Ok folks, so far this week we have been discussing some clear social and religious differences between India and China, and I have enjoyed our discussions regarding those difference with you all. Keep the questions coming! I love it! However, now that we are beginning to look at more political issues, there are some very clear similarities that are beginning to emerge. Just like the Qin dynasty, the first to unify China, the Maurya dyansty will be the first to unify most of India. Interestingly, they follow very similar paths as a result. What are some of the characteristics that Qin Shihuangdi and Chandragupta Maurya have in common? Are such characteristics regarding force necessary for initial unification? Also, I find it very interesting that we see trends in turning away from violence slightly in both societies. Just like the Qin paved the way for a more tolerant (not completely, but more so) Han dynasty, Chandragupta Maurya essentially seems to have paved the way for a more tolerant kingdom under his grandson Ashoka. Hmm... interesting. My question is this: Does violence pave the way for tolerance in the course of political development? What do you think??? It's also during this time period that we see societies become extraordinarily creative in the development of political thinking. In China the Confucians and the Legalists formulated the ideas that haved shaped political thinking in East Asia for the past 2000 years. In Greece--where the term "politics" was invented in the first place--Plato, Aristotle, and other thinkers developed ideas of lasting importance for Europeans and for people in other parts of the world. Innovative thinking about political issues was also part of the process that led to the establishment of the Maurya Empire in India. During the reign of Emperor Chandragupta Maurya a major work of political thinking, the Arthashastra (literally "treatise on material gain) was written in India. Essentially a series of policy recommendations, the Arthashastra has been traditionally attributed to Kautilya, Chandragupta's key advisor. By reading this work we can learn much about political thinking and political circumstances in India during the late first millennium B.C.E. In additon, the Arthashastra contains a great deal of valuable information about economic and social realities in India. Please read the following excerpts from the following link (The Arthashastra), and then I would like for you to consider a few things. First of all, according to the Arthashastra, what policies should a ruler adopt in order to be succssful? What does the advice to employ spies and to devote considerable attention to personal security suggest about political conditions in India during the Mauryan dynasty? What do you learn from these passages about the Indian economy? According to the Arthashastra, what should be the foreign policy (in other words, the relationship between one country and its neighbors) goals of a ruler, and what steps should be taken to realize those goals? How might the attempts by Indian political leaders to establish strong and enduring states have been assisted or held back by the values represented by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita (a previous post)? How do the golas suggested in the Arthashastra compare with those in Buddhism? How does the Arthashastra compare with Chinese Legalism? Did the Indian ideas and Chinese ideas emerge in a similar context? Finally, why do you personally feel there was so much important political thinking during the Classical period in China, India, Persia, and Greece? Your thoughts please...
12 comments:
Shihuangdi and Chandragupta Maurya both were sort of crazy for power. Also, they used violence to control their society. But in Qin the everything was centralized under one person, so brought the fall to it completely. But the Maurya Dynasty was under beuraucracy. Which didn't cause an immediate fall in the dynasty. Chandragupta Maurya had an advisor who might have kept him from being like Shihuangdi. That might have made a difference between those two. I think that their force of vioence suceeded in both cases to unify the area. But another reason as to why Chandragupta Maurya kept the dynasty up was because he didn't use as much violence as Shihuangdi. I'm guessing that maybe it is necessary for them to do so for power.
I don't think that violence absolutely has to be used to obtain order, but it just happens to be an easy way. But then the whole star wars theory comes into play, so eventually it will come back to bite them. Emporor Palpatine was eventually killed, as was Shihuangdi. Violence is kinda like a quick fix.
Peace and tolerance came afterwards because of what I said earlier. Violence comes back to bite. Because the violence turned on them they realised that they would have to be more peaceful and tolerant for the country to stay in one piece.
Chandragupta Maurya seems to be a bit paranoid, but for a good reason. His empire had spies, specific village sizes, personal guard, etc. that kept things in order. Based on how long the Maurya Empire lasted for, he chose good things to do. Many of these things we have here in America...
These and other policies were strict and nervous so the empire was fearful of attack-from the inside and out. Politically, they were afraid. The Arthashastra goes on about how the regional leaders should encourage different economic activities, and give things only to the tax payers. He seemed to be very orderly about regional ruling. And with all the economic specificity, the economy was well intact. He wants to keep the peace between each region, which is very important to confine the size of the region and the leader's head.
A violent leader can only succeed for so long, however I believe the Gupta reign was largely successful due to the smaller land area to maintain.
Ahhh Star Wars, little did I know when I first watch you I would be using you in a World History discussion. It is the exact same principle, use violence to bring about peace. At first it seems like an oxymoron, but if you have the power to successfully take over a society {or galaxy} then violence is the quickest way to bring peace to an area. Now you may have to dabble in the "dark side" to attain these unifications, but that is a way to do it in this imperfect world. I don't believe there are any methods,violent or nonviolent, to truly unify people forever because humans are naturally evil, manipulative, selfish people we have always been since the beginning. Violence is a way to keep people under your rule but eventually someone is going to overthrow you,{a.k.a. destroying your Death Star with a few carefully placed shots to a ventilation duct.} So maybe "Darth Shihuangdi" held his empire together for a while, he knew of the ever growing threat of overthrow, so in his search of immortality to withstand these attempts, he meet his fate in form of a mercury capsule. One way or another a tyrannic empire is going to be overthrown. It is human nature to constantly innovate, this is the reason violent empires will never hold long lasting stable empires.
I cannot believe how much Qin Shihuangdi and Chandragupta have so much power. Accoriding to Arthashstra, king had major power and every village was organized into hundreds which show highly centralized power. At least India wasn't controlled by one man.
But most terrifying words were when the advisor talked about espionage. Using whores and priests as spies? Good and evil idea. I heard something like this in Prince by niccolo machiavelli. My god, I guess humans don't change after all. Because Niccolo was power-hungry man and so was chandragupta's advisor. After 1000 years this man and nicollio is saying same things.
I read The Arthashastra, but where's the violence?
Other than the consequences for disclosure and the war segments: only attack if the other is weaker, turn you enemies allies against eachother, what was violent about it? Spies?
It says build roads and villages, promote production, and make the roads safe.
What amused me was the security advisement. Especially this sentence:
"He should swim in rivers which are free of larger fishes and crocodiles and hunt in forests free from snakes, man-eaters and brigands."
Is someone a little paranoid?
Perhaps Chandragupta Maurya, like Qin Shiuangdi, knew that stability depended on the leader, and if he died so did the Maurya Dynasty. Why did he wander off to become a monk then? Did he just really trust his son to continue his work that much?
And I found it interesting that land devoted to cultivaters for life shouldn't be taken away. It could be taken if the land wasn't being cultivated though. Doesn't that contradict itself?
I do see a lot of similarities to Legalism, but the violent enforcing of laws wasn't really addressed that much in this text I don't think(at least that segment we read).
I agree with Alec- I think that these people are power-hungry and paranoid about most everything. Like Qin Shihuangdi, who was so obsessed with immortality, Chandragupta Maurya just thought of ways to keep himself safe and didn't think about anyone who might succeed him. So, when he died, his empire fell apart.
About Alec's question about the condradicting statements about the cultivators' land, I think that it could be taken away if they weren't cultivating it because it wasn't being used for the greater good. (Which is similar to China.) If the land was being cultivated and it had been given to them for life, then even if they were in debt or something they would probably let them keep it. But if the land wasn't being used, then why keep it with someone who was abusing the privelege of having that land? It would make sense to give it to someone else.
I don’t think that there is a need for violence, but with empire builders, there are few ways to get your country to happily be under your reign. The only two I have heard of is violence, and marriage. The marriage idea kind of shaky to me, so violence is the #1 choice for power hungry paranoid emperors to be. I think that mostly there isn’t that much need for the empire, and that much of the time, countries that are smaller have a better chance of staying together rather than large empires. I also see the problems of small countries that aren’t unified in money or language, so I don’t think that there is ne definitive answer.
I was watching a show on the history channel about Shihuangdi. It talked about how he killed tons of his closest advisors (except one) because he wanted to have power and he knew that everyone hated him and wanted to kill him. I was wondering if any of the Indian rulers did the same thing? We talked about how, because of the caste system and achieving moksha, nobody tried to revolt. Did people in India eventually try to assasinate their rulers or not?
I just was wondering about that and thought I'd ask.
miss jennings, yeah, assassinations will become an issue in india eventually, especially during the mughal period (season 3). this especially will become a big problem within the family actually.
I find it so interesting how similar both Shihuangdi and Maurya were, even though they didnt rule at the same time, and their empires had no interaction with each other. Obviously trade routes and the movement of ideas and innovations from eastern Europe played a key role in the similar development of the two empires. I'm also interested to see how the Persians, who Mr. Prill mentioned were able to unify without violence, will go about doing so. Also, I wonder if whatever Persia does to unite their empire will eventually occur in India and China also through trade routes... I guess I'll just have to wait and see...
Post a Comment