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Age of
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The next thousand years saw a great many kings and emperors! Some did fabulous things, like plant trees along the roads and built rest houses for travelers. Other started great public works programs. Let's take a closer look at just one of the empires - my favorite - the Gupta Empire.
The Gupta Empire (320 CE to about 500 CE). The Gupta Empire existed at about the same time as the Roman Empire. It dominated northern India. The Gupta Empire was neat. Villages were protected from bandits and raids with local military squads. Each squad was made up of one elephant, one chariot, three armored cavalrymen and five foot soldiers. In times of war, all the squads were brought together to form the royal army!
People were happy during the Gupta period, the "Golden Age" of ancient India. They had religious freedom. They were given free medical care, which included simple surgery. Criminals were never put to death. Instead, they were fined for their crimes. Rewards of money were given to writers, artists, and scholars to encourage them to produce wonderful work, and they did. Very few of the common people were educated, but the Gupta Empire had many universities. Students came from as far away as China to study at Gupta universities!
Gupta homes: In the villages and towns, homes were mostly one room huts made of wood or bamboo, with thatched roofs. Even the palaces were made of wood! Larger homes had several rooms and balconies.
Gupta villages: Streets between the homes were narrow and twisted. Stalls for selling things were located on both sides of the street. People mostly walked where they wanted to go inside their village. Villages were very noisy places. Not only were they full of happy, busy people, they were full of animals. A monkey might sneak up and steal food right out of your hand! Imagine coming home from the market, and telling your mother that the monkeys stole the food you bought, again!
Art: The craftsmen worked with iron and copper. Their iron work, especially, was outstanding. Even today, statues exist from this period, made of iron, that show very little rust!
Jobs: People worked on roads and other public works, but, (as they were in ancient Egypt), they were paid for their work. In the Gupta Empire, wheat was the main crop, and they kept cows for milk. This civilization produced great works of literature and marvelous works of art. Sculpture was their thing, though. They were very good at it.
They were also very smart scientists. They believed the earth was a sphere, and rotated around the sun. They also figured out that the solar year had 365.358 days. (Today, our scientists think it's probably more like 365.242, which means they only missed by 3 hours!) They were great with math. Ancient India gave us the number system we use today - 9 digits, the zero, and the decimal!
What did they eat? The concept of breakfast did not exist. In earlier times, meals were both vegetarian and non-vegetarian, depending upon your religious beliefs. After the coming of Buddhism, Jainism and other pacifist religion and reforms in Hinduism, vegetarian food (strictly excluding animal and fish meat) became the norm for as much as half of the population. In the Gupta Empire, they mostly ate vegetables, cereals, fruits, breads, and drank milk.
School: Older kids, who went to school, lived at school. School (ashram) life was tough. You had to do everything yourself. There were no servants. Even princes had to wash their clothes, cook their food, and follow a rigorous course of studies. They had a lot to learn. They studied math, science, engineering, literature, art, music and religion.
Marriage: In ancient India, the most popular form of marriage was called Swayamvara. In this type of marriage, potential grooms assembled at the bride's house and the bride selected her spouse. Instances of Swayamvara ceremony are found in India's national epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata. There were other types of marriage as well, such as Gandharva Vivaha (love marriage) and Asura Viviha (marriage by abduction).
Sports and Games: Ancient Indians invented many of the games we play today, like chess, polo, and playing cards (which are said to have gone from India to the other parts of our globe). They practiced martial arts, wrestling, and fencing. Hunting was also a favorite pastime of the nobility.
What kind of pets did they have? The pets were mainly birds like parrots. The royals had peacocks. (Monkeys were not usually pets. Monkeys were mostly a nuisance, but cute!)
Clothing:
in Northern India: In the north, Ancient Indians wore (some still wear) an unstitched garment called dhoti. This was a 9 meter long cloth that was draped around the legs and tied at the abdomen. Both sexes wore it the same way. Women wore bright colours. Men wore either white or dark colors.
Ancient Indians did not use banks, so the family "fortune" was worn by the Vaishnav women in the northern half of India. In the north, they wore lots of jewelry. It was used both by men and women. Jewelry included armbands, waist belts, leg and ankle bangles for both sexes, ear rings, nose rings, rings on fingers and toes, crowns and other hair adornments.
In 326 BCE, Alexander the Great (that great Greek!) invaded northwest India. Here's his account: They use parasols as a screen from the heat! They wear shoes made of white leather and these are elaborately trimmed, while the soles are variegated, and made of great thickness, to make the wearer seem so much taller.
in Southern India: In the south, however, ancient scriptures describe women as wearing saris. A sari is a single cloth wrapped around the body. It covers the woman from head to toe. A dhoti is less modest. In ancient times, it was considered very important for women to be covered from the neck down to the feet. The southern half of India has been almost exclusively Shaivite for thousands of years. Shaivites typically have very, very few possessions. A Shaivite woman would not have worn such jewelry. Shaivite men have typically worn only a loin cloth and perhaps a cloth on the head to protect from the sun, never jewelry.
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