but turned to a life of spiritual questing.
1. Many stories recount his initial awakening.
2. In one, he overhears the wailing of a funeral procession and learns about death and suffering in this way.
3. In another, as a young prince, he is given a beautiful princess bride, but when he sees her drooling in her sleep, he realizes there is imperfection in the world.
4. He left his family home and went into the world to seek answers to his spiritual questions.
D. The Buddha attained enlightenment and embarked on a path of teaching.
1. He studied with hermits and other spiritual masters, but none of them satisfied his mind.
2. One day when he was at a park near modern Varanasi, he sat under a Bodhi tree and had a sudden enlightenment.
3. He then set out to share the insights he had achieved and developed a corps of devotees who traveled with him.
4. After a number of years, he announced that it was time for him to leave this material world.
5. In some accounts, he ascended bodily into the heavens, while in others, he shed his physical body and attained pure spiritual liberation.
6. After his departure from this world, his followers became his interpreters, giving rise to various schools of Buddhism.
II. The teachings of the Buddha are fairly simple and straightforward.
A. The key to his enlightenment is the realization of the nature of suffering.
1. Suffering is part of the normal life of people.
2. Suffering arises from our attachment to things.
3. If we wish to be free of suffering, we must liberate ourselves from our attachments.
4. There is a way to do this through meditation and renunciation.
5. These are the Four Noble Truths.
B. Buddhism denies the permanence of phenomena.
1. All things arise and pass away; everything has a beginning and an end.
2. The appearance of permanence in things is an illusion, sometimes called maya.
3. This does not mean, as is sometimes said, that nothing is real, merely that no reality is permanent.
4. Because all things pass away, attachment to them can yield only suffering.
5. Therefore, the way to free oneself from suffering is to realize and accept the impermanence of all things, including oneself.
III. Buddhism developed in India over the next several centuries.
A. Two major schools of Buddhism took form.
1. The first was Theravada, which was concerned with individual liberation.
2. Theravada emphasized meditation and withdrawal from the world.
3. Communities of Theravada monks formed the first monasteries.
4. The second school, which developed around the 3rd century B.C.E., is called Mahayana, which means “Great Vehicle.”
5. It is concerned not only with individual salvation but with the spiritual liberation of all sentient beings.
6. The Boddhisatva, an enlightened spiritual being who chooses to remain in the phenomenal world to aid others, was the ideal of the Mahayana path.
B. Buddhism spread across northern India and to parts of Southeast Asia.
1. The Indian king Asoka became a patron of Buddhism, staging great debates among masters from different religions.
2. Theravada Buddhism took root in Sri Lanka and in what is now Burma and Thailand and moved to the Indonesian archipelago.
3. Mahayana Buddhism spread to the northwest and, eventually, to Central Asia and China.
IV. Around the beginning of the Common Era, Buddhism first appeared in China.
A. Buddhist monks traveled along overland routes from northwest India to Central Asia. The trade routes of the Silk Road provided the main avenues for these sojourners.
B. Sometime in the 1st century C.E., the first monastery was set up in China, near the Later Han capital at Luoyang.
1. Han emperors wished to appear as patrons of all spiritual paths.
2. Buddhist monks became teachers at the imperial court, though without the same high status as Confucian scholars.
C. As the Han dynasty faltered and life became more difficult, many ordinary people began to embrace Buddhism.
1. The Buddhist emphasis on suffering and the impermanence of things offered hope in times of trouble.
2. Buddhism moved beyond the realm of elite patronage and became a more popular religion.
3. At the same time, Buddhism was becoming the common religion of non-Chinese peoples living in Central Asia.
4. At the beginning of the 4th century, these peoples began to move in to China in large numbers, launching a period of instability and cultural change, which we will turn to in the next lecture.
Buddhism originated in India around the end of the 6th century B.C.E.
A. This period is sometimes known as the Axial Age.
1. Around this same time, major philosophical figures lived in several parts of the world.
2. It was the age of Confucius and Laozi in China.
3. This was the age of the great Greek philosophers, including Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
4. In India, this was the period when the Buddha developed his ideas.
B. The founder of Buddhism is known by several names.
1. He was a prince in one of the many royal families living in what is now northern India and southern Nepal.
2. His given name was Siddhartha, and he was also called Gautama.
3. He is sometimes known as Sakyamuni, which means “the light of the Sakya family.”
C. Siddhartha was raised in relative luxury but turned to a life of spiritual questing.
1. Many stories recount his initial awakening.
2. In one, he overhears the wailing of a funeral procession and learns about death and suffering in this way.
3. In another, as a young prince, he is given a beautiful princess bride, but when he sees her drooling in her sleep, he realizes there is imperfection in the world.
4. He left his family home and went into the world to seek answers to his spiritual questions.
D. The Buddha attained enlightenment and embarked on a path of teaching.
1. He studied with hermits and other spiritual masters, but none of them satisfied his mind.
2. One day when he was at a park near modern Varanasi, he sat under a Bodhi tree and had a sudden enlightenment.
3. He then set out to share the insights he had achieved and developed a corps of devotees who traveled with him.
4. After a number of years, he announced that it was time for him to leave this material world.
5. In some accounts, he ascended bodily into the heavens, while in others, he shed his physical body and attained pure spiritual liberation.
6. After his departure from this world, his followers became his interpreters, giving rise to various schools of Buddhism.
II. The teachings of the Buddha are fairly simple and straightforward.
A. The key to his enlightenment is the realization of the nature of suffering.
1. Suffering is part of the normal life of people.
2. Suffering arises from our attachment to things.
3. If we wish to be free of suffering, we must liberate ourselves from our attachments.
4. There is a way to do this through meditation and renunciation.
5. These are the Four Noble Truths.
B. Buddhism denies the permanence of phenomena.
1. All things arise and pass away; everything has a beginning and an end.
2. The appearance of permanence in things is an illusion, sometimes called maya.
3. This does not mean, as is sometimes said, that nothing is real, merely that no reality is permanent.
4. Because all things pass away, attachment to them can yield only suffering.
5. Therefore, the way to free oneself from suffering is to realize and accept the impermanence of all things, including oneself.
III. Buddhism developed in India over the next several centuries.
A. Two major schools of Buddhism took form.
1. The first was Theravada, which was concerned with individual liberation.
2. Theravada emphasized meditation and withdrawal from the world.
3. Communities of Theravada monks formed the first monasteries.
4. The second school, which developed around the 3rd century B.C.E., is called Mahayana, which means “Great Vehicle.”
5. It is concerned not only with individual salvation but with the spiritual liberation of all sentient beings.
6. The Boddhisatva, an enlightened spiritual being who chooses to remain in the phenomenal world to aid others, was the ideal of the Mahayana path.
B. Buddhism spread across northern India and to parts of Southeast Asia.
1. The Indian king Asoka became a patron of Buddhism, staging great debates among masters from different religions.
2. Theravada Buddhism took root in Sri Lanka and in what is now Burma and Thailand and moved to the Indonesian archipelago.
3. Mahayana Buddhism spread to the northwest and, eventually, to Central Asia and China.
IV. Around the beginning of the Common Era, Buddhism first appeared in China.
A. Buddhist monks traveled along overland routes from northwest India to Central Asia. The trade routes of the Silk Road provided the main avenues for these sojourners.
B. Sometime in the 1st century C.E., the first monastery was set up in China, near the Later Han capital at Luoyang.
1. Han emperors wished to appear as patrons of all spiritual paths.
2. Buddhist monks became teachers at the imperial court, though without the same high status as Confucian scholars.
C. As the Han dynasty faltered and life became more difficult, many ordinary people began to embrace Buddhism.
1. The Buddhist emphasis on suffering and the impermanence of things offered hope in times of trouble.
2. Buddhism moved beyond the realm of elite patronage and became a more popular religion.
3. At the same time, Buddhism was becoming the common religion of non-Chinese peoples living in Central Asia.
4. At the beginning of the 4th century, these peoples began to move in to China in large numbers, launching a period of instability and cultural change, which we will turn to in the next lecture.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
World History Quiz for Thursday, Nov. 12
Give an explanation of early Chinese Political Philosophy. Explain the principles and history of each, then compare each philosophical theory with the others.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Synopsis of Ancient China Lectures
Lecture one: Basic geography and landscape; analyzed the neolithic and paleolithic evidence; constructed an argument about the early formation of civilization in China based on surplus agriculture and ancestry worship.
Lecture two: The ancient Xia and Shang dynasties were discussed; the question of evidence was examined; looked at the religious formation of the Xia; looked at the royal ancestry cult as an indicator of political legitimacy in the Shang dynasties; looked at Family and Character as two pillars of Chinese culture.
Lecture Three: The conquest of the Zhou: examined the circumstances that led to the overthrow of the Shang by the Zhou, and the justification behind it; developed the idea of the Mandate of Heaven as an extension and exploitation of the Royal Ancestry cult of the Shang; Looked at the formation of the Zhou and the conditions leading to its downfall.
Lecture Four: Political fragmentation of the Zhou; examined the circumstances around the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period; Explained the nature of this fragmentation (interpretations and resolutions); showed how the two pillars of Chinese culture, Family and Character, were used against one another throughout ancient Chinese history.
Lecture two: The ancient Xia and Shang dynasties were discussed; the question of evidence was examined; looked at the religious formation of the Xia; looked at the royal ancestry cult as an indicator of political legitimacy in the Shang dynasties; looked at Family and Character as two pillars of Chinese culture.
Lecture Three: The conquest of the Zhou: examined the circumstances that led to the overthrow of the Shang by the Zhou, and the justification behind it; developed the idea of the Mandate of Heaven as an extension and exploitation of the Royal Ancestry cult of the Shang; Looked at the formation of the Zhou and the conditions leading to its downfall.
Lecture Four: Political fragmentation of the Zhou; examined the circumstances around the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period; Explained the nature of this fragmentation (interpretations and resolutions); showed how the two pillars of Chinese culture, Family and Character, were used against one another throughout ancient Chinese history.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
World History Quiz Question: Ancient China
Why did the Zhou feel they had to justify their overthrow of the Shang? How did the change from the Shang royal ancestral cult to the Zhou idea of the Mandate of Heaven change the nature of political legitimacy in Ancient China?
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