The World Beyond the West

Chapter Fourteen.  Asian Civilizations:  The Artistic Record

I.                     Great Geographic and Cultural Giants:  India, China, Japan

A.     Exchanges of Goods and Technology

1.      facilitated by Muslim intermediaries

2.      indirect influence on science and technology

B.     Sanskrit Literature of Indian Subcontinent

1.      Hindu temple architecture and sculpture

2.      Indian music

C.     China:  Tang and Song dynasties: poetry and painting

1.       Chinese pottery and textiles (silk, chinaware)

2.      technical sophistication, naval power, cultural fertility

D.    Medieval Japan

1.      world’s oldest prose fiction

2.      style of beauty, effect in art and life

E.     Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism, Confucius, Shintoism

1.      holistic view of nature

2.      worked to broaden and universalize the human experience

II.                   The Medieval Period in India

A.     Between end of Gupta dynasty (500 C.E.) and Mongol conquest (1300s)

1.      note fall of Gupta Empire at hands of Central Asian Huns same period as fall of Rome in the West and collapse of the Han Empire in China

2.      fragmented local kingdoms, chiefs, raj, rigid social status

3.      eldest male of family ruled

B.     Conversion to Islam

1.      along Indus River (modern Pakistan) and Bengal (modern Bangladesh)

2.      Buddhism disappeared by 1100s

3.      Hinduism strong in the south of India

a.      growing devotion to the gods as life-giving forces of nature

b.      polytheistic?  Pantheistic (all of nature as one)

c.      avatars—incarnations of the gods, pluralism:  Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva

C.    Classic Indian Literature in Sanskrit (as Latin was in the educated West)

D.    Indian Poetry:  alliteration, assonance

E.     Indian Architecture

1.      like Gothic cathedrals, high relief sculptures decorate the temples

F.     Indian Music and Dance

III.                  The Medieval Period in China

A.     China in the Tang Era

B.     China in the Song Era

C.    Technology in the Tang and Song Eras

D.    Chinese Literature

E.     Chinese Music and Poetry

F.     Chinese Landscape Painting

G.    Chinese Crafts

H.     Chinese Architecture

IV.               The Medieval Period in Japan

A.     The Tale of the Genji ca. 1004

B.     Buddhism in Japan

C.    The Age of the Samurai:  Kamakura Shogunate

D.    Nô Drama