Transcription
Okay, so good morning. We finished a branch age today with the Indus Valley Civilization. So, we've done Egypt, we've done Mesopotamia. Now we're doing the Indus Valley Civilization, and today I'm going to look at three questions.
Okay, first of all, what is it that makes the Indus Valley Civilization distinct or different from other civilizations? Second, is why did it decline? Uh, they reached their peak about 2600 to 1900 BCE, and then for the next three to four hundred years, they declined and ultimately disappeared. Okay, why did that happen? Now, last question is, what is their legacy? Uh, what is their contribution to, uh, the development of Western Civilization?
Okay, all right. So, let's, um, look at the Indus Valley Civilization. To do so, we need, we need to first understand the world at this time, and this is about 2500 to, uh, 2000 BC. Okay. This, this is what we call the Middle Bronze Age because most people were using bronze for weapons, for tools. Um, so over here is Egypt, and as we discussed, by far, Egypt is the wealthiest, most advanced civilization in the Bronze Age. Um, over here, here, across the Red Sea, is Arabia. Okay. And even though Arabia isn't really discussed that much, um, in world history, it's still significant because it's part of the trading network. Okay. So, in Arabia, it's many nomads, uh, who take goods from Mesopotamia over to Egypt and then into the Mediterranean, which accesses all of Europe. Um, this is, um, uh, Sumer, which is the beginning of the Mesopotamian civilization. Okay. Up here is Anatolia, the Levant, um, and then the Indus Valley Civilization is over here, and today, um, it would cover the, the countries of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Northwest India.
Okay, what makes the Indus Valley Civilization important is, um, it's really by the coast, which allows it to access, uh, Mesopotamia and Egypt. Okay. Meaning, during the Bronze Age, these three civilizations, Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and the Indus Valley Civilization, were heavily interconnected through trade. And, um, the Indus Valley Civilization, um, what they, what was unique to them are certain products. For example, indigo, dye, which was really sought after in Mesopotamia and in Egypt. Um, their handicrafts, their jewelry were also very famous throughout, uh, the world. Um, they usually traded with Sumer and Egypt by trading with the Gulf State nations of Bahrain and Oman and Dubai. Okay. And they actually had a colony by the, the Persian Gulf. Right. This civilization was so good at trading that we believe they even traded with China. Okay, which is pretty far away, but their ships were, were, were huge, and they were very good navigators.
Um, as the Bronze Age develops over time, um, bronze was in heavy demand, and the main components of bronze are copper and tin. Tin is mainly found in the mountains of Afghanistan over here. Okay. Which meant the Indus Valley Civilization started to now expand over to Afghanistan in order to access the tin trade. Okay. So, tin was really sought after, but there's also another, um, stone called lapis lazuli, which is really sought after by the Egyptians for its, like, spiritual and aesthetic qualities. Okay. And over here, um, because of the trade with Afghanistan, land routes started to develop into Anatolia and Mesopotamia. Um, and as well, because of this trade in Afghanistan, civilizations started to develop as well, and they're not as advanced or as large as the three major ones, but they're still pretty advanced. So, for example, up here is what we call, uh, the Oxus Valley Civilization. The technical term used by archaeologists is the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex. You don't have to know this. It's called BMAC. What makes this civilization important is it interacts, it interacts with the steppe people, okay, called the Andronovo culture. So, as you can see, the Indus Valley Civilization, through its partners, the Oxus Valley Civilization, and its colonies over here, now trades with the entire world. There's no piece of the Western world the Indus Valley Civilization does not touch. Okay. Does that make sense? So, this is a world about 2500 to 2000 BCE. It's a world that's heavily interconnected, and there are two major sources of demand. The Egyptians are extremely wealthy, and they want these valuable jewelry and handicrafts for their burials. Okay. That's one source of heavy, heavy demand. The main source, source of demand is actually Mesopotamia, where the city-states of Sumer are fighting wars against each other, and in war, bronze makes a huge difference because bronze armor, uh, is more, it's much more stronger than copper armor. Okay. So, these two places are driving demand, and as such, the Indus Valley Civilization is growing wealthy through trade. Okay. Does that make sense? Any questions so far before I continue?
Okay, so even though the Indus Valley Civilization is connected with Egypt and Mesopotamia, it's a radically different civilization. Okay. So, the first thing, uh, that makes the Indus Valley Civilization interesting is it's a huge area. It's actually, in terms of size, larger than Egypt and Mesopotamia combined. It has a population of at, at its peak, about 5 million people. Okay. So, this is a huge area. What's really interesting is we have found no evidence of any organized warfare in this region during this time. The reason why is this region is connected through trade. Okay. So, what we have found is five major urban centers in the Indus Valley Civilization, and these urban centers, you can consider to be what we call value-adding processing centers. Okay. These are urban centers that specialize in taking raw goods like metals and, um, agricultural products and turning them into finished products like jewelry, handicrafts to be shipped, to be traded with, mainly Mesopotamia, but also Egypt and possibly China as well. It also goes north to, to the Oxus Valley Civilization, which then trades with the steppe people, the Andronovo culture. Okay. What we know as the Yayoi people, right? So, um, this trade network, um, it's very, very complex, and everyone is involved in some capacity in this trade network. Okay.
So, that's the first thing that's interesting about the, um, Indus Valley Civilization. They trade internally peacefully. They trade externally peacefully as well. We have absolutely no evidence that they ever had organized warfare. We have actually no evidence that they have any intention of organized warfare, meaning we have not found any weapons. We have found tools, we found, uh, hunting weapons. We have not found, like, maybe armor and helmets. Okay. Yeah. Is there any particular reason that we can speculate that there is no organized war? Yeah, great question. So, how do we know there's no organized warfare? So, we know there's a lot of organized warfare in Mesopotamia and other places because, because of what, of what we, um, have dug up. So, we look at cities, we see parts of the city that have been built on top of or destroyed, meaning, um, there might have been some fires, or there might have been some warfare. Okay. But with, with these five centers that we dug up, we have, we have found them pretty intact, meaning they were not built on top of, or they were not destroyed, uh, during the time when they were around. Okay. So, that's the first major piece of evidence. The second major piece of evidence is, uh, we've dug up their graves. So, if you look at, maybe the civilizations of the Andronovo culture or Mesopotamia, they tend to bury warriors with their weapons. Okay. So, um, um, you know, helmets and armor. But we, when we dug up the IVC culture people, first of all, we don't find a distinct caste of warriors. Also, we don't find any helmets or armor or weapons. Okay. So, that's what led us to believe they don't engage in organized warfare. But there's also evidence to suggest our evidence is not solid. Okay. The first piece of evidence is they don't bury their dead. These people don't have a tradition of burying their dead. Some are buried, okay, but they, but not everyone is buried. Second of all, we don't know where they buried their dead. We assume they buried their dead, uh, in the cities, but that may not be true. Okay. So, um, the evidence leans towards there being a peaceful civilization, but as we dig up more and more over time, we may discover this was not true. Okay. But right now, the evidence suggests they were peaceful. And also, what's really important about the, um, IVC, the Indus Valley Civilization, is this is a new discovery. We've only known about them for the past 100 years. So, what's interesting is the Indians themselves never knew they existed. It was the British who discovered these cities and started the work in archaeology to start to, um, reconstruct their civilization. Okay. All right. But thanks for the question.
Okay, so, um, as I said, uh, what's the first thing that's interesting about the civilization is it was, it was relatively peaceful, okay, compared with what's happened in Mesopotamia. The second thing that was interesting for us, and surprising, is for a very large civilization, they are egalitarian. Okay. Meaning, in Mesopotamia, when we look at these old cities, Ur and Uruk, there were these huge palaces and temples which suggested, um, a concentration of power in the priesthood and in the king. Okay. But when we look at these five urban centers of the IVC, there are no, there are no palaces, there are no, um, temples. Okay. In fact, these cities are extremely well-designed. There are these walls around the city, and then as you go into the city, you're able to access every single part of the city. But if you were to go into a city, say, in Sumer, if you go into the city, you're only able to access the temple or the palace. Okay. So, authority is centralized in, in Sumer, whereas authority is sort of decentralized in, um, the IVC. Now, here's a question. If we know, if we suspect they are not engaged in warfare, why do they have walls? Why are there a lot of walls inside these cities? Why are there walls? Can anyone guess?
Customs, taxes. Okay. Meaning, this is again, a value-adding processing center, and the way they survive economically is by collecting tolls and customs on people who trade. And the way they collect taxes is when you enter the city, um, you have to go to the customs house, and then you pay whatever, um, is required of you, and then you can access the city. Okay. And that's the way they centrally controlled, uh, the economy and trade in the IVC. Um, these cities are amazing. These are the first people to invent the seated toilet, the private seated toilet. This is about the year 2800 BC. Okay. So, when you go into these cities, you'll find that in private homes, everyone has a private toilet, and then the waste is put into a sewage system, and the water flushes it out. That's, that's pretty amazing. Uh, these are people who are very concerned about the well-being of all its citizens. So, when we look at skeletal remains through DNA analysis, we've discovered the majority of the people ate about the same high-quality of food. Okay. There wasn't these disparities, uh, between people as you would find in other civilizations. At least half the people, we think, lived past the age of 55. That was an amazing achievement, uh, back then. In terms of sanitation, they have reservoirs. Okay. They also have public baths. They also had really amazing things called wind towers. I'm not, I'm not sure if you've studied these wind towers, but they're basically air conditioners. What they do is, um, these are high towers, and there's a, um, hole on top, right? So, what happens is, um, the higher the air is, the cooler it is, right? So, this wind that's cool gets into the wind tower, it comes down, and it pushes out the hot air from the other side, and this is what cools the houses, um, in the summer. Okay. This is a pretty advanced technology. Another really cool thing about the IVC is even though it covers a huge area, they have standardized weights and measurements. Okay. They have standardized weights and measurements, which means that every brick that they have is the same size, which means that their buildings, their structures are extremely, uh, stable and resilient. That's why 5,000 years later, we still have their cities intact. Okay. You can actually go to the cities and live in them. That's how, that's how, um, stable the technology was. Okay. So, this is a pretty, um, advanced civilization. Unfortunately, we don't know what their writing system is. Okay. So, if they had writing, and we don't, we can't know for sure if they had writing, it was like Chinese, an ideographic language, meaning it is not phonological. They're speaking, the spoken language is not the same as the written language. In other words, it is impossible for us to decipher their written language. We don't have that, um, many artifacts of writing. We have seals with, um, characters, uh, written on them, but we don't have anything else. And the reason could be, uh, if you look at Egypt, they use papyrus, okay, and papyrus is stable, or it keeps in a dry Egyptian climate. Okay. If you look at, uh, Sumerian culture, Mesopotamian culture, they use cuneiform on clay tablets, which keeps forever. Okay. But if they had a writing system, and they did write, it would be on palm leaves, which degrades very easily in the jungle, um, climate. Okay. So, we don't have access to their writing. This is problematic because without access to the writing, we don't have access to the religion. We don't know what the religion is. And one thing that you've learned in this class that's very important is religion or mythology, it is the operating system of the culture. Okay. It is the collective consciousness, the collective worldview that gives life to their culture. It explains why they do what they do. And unfortunately, we don't know their religion. Okay. But so, it's a complete mystery to archaeologists, to scholars, as to why this very advanced civilization was very peaceful and very egalitarian. We can only speculate. Okay. Any questions so far before I continue?
Okay, so, um, I'm going to speculate as to why they were peaceful and egalitarian. Um, so, what, so again, the key is the religion. What is the religion? Because that will give us clues as to their mentality, their value system. Right. We know that the Mesopotamian people, their religion focused on struggle and achievement. We know that the Egyptians, their religion focused on the afterlife. Okay. This life that we live is, we, it, the, the, what's important is not the here and now. What's important is what happens afterwards. Okay. That's, and that's why the Egyptians built pyramids. That's why they focused so much on funeral rites and on burial goods. All right. So, there had to be a religion, if in the IVC, that was different from the belief system in Sumer and Egypt, that made it into a peaceful, egalitarian, uh, civilization. Okay. All right. So, what is this religion, and why were they different? My speculation is this: the key is to understand that this is a civilization based on trade, and they've been traders, um, ever since they were born as, as a culture. Meaning, they were trading for at least 7,000, 8,000 years before they became a civilization. Okay. And if you're a trader, first of all, you're able to access the entire world. So, we know for a fact they traded with Sumer and the Persian Gulf States because we have, we have, um, artifacts from the IVC in these places. Okay. We know for a fact, we can speculate, they also traded with Egypt and with China, just based on their technology and, um, their trade networks. So, this is a civilization based on trade, and as, as traders, they're able to see what's going on in Mesopotamia and Egypt. They know they built the pyramids in Egypt. They know there's massive warfare in Sumer, and I would think that if you were a trader and you saw these things, you wouldn't be impressed. Okay. In fact, you might, might be disgusted, especially by the warfare in Mesopotamia. This is the idea called the dialectic, right? And I think this is a very important idea for us to appreciate how history is often driven by the idea of the dialectic. So, an example that we have in today's world is, you look at Japan and China. Okay. These are two radically different societies that are next to each other, and the question then is, why are they still different? I think the answer is because Japan knows China very well, and a lot of cultural practices, um, Japan developed over, over the centuries have been in response to what they see as failings or successes in Chinese culture. Okay. Another example that, um, Doug will appreciate, is Canada and the United States. The United States is probably the most belligerent nation in the world. They cannot get their hands off anything. And then you go north, Canada, and you know, Canada and the United States share the world's longest border. Basically, Canadians are cousins of the, of the Americans. I mean, like, there's really no difference. We speak the same language, we have the same cultural practices. Um, but while Americans are the most belligerent nation ever in human history, Canadians invented peacekeeping. Okay. The idea like nations should strive for mediation, for, uh, mediation and peace. Okay. And I think a lot of Canada, a lot of Canadian values, especially its political system, is in response to what it believes to be failings and successes in the American model. Okay. You also have New Zealand and Australia. So, there are many different examples of the dialectic going on in our global political systems. And I believe that's what happened with the IVC, where these traders saw what's happening in Egypt and saw what's happening in Mesopotamia, and they were kind of disgusted, especially by all this warfare in Mesopotamia. Okay. Um, warfare back then was pretty awful. And so, in Mesopotamia, the way they fight is they fight with these, um, clay bullets. Okay. And you take, you take a slingshot and you throw it at someone, and these things kill. They hurt. So, think of David and Goliath. Okay. And if you're a trader, you know, you'll see this warfare going on, you'll see people being, uh, beheaded. And why are they doing this? They're doing it in the name of God. Okay. Every city-state has a patron god that it believes it must defend, and honor, and protect. And whenever, whenever there's a dispute, it's because they feel their god has been dishonored by another city-state. So, they go to war and they kill each other. Okay. And again, if you're a trader and you see this, you don't think this is a good thing. Um, and you go to Egypt, and you see these pyramids, and these pyramids are again, extremely impressive, but at the same time, you also see the consequences of these pyramids, which is this massive inequality, massive corruption, just massive waste. All right. So, I think that by trading with these two civilizations and other civilizations, um, it reinforces the deep cultural values of the IVC people, and it, and it basically compels them towards peace and egalitarianism. Okay. That's what I believe happened. All right. Now, you could, there are other arguments. For example, maybe, uh, these people are just genetically peaceful and egalitarian. But I've made the argument in this class that from the onset of early human history, we were peaceful, egalitarian people, but different geographic circumstances changed our outlook. Okay. So, for example, the people in the steppes, who we call the Andronovo people, because of the grasslands, because it is such a poor and rugged and unforgiving environment, they're forced to be cattle ranchers, they're forced to engage in pastoralism. And over time, their culture became very aggressive, expansionist, and opportunistic. Opportunistic just means they'll do whatever it takes to survive. If they face a, they'll trade with people if it, if that's what benefits them. They'll kill people if that's what benefits them. They are not that moral. Okay. They're very opportunistic. And, and I remember, as I said, these people with their cultural values would go in and conquer all of Europe in about 200, 300 years. Okay. And they, what we call the Yayoi people back in the steppes, these Yayoi people continue to evolve over time, and over time, they became even more aggressive, more expansionist, and more opportunistic. Okay. Eventually, the Mongols, Genghis Khan, Mongols will come from this civilization. So, that's my argument to you. And again, uh, it's my speculation. It is because of their interaction with other cultures that convinced them to pursue a peaceful and egalitarian lifestyle. Now, there are still inequalities in the IVC. We know there are classes, we know there's wealth inequality, but relative to Mesopotamia and Egypt, it was a relatively peaceful and egalitarian society. Okay.
Okay, any questions before I continue? Okay, so the question is, did they invade the IVC? Okay. Because, as we discussed, um, in previous classes, when you're peaceful and egalitarian society, we know that Old Europe, okay, before the Indo-Aryan invasion, was a peaceful and egalitarian society. You will eventually get invaded by other cultures. Okay. And for the longest time, um, there was a theory out there, first proposed by, basically, the Nazis, called the Indo-Aryan Invasion. The idea is you have these white people sweep into India, conquer the people, and introduce civilization to the Indians. Okay. This is called the Indo-Aryan Invasion. Even though this theory has been discredited, there is a slight kernel of truth to this theory, okay, which I will explain to you. Okay. So, let me explain this theory and what happened. So, you have the IVC, which is a very advanced civilization. The problem with this civilization is their entire economy is especially based on trade. Right. Now, we know in about, there's something called the, um, 4.2 kiloyear event, which is, which is basically a massive climate change around the world. And the 4.2 kiloyear event brought basically an end to the Old Kingdom of Egypt. It also brought an end to what we call the Akkadian Empire in Sumer. A man named Sargon of Akkad conquered all of Sumer and built an Akkadian Empire, and because of this, of this drought, because of climate change, his empire collapsed. Okay. So, in other words, trade networks that the IVC heavily depended on start to collapse. And as a result, their cities, now which are dependent on trade, start to depopulate. Meaning, a lot, a lot of people start to return to the farms where they are from. They start also migrating, uh, to the rest of, uh, India, to the Ganges. Okay. As well, because of this climate change, the land itself is being affected heavily. Okay. So, there's drought. Um, the rivers are drying up. Remember, like, the Indus Valley Civilization, it's called the Indus Valley Civilization because it's dependent on the Indus River, among other rivers. So, there are some drought issues. Also, what we learned in this class is over time, all civilizations face internal tensions. Okay. And these internal tensions can be divided into two major tensions. The first tension is a conflict among the classes. Okay. So, the idea of elite overproduction, you have too many people striving for limited status. Right. And the conflict is mainly between upper nobility and lower nobility. Okay. And so, here in the IVC, we can imagine the conflict might be, might be between these families that are large trading houses versus families that are small trading houses. Okay. Or it could be, like, internal, internally among the families. Okay. But there's going to be some social tension going on. The other social tension that we discussed is the idea of a rat utopia, where, and especially conflict between the old and the young. Again, the problem with the IVC is you have too many old people living for too long, which means less opportunities arise for achievement for the young. Okay. And that creates conflict as well. So, what we believe that it also is that during this time, there was massive social tension within the IVC, and some people would even say it was a revolutionary time, okay, when old customs and old morals were being overthrown. Because of climate change, the people in the steppe culture now are forced to leave the steppes because the steppes are no longer suitable for their lifestyle. Okay. So, they push into the Oxus Valley Civilization, and over time, they will assimilate it into themselves. Okay. Um, the idea here is this is not an intentional invasion. Okay. It's not that you have a general, an army, and they go into the Oxus Valley Civilization and then they conquer it. Okay. It's more opportunistic, where at first you're trading, and as the Oxus Valley Civilization declines because of trade, trading networks, because of the declining trading networks, they will start to come in and push out the people. And again, the culture of these people is very aggressive. So, there are two strategies that they would employ. The first strategy is they might wipe out villages. Okay. These villages are depopulated anyway. They come in and they kill everyone. Which means they kill everyone. The second strategy is to come in, they'll kill all the men and marry all the women. Okay. And again, this is a gradual process of assimilation, cultural conquest, but it's not a military invasion. Okay. Does that make sense?
Now, after the Indus culture and the Oxus culture, um, merge, this creates a new civilization, a new culture called Proto-Indo-Iranian. Why is it called that? Because now what they will do is they'll go south to the Iranian plateau, and they will become eventually the Persian people. Okay. And they will invent a new religion that becomes a great world religion called Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism comes from this merger of, uh, the Proto-Iranian culture into the Iranian plateau. This is a process we call syncretism, by the way, syncretism, where two major religions merge and share the same gods. There are three distinct characteristics of the Proto-Indo-Iranian culture that become salient in the new Zoroastrian religion. The first is the use of a ritual drink called Soma. Okay. Soma, again, you don't have to know this, but I'm just telling you the cultural impact. Soma comes from the Proto-Indo-Iranian culture. Second is the worship of fire. Okay. Fire rituals, fires are used, um, heavily in, uh, the religious practice. And as we know, Zoroastrianism does use a lot of fire rituals. The last is horse sacrifice, meaning that warriors are buried with their horses. And so, this is an emphasis on the warrior culture of these people. Okay. So, that's what happens in Iran. They become the Persian people. We will discuss the Persian people at a later point. Not now, but I just want you to know this is what happened. They, these people will also push into the IVC, and over time, and this is a process that takes about 500 years, they'll push out the, uh, indigenous people. And then the indigenous people move into South India, where they merge with the folk culture, the animism of the local people there. And guys, what's amazing about this is this process will create two major world religions that are still, um, influential today. The first we know as Hinduism. Hinduism is the merger, the synchronization of Proto-Indo-Iranian religion with the local IVC religion. And as the IVC push itself, this will create a new religion called Buddhism. Okay. All right. But Buddhism is just the major one. There are others that are being created as well through this process. Right. The others are Jainism and Sikhism. And again, these are the major ones that are still with us today. Like, basically, this process created thousands, tens of thousands of new religions. All right. So, this is what happened. It's not a military conquest, it's not an invasion, but it's a process of, you can argue, cultural genocide, where new people come in, and over time, because they are aggressive, expansionist, opportunistic culture, they will eventually take over the culture, mainly by marrying the local women, because the people who come in are basically, basically males. They will marry the local women and they will either kill or enslave the local men. And this is where we get the caste system from in India. All right. So, so this is a more subtle explanation of the Indo-Aryan invasion theory. And this is what scholars today accept happened. And again, what's really important is to avoid generalizations and simplifications, because this is a process that took about 300 years, 400 years, and there are different strategies employed by different people. Some of it was peaceful, some of it was violent. It was a mix. It's hard for us to generalize, but the overall general effect is the creation of Hinduism and Buddhism, which now are the two major world religions. Okay. Any questions? But, but thanks for the question. Echo, any more questions before I move on? A few, but I think I'll save them for the end. Actually, you can ask, because some time to, to rest. All right. One question has to do with the IVC. Why? That's right. And so I'm just wondering, as, as traders, like, quite often trading involves, entirely involves, whatever. Any evidence that trade? Okay. So, uh, that's a great question, Doug. Okay. So, when you trade, there's always a problem of piracy and banditry, right? So, how do you protect yourselves against that? Okay. We know, like, Mesopotamia became violent because it was, it was being surrounded by violence. Right. The nomads in Arabia, the nomads in the Zagros Mountains, we're all pretty violent people. You had to be, because to survive, you have to be aggressive and opportunistic. So, how was it that the, um, sorry, the IVC was able to be peaceful, yet at the same time trade? And the solution is, they set up colonies and trade partners in order to facilitate trade. Okay. So, we know, for example, they traded heavily with the Oxus Civilization. There were lots of trade agreements, long-term trade agreements. We also know they had a colony within the Oxus Valley Civilization. We know, um, they traded heavily with a place called Dilmun, which is now modern-day Bahrain. Okay. So, these are their main trading partners. And so, you would think their trading partners were the ones who were responsible for local security. Okay. Um, we can also suspect they also went to other places as well to seek new trading partners. What's important about this world is this is still a relatively peaceful world. There's tremendous violence in Sumer, but that's still rare. Right. And there are some unique, um, characteristics about Sumer that make it a violent people. But in this world, and this is about 5,000 years ago, people are still relatively peaceful. Organized warfare is still, uh, new and rare in the human experience. And that's why I think the experience in Mesopotamia was so shocking, because the idea that you could sack a city, the idea that you could kill hundreds of people at one time, that's like breaking a massive cultural taboo. Okay. So, I think culturally speaking, people at this time prefer to trade rather than to fight. And because they've been trading for such a long time, we're talking like, you know, they start maybe trading about 7,000, 8,000 BC. They have a lot of trading networks around the world. They have partners who can trust, basically. Okay.
Okay, any, any more questions before I continue? Maybe one more, but I might be anticipating a little. Yeah, I'm actually moving into Buddhism. But any more questions before I, I continue? Okay, so the last thing I want, I want to discuss is, what is the legacy of the IVC? They were a great civilization. Are they completely lost to us? What is your contribution to Western Civilization? So, the legacy of Egypt are the pyramids. Right. We know Egypt because of the pyramids. The legacy of Mesopotamia are many. They, they made a lot of things like writing, cuneiform. Also, they introduced world literature, right? The Epic of Gilgamesh. What I want to argue, uh, now is the legacy of the IVC is in their spiritual practice, their spiritual, um, values. So, if you look at Hinduism, okay, it's very different from Zoroastrianism, and that's kind of strange because they're both Proto-Indo-Iranian religions. Right. But let's look very quickly at Hinduism. Hinduism believes the reality we live in is false. Okay. Uh, the real reality is called Brahman, the true absolute reality. So, we live in this false reality. As we live in this false reality, we collect karma. Karma is basically just an accounting of your good deeds and your bad deeds. And guess what? Throughout your life, you're going to accumulate more bad deeds than your good deeds. And your karma, uh, means your soul, called the Atman, is stuck here. Okay. Because Brahman, it's pure, you can, you can only return to Brahman, to heaven, if you're a pure person. So, it will take many lifetimes for you to cleanse your soul, your Atman, in order to return to the Brahman. This process of, um, cleansing your soul is what they call Dharma. Okay. Dharma, the right path. Um, if you, the Dharma over thousands of lifetimes, if your Dharma is correct, if you achieve Dharma, you will achieve what is called Moksha, which is basically liberation. Moksha releases your soul from the physical world, allows you to return to the Brahman, where you will live eternally in paradise. Okay. That is the, um, one of the basic ideas of Hinduism. Another really important idea of Hinduism is this entire process is being mediated, or sorry, mediated or gatekept by priests called Brahmins. Okay. So, you think being a good person is enough? No, it's not. You have to listen to the Brahmins because only the Brahmins understand Dharma, right? And depending on who you are, your Dharma will be different. So, in, uh, Hinduism, there's a hierarchy. Okay. Um, at the very top are, of course, the priests, the Brahmins, because they have access to spiritual knowledge. Below them are the warriors and the kings. And then below them are the farmers and the merchants who keep the economy, uh, running. And then at the very bottom are the servants and the laborers. Okay. Now, what's, what's really interesting about the system is this system can be differentiated by the color of one's skin. Right? Because remember, the Proto-Indo-Iranians have white skin. The IVC culture, the people who call the Proto-Dravidians, no, sorry, the Proto-Iranian. Okay. They have darker skin. So, the IVC people of the lower class don't intermix with the, um, the Proto-Indo-Iranians. And so, basically, the Proto-Indo-Iranians accumulated and centralized power through the idea of Hinduism. Okay. They're the priest class. So, that's a basic theory of Hinduism. And again, Hinduism is an extremely complex religion. I don't want to oversimplify it, but I have no choice because I want to explain the differences. Okay. So, in this system, who's really unhappy now? In this system, which group of people are like, very upset with this system? Can you guys, can you, can you apply what we've learned in the semester and answer the question? Of these four groups, who's the unhappiest, and who most wants change or revolutionary change? Excuse me. The lower nobility. And who's the lower nobility in the system? The kings. Doesn't make sense. The kings actually in the system are the lower nobility. The upper nobility are the Brahmins because it's the Brahmins who can show access to the Brahman. Okay. And so, the kings must obey the priests. So, the kings aren't happy with this. And so, from this conflict, you have the creation of Buddhism. Right. Remember, Siddhartha, who is considered the first Buddha, he was actually a prince before he became the Buddha. And the man most responsible for spreading Buddhism in India and around the world, his name is Ashoka. He was the king, the emperor of the Maurya Empire, and he was the one who institutionalized Buddhism as a state religion, who sponsored missionary projects to China, to Greece, to Egypt. Okay. So, these rulers don't like Hinduism because they see the Brahmin class as a threat to their power. So, Buddhism follows this system, except for one major difference: you don't need the Brahmins to access Nirvana. Okay. You don't need the Brahmins to access spiritual enlightenment. You can do it by yourself through spiritual guidance by monks. Okay. That's a major difference. And as you can see, Buddhism is in many respects a revolutionary religion to overthrow the power of the Brahmin class. And in response to Buddhism, what did the Brahmins do? Do you guys know? They created the caste system. Okay. After the rise of Buddhism, Hinduism started to implement what we call today the caste system, which is to say these classes must separate from each other. They are not allowed to intermingle. They are not even allowed to touch each other. They're not even allowed to touch each other's food. Okay. These people at the very bottom are what we call today the Untouchables. And this system was developed by the Hindu priests, the Brahmins, in response to the threat of Buddhism. Now, over time, because Hinduism, like the Proto-Iranian people, are aggressive, expansionist, opportunistic, they will defeat Buddhism in this struggle. Okay. And the one way, one really important way they defeat Buddhism is by adopting most of Buddhism's practices. Okay. So, like yoga, meditation, and also Nirvana. Okay. The Hindu Brahmins will adopt whatever is popular in Buddhism. Another thing that the Hindu priests will do is they will start, uh, basically assimilating other religions as well. So, most Indians throughout its history believed in their folk, local folk gods. Right. Eventually, all these gods will be assimilated into the Hindu hierarchy. That's why you have like a million gods in the Hindu religion. Okay. Because they were all, over time, assimilated into the hierarchy. And obviously, uh, these gods are lesser gods. The higher gods, the Holy Trinity, are Brahman gods. Okay. All right. So, now's a chance for, uh, Doug to, to ask his question about Buddhism before I continue. Yeah. Yeah. Go back to the, the IVC. Yeah. Um, so, way, way back months ago, you were talking about the Proto-Indo-European languages. That's right. Right. And there's been a lot of, uh, archaeological. That's right. You know, there's been a similar process looking at the different Indian religions, like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism. And is there a certain common denominator that perhaps could be traced back to? Okay. Great question. Okay. So, so what is the IVC religion? The Proto-religion? Okay. Um, I want to make an argument, and again, it's, uh, speculation. It's a very strange argument, and most scholars probably will not agree. I think the religion of the IVC is Proto-Buddhism. And the reason why is, if you look at Jainism, and you look at Proto-Indo-Iranian, the religion, there are a lot of similarities. And Proto-Zoroastrianism actually fits into the larger Proto-Indo-European religion framework. When you look at Hinduism, you've got this strange idea, you have a belief in karma, Dharma, reincarnation, impermanence, Brahman, the ultimate reality. Like, like, this is not part of the Proto-Indo-European religion anywhere. Okay. So, but at the same time, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism all share this fundamental belief in the world that this world is, um, a false reality. It's a reality created by our false beliefs. And if we learn to tame our emotions, if we learn to see the underlying reality governing all, uh, human structure, then we will be released from this world. Okay. Now, where would that come from? That must have come from the IVC, because there will be no other place. Also, it explains why these religions have such huge followings in India. Right. They don't have any followings anywhere else. Like, Hinduism is basically localized to, uh, India. So is Jainism. So is Sikhism. So, they are appealing to a fundamental sense of the world among Indians. They're basically appealing to nostalgia. Right. Right. And, and where is this nostalgia from? It must be from the IVC. Okay. So, I would make that argument. I would, I would, I would bet that if we were able to construct the religion of the IVC, the Proto-religion, we would see a Proto-Buddhism. Okay. The beginnings of Buddhism. It would be very different, okay, because Buddhism evolved over thousands of years, but the underlying assumptions about the world, basically the idea of oneness, okay, the idea of false reality, I think these two ideas would be very apparent in the IVC, as they are apparent now in all four major Indian religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. Okay. Do you want to continue or no? No, no, no, no. I'm finished. But like, like, you want to respond to my argument? Sense? Okay. And any, are you guys following along? Does this make sense to you guys? In fact, I would argue that we as humans fundamentally have nostalgia for these two ideas: oneness and false reality. Okay. Because if you look at the West, okay, if you look at us today, there are two ideas that are the most powerful today in Western civilization. The first idea is Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Right. The idea that we live in a shallow world, and the truth is out there, but we have to seek it. It's a very powerful idea, right? And it's very similar, by the way, to the ideas found in Hinduism and Buddhism. Okay. The Allegory of the Cave is the first powerful idea. And then the second powerful idea is the idea of the Second Coming, the return of Jesus. Because what does the return of Jesus signify? It signifies paradise on Earth. It signifies the destruction of our current reality and the replacement of a new reality that creates oneness, completeness, and wholeness on Earth. So, in many ways, um, this is very similar to what the Indians are proposing as well. So, what this is saying is, at a fundamental level, everyone has nostalgia for a distant past. Okay. And what is this distant past? The distant past is the idea of animism. So, remember, 10,000 years ago, 20,000 years ago, we were in the Ice Age. We were hunter-gatherers, and the way we saw the world was very different from the way we see the world today. Okay. Back then, if you were a hunter-gatherer, you could only think, you were the same as the tree, or as the animal. It's the idea of oneness. We're no different. We're all part of the life cycle. We're all part of, uh, Mother Nature, okay, the Mother Goddess. All right. We also believe we inhabit different realities at the same time. Right. We live in this world, which is the material reality. We, we, we're also inhabiting the spiritual reality as well. And what we do spiritually matters a lot more than what we do materially. Okay. So, we can hunt and kill animals as long as we pay the proper respects to the animals we kill, as long as we, um, contribute spiritually to the cycle of life and death. Okay. So, I think that's where Buddhism comes from. It comes from animism. This Proto-Buddhism became reinforced and became much more concrete because it was experiencing a reality in Mesopotamia and Egypt that was abhorrent to the people experiencing it. Okay. War goes against the human experience. Inequality and corruption and waste goes against the human experience. We fundamentally believe this to be evil and wrong. Okay. So, that is my argument about the IVC. Any questions? Any comments? You seem to believe that. Okay. That's a great question. Um, do I believe that human nature is fundamentally benevolent? Um, I don't believe human nature is benevolent. I believe humans naturally seek, um, a spiritual understanding of the world. I think humans want to know why, why are we here? Where are we going? Where do we come from? Okay. We want to know why. We're also curious. We want to explore the world. Okay. So, I think trade is not a new invention. I think it's a very inherent thing to human nature. I think the idea of globalization, this was a globalized world like 5,000 years ago. Okay. Extremely sophisticated, complex, globalized world. So, I think that's what makes us fundamentally, fundamentally human. Okay. And you can say this a good thing or a bad thing. And I would say, well, it depends on the circumstance, right? But I think what drives us as humans is our curiosity and our, um, our imagination. Okay. That's what I think being human is. And sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes this is a bad thing. Okay. Sometimes in the IVC, this will lead to peace and egalitarianism, but this also is what drives the idea of the Second Coming, which is what's driving the conflict in the Middle East today. Okay. So, it depends on the context. It depends on the circumstance. If, if this curiosity, this imagination is channeled effectively, then I think that's a good thing. If it's channeled opportunistically, then it's a bad thing. Okay. But, but thanks for the question. Any more questions? Okay. Um, so, this ends our Bronze Age unit. Okay. So, we looked at the three major Bronze Age civilizations: Egypt, Mesopotamia, and, um, IVC. Next class, we'll start the Bible, okay, the Hebrew Bible. All right.