History of Indian Civilization - Indian Civilization [Lec 07]

History of Indian Civilization; UCLA, Lecture of 25 January 2012. Concluding remarks on Alexander and the gymnosophists; Mauryan empire; Chandragupta, Bindusara, and the Emperor Ashoka, and Ashoka's conversion to Buddhism after the war in Kalinga. Ashoka's edicts; the spread of Buddhism; the Arthasastra by Kautilya--Machiavelli of the East-- as a source for studying the Mauryan empire. The Lion Capital at Sarnath. Ashoka's life, his ecumenism, tolerance, and commitment to nonviolence. Ashoka's attempts to put together a corpus of Buddhist texts. A persistent question: what kind of political unity did India display? We turn in the last part of the lecture to south India and Tamil country, very briefly, and then to the deveolopment of popular Hinduism--the trinity or trimurti (Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu). Iconography of gods and goddesses; example of Ardhnarisvara, Shiva as half male and half female. Vishnu has avatars (incarnations) but not Shiva; ten incarnations of Vishnu (dasavatara). See the full playlist for “History of Indian Civilization”: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy3KRgc0HE8B4neta_B8LPM0G9UWy-Cqe Subscribe for more lectures on Indian Civilization, World History, Bollywood, Gandhi, and much else... Blog: https://vinaylal.wordpress.com/ MANAS (a pedagogical website on Indian history, culture, religions, politics, and so on): http://southasia.ucla.edu/ UCLA Faculty Page: https://history.ucla.edu/faculty/vinay-lal Books: https://vinaylal.wordpress.com/books-by-vinay-lal/