India questions

The Arabic numerals were impornant because they are the basis of our calculations today. They invented the index of placeholders so that you could simplify the writting of numbers by using the same symbols. They also created the number zero independently form Mayans and Babylonians. In all it simplified math and made it much easier to carry out difficult calculations.

 Confuciusnism and and the reflections of the caste are similar because they explain how to live your life. Both talk about knowing your place and do your job. With confusius it's so society will be better and in these reflections it's so they can escape rebirt. Zoroastrianism is similar because they both talk about a soul that needs saving.

If I were emperor or advisor to the emperor during the Han dynasty I would have tried hard hard like many of the Han emperors to keep the dynasty alive and prevent its fall. The fall of the Han dynasty was cased by several factors. First was conflicting social classes. Similarly to every other point in human history the rich were rich and the poor were poor. A big part of this was land. The wealthy had more land than the poor and were able to grow more crops and produce more food. The ruler Wang Mang tried to fix this problem y taking land from the rich and giving it to those without any. Unfortunately the lack of preparation and communication caused this plan to fail. Another cause for the fall of the Han was the fact that the smaller leaders wanted more power and they rose up to try and take the power. This resulted in internal conflict with the government. This coupled with the fact that there were outside invaders that had weakened the Han state before hand completly brought the Han dynasty to its knees.

So it seems to me the best way to stop the fall of the Han dynasty would be to solve the issues of government control, land, social classes and outside invaders. Solving the issue of government control is always tricky. As history shows us there are always people looking to rise up. So the best thing I believe would be to set up a system of checks and balances. Were you have a central ruler and his advisors, were each person has a job and then also to keep the others in line. And if one person screws up or try's to mess with the system they all get sentenced to death. Which is the most pursavsive form of punishment. Next would be land and social classes. When we talked about the Ancient Eygiptians they had a system where the temples would have control over some land and would employ workers and take in homeless and orphans, as well as provide food for those in need. If each city or town had something similar to the Eygiptian temples that would be in charge of distributing land and food has well as collecting taxes from the people. These taxes would go to helping the dynasty but also give back to the community and people of that town so they would be more willing to pay the taxes. The rich would pay more than the poor to make things fair. The temples would be run similarly to the leaders which a system of checks and balances and the ussual form of punishment If someone steps out of line. The last way I would attempt to prevent the fall of the Han dynasty would be to prevent the outside invaders. Hopefully if the following ideas worked there would be less need for an army to keep control of the people and they could be directed to stoping the invaders. I would outfit them with the latest and greatest weaponry so they could crush them. If all of these work I belevie it would prevent the fall of the Han dynasty.

Daoism

Daoism is about living in harmony with nature and people, and everybody plays an important role in a functioning community. Living in moderation

Confucianism

I do not belevie Confucianism to be a religion. Instead more of a way of life or a set of rules or guidelines. Confucius does not mention a god or deity that is superior to all. He does not tell a creation story, and he does not say what you must do. Instead Confucius tells small stories and then at the end gives advice or explains what the right man would do. Because he is offering advice on how to become better individuals it suggest that he does not believe humans are born good. Rather they are born neutral or evil and must better themselves and their ways of life in order to become good. This is shown in chapter two of book two, "“If they be led by virtue, and uniformity sought to be
given them by the rules of propriety, they will have the sense of shame, and moreover will become good.” Confucius explains that if they follow the rules, and conform to the moral behaviors of what's is excepted you will have shame in doing the wrong thing and you can then become good. In the books I have read Confucius does not actually state that humans are born evil. He mentions that you can become evil or follow evil paths which leads me to believe that he believes humans are born neutral.

Map of Persian Empires

Map of Persian Empires

Answer for question on page 176

Zarathustra makes the assumption that everybody has a choice. Their are two types of people, those who do good, in thought, word and deed. And those who do wrong.  Zarathustra assumes that those who choose to lead a life of good and preform righteous deeds with faith in truth will be rewarded in the afterlife. He believes that humans do have this ability to choose the path of truth when left to their own free will. Zarathustra also assumes their is a path of evil and that people also have the ability to choose this path. Those who choose the path of evil will burn for all eternity in hell.

Comment on Nikhil's project

Hey Nikhil. Just wanted to say the amount of effort put in this project is amazing and it came out really well. So Good Job! First I love the way you added the word Mesopotamia in cuneiform. Also all off the additional symbols and pictures, such as the upside down head and many circles where interesting to read about. I'm not quite sure what there is to improve on. I think that a suggestion for next time would be to add printed pictures as well as hand drawn ones. Hand drawn ones show the amount of effort but if you have both it might show that you explored all aspects of the project, which in some ways is just as good. Also their is a lot going on in this project and with out the description in may seem a jumbled mess. I might suggest making the different symbols and extra pictures a little more distinct from each other just to make the picture a little easier to understand. One similarity between our societies (I'm India, Aryan.) is that they have very similar hierarchies. Both Indian an Mesopotamian societies have a pyramid shape when discussing hierarchies. Slaves on the bottom, artisans and craftsmen, nobles scribes and priests and then kings and leaders. Also the Aryan society could be considered a small melting pot because it is a mixture of Aryan and Dravidian ideas.one thing that is different from our societies is that the Aryan society never developed much in terms of technology or sciences. The mesopotamians developed the measurements of time for year and other math things. One question is why you choose the rubix cube as an symbol. You explain what it symbolizes but what made you think to use something that wasn't actually part of the project?

Aryan head project

For this project I had the India societies and I decided to focus mainly on the Aryan society. For the first theme, Patterns and impacts of interaction between humans and the environment, I drew a picture of an Aryan herding cattle on the inside of the head and a picture of the Aryans migration to India on the outside. The Aryan society migrated into India out of Indo-European origin. They relied little on agriculture and mostly on a pastoral economy. So the inside of the head is an Aryan hearing cattle because that is what they relied on while migrating, outside of the head. For the second theme, Development and interaction of cultures, I drew a picture of an Aryan sacrificing an animal to the gods on the inside of the head and what the Aryans believed would happen when the made sacrifices on the outside of the head. The Aryans preformed many ritual sacrifices and some households had to preform as many as 5 rituals a day. This fact was illustrated by the clock on the wall with the hands at multiple times. Also there is a god standing next to the Aryan because they believed the gods would join them during their sacrifices. On the outside of the head is a picture of a light coming down from the clouds symbolizing divine powers. In that light are images of military success, large families, long life's and abundant herds of cattle. For the third theme, State-building, expansion and conflict, I drew a picture of a leader with his followers on the inside and several states with arrows indicating conflicts on the outside. The Aryans developed many chiefdoms, each with their own leader. This leader was know as a raja and governed with them help of the chiefdoms elders. The inside shows the raja and his followers because the people had to obey the commands of their leader. Because of the many chiefdoms, there was much potential for conflict and the chiefdoms often raided each others cattle. this is represented by the picture on the outside which shows several states and arrows indicating conflict. For the fourth theme, Creation, expansion and interaction of economic systems, i drew a picture of a Aryan herding and another farming on the inside of the head, and on the outside it shows the transition of the Aryan society from a pastoral economy to a agricultural society. As mentioned before the Aryan society relied mostly on a pastoral economy. As they migrated into India and interacted with the people there and began to settle they started to rely more on agriculture. the inside picture shows that the Aryans had to heard and farm in order to survive and the outside shows how the migrating pastoral society transitioned to a more settled society with agriculture. Lastly for the fifth theme, Development and transformation of social structures, i drew a picture of a women watching the house on the inside of the head and man standing over two women on the outside. The Aryan society, like most of the world at the time, was a patriarchal society. The inside of the head shows how men believed that women were only allowed to care for the house. This included, cleaning, cooking and raising the children. the outside picture shows that men were dominant over women and that the Aryan society was ruled by them.

Test Review

I liked the format of the test. 70 questions is pretty easy to get through in 45 minutes and having only multiple choice questions is much better than having short answer questions. I also really like the fact  that the test follows the same format of the AP world exam. It's nice to know what to expect and be able to prepare for that. The questions were pretty straight forward except for some of the map ones. Because they were photo copied it was sometimes hard to make out what was what. But other than that not to hard. I thought that my methods of studying seemed to work well for this test so hopefully that and what we learn in class should help improve my score on the next test.