7813mp+Ancient+Civ+Report

Contrary to popular belief, Ancient India isn’t all about spicy food, henna, and holy cows. India is about borrowed from the word “Sindhu”. Sindhu is made up of two words: “sim” (region) and “dhu” (to things like diversity, color, and beliefs. India comes from the word “Indus” which comes from the old Persian word “Hindus” which wa s tremble). So “Sindhu” means “body of trembling water.” India is located in Asia and is surr

ounded by the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, and Bay of Bengal. It is also surrounded by Afghanistan,Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Maldives, Myan mar, Nepal, and Pakistan. Ancient India’s culture still exists today, but there is one thing you may not notice about how India helped with the rest of the world being discovered. India’s legacy was its products. Its spices, gold, jewelry, and dyes. Do you know the short rhyme, “In fourteen hundred ninety two Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue”? We all know that he was just looking for India, and so were many other explorers. The main reason why most of the world was discovered was because people were looking for India. Countries all over the world wanted to buy its gold. Its jewelry. Its treasures. They all wanted to have the same wealth as India. Although you may not think that India was the reason parts of the world were discovered, because of India’s wealth, it was.

Beliefs are another important part of the Ancient Indian culture. Science and superstition were the two things that stood side by side and were important to India for many reasons. In Ancient India, medical science meant medicine and cures. Supers tition meant things like karma, or Sati. But put together, they meant something else. Certain rules and beliefs were treated very scientifically. But people knew that in their present and especially ours that people wouldn’t follow these delusions, so they had to make a superstition to go with the science. For example, you shouldn’t whistle, sing, or make music at night because it will attract evil spirits and will give the house and anyone living in it bad luck. We can learn more about this cultural aspect by studying the Ancient Indians’ medicine, karma, and Sati.

A lot of the medicines and cures we use today were created by the Ancient Indians. They could perform things like plastic surgery and earlobe repair, and cure things like snake bites and small pox. For example, to cure a snake bite then was nothing like it is today. If you were bitten by a snake, you would have to be treated right away. Say you were bitten on the leg. A vaidya would tie a piece of cloth about two inches above the bite. This would squeeze the veins and stop the venom from spreading throughout the rest of the body. Then, the vaidya would take a piece of linen cloth and put it in his mouth and suck the venom out of the wound. This would absorb the venom into the cloth. The vaidya would soon cauterize the wound by pressing it with a hot coal. If the vaidya didn’t get to the wound soon enough, the venom would kill the person. Most people think that modern day medicines and cures were always only modern day, but many of the cures we use today come from Ancient India.



You have probably heard at least a few times the word "karma." It is the act of doing something good or bad, and in return for what you did, you will get treated in the same way. For example, if you were to help an old man or woman to cross the street, something good would happen to you in return. But if you were to purposely knock over an old man or woman, you would be punished in return. In India, it is believed that everyone has multiple lives. Some people believe that karma can also follow from one life into your next. So if you were to treat your parents very badly in one life, you might have karma in your next life, rather than your current. And the same thing applies if I were to do something good. The superstition Karma, though, is nothing like the practice of Sati.

Not many people have heard of the practice Sati. But it happened to be a big part of Ancient India’s religion. Sati is a practice requiring that a widow will be burned on her husband’s funeral pyre. Since many women were forced to follow this tradition, they were tied up or sometimes drugged before being put into the pyre. This would stop them from running away or being afraid to be put into the pyre. It may seem disturbing to some people, but this only happened because it was considered the proper final act of a marriage.

To sum it all up, the Indians’ culture is still here today, and will thrive forever. The Ancient Indians’ legacy will last a long time and keep meaning something forever. If it weren’t for India’s wealth and products, no one would have come looking for the country and no countries parts of the world would be discovered. Some lessons learned are that different cultures have different superstitions and traditions that should not be made fun of or laughed about because they’re weird or disturbing. Before I started researching some things I had no idea how many things worked or about many of the traditions in India. For example, Sati was something I had found very interesting because I hadn’t learned about this before and hadn’t heard of any other culture that did something similar. Another lesson learned is that the legacies that different places all over the world have made a huge impact in everyone’s lives and because of them that if many things in the world were discovered and learned. In other words, if the world was a mystery and there were no clues, then the mystery would have never been solved.

Glossary

cauterize- to burn the skin or flesh of a wound with a heated instrument to prevent the wound from becoming infected

karma- if you do something good for someone or something, the same will happen to you; if you do something bad to someone or something, the same will happen to you; one’s fate

pyre- a pile of flammable material, especially for burning a corpse at cremation

sati- the former practice in India of a widow throwing herself onto her husband’s funeral pyre

vaidya- a term used in India used to refer to a person or Doctor performing a surgery or practicing one

widow- a woman who has lost her husband by death and has not remarried.

Bibliography

"Ancient India." Middle School History for Kids. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 May 2014. "India's Neighbors." India's Neighbors. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 June 2014. "What Is Sati?" About.com Asian History. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 June 2014. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 02 June 2014. Woods, Michael, and Mary B. Woods. "Chapter Three: Ancient India." Ancient Medical Technology: From Herbs to Scalpels. Minneapolis: Twenty-First Century, 2011. N. pag. Print.