Han China vs. Mauryan/Gupta India Essay

LEQ Macey Heath 11-1-16 During the time of the classical period, Han dynasty and Roman empire both created strong, politically centralized powerful empires. Both empires were led by a single central ruler, however they differed in their methods of justifying imperial rules and their protocol for getting small ranked government positions. Han China and Imperial Rome both had one main leader. At the top of the political system of Han China was the emperor. Chinese religion taught that the emperor was divine in nature and that his rule was connected to the mandate of heaven.

    Imperial Rome and Han China were both governed by a dominant figurehead. In Rome the republic leader commanded the society, and in Han the emperor was in charge. The role of the leader was similar in both empires because the leaders would use political theologies to explain and justify their rise to power. In Han China, the concept of “The Mandate of Heaven” explained that an emperor and his ancestors could stay in power as long as he kept the kingdom prosperous and stable. In Imperial Rome, the leader used the Principate to hide his fraudulent rise to power and to justify his rule. The emperor's policies were also indistinguishable in a different way, both leaders established roles in the government for territorial

Increasing their empire’s boundaries helped the government continue to grow in size. In this way, both of these empires were similar to the Gupta Empire. All three locations controlled large territories and administered them. Lots of useful resources lay in all of the empires mentioned, as well as beneficial trade routes, created by the government. Both empires also made many advances in technology.

The Han Dynasty and the Imperial Rome were one the most powerful empires in history. In there long reigns they both achieved great accomplishments. Although the two empires they have similarities in religious views ,militarism, and advances in engineering they also shared different views on bureaucracy,social and gender relations. Religion wasn’t a major focus for the empires till later. With considering Confucianism more as a philosophy than a religion.

The two great civilizations of Imperial Rome (31 B.C.E. - 476 C.E.) and Han China (206 B.C.E.- 220 C.E.) were two of the most successful dynasties that ever ruled. Although there were major differences in the methods of political control employed by Han China and Imperial Rome, it is apparent that the two dynasties also shared strategies for maintaining political authority. Despite the use of a centralized government and a military being similar aspects of political control among both civilizations. Han China based its rule on Confucianism, which emphasized the family unit and order, while Imperial Rome based their system upon law and order.

2. Thesis: Although both Han China and Gupta India’s political control directly correlated to religion, they differed in the centralization of their government, and what members of society became rulers.

Both China and India used social hierarchy systems, but they were used differently. India used a very strict system called Varna, or the caste system. People only associated with people in their class. Marriage outside of your class and helping people in lower classes was absolutely forbidden. People couldn’t even eat or drink with people outside of their class. The Chinese rules of social hierarchy were very different. The Chinese

In ancient China, many different rulers tried to unify and rule the country using a variety of methods – Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism to name a few. Each philosophy had its own set of rules of how people should act both in public and privately. The overall goal of each philosophy was to set a standard of acceptable living that would ensure harmony and success for the society. However, each was different and thus had different results.

By allowing remnants of conquered cities to continually existing while still being taxed. They were able to conquer cities at a faster rate and replenish population faster than a unitary society would be capable of doing. A unitary society operates better on a local scale than a worldwide one. In villages and etcetera they would benefit more from having a single religion due to everyone sharing common interests but that is a weakness on a world wide scale as the Aztecs found out the hard way. Third would be the capitalist society where the driving force is money rather than acting on god’s whims. The Dutch expansion of the 1600’s proved that this society of the most advantages for its rulers. Finally is the synthetic society type used by the Mughal’s. Before that empire fell to religious fundamentalists it was one of the strongest empires in the region and could have possible lived on longer if it was able to follow its path for

Ancient China and India both had social structures that basically dictated their ways of life, too. They both had patriarchal societies. This meant that their societies were dominated by men. Family was extremely important in both cultures. In addition, China and India each had their own caste system. In India, at the top of the cast system were the priests. Then came warriors, commoners, the Sudras, and the Untouchables. The caste system in

Although classical China and India had good institutions, they both pursued that characteristic in different directions. For example, China had developed one united dialect within their society, as India had come up with a variety of different languages. China basically developed solitary, with no outside help or advice until later on. So they grew with the society that they had created, no outside

The methods of political control used by the Han and Imperial Roman Empires were different, as in the degree of citizen participation in government because of how each empire utilized it to control the people.  However, the use of theologies to justify rule was a similar method used by the two empires because it allowed leaders to win over the people in more ways than one.  In addition, the use of militaries to control the population and outlying territories was a similar method because the empires were so vast and diverse that force was needed to control people.

In China during 406-221 BCE, the battling states between the Zhou and the Han Dynasties? were in a state of governmental disorder. Although the era was in a disruptive state, it ushered in a cultural opening that left a long lasting imprint on the Chinese history. As a result, three major belief systems surfaced Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism in an attempt to achieve a sense of political order in a disorder period. There are distinctions in the way each of the belief systems approached the many problems that plagued the Chinese society. First, all of the founders were contemporaries in China. As well as considered philosophies, who studied the future, and sat out to focus on the present rather than the past. In contrast, Confucianism, Daoism and Legalism established various paths in search of an optimistic future for the success of China. Second, both Legalism and Confucianism developed a social belief system, but are considered a religion. However, both Legalism and Confucianism purpose was to create an orderly society in the hopes of prosperity. In contrast, Daoism does

Even though religion was an important part of the Indian political system, neither rajas nor later emperors established a theocracy, while the Egyptian pharaohs did. In Egypt the pharaohs were religious and political figures, in fact, during the New Kingdom they had no standing army, while Rajas were warriors and the authority of Indian emperors also derived from military power. This is due because Egyptian civilization was peaceful through most of its history, so religion, rather tan an army was used to justify the pharaohs rule. In India, on the other hand, Indo-Aryan tribes spread through war, and the Indian empire was established by overthrowing the Macedonians through military conquest. So in both the positions of the Raja and the emperor were sustained by their ability to conquer and subdue others, even during the reign of Asoka diplomacy was used to expand the empires domains.

One such act of linking political power to religious authority is Hinduism throughout India and Southeastern Asia. A new movement in Hinduism, labeled bhakti, started remaking the caste system in a way that appealed strongly to India’s Tamil regions of the south as “it was this new form of Hindu religion, not the caste system, that South Indian merhcants transplanted among the emerging civilizations of Southeast Asia in the early centuries C.E.” (7: p. 179). Bhakti, or The Way of Devotion, was very attractive to the people of the Tamil regions because it was based on a person gaining a release form the rebirth cycle- a very powerful motive of