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  • Hi, my name is John Green, you're watching Crash Course World History

  • and today we're going to talk about India, which is hard because:

  • A. I only have 10 minutes,

  • Mr. Green, Mr. Green!

  • I don't have time for you today, Me-From-the-Past,

  • B. When we study history we tend to study unified polities that we can label like "The

  • Roman Empire" or "China" or "Beliebers,"

  • and this emphasis on unity tends to

  • C. lead to labels that mask a lot of historical difference, like for instance "Europe," which

  • is such a weird and nebulous word that we don't even know what it means.

  • Plus D, no offense Europe, but there are not many histories more complex than India, and...

  • E. a lot of what we know about Indian history comes from British historians, who both used

  • and embodied the phrase "historical bias,"

  • all of which F. makes it very unfortunate that we only have 10 minutes. But we'll do

  • our best! Okay, we're gonna make this like Voldemort's soul and split up into eight parts.

  • [music intro]

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  • Part 1: The Vedas. So as you no doubt remember, the Indus Valley was one of the earliest cradles

  • of civilization,

  • But that original civilization basically disappeared sometime after 1750 BCE.

  • Then there was a long period of Aryan migration, and by Aryans we do not meet like prehistoric

  • Nazis, we mean people from the Caucasus who migrated down into the Indo-Gag gig gag gi-

  • Stan, can you just spell it for me? Thank you.

  • We know about these Aryans primarily because they left behind religious texts, the earliest

  • of which is called the Vedas.

  • The Vedas are also the earliest texts of what will come to be known as Hinduism, although

  • it wasn't known as Hinduism then. And they're responsible for tons of stuff, but we only

  • have 10 minutes so let's just cut to part 2, The Caste System.

  • The caste system is one of India's most enduring and fascinating institutions. Let us read

  • from one of the Vedas about Purusha, the universe-pervading spirit.

  • When they divided Purusha, in how many different portions did they arrange him? What became

  • of his mouth, what of his two arms? What were his two thighs and his two feet called?

  • His mouth became the Brahmin, his two arms were made into the (ksatriya); his two thighs

  • the vaisyas; from his two feet the shudra was born.

  • So this section gives a divine explanation for the caste system.

  • Brahmins -- who as Purusha's mouth speak (to the gods) are at the top.

  • Kshatriyas -- from Purusha's arms became the warriors, as you no doubt know if you've ever

  • attended my gun show.

  • Vaisyas -- the merchants and artisans who provide money for the priests and the warriors

  • came from Purusha's thighs.

  • Because everybody knows that the thighs are the money makers. And the Shudras -- are at

  • the bottom.

  • They're the feet, the laborers and farmers who are the foundation of the social order.

  • Also, the rest of us stand on them.

  • The caste system becomes much more complicated than this, but that basic division into 4

  • classes remains throughout much of Indian history.

  • In spite of the efforts of many reformers whom we'll be meeting in future episodes of

  • Crash Course. The Caste System is he foundation for another big concept in Hinduism, Part

  • 3: Dharma.

  • Dharma is basically one's role in life and society and it is defined primarily by birth

  • and by caste.

  • The whole idea is explained nicely by this passage from the Baghavad Gita, where Krishna

  • is talking to the warrior, Arjuna.

  • "Having regard to your own duty also, you ought not to falter, for there is nothing

  • better for a Kshatriya than a righteous battle."

  • The Baghavad Gita is a section of a much larger epic poem the Mahabaratha which tells the

  • complicated and long story of a war between two kingdoms.

  • And we can really see how important dharma is in this passage because Krishna is basically

  • telling Arjuna that because he is a warrior, a Kshatriya, he must fight.

  • Even if he's bad at it, for instance if he gets killed, it's still preferable to not

  • living his dharma. It's better to be a bad warrior if you're a Kshatriya than to be the

  • world's best baker.

  • Basically you're better off fulfilling your own dharma poorly than doing someone else's

  • well.

  • That leads us to Part 4. Samsara, Moksha, and Karma -- There are both personal and social

  • reasons for doing your dharma.

  • Right, the social reason is obvious that dharma and caste combine for excellent social cohesion.

  • You get the exact right number of bakers and the exact right number of warriors. We could

  • stand in to implement this system in the United States, actually, where everyone knows we

  • suffer from a shortage of electrical engineers and a surplus of people who want to be on

  • reality TV shows.

  • That would not have happen in ancient India. But, say that your dharma is to scoop animal

  • dung your entire life,

  • Why do you keep doing that when you see other lives that at least appear to be far more

  • fulfilling? That leads us to the concept of Samsara, or the cycle of rebirth often called

  • reincarnation.

  • The basic idea is that when you die your soul is transferred to another living thing as

  • it is being born.

  • And if you fulfill your dharma, things improve and you get re-born into a higher being. You

  • don't have to scoop elephant dung anymore.

  • But the ultimate goal is not to be re-born as a Brahmin. The ultimate goal is to be released

  • from the merry-go-round altogether. And that release is called moksha.

  • The law that holds all this together is Karma which is summarized really nicely in the Aranyaka

  • Upanishad

  • The doer of good becomes good. The doer of evil becomes evil. One becomes virtuous by

  • virtuous action, bad by bad action.

  • The Upanishads, by the way, are later religious texts that began as commentaries on the Vedas,

  • but later became sacred writings in their own right.

  • This is a great way to organize a social order from top to bottom. Everyone has a role, and,

  • because that role has a religious dimension, society stays in balance.

  • But as a religion, Hinduism has a problem, at least if you want to start an empire; Everyone's

  • path to "salvation" is individual.

  • The original Brahmins tried to set themselves up as political leaders, but Hinduism doesn't

  • really place a premium on worshippers obeying their leaders.

  • And if you are a leader trying to make your subjects listen to you, that's kind of a bummer.

  • Which brings us to Part 5. Buddhism.

  • We can't establish this historically, but according to traditional biographies, our

  • story begins in the 6th century BCE. Let's go to the thought bubble.

  • So there was this prince, Siddhartha Gautama, whose father kept him locked away in a palace

  • because a prophecy foretold that the family would lose the kingdom if he ever left. But

  • as house arrests go, this was a good one: Siddhartha had great food, great entertainment,

  • a hot cousin for a wife, etc.

  • But he suspected there was more to life, so he snuck out of the palace a few times. On

  • these travels, he encountered an old man, a sick man, and finally a corpse.

  • Having realized the ubiquity of suffering, Siddhartha left the palace, renounced the

  • crown and sought out all the holiest men to try to find out how it could be possible that

  • life would come to such a terrible end.

  • Eventually Gautama became an ascetic, fasting and meditating for days at a time, hoping

  • to find enlightenment. And finally, after meditating for about a month under a tree,

  • it came to him.

  • Nirvana. No, not that one. Yes, that one. He finally understood the meaning of life

  • and began teaching it to people who would become his disciples. He had become the Buddha,

  • which means teacher, and he taught the Four Noble Truths. They are:

  • 1. All life is suffering.

  • 2. The source of suffering is desire. Not just sexual desire, but all wanting of stuff

  • and prestige.

  • 3. To stop suffering, you must rid yourself of desire.

  • This sounds simple enough, but if you've ever been dumped by someone, you know that it is

  • not that easy to just stop desiring.

  • 4. So how do you do it? By following the eight-fold path, which as you might suspect is a set

  • of eight prescriptions on how to live that we don't have time to talk about but oh wait

  • look,

  • ThoughtBubble, you put some learning in our learning so we can learn while we learn.

  • Thanks, Thought Bubble. So as a religion, Buddhism involves a lot of meditating and

  • moderation and there aren't that many fun rituals, and if you're a Buddhist monk you

  • don't get to have power like most holy people do; you have to renounce everything, including

  • your hair.

  • And, yes, some of them get to be kung-fu monks, but only in China, where Buddhism eventually

  • migrated and became a religion with fun rituals and all kinds of great stuff that Siddhartha

  • Gautama probably wouldn't even have recognized.

  • But we're not talking about fun populist religion, we're talking about old-skool ascetic Buddhism.

  • Sure, you might be happy and fulfilled if you follow the eight-fold path, but from everything

  • we've learned so far, it would appear that humans don't want to be happy and fulfilled

  • or else they never would've stopped foraging.

  • But Buddhism was very attractive if you were a low-caste Hindu, because there is no caste

  • system.

  • In theory, anyone who follows the 8-fold path and renounces desire can be freed from suffering

  • and achieve nirvana, maybe even in THIS life.

  • Instead of having to get re-born for maybe millennia and knowing that each time there

  • is only a tiny chance that you will end up something awesome, like a honey badger.

  • By the way, Totally Tangential Part 6 -Did you know the game chutes and ladders has its

  • origins in ancient India?

  • They call it Snakes and Ladders. The ladders are steps forward on the path to moksha, and

  • the snakes take you away from it.

  • Which reminds me, it's time for the open letter. [scoots to velvet throne, nearly impaled through

  • temple] That is very close to my head. Wow.

  • But first let's see what's in The Secret Compartment. Oh look, it's a golf club. Must be so I can

  • play Disco Golf.

  • An open letter to Chutes and Ladders:

  • Dear Chutes and Ladders,

  • This is Disco Golf. It's a game of skill. My success at Disco Golf is entirely dependent

  • on whether I am good at Disco Golf.

  • Now, listen Chutes and Ladders, I remember your game being awesome when I was a kid,

  • but I have a 2-year-old son myself and I recently bought him Chutes and Ladders and you know

  • what happened the first time we played? HE BEAT ME.

  • Chutes and Ladders, this is a child who regularly refers to helicopters as helloflopters.

  • I don't want to say that he's not my intellectual equal, but I'm potty trained.

  • You know why he beat me? Because there is NO SKILL INVOLVED IN CHUTES AND LADDERS AT

  • ALL. IT IS COMPLETELY RANDOM AND CAPRICIOUS AND ARBITRARY AND COLD- JUST LIKE THE UNIVERSE.

  • I DON'T WANT TO PLAY GAMES THAT ARE LIKE THE UNIVERSE- I WANT TO PLAY GAMES SO THAT I CAN

  • FORGET WHAT THE UNIVERSE IS LIKE.

  • Best wishes, John Green

  • Okay, Part 7: Ashoka. Remember that for most of Indian history, India it was not one unified

  • place. It was tons of different principalities and city-states and everything else.

  • But India did experience indigenous political unification twice, first under the Mauryan

  • Dynasty in the 3rd century BCE.

  • And then again under the Gupta Dynasty from the 300's to the 500's CE, but we're not going

  • to talk about that because it bores me.

  • Right now we're interested in one particular leader from the Mauryan Dyanasty, Ashoka.

  • Because Ashoka attempted to rule through quasi-Buddhist principles from 269 to 232 BCE.

  • So Ashoka was initially a warrior who ended up expanding the empire that his grandfather

  • started. And Ashoka experienced this conversion to Buddhism after he saw his own army devastate

  • the Kingdom of Kalinga, something I bring up primarily so that I can say Kingdom of

  • Kalinga.

  • Stan, is there anyway we can write a song a song about that, like, Kingdom of Kalinga

  • / I'm sorry you got destroyed... [laughs]

  • So, Ashoka built stupas, (stoopas?) Hold on...

  • Could he have said that any more pretentiously? [straightens posture to mimic] Stupas.

  • So Ashoka built stupas, these mound-like monuments to the Buddha, all over his kingdom to show

  • his devotion.

  • And he also put up pillars throughout his empire that proclaimed his benevolent rule

  • and said he was going to rule through something he called dhamma, which according to one of

  • the pillars went like this:

  • proper behavior towards servants and employees, respect for mother and father, generosity

  • to friends, companions, relations, Brahmans and ascetics, and not killing living beings.

  • So those are not individualistic goals like we see in Hinduism; they're relational goals,

  • like we're gonna see next week when we study Confucianism.

  • And that's one of the reasons why Ashoka's empire wasn't actually very Buddhist because

  • ultimately Buddhism isn't that concerned with the order of the world. Buddhism argues that

  • the fulfillment of the self will lead to the order of the world.

  • In the end, Ashoka's empire didn't outlast him by much, and soon enough Buddhism declined

  • in India, almost to the point of extinction.

  • Part 8: The Big Finish. So as anyone who has ever practices yoga knows, Hinduism is the

  • most flexible of all the world religions, which is part of the reason it's often described

  • as polytheistic.

  • The belief that god(s) can take many different forms makes it easy for Hinduism to assimilate

  • other religious traditions. Which is exactly what happened with Buddhism.

  • In time the Buddha came to be worshipped as another incarnation of one of the Hindu gods,and

  • not as a mortal teacher.

  • So in the end, Hinduism, rather than purging the Buddha, enveloped him.

  • So all this means that while Hinduism has a tremendous amount of variety and flexibility,

  • its core tenets of samsara, karma, and the caste system have provided a remarkable amount

  • of cultural and social unity to the Indian subcontinent for millennia.

  • Fortunately for the Buddha, his teachings migrated East to China. We're gonna make that

  • same journey next week. I'll see you then.

  • Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan Muller, our script supervisor is Danica Johnson,

  • the show is written by my high school history teacher Raoul Meyer and myself. And our graphics

  • team is Thought Bubble.

  • Last week's phrase of the week was "Right Here in River City". if you want to guess

  • at this week's phrase of the week or suggest future ones you can do so in comments. Also

  • in comments, please leave your questions and our team will endeavor to answer them.

  • Thanks for watching Crash Course and as they say in my home town, don't forget to be awesome.

Hi, my name is John Green, you're watching Crash Course World History

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佛陀和阿育王。世界歷史速成班#6 (Buddha and Ashoka: Crash Course World History #6)

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    吳繼武 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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