REORG - Globalizing Cultures and Language - India and Africa (Lesson)
Globalizing Cultures and Language - India and Africa
As seen in the Han Dynasty, a globalizing government could bring together a great number of people. As seen in the Roman Empire, a globalizing empire could bring together a great number of people. But were there other social institutions that brought great numbers of people together as the world entered the Common Era? The answer to that is- YES!
Let's start with a region that we've already looked at in previous modules- South Asia.
Indian Subcontinent
Following the fall of the Mauryan Empire in 184 BCE, the people living on the Indian Subcontinent no longer had a centralized empire to rule them. Instead, they returned to the system of local kingdoms that had preceded the Mauryan Empire. Despite their divisions, though, they had one thing very much in common—something historians have referred to as the "Sanskrit Cosmopolis." Basically, this was a combination of shared Hindu beliefs and the practice of the Sanskrit language. Brahmans, the priestly class under the varna system of Hinduism, were especially prolific in explaining and spreading both the beliefs and the language. So while the people of the Indian subcontinent did not share a government or even loyalty to one form of government, they did share a loyalty to and participation in the "Sanskrit Cosmopolis" that created a cultural synthesis among the various kingdoms.
An example of this cultural synthesis can be found in the Code of Manu. We don't have a date for when the Code of Manu was created, but we do know that it resulted from different communities searching for guidance in organizing political life among their diverse populations. The result was the Code of Manu—a system of guidelines for assimilating diversity into the Hindu varna and jati social structures used throughout the Indian subcontinent. So while there wasn't one government ruling the people of the Indian Subcontinent at that time, there was one guiding culture.
In 320 CE, we once again see an empire rise out of the kingdoms carved into the subcontinent. Chandra Gupta I (or the Great—and not to be confused with the Chandragupta Maurya of six hundred years earlier) established the Gupta Empire. If you look at the map below, you can see where he got started and where his next two successors would take the Gupta Empire.
If you can recall the maps from the Mauryan Empire, you'll notice that the Gupta Empire never reached the size of India's first empire. But this second empire was very important regardless. Due to the peace and prosperity of the Gupta Empire, its period of existence is referred to as the Golden Age of India. During the Golden Age of India, many advancements in art, math and science occurred. [The next time you are in a math class, for example, you can blame the Golden Age of India for having to learn about pi, zero and infinity. They were also responsible for creating symbols for the numerals one through nine. And while you are in a science class, you can blame the Golden Age of India for first proposing the theories that the earth was round and that it had gravity.]
The "Golden Age of India" lasted for just over two hundred years. It fell when Huns invaded from the north (a different group than the Huns that were stomping around Europe) and the subcontinent of India returned to its separate kingdoms once again—still retaining their cultural synthesis through religion and language though.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Having just mentioned how a language can be a universal tie that binds a group of people together, it is appropriate to look at Sub-Saharan Africa now. As the world entered the Common Era, Sub-Saharan Africans were entering new regions of their continent. Of the people who moved the most were the Bantu-speaking West Africans. These people originally lived in modern-day Nigeria and Cameroon but for some reason began moving south and east around 1000 BCE. There is continued speculation about why they moved in the first place. One reason may be that overpopulation encouraged some groups to move away in order to practice agriculture. Another could be that they were in search of fertile land. Or, the move may have been due to internal conflicts within their communities or external attacks by their neighbors. The Bantu-speaking Africans introduced many things into the areas they migrated. They were an agricultural people and introduced crops such as millet and sorghum. They may also have introduced iron smelting and iron tools. (You might be asking why this is just now being brought up—it's because these migrations took a long, long time spanning centuries, as did the civilizations they created.) Look at the map below to see the patterns of their migrations...
As you can see, the Bantu-speaking Africans migrated in two waves and in two directions. One wave moved east across forests into East Africa. The other wave moved south through the rain forests into modern-day Congo and then into the Kalahari Desert. As each wave moved in different directions, they were sure to encounter different biomes and cultures. Nature would have impacted the cultures they met and created—those who moved east could continue in the practice of raising livestock for food—those who moved south would encounter the tsetse fly and would have to stop raising livestock and look for other forms of sustenance. Where ever they went, though, the Bantu-speaking Africans conquered and adapted to the new environments.
The differences in environments made it difficult to continue the same political, social or cultural institutions established earlier or by other migrants—the one thing they had in common for sure though was a root language. The Great Lakes of East Africa allowed for the settling of larger population centers and the Bantu-speaking peoples there established centralized kingdoms whose kings ruled by divine right.
Those who moved into the rain forests or savannas lived in less favorable environments for agriculture and developed smaller societies with a social structure based on age whose rulers were the elders of the community. By 1000 CE, the Bantu migrations populated more than half of the African landmass.
Today, nearly 500 languages spoken in Africa have Bantu roots.
But not everyone in Africa was united by a common root language—especially not in northern Africa. Instead, we find civilizations there that were united through conquest, culture or trade and that were distinctly separated from Sub-Saharan Africa by a vast desert, or rainforest or rapid rivers with dangerous waterfalls. Click through the tabs below to learn more about them.
While the Bantu-speaking Africans and various North Africans did not create globalizing empires, they did establish long-distant relationships through trade, conquest, culture or language. These relationships will lead them to future globalizing interactions later.
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