Classical India Recap

Question 1

Maurya Empire

Answer 1

• Chandragupta Maurya (321-297 BCE)
• first to unify India
• Ashoka (269-332 BCE)
• remained violent until conversion to Buddhism, spread the belief system
• Kushans from the Northwest
• several hundred years of fragmentation

Question 2

Gupta empire

Answer 2

• intermarriages
• 400 CE
• smaller then Mauryan
• unifies India again
• Golden Age
• Hinduism reemerges
• Buddhism along silk road to China
• advances in science, art, technology
• Arabic numerals, concept of 0, pi, sand script, prediction of eclipses, inoculation, setting broken bones, surgeries, plastic surgeries, gender relations
• in Hinduism, women could not achieve maksha (release from cycle of death and rebirth) unless purifying their soul