Asia's First Civilizations: India and China

1. Introduction

In both East and South Asia, civilization developed along with the irrigation of great river systems. The Harappan civilization of the Indus River valley developed in the middle of the third millennium B.C.E. approximately at the same time as the river civilizations of the Middle East. Like Sumer, Harappa was unable to survive natural catastrophes and nomadic invasion and disintegrated as a civilization between 1500 and 1200 B.C.E. Unlike Harappa, which failed to serve as the core of a unified, successor civilization, Shang China spawned successors that endured for millennia.

2. The Indus Valley and the Birth of South Asian Civilization



1. Introduction

South Asia's first civilization emerged in the third millennium B.C.E. It developed around two great cities, Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. Although it was a relatively centralized civilization, Harappa was not heavily militarized and thus remained vulnerable to nomadic incursions. Harappan civilization was based on the Indus River system. Seven tributaries converged to form the Indus River. In addition to the water supplied by the rivers, monsoons brought summer rains. The region was capable of supporting a vast agricultural population. By at least 3000 B.C.E. sedentary agricultural villages were situated along the river plains. Pre-Harappan culture included bronze metallurgy, art featuring a bull motif (possibly suggesting links to Middle Eastern civilization), and figurines of women.

2. The Discovery and Mystery of Harappa

Harappan civilization was discovered by British engineers constructing railways in the Indus valley during the nineteenth century. Subsequent excavation of sites revealed numerous cities that comprised Harappan civilization. Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro were the two capitals of the Indus civilization.

3. The Great Cities of the Indus Valley

Despite being separated by hundreds of miles, Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro were built utilizing similar grid patterns and surrounded by walls. Both internal architecture and city walls were constructed of uniform bricks. The standardization of construction suggests that Harappan civilization had a strongly autocratic government capable of insuring uniformity. Strong citadels in both major cities also suggest the existence of a powerful ruling elite. The citadels evidently contained both centers of government and public use areas, including baths.

Granaries were located close to the citadels in both cities. The areas of the city reserved for housing were crowded. Domestic architecture, like the rest of the buildings in Harappan civilization, was constructed of brick. Homes were relatively standardized and lacked ornamentation. Homes typically included a bathing area connected to a city-wide sewer system.

4. Harappan Culture and Society

An advanced agricultural system, including sophisticated irrigation works to control the monsoon floods, supported the Harappan cities. Harappan urban centers had plentiful commercial contacts with the civilizations of the Middle East and East Asia. Despite exposure to other cultures, the Harappans were technologically conservative and less advanced militarily than other civilizations. The society of Harappa was stratified, with a powerful priestly class at the top of the social order.

Deities and venerated animals demonstrate an obsession with fertility. Beneath the priestly rulers were the administrative and commercial classes who lived in larger houses located near the temple complexes. Artisans, laborers, and slaves made up the lower orders of society. Outside the cities, numerous farmers populated the countryside and supplied the food for the urban population.

5. The Slow Demise of Harappan Civilization

Harappan civilization declined gradually in the middle centuries of the second millennium B.C.E. as a result of flooding, perhaps due to climatic changes that altered the rhythm and severity of the monsoon season. Over centuries, the region in which the Harappan civilization flourished became more arid. There is also evidence of rapid immigration into the region. Apparently the Harappans were too weak militarily to prevent incursion from outside peoples. As the priestly elite began to lose control, the irrigation systems failed. Pastoral Aryan immigrants then replaced the indigenous agricultural population of the countryside.

3. The Aryan Incursions and Early Aryan Society in India



1. Introduction

Among the nomadic peoples who entered the Indus River valley during the decline of Harappan civilization, the Aryans gained dominance. Originally herders who spoke one of the Indo-European languages, the Aryans began migration into South Asia in the third and second millennium B.C.E. Military prowess allowed the Aryans to dominate the cultures they replaced. The Indo-European invaders, of which the Aryans were only one group, left a lasting linguistic heritage in both Europe and Asia.

2. Aryan Warrior Culture

The Aryans spread in small bands from the Indus River valley into the lands surrounding the Ganges River system. Like the Indus River valley, the region of the Ganges featured the combination of river systems and monsoon rain patterns that made agricultural communities possible. Although it took many centuries, the Aryans eventually supplemented pastoralism with cultivation. Much of what is known about earliest Aryan culture is derived from the Vedic hymns transmitted orally for centuries until finally transcribed in books called the Vedas during the sixth century B.C.E. The hymns describe a martial society that recognized as its chief deity Indra, a god devoted to war.

Aryan military technology featured chariots, and metal- tipped weapons that were superior to the indigenous cultures of South Asia. With the exception of military technology, the civilization of the Aryans was cruder than that of the peoples they replaced. Urbanization declined under the Aryans, as major cities were replaced by small villages without monumental architecture. According to the Vedic hymns, gambling and music were two of the most popular pastimes among the Aryans.

3. Aryan Society

When they initially entered the Indian subcontinent, the Aryans were divided into three main social groups: warriors, priests, and commoners. As a result of their conquest of indigenous peoples, a fourth group was added, slaves or serfs. The dividing line between the three Aryan groups and the conquered peoples was rigidly maintained. Attempts to restrict all social relationships between Aryan social groups and the conquered peoples led to the development of a rigid class system of social organization. Despite social restrictions dividing the two groups, intermarriage did occur. Eventually four social groups or varnas developed: brahmans (priests), warriors, merchants, and peasants. Beneath these four groups were the socially outcast untouchables, most commonly descendants of non-Aryans.

Descent and inheritance were patrilineal in Aryan society. Women left their households upon marriage to enter those of their husbands. Aryan epics do give examples of both polygamy and polyandry, but monogamous households were the norm. Both dowries and bride-prices were exchanged at the time of marriage, suggesting the female children were not yet regarded as economic burdens to their families. Males were favored because of the traditional Aryan emphasis on martial valor and religious ritual.

4. Aryan Religion

Initially the Aryans were polytheistic in their religious practices. Deities, both male and female, had the power to assist human supplicants and to assure fertility. Male gods were dominant, particularly those deities associated with war. Religious worship involved ritual offerings and animal sacrifices. It was the function of the Vedic priests to perform the sacrificial rituals effectively. In early Aryan religion there was apparently little concern with the afterlife, the purpose of creation, or the nature of the soul. Neither reincarnation nor transmigration of the soul were common to Aryan religious beliefs.

5. Harappa's Fall and Aryan Dominance

When the Aryan invasion of India first occurred around 1500 B.C.E., civilization disappeared from South Asia. Only with the development of sedentary agricultural communities and commerce did the basic elements of civilization reappear among the Aryans. Small kingdoms eventually emerged along the upper Ganges and the foothills of the Himalayas. These kingdoms became the foundation for classic Indian civilization.

4. A Bend in the River and the Beginnings of China



1. Introduction

The first Chinese civilization developed along the Yellow River in the middle of the second millennium B.C.E. The Shang greatly expanded irrigation systems begun by prior agricultural cultures and developed a system of writing that defined Chinese civilization. Agricultural societies, drawn by the fertile soil, gravitated to the Ordos bulge along the Yellow River from 8000 B.C.E. By 4000 B.C.E., sedentary agricultural societies spread along the loess zone and provided the agricultural base for Shang civilization. The Yangshao culture, dating to 2500 B.C.E. was based on hunting and fishing supplemented by agriculture. The Longshan culture, beginning about 2000 B.C.E. was more dependent on sedentary agriculture and developed large villages surrounded by walls. As sedentary agriculture expanded, irrigation systems and dikes to control flooding became increasingly significant. Early elites may have developed because of their ability to control the floods.

2. The Warrior Kings of the Shang Era

The first Chinese dynasty, the Xia, was supposedly founded by Yu, who was responsible for creating the system of dikes along the Yellow River. Whether the Xia actually existed has not been determined, but by 1500 B.C.E. small kingdoms founded by nomadic groups began to emerge along the north China plain. Around 1500 B.C.E., one of these tribes, the Shang, established a kingdom that would provide the basis for Chinese civilization. Like the Aryans, the Shang began as warlike nomads. Unlike the Aryans, the strong kings ruled the Shang warriors. Shang rulers were viewed as direct intermediaries between the Supreme Being and mortals. Kings were regarded as all-powerful rulers who ensured fertility and were responsible for placating the natural spirits.

3. Shang Society

Shang kings lived in cities, but vassal retainers ruled most of the peasant and artisan population of Shang China. Vassals supplied soldiers and collected tribute from the peasants and laborers to support the Shang kings and their courts, in return for which the vassals received control over land and workers. The Shang nobility lived within walled towns in large compounds. Noble family organization was strictly patriarchal. Multi-generational families were widespread only among the nobility. Peasant households were most commonly nuclear. Beneath the peasantry in the Shang social system were large numbers of slaves, many of whom were artisans.

4. Shang Culture

Shang culture featured many rituals designed to placate deities and ensure fertility. Rituals often required sacrifices, including human offerings. When Shang monarches died, they were buried with retainers and war captives to accompany them in the afterlife. Ancestral veneration grew into a cult of the royal clan. Shang society depended heavily on shamans, who provided predictions of future events based on their interpretation of cracks in heated animal bones and shells. The emphasis on divination gave rise to Chinese writing, used initially to assist in divination. Chinese writing served to bond ethnically diverse populations into a single culture. Chinese writing also necessitated the growth of a class of educated bureaucrats.

5. The Decline of the Shang and the Era of Zhou Dominance



1. Introduction

The Zhou, probably Turkic peoples who originally recognized the lordship of the Shang, overthrew their former lords by the end of the twelfth century B.C.E. Zhou government was typified by the development of the shi, a class of scholar- administrators. Early rulers of the Zhou extended their empire beyond the borders of the Shang kingdom and ruled more directly than did their predecessors. Unlike the Shang, the Zhou rulers claimed direct ownership of all vassal states. The greatest of the Zhou vassals were often drawn from the royal family.

2. Zhou Feudalism

The Zhou ruled through granting fiefs to vassals in return for promises of loyal service. Services of vassalage were more formalized under the Zhou than their predecessors. Vassals who held lands at some distance from the royal court were virtually independent. They sent tribute, troops, and laborers to serve the Zhou as long as the rulers remained powerful. When the Zhou dynasty began to weaken, the system of vassalage broke down.

3. Changes in the Social Order

Two developments made it unlikely that a feudal system could be maintained permanently in China. The political concept of the Mandate of Heaven granted Zhou and subsequent Chinese rulers the right to rule absolutely as long as they did so effectively. The concept of the Mandate of Heaven, however, provided that rulers who failed to govern effectively could be overthrown and replaced with a new imperial house. Revolutionary success demonstrated that the new dynasty enjoyed the Mandate of Heaven. The development of a corps of professional bureaucrats created a political alternative to government through military vassals.

4. New Patterns of Life

The Zhou established two capitals at Xian and Loyang. They lived separately in one part of the walled cities, while subject peoples lived in other precincts. Eventually, the palace at Loyang became the center of the empire. Zhou vassals lived in walled garrison towns surrounded by the residences of artisans, peasants, and slaves. Under the Zhou, the staple crops of Chinese agriculture remained millet and wheat, although rice was widely cultivated. Iron implements and expanded irrigation systems improved agricultural productivity, but much of the increase went to the Zhou elite. Peasants were subject to demands for labor and military service as well as food contributions. Peasant communities that were most remote from the garrison towns tended to be left alone, so long as they sent the annual tribute.

5. Migrations and the Expansion of the Chinese Core

Improvements in agricultural technique fueled population growth under the Zhou. Cultivation was extended into new regions along the north China plain and southward along the coast. Settlement extended into the Yellow River valley, the Shandong peninsula, and eventually to the Yangtze River valley.

6. Cultural Change in the Early Zhou Period

Zhou culture was heavily patriarchal, a fact reflected in the increasing dominance of ancestor veneration within religion. Ancestor worship through elaborate rites replaced sacrifice in Chinese religion. Increased emphasis was placed on proper performance of rites, a practice which extended from religion into other aspects of Zhou society.

7. The End of the Early or Western Zhou

In the eighth century B.C.E., the Zhou emperors lost control over much of western China. The last of the Zhou rulers transferred their authority to the eastern capital of Loyang. The Eastern Zhou were less powerful rulers whose actual authority scarcely extended beyond their capital. Former vassals warred among themselves to establish rival kingdoms. The political chaos produced a reaction among the shi, or professional bureaucrats, that produced some of China's most important thinkers.

6. Conclusion: Beginnings and Transitions

The Aryan migrations into the Indian subcontinent and the Zhou conquest of the Shang both involved significant transformations in earlier civilizations. In India, Harappan civilization was unable to withstand both climatic change and the invasions of the Aryan peoples. The culture of the Aryans represented something new in South Asia rather than a continuation of Harappan civilization. The Zhou, despite their overthrow of the Shang rulers, largely accepted and continued Chinese civilization. The Zhou were assimilated and became Chinese. Continuity of culture and civilization is one of the hallmarks of Chinese history.