Traditions & Encounters~Chapter 9 Study Questions (Ap World History)

1. The unification of India came about when the Persian emperor Darius crossed the Hindu Kush Mountains and conquered portions of northwestern India; there he established the kingdom of Gandhara in present-day Punjab. Achaemenid authority in India shed light on Persian techniques of administration to local rulers. A few centuries later, Alexander of Macedon crossed the Indus River and destroyed the states he found. Although his campaign had an effect on politics and history in India, he created a gap in N.W. India when he crushed the existing states and then withdrew. Came to fill the gap was Magadha who had an opportunity to expand when Alexander withdrew. This laid the foundation for the Maurya Empire when Chandragupta started to seize small regions of Magadha; he eventually conquered all of northern India from the Indus to the Ganges. 2. Five major accomplishments of the emperor Ashoka included: conquering the kingdom of Kalinga, building irrigation systems to expand agriculture, building a highway more than 1,000 miles long, ruling almost the entire subcontinent, and integrating the regions of India through an expanding economy and a stable government. 3. The Gupta administrative practices differed from the Maurya in the way that they left local government, administration, and the making of basic policy in the hands of allies in the various regions of the empire. The empire was also somewhat smaller than the Mauryan and it brought stability and prosperity to India. 4. In India, long-distance trade went in two directions: through the Hindu Kush mountains and Taxila (Gandharan capital) to Persia and the Mediterranean basin, and across the central Asian silk roads to the markets in China. 5. Trade and manufacturing brought prosperity to vaishyas and shudras in the centuries after 600 BCE. This, in turn, sometimes made the lower castes wealthier and more influential in society than the higher castes. 6. The fundamental beliefs of Jainism