India is one of the largest countries in the world which embraces different cultures, traditions, languages and beliefs. This place of monuments will surely captivate your eyes. So…
The Cellular Prison, also known as Cala Pani, was a former colonial prison used by the British Empire to exile political prisoners. Located in Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. It was built between 1896-1906. It has 693 single cells measuring 4.5 × 2.7 meters. Today it is a national memorial and the most famous prison in India.
Mysore Palace is a palace located in the center of the city of Mysore in the Indian southwestern state of Karnataka. It is the official residence of the former Mysore royal family and is also India's most famous tourist attraction (after the Taj Mahal), with 2.7 million visitors annually.
On the eighth line in the ranking of the amazing historical monuments of India is the Victoria Memorial, built by the English architect William Emerson between 1906-1921. in memory of the British Queen Victoria (1819-1901). It is located on the banks of the Hooghly River, in the Indian city of Kolkata, West Bengal. It is currently a museum and landmark of the city. More than 30 thousand exhibits are stored here.
Charminar is an important architectural landmark of Hyderabad, built by order of Sultan Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah in 1591 to commemorate the end of the plague in the city. It is a square building with four minarets 53 m high and 30 m wide. Each minaret has a spiral staircase with 149 steps, which allows tourists to climb to the top floor and admire the panorama of the city. Charminar is one of the most impressive examples of Islamic architecture, attracting thousands of tourists and pilgrims.
Lal Qila or the Red Fort is the historical citadel of the city of Delhi, located along the Yamuna River, which once served as a moat (now the riverbed is at a distance of 1 km from the fort). The fortress with an area of 103.06 hectares was founded on April 16, 1639 by Shah Jahan. Its construction was completed in 1648. The Red Fort is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Delhi, as well as a symbol of independence in 1947.
Qutub Minar is the tallest brick minaret in the world, located in the Mehrauli district in the Indian city of Delhi. Its construction was started by the founder of the Delhi Sultanate, Qutb ad-Din Aibak in 1193. The minaret was completed by several generations of rulers and is a historically significant monument of different eras. Its height is 72.6 m. Inside the tower, there is a staircase with 379 steps leading to the top.
The Great Stupa at Sanchi is the oldest stone structure in India, located in the village of Sanchi, 46 km northeast of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. It was built by order of Emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BC. BC e. and later served as a prototype for all subsequent stupas located in the village. Until the 12th century, Sanchi remained the largest center of Buddhist art, but after the advent of Islam, it began to decline. Abandoned for centuries, the monuments were rediscovered and described by the British in 1818. In 1918 a museum was opened here.
Ajanta is a complex of 29 Buddhist temples and monasteries, carved over several centuries from the 2nd century BC. e. to the 5th century AD e. in the rocks near the Indian village of Ajanta, Maharashtra. These caves are known for their wall paintings, which illustrate Buddhist legends and myths, but, in fact, reveal the panorama of the social life of that era. In connection with the extinction of Buddhism in India, the monastery complex of Ajanta was abandoned. It was discovered only in 1839. Included in the ranking of ten architectural wonders of the ancient world.
The first place in the list of amazing historical monuments of India is occupied by the Gateway of India - a basalt arch built in the city of Mumbai on the Apollo Bunder embankment in honor of the visit of King George V in December 1911. However, due to the First World War, work on the construction of a 26-meter structure was delayed and its opening ceremony took place on December 4, 1924.
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Here are some pages from the book.
Phenomenon "that aphids do not smolder"
Editor's Preface
Dear reader! Before you is an amazing book by our compatriot, first published in Russia with the efforts and funds small group enthusiastic ascetics who yearn for the revival of the greatness and power of our Motherland. What is it about?
In historical "science", when deciphering written monuments of ancient times, all the languages of the world, including the "dead" ones, were used, but the Russian language was NEVER used - one of the greatest languages. The Russian "historians" - Russophobes, are criminally guilty of this, declaring to the whole world that the Russian people had neither their own writing nor culture before the adoption of Christianity (988). "Naturally", none of them even thought to be indignant when the famous Egyptologist-decipherer J.F. Champollion also neglected the Russian language.
We can consider Pyotr Petrovich Oreshkin as a follower of the Slavic scholar of the XYIII century, the Pole Fadey Volansky, the author of the book "Monuments of the Writing of the Slavs before the Birth of Christ." For this book, F. Volansky was sentenced to death by the Catholic Inquisition for writing "extremely erotic." The circulation was thrown into the fire, on which the author was also burned. But one copy somehow miraculously fell into the hands of Yegor Ivanovich Klassen, Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Fine Arts, Councilor of State, member of the Commission for the Coronation of Nicholas I, a tireless figure in the field of public education, a contemporary of A.S. Pushkin. E.I. Klassen was an irreconcilable fighter against the agents of the Vatican in Russian historical "science" Bayer, Miller, Schlozer, Gebrardi, Parrot, Galling, Georgi and others, who composed the Russian "history" that humiliated the national dignity of Russians.
"Guilt" F. Volansky was that he was the first to read in Russian the ancient written monuments of Western Europe. E. I. Klassen: "Let's explain these monuments, we owe even the first thought to the way of explaining them to F. Volansky, who took the first and significant step towards that ...". E.I. Klassen, a passionate follower of M.V. Lomonosov in his views on ancient Russian history, irrefutably proved the fact of the existence of the primary proto-Russian civilization, which became the foundation of the culture of both Western Europe and the countries of the East. Nevertheless, the version of Russian "history" thrown to us by businessmen from science is still forced to cram our schoolchildren and students.
P.P. Oreshkin, using his own approaches, also brilliantly read the most ancient written monuments in Russian. The reader will see for himself: otherwise they cannot be read. No "Amonhotep", "Ramses" and other historical characters with hard-to-pronounce names have ever existed. Ancient Egypt, Ancient India, "Greek" Byzantium, the state of the Etruscans - these are the outskirts of the Great proto-civilization Ancient Rus', which follows not only from the works of F. Volansky and E.I. Klassen, but also other predecessors of P. Oreshkin: Mavro Orbini, A.I. Lyzlova, M.V. Lomonosov, N.A. Morozov. "Babylonian Phenomenon" is another convincing evidence of the absolute correctness of these scientists - patriots of the Russian Land.
Living in the West, Pyotr Petrovich, apparently, counted on the help of Russian emigrants in publishing and popularizing his book. The reader will get acquainted with A. Solzhenitsyn's note, which correctly characterizes the situation that has developed around Oreshkin's work. But couldn't the "world famous classic" allocate a couple of thousand "bucks" from his gigantic fees for the publication of "The Babylonian Phenomenon"? Could, but did not select.
From an article by our wonderful compatriot Tatyana Andreevna Pashina " I see the hidden essence ...", who sent Oreshkin's work to the editorial office of the newspaper "For Russkoe Delo" in 1994, the reader will learn that the editors of Russian foreign magazines E.A. Vagin ("Veche") and M.I. Turyanitsa ("Free Word of Rus'") They received Petr Petrovich, but for some reason they did not publish his book in their publications.
This is at least strange ... The book, fortunately, was nevertheless printed in a scanty edition at the University of Rome in Russian. Probably (why not?) Pyotr Petrovich went to the descendants of the uncompromising Italian historian Mavro Orbini, who in 1601 wrote a study entitled "The book of historiography on the beginning of the name, glory and expansion of the Slavic people And their Kings and Rulers under many names and with many Kingdoms, Kingdoms and Provinces. Collected from many historical books, through Mr. Mavrourbin, Archimandrite of Raguzha".
This book was among those banned by the Vatican, but was published in Russia on the direct orders of Peter I in 1722. In Russia, Orbini's work was carefully studied and commented on by A.T. Fomenko and his followers in "Empire" (M., "Factorial", 1996).
"DIFFERENT SIGNS - LANGUAGE - SINGLE"- so wrote Pyotr Petrovich Oreshkina, having completed his work on deciphering ancient written monuments. He offers "specialists" in world and Russian history: " THE DOOR IS OPEN, COME IN!". But: " The light is destructive to them!"
The only thing in which we do not agree with Oreshkin is his indication of the existence of a "mighty Türkic empire" in Siberia, which ceased to be such, as is believed, somewhere at the beginning of the 13th century. AD She is a myth, composed by "historians" in order to support them with the Tatar-Mongolian "yoke" in Rus', invented by the same Miller, Schlozer, Bayer and others.
Pyotr Petrovich, according to T. Panshina, "died unexpectedly at the age of 55, in 1987." Apparently, he, too, was sentenced by the "powers of this world", vigilantly watching, as in the time of F. Volansky, so that the huge role of the World Proto-Empire Ancient Rus' in the formation of all ancient, ancient and modern civilizations of mankind will forever remain in the dark.
According to Klassen, the studies of F. Volansky are among those "... which aphids do not smolder." We have the right to notice the same about the book by P.P. Oreshkin "Babylonian Fenrmen".
We apologize for the quality of the illustrative series, as The book is reproduced as a photocopy.
Oleg GUSEV
From a letter 10/17/1980
Dear Pyotr Petrovich!
I can imagine your despair at the offers of your work to Western "Slavic" specialists. Still, regardless of the truth, the very direction of your interpretation is disgusting to them and is one of the most condemnatory that you can think of in the modern world.
But, in any case, it is very bold and undoubtedly talented.
I wish you not to lose heart, but to succeed!
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
"In the beginning was the word." It was Slavic
Oreshkin Pyotr Petrovich. Born in 1932 in Moscow. Graduated from the Gorky Literary Institute in 1962. He worked as a journalist, published in popular science magazines in Moscow.
While still at the institute, he began deciphering the Phaistos Disc, citing strong evidence for the existence of an alpha-syllabic alphabet.
AND WAS RIGHT.
This was the first link in a long chain. Where does she lead? This is what my book is about.
Details - in the American newspaper "THE JERSEY JOURNAL", November 6, 1982
“WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN A BIG WORD.
IT HAS BEEN CRASHED AND WE – HURT IN THE WRECKAGE –
"GUINE PIGS" OF THE GLOBAL, TRAHYCOMIC EXPERIMENT,
BUT - STAY OUR LANGUAGE ONE, DON'T BE IT INTENTIONALLY
Fragmented - IN OUR PLACE TODAY THERE COULD BE EXPERIMENTERS THEMSELVES.»
Peter Oreshkin
EAT TYUUZHEZHI SUITISI - LOOKING AT YOUR FUSION
To explain the content of my work to Western "Slavic" specialists is to carry the Lamp in front of the blind. "The professors of Slavic languages, to whom I sent my work, answered me in French, German, and English, being unable to write a simple letter in Russian.
My book is addressed to those who SPEAK AND THINK IN SLAVIC, those who have the courage to look directly into the eyes of history and understand that our past is twisted, our roots are chopped off, and we ourselves are driven into a dead end, where we should get out before it’s too late, while our language is still alive and connected in time can be restored before we suffocate in a sticky web of dead words.
Trying to read the inscriptions "BEFORE BABYLON", using the grammatical structure of the languages \u200b\u200bof the "POST-BABYLON ERA", is to adjust the "English key" to an ancient lock, to pull a single chain of linguistic heritage where its links are broken - it's pointless!
The oldest documents were written using different alphabetic systems, but IN THE SAME LANGUAGE, and here lies the key to deciphering them:
SIGNS ARE DIFFERENT, LANGUAGE IS ONE.
The SLAVES in their entirety preserved the grammatical structure and the core vocabulary of the most ancient LANGUAGE, but they forgot who they were, where they came from - they forgot about their GLORIOUS past, perhaps because they were too gullible people.
You just have to be blind or REALLY NOT WANT TO SEE that I succeeded perfectly in deciphering, and for the FIRST TIME the most ancient documents spoke in our native language. He returned to life in his original form, he is colorful, he is magnificent! And it can not be ruined by any "specialists". Light is destructive to them! THE DOOR IS OPEN, COME IN!
GENESIS 11:1.5–7:
"1. The whole earth had one language and one dialect.
And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower,
which the sons of men built.
And the Lord said, Behold, there is one people, and one for all
language; and this is what they began to do, and they will not be left behind
they are from what they have conceived to do.
Let us go down and confuse their language there, so that
one did not understand the speech of the other.
Giving the title to my work, I, of course, had in mind these biblical lines. But the very name of the country where the "Tower of Babel" was built indicates to people who speak SLAVIC to some strange event that took place in these places:
MESOPOTAMIA, almost unchanged "MESO POTOMIA" - "The country where the OFFERING MIXED".
Scientists passed by without noticing that here, at some point of the INTENTIONAL DISASTER, the ONE LANGUAGE was broken and fragmented into pieces, that the "GREAT WORD" turned out to be, as it were, "torn into pieces", which were then distributed to the "builders", for some reason, suddenly forgotten how the ORIGINAL looked like, and it is possible to restore it - in our clouded consciousness - only by laying in the ORIGINAL ORDER "BRICKS" of the destroyed "Tower of Babel", where, probably, the most valuable information was stored, the possession of which BECAME THREATING.
Blind "apprentices" who have lost their drawings are chasing a ghost, following in the footsteps of Champollion, who did not understand ANY WORD in the language of Ancient Egypt. They pile up an outlandish SOMETHING, with maniacal persistence driving "brick after brick into other people's nests", and cannot realize that the "laying order" is VIOLATED FROM THE VERY BEGINNING, that their ridiculous, sham "Renaissance temple" is pulled together from top to bottom with "hoops", which alone hold the skewed structure, and ONE HIT is enough to sweep away all this pompous junk, exposing the primordial foundation, where - under a pile of rotten decorations - the "BIG WORD" is hidden.
Etruscans
The very name of the ETRUSKS gives reason to say that they were the ancient Slavic tribe of the RUSSIAN - "THIS IS THE RUSSIAN".
But, looking at the drawings in the tombs, it is easy to make sure that the Etruscan women had light, "linen" hair, representing a pronounced type of "northern beauties", and their husbands were swarthy, curly and black-haired, as if they belonged to another tribe.
Then it is quite probable that the ETRUSCs are only slightly modified ITA-RUSSIANs, related in their structure to our UGRO-FINNS. The ITA were the ancestors of modern Italians. Their wives, RUSKI, were directly related to us.
This is also confirmed by the ancient Greek sources, which call the Etruscans "turgenia", which is quite definite: "te urzheniya" - "they are married with a bang" (I will return to "cheers" at the end of the work).
The custom of taking wives from another tribe was widely practiced in the ancient world. "ITA" was no exception. But together they constituted a ONE people who spoke and wrote in Old Slavonic until their departure from the stage somewhere at the beginning of the "Renaissance".
The texts deciphered by me do not leave the slightest doubt that we are dealing with the OLD SLAVIC language, OLD SLAVIC culture! THIS IS AN OBVIOUS FACT, although "specialists" tend to "link" Etruscan, it seems, with all Indo-European languages EXCEPT for Old Slavonic.
In order to understand the hidden "mechanics" of the Etruscan writing and to understand the full complexity of its decipherment, it is necessary to emphasize that the ancient scribes did not at all strive (as is commonly believed) to simplify the alphabet, to make it easier and more accessible to use, although they could easily do this. .
Just the opposite! They tried with all their might to COMPLEX it, resorting to very ingenious tricks with one single goal: to hide from outsiders the PRINCIPLE OF WRITING and thus preserve all the privileges of a closed caste that owns its secret.
There is a strange contrast. On the one hand, the amazing achievements of the Etruscans in construction, architecture, painting, where clarity, perfection and completeness of forms are visible everywhere. Along with this - Etruscan writing with its clumsy, careless "childish handwriting", skewed letters, jumping lines. But this discrepancy is easy to explain, given that the inscriptions were INTENTIONALLY distorted. If any of the outsiders knew WHAT is written here, then they definitely did not know HOW it was done. UNITS owned the letter - the rest were ILITERATORS!
To hide the "mechanism" of writing, there were several proven techniques:
1. The direction of the letter was constantly changing. The text could be read from left to right and right to left.
2. All together or individually, the letters were turned in the direction opposite to the direction of writing or were placed "upside down".
3. Separate letters were INTENTIONALLY distorted in the letter. For example, the letters "E", "O", "L" could be written "E", "D", "V", becoming (purely outwardly) the letters "T", "D", "B" of the Etruscan alphabet, but retaining with its original value.
5. Separate vowels in the letter were omitted, which was generally very characteristic in the writing of the ancient Slavs.
6. The letters could be hidden in the details of the ornament or appear in the figure in the form of an "olive branch", "spear", etc. This made it possible to make the text ambiguous.
I've only listed the main ones here. The whole set of these clever tricks can be called "KUNVERZ-SYSTEM", and, I believe, this term will eventually enter the scientific lexicon. In any case, I found a very accurate definition of the nature of the most ancient writing (not only Etruscan).
Only a small part of the reproductions of Etruscan mirrors is given here; there are many more of them. The Etruscans had a custom to put them together with the owners at burial. On many mirrors, a clear inscription "SVIDAN" is visible. The Etruscans believed in DATE after the coffin.
The main character of the other world of the Etruscans is "MENEOKA - AKOENEM", a many-sided creature, a werewolf, like his very name, which can be read from left to right "CHANGEABLE" and from right to left "Cursed". This creature stands at the turn of two worlds, guarding the entrance to the "Through the Looking Glass".
The payment for a short rendezvous with the dead is some orbs of obscure origin; they are definitely of interest to MENEOKA.
The same balls are fixed on bracelets: they are handed over to those who have come to the time to go to "ZVIDAN". On "ZVIDAN" (SVIDAN), the Etruscans deliver SINIVTS, the same "Blue Bird", about which, many centuries later, M. Maeterlinck told us.
But the SLAVES are well acquainted with it. Tit is a frequent guest of Slavic proverbs, sayings, fairy tales.
We are connected with the Etruscans by the strong roots of the SLAVIC language, SLAVIC CULTURE, with roots going back thousands of years, who seek to cut down all kinds of "specialists", whose "bright temple" clearly "tilts" towards Asia Minor, where, of course, the smartest, most enlightened people lived, while all the rest sadly hung on tails in anticipation of the arrival of "kulturtragers".
But ask any of these "specialists" where do our concepts "Paganism", "Pagan religion" come from?
In the third edition of the TSB we find: "Paganism - from the Church Slavonic "tongues" - peoples, foreigners. The designation of non-Christian, in a broad sense - polytheistic religions. In the literature of Christian peoples, the pagan gods personified the elements of nature."
"Soviet Historical Encyclopedia" 1976: "Paganism - accepted in Christian theology and partially in historical literature - a term denoting pre-Christian and non-Christian religions. The term Paganism comes from the New Testament - the second, Christian part of the Bible, in which paganism meant peoples or "tongues" (hence Paganism)".
That, in essence, is all that "specialists" can say about the pagan religion, for whom "languages" and "peoples" are one and the same!
However, I can quite clearly and clearly answer the question of where our concepts "Paganism", "Paganism" come from.
There are mirrors where "MENEOKA-AKOENEM" is depicted in his true form - a teasing mask with his tongue sticking out.
THE CONCEPTS "Paganism", "Pagan RELIGION" WE TAKE FROM THE ETRUSKS!
The Etruscans (and only the Etruscans) had a "pagan" religion - PAGAN - in the truest sense of the word!
WRITING AND SCRIPTS IN ANCIENT INDIA
A.A. Vigasin
The article discusses the issue of the time when writing appeared in India and the status of scribes. The Vedic tradition was focused on the memorization and preservation of texts in oral. The first written monuments of India are the inscriptions of Ashoka of the 3rd century BC. BC BC, they use four types of writing: Aramaic, Greek, Kharosthi and Brahmi. Aramaic appeared in Gandhara from the end of the 6th century. BC e., Greek - after the campaign of Alexander. Kharoshthi arose, most likely, on the basis of Aramaic in the 5th-4th centuries. BC e., brahmi - later. The inventors of the kharoshtha and the brahmi were obviously learned brahmins in the service of the king. The status of the scribe remained high in later centuries. Writing became widespread after the Mauryas, as evidenced by epigraphy. At the turn of N. e. the Buddhist canon and epic poems were written down. In the shastras of the beginning of n. e. (from "Arthashastra" to "Narada-smriti") is often referred to as written documentation and there is reason to believe that the foundations of diplomacy were already formed then. In the Sanskrit texts of late antiquity and the Middle Ages, an extremely negative attitude towards kayastha scribes is manifested, which can be explained by their active participation in the collection of taxes.
Keywords: India, antiquity, writing, scribes, Brahmi, Kharosthi.
master word (Vac). Vach in the "Rigveda" (X.125) appears as the goddess-ruler, the giver of blessings and the embodiment of creativity. But this word is oral, not implying written fixation.
In the middle of the 1st millennium BC. e. the so-called Vedangi appeared - auxiliary "parts of the Veda", or Vedic sciences. This
The Vedic religion attached great importance to
phonetics, etymology, grammar, metrics, that is, the disciplines of the philological cycle1, focused mainly on the careful preservation and reproduction of the sacred word. Even works such as Panini's famous Sanskrit grammar were intended for oral instruction, their very form being linked to school tradition. The text of this grammar is a collection of rules (sutras), set forth with the utmost conciseness and replete with special terminology. The Vedic sutras are often difficult to interpret, since they offer only a summary, almost a table of contents, and the interpretation of the content could be given by a guru-mentor.
Vedic textbooks, also called the word sutra (lit. "thread"), apparently assumed rote memorization - syllable by syllable, word by word. A characteristic feature of at least some of them is the double division of the text: on the one hand, into substantive sections, on the other, into “lessons” or “readings” (a^yaya)2. The latter could break not only a thought, but even a phrase. For example, in one of the most archaic dharma sutras (“Apastamba” 1.3.45-1.4.1), the last sutra of the “lesson” reads: “Having fed him” (meaning the teacher). And the end of the phrase is the first sutra of the next lesson: “He (i.e., the student. - A.V.) can eat the rest himself.”
If we turn to non-Vedic religious traditions, we will see that here, too, the original form of existence of the texts was oral. The canonical monuments of Buddhism were recorded by the joint recitation (samglti) of learned monks, and they were written down only in the 1st century BC. BC e. The rules of conduct (vinaya) and stories related to the everyday life of the monastery do not imply the presence of writing materials, nor reading and writing as a monk's occupation. The very form of canonical texts, with their monotonous repetitions and stringing of synonyms in a sequence dictated by rhythm, points to their oral origin and existence4.
Stylistic features monuments are also imitated in the era when literature becomes written. As an analogy, we can recall how, during the construction of cave temples, such details were reproduced that had a constructive meaning only in wooden architecture. "Arthashastra Kau-
tilya", compiled at the beginning of AD. e., preserves the double division of the text5. The author of Vishnu Smriti in the middle of the 1st millennium tries to present his work in the form of an ancient sutra. The sacred books of Hinduism, no longer associated with the Vedic schools (shastras, puranas), are set out in verses that facilitate memorization by heart. And the prologue of the story is often the story of how the ancient sage dictated this shastra to his students.
Indologists have no inscriptions earlier than the 3rd century BC. BC e.6 And even such a supporter of the deep antiquity of writing in India as Georg Buhler admitted that not a single literary monument mentioning written documents can be dated with certainty to the pre-Urian era7. The very word lipi, which in the ancient Indo-Aryan languages meant a letter or an inscription, is undoubtedly borrowed from Iran. It comes from the Persian dipi (in the Achaemenid inscriptions), and then, in turn, from the Elamite tippi / tuppi (Akkadian tuppu, from the Sumerian dub - “tablet”)8. This borrowing could not have happened before the end of the 6th century. BC e., when two Persian satrapies appeared in northwestern India - Gandara (Gandhara) and Hindu (Sindhu, Sindh).
The situation changed in the 4th century. BC e. Nearchus, the naval commander of Alexander the Great, first reports on the writing of the Indians (Strab. XV. 1.67): according to him, they write on pieces of thin cloth. Since we are talking about the territory of the Punjab, it is quite possible that the Greek saw documents in Aramaic, which spread here from the end of the 6th century BC. BC e., during the time of the Achaemenids. But it is possible that they meant documents written in the so-called "Arameo-Indian" script. This is how J. Filliosa9 called the Kharosthi script, which arose on the basis of Aramaic and adapted to the phonetics of the Indo-Aryan languages.
There is similar information in Quintus Curtius Rufus (VIII.9.15) - that the Indians write on wood bast, like on papyrus. Obviously, they mean documents on birch bark (such birch bark letters are known in Kashmir of a later time). But since Curtius does not give any reference to the source of his information, it is possible that this information does not go back to the era of Alexander at all, but to the 1st century, when his History of Alexander was compiled. In the same fragment of Curtius, precious
stones that are found on the sea coast of India - an undoubted echo of the literature of the beginning of AD. e., when the Greeks sailed to Western and Southern India.
Ancient Indian writing was certainly invented for practical purposes - after all, the Brahmins did not need writing to fix sacred texts in Sanskrit. And for several centuries, starting from Ashoka, inscriptions were compiled only in spoken languages - Prakrits. Only at the beginning of e. Sanskrit epigraphy also appeared.
The principles of Kharoshtha and the Brahmi script that appeared later11 show familiarity with the discipline developed in the Vedic schools - phonetics112. Therefore, one should think that writing was invented by people not only familiar with Aramaic, but also those who received a Brahmin education. This, obviously, should be about those who served at the court. Nearchus (8hab. XV. 1.66) distinguishes two categories of Brahmins: some, according to him, indulged in what belongs to nature, while others were engaged in public affairs, accompanying the kings as advisers. Sanskrit texts use the word ashShua to designate royal servants and advisers. According to the Pali texts, the social position of these hereditary atasses is so different from that of the ordinary Brahmins that they form a kind of caste. This made Megasthenes see in the "advisors and companions of the king" a very special category of the Indian population - along with the "philosophers"-Brahmins ^rab. XV. 1.49). The royal servants (including, obviously, scribes) acted not as representatives of the priestly varna, but as educated administrators. And they needed writing not for reading the Vedas (learned by heart even in childhood), but for state activities14.
The earliest inscriptions in Indian languages were carved by order of the Magadhian king Ashoka in the middle of the 3rd century BC. BC e. In the northwestern territories of his state, these were inscriptions in Kharoshthi, and in all other areas - in Brahmi. The text of the royal edicts, of course, was prepared in the capital, in Patali-putra. Then the royal people (taIatshta) delivered it to the provinces. Local authorities were asked to carve the words of the Sovereign (devanampiya) on rocks, on stone slabs or columns in order to keep them forever (VII Column Edict). From provincial
centers, the “decrees on righteousness” of the king were transported to small towns and fortresses (Small Rock Edict). They are periodically calendar holidays, should have been read at the confluence of the people (Special rock edicts). Chased formulations of exactly what dharma is often distinguished by a special rhythm - they were undoubtedly designed for recitation.
We cannot with certainty recreate the process of spreading the "dharma edicts" (Lashtapshaya). A careful study of the inscriptions showed that groups of words are separated by intervals that reflect the pauses made when dictating to the scribe. Sometimes the vowels that end such fragments acquire longitudes that have no linguistic justification - probably the scribe diligently reproduced the manner of reading into a chant15. It is impossible to exclude the hypothesis that sometimes the royal envoy did not have a written text of the decree with him at all, but read it to the scribe by heart. However, in most cases there was a written original. The fact is that in a number of inscriptions the decree itself is preceded by a certain introduction indicating the addressee of the message and good wishes to him. Sometimes this appeal is not on behalf of the king, but from an intermediate authority - the provincial governor (a number of versions of the Small Rock Edict). We are dealing with an accompanying "envelope", which was not at all intended to be reproduced on stone and passed on to future generations. But the administration of this or that town, without understanding, ordered to carve on the rock everything that was received from the authorities. In such cases, it becomes obvious that if there was an “envelope” or an accompanying message, then the royal decree also existed in writing.
The local authorities were sometimes quite clueless. So, for example, three versions of the Small Rock Decree (MNE) contain words of greeting to the leaders of the town of Isila. Of course, only one of these three points could bear the name of Isila, but those who received a copy of the message in the other two places mechanically reproduced the entire text, including those words that had nothing to do with them.
A number of circumstances make us think that translations into colloquial dialects were usually prepared not on the spot, but directly in the royal office. Apparently, at the court in Pata
Liputre employed scribes who knew the spoken languages of those regions of the state where it was planned to send messengers with edicts. We can also see in later Sanskrit literature the requirement for the scribe to know the languages of different regions and peoples (desabhäsäprabhedavid - "Shukra-nitisara" II.173). Sometimes the knowledge of dialects was not perfect, and then alien forms, peculiar to the native language of the scribe, penetrated into the translations.
They wrote under dictation in the Brahmi script, accepted throughout India, except for the northwestern territories. When recording, there were mistakes associated with the perception of the text by ear. If then it was rewritten in a different script (kharoshthi), errors could appear related to the incorrect reading of the Brahmi written sign17. In passing, it is worth noting that the Greek-Aramaic bilingual found in Kandahar, apparently, does not go back to the same original. Judging by the fact that the name of the king is rendered in Greek as nioSaccfj, the translator had the same version as we see in eastern India (Prakrit piyadasi). Meanwhile, the Aramaic translation seems to have been made from the same text as we find in the Kharosthi inscriptions from northwestern India: the Prakrit priyadrasi is rendered in Aramaic by Prydars. But it is quite possible that both scribes were not in Kandahar at all, but in the same royal office in Pataliputra - only the Greek translator used the original edict, and for Aramaic it was easier to work with the text in Kharoshthi and in the Gandhari dialect.
The royal envoy brought a separate copy of the decree to each region, from which copies were then made for further distribution. For this reason, even obvious errors of the original could be replicated: for example, in Mansehra and in Shahbazgarhi there is one and the same mistake: dhamangala instead of dhammamangala. W. Schneider18 made an attempt to determine the correlation between the versions of the Great Rock Edicts (BNE) by building their “family tree” (Stammbaum). This supposedly should contribute to the reconstruction of the administration structure of the Maurian state. But the methodology of such constructions raises serious doubts. If the translations were prepared in Pataliputra, then the correlation between the versions is connected not with the structure of the state, but with a purely clerical procedure.
Three local versions of MNE II (from Brahmagiri, Siddapura and Jatinga-Rameshwar) have the signature of the scribe. It is fully preserved in an inscription from Brahmagiri: "written by Chapada a scribe (Nrkaga)". By “scribe”, of course, we do not mean the craftsman19 who carved the inscription on the stone (he, most likely, was illiterate). A scribe is a person who wrote down a text from dictation20 with paint or chalk, so that the stone carver would then begin his work. The assumption that the scribe only copied the received message with the utmost care (observing even the width of the intervals between groups of words in the original) does not seem convincing. It is well known that local texts were often shortened. Even Ashoka himself knew about this, pointing out in the XIV BNE: “what is not completely written - this happens taking into account the location or (other) reason, or due to the scribe’s oversight.”
The only question is who this Chapada was - a man who wrote from dictation on a stone, or a scribe who made the original decree in Pataliputra. In the first case, one would have to assume that the royal envoy was accompanied on a trip around the country by the same scribe, who left his signature in three places. G. Falk21 claims that the handwriting of the scribe in all three cases is completely different - therefore, the scribes were different and, most likely, local. But then it remains to be thought that Chapada signed the original message sent from the capital. By the way, the presence at the end of the letter of an indication of the name of the scribe is fully consistent with later practice and the requirements of medieval scribes22. In all other places (except for the three indicated), where there are versions of the MNE, the authorities did not consider it necessary to reproduce the signature of the scribe - just as the accompanying appeal to them was also omitted.
Of particular interest is the fact that the word "scribe" in all three local versions is written in the Kharosthi script, while the entire inscription is in Brahmi. The Kharoshtha script was common only in northwestern India. On this basis, it is usually assumed that the scribe Chapada himself was a native of Gandhara. The writing tradition in the Northwest was more deeply rooted than in Magadha, and the use of Gandharian scribes in the service of Pataliputra would have been quite natural. Is it true,
K.R. Norman23 doubts this interpretation, drawing attention to the fact that in the Kharoshthi inscriptions from northwestern India, the word "scribe" has a different, closer Persian form - dipikara. However, the use of kharoshtha in the signature under the edict in Brahmagiri did not at all oblige Chapada to switch to his native Gandhari dialect in vocabulary.
In recent decades, it has been hypothesized24 that the Brahmi script was invented under Ashoka specifically to record his edicts in stone. In our opinion, this point of view contradicts the degree of spread of literacy in the middle of the 3rd century BC. BC e. In order to write edicts in different parts of a vast country, a certain number of scribes were required, as well as readers who knew the Brahmi script. People who, on holidays, read out the edicts of the king to the local residents, obviously, could be found even in small settlements25. In order for the literacy to be mastered throughout the country by at least a very narrow layer of people associated with government, of course, it took time26.
After the 3rd century BC e. the number of inscriptions increases sharply, and many of them were private (dedicatory, dedicatory, etc.). From the 2nd century BC e. Brahmi and Kharosthi inscriptions also appear on coins (not without Hellenistic influence). Literacy becomes prestigious as a kind of knowledge. Thus, King Kharavela (I century BC, Orissa) boasts that from a young age he mastered reading and counting (lekharüpagananä). In the inscriptions of the border e. there are names of scribes or members of the scribe's family who visit holy places and bring donations to the Buddhist community27.
The later parts of the Pali canon contain references to writing (although the canon itself has not yet been written down). The activities of the scribe are classified as "noble crafts" (ukkattham sippam - Vinaya IV.7.128). At the turn of N. e. or at the beginning of e. the most important literary monuments in Pali and Sanskrit are recorded, such as the Tipitaka, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Author's compositions (for example, Sanskrit poems and dramas of Ashvaghosha) are created in writing. The Kushan era is the heyday of cities, the culture of which was largely associated with writing. And not without reason, speaking of the bearer of urban culture
ry (nagaraka - lit. "citizen"), "Kama Sutra" mentions that on the table by his bed there must certainly be "some book" (G4.4). Kalidasa (“Raghuvamsha” 3.28) likens knowledge to a “verbal ocean” (apshauash samudram), the way to which opens the possession of literacy (Pro. In the period of late antiquity, culture and knowledge could already be associated with a book.
One of the latest books of the Mahabharata (XIII.24.70) contains the following phrase: "Those who write down the Vedas will go to hell." Two conclusions can be drawn from this. Firstly, already at the end of antiquity there were records of Vedic texts. Secondly, the attitude of orthodox brahmins, editors of the didactic parts of the epic, to the procedure for writing sacred texts (but only them!28) and in the first centuries AD. e. remained strongly negative. We see a similar situation later. Chanakya is credited with an aphorism (“Vriddha-Chanakya” XVII.!), according to which true knowledge can be obtained only from the lips of a mentor. Knowledge gained from books is compared to an illegitimate child conceived by a lover. Such a comparison is quite understandable: the self-taught person lacks the main thing - a living connection with a mentor-guru, involvement in a continuous line of teachers. And in the XI century. Abu-reikhan Biruni29 noted that the Indians "do not consider it permissible to write down the Vedas."
Much less severe was the attitude towards book knowledge among Buddhists. Buddhism sought to spread, and the copying of manuscripts contributed to the multiplication of its adherents. Buddhist authors projected the situation of their time on the era when the founder of the teaching lived. Therefore, in "La-litavistar" (125.19), for example, it is said that the Buddha knew 64 types of writing (the number, of course, is conditional and sacred). Proponents of the early origin of Brahmi and Kharoshtha30 are very fond of referring to this passage. However, there are obvious anachronisms in the list of types of writing (just like in a similar list in Mahavastu - Y35). Along with Brahmi and Kharoshthi, one can also find Greek writing,31 and Chinese (with which the Indians could not get acquainted before the 2nd century BC), and even the writing of the Huns (which appeared in India only in the middle of the 1st millennium AD). )32.
Sharp negative attitude to the recording of the Vedas did not in the least interfere with the widespread dissemination of literacy and the use
writing for other, not sacred, purposes. This is evidenced by the Brahmin books - shastras. In "Arthashastra", in accordance with the theme of the entire treatise, it is mainly about official documents. There is also a special chapter (II. 10) on the rules for drawing up decrees (^ala)33. At the same time, it is assumed that the royal office uses not colloquial dialects (Prakrits), but Sanskrit as a language. This means that experts in Sanskrit - learned Brahmins - should have taken the most active part in compiling decrees and royal correspondence. This is also indicated by the extensive use in this chapter of the treatise of the special terminology of traditional grammar and logic - subjects that formed the basis of Brahminical education.
In the ancient dharmasutras, which told about the judicial procedure (“Apastamba”, “Baudhayana”), the documents were not mentioned at all - it was only about the oral testimony of witnesses. But in the dharmashastras of the middle of the 1st millennium (“Yajnavalkya”, “Narada”, “Vishnu”, fragments of “Brhaspati” and “Katyayana”) we see the widest use of business documentation. Numerous types of documents are listed in the sastras: agreements on debt, pledge, sale, slave or other dependence, etc. (“Nara-da”, Introduction P.38, etc.). It is the documents, and not the oral testimony of witnesses, that become the most important method of evidence in court (“Narada” G66, etc.). The authors pay great attention methods for verifying the authenticity of the submitted document (by handwriting, signatures, compliance with the form, etc.). The mention in this connection of "handwritten receipts" testifies to the spread of literacy.
The document was compiled by a scribe (lekbaka), whose name had to be indicated - just like the names of the witnesses to the transaction. Strictly speaking, lekkaka could not be a professional, but simply a literate person (Nrupa), who was attracted to complete the deal (Narada, P. 146; Vishnu, VII.4). However, the need to comply with the form suggests that he was usually a professional scribe. If we are talking about various transactions made in the countryside, the documents were obviously drawn up by the one who is called the word grama1ekhaka - "village scribe" or gramakayastha ("Rajatarangini", U175). “There must be a scribe in every village and every city,” as the Shukra-
nitisare” P.220. In the Middle Ages and in modern times, "village scribes" participated in the collection of taxes. In the 19th century, in different parts of India, their position was not the same: somewhere they were government officials, in other places they were considered as employees of the village community itself34. It is quite natural that the spread of literacy contributed to the fact that representatives of lower and lower social strata gained access to it. Among the scribes in the Middle Ages, we sometimes meet Brahmins, but, of course, the majority of village literates did not belong to high castes.
From the period of the Middle Ages, letter books have been preserved, containing samples of both official documents of various kinds, and private letters addressed to relatives or friends. And although in this case we are talking about a literary genre that requires some convention, it is difficult to doubt that the basis of these texts was genuine act material. The scribes could serve practical purposes - to serve as a guide for scribes (as well as for judges who determined the authenticity of documents). The most famous of them "Lekhapadtskhati" dates back to the XIII-XV centuries. Some texts of this kind are known only from references in Sanskrit literature - for example, "Trishashtilekhaprakara-na" ("Sixty-three types of documents") of Kalyanabhatta. It is worth noting that the author of the last treatise was a learned Brahmin - it was he who edited Asahaya's commentary on Narada Smriti, one of the most important monuments of Hindu law.
We do not have at our disposal such manuals that would date back to the epoch of antiquity. But those rules for issuing decrees, which are contained in the Arthashastra, allow us to assume the existence of such benefits already at the beginning of AD. e.35 The requirements set out in the dharmashastras of Yajnavalkya and Vishnu for the registration of deeds of deeds of land are fully consistent with the practice of issuing such documents on copper plates, known since the era of the Guptas. Therefore, we can say with confidence that even then the foundations of diplomacy were developed in India.
Classical Sanskrit drama of late antiquity depicts several figures of a scribe. Usually they are referred to by the term k auasha (as in the inscription from Damodarpur in the middle of the 6th century 36, cf. "Vishnu" VII.3). In one of the scenes of Shudraki's The Clay Cart, the scribe's assistant
steers the judge together with the merchant foreman (shreshthi), - he draws up a protocol of interrogation. The original text of this protocol was probably written with chalk on a board lying on the ground, because a participant in the process who let slip tried to quietly erase the record with his foot. The scribe has the official status of a member of the judiciary (Nikagapa), he speaks, although not in Sanskrit, but in the prestigious Shauraseni dialect.
In Visakhadatta's drama "Rakshasa's Ring", the scribe Shakata-dasa is a person who is especially close to the chief adviser of the deposed king. True, the Brahmin Chanakya speaks of him somewhat disdainfully: a small bird, they say, is just a scribe (kayastha Sh ^ yu! ma ^ a)37. However, he takes Shakatadasu seriously as an adversary to be reckoned with. In the same play, we see that only professional scribes were trusted with writing. For, according to Chanakya, learned Brahmins write indistinctly (shoakvagash pgayatnalikhitanyapi niyatamasphutani bayapi).
Mentions of k^a^Ia in Sanskrit texts of the 1st millennium are often accompanied by extremely harsh reviews about them. Almost the earliest it was formulated in the dharmashastra of Yajnavalkya: the king is recommended to protect his people from all kinds of rapists and robbers, but mainly from kayast:ha (P.336). This aphorism has become popular, it is repeated in different texts39 for several centuries, and small variations indicate that it was usually recited by heart. IN synonymous dictionary The "Amarakosha" scribe was associated with the king: the word Nrkaga - as well as the ambassador and purohita (house priest) - was discussed in the section on the kshatriya. Its main function was to collect taxes40. It is not uncommon to speak of a scribe as a royal favourite, which makes him especially dangerous for the country's population41. This is a representative of the all-powerful bureaucracy, a "jug snout", in the words of our writer. The medieval Sanskrit chronicler Kalhana (Rajata-rangini, v. 180) calls scribes the word "son of a slave" (^TrShha - this expression roughly corresponds to our "son of a bitch"). He says that the whole land came under the rule of the Kayasthas (U181). Scribes try to take everything from decent people, leaving them only air (V185, cf. IV.629-630). The ancient sage Ushanas42 was attributed, in a typically Indian spirit, an artificial etymology
words kaua81ba from kaka - uata - yaray. She was supposed to reveal the very essence of the scribe: he is greedy, like a crow, and ruthless, like the god of death himself.
Starting from the IX century. you can talk about scribe castes. The position of representatives of these castes is often contradictory43. They could be associated with the court and the administration (especially if this administration is foreign). However, their occupations themselves were considered as service, serving labor, similar to handicraft professions44. Late Sanskrit texts show a squeamish attitude towards "ink souls"45 on the part of learned Brahmins46. The status of the Kayasthas in the caste hierarchy was the subject of fierce debate in traditional society47. In Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in the century before last, they were considered as twice-born, and in Bengal they were considered Shudras.
Notes
H. Scharfe emphasizes the difference in this respect between India and classical Greece, in which geometry was the leading science (Scharfe H. Education in Ancient India. Leiden: Brill, 2002. P. 60). See Renou L. Les divisions dans les texts sanskrits // Renou L. Choix d "études indiennes. Tome II. P .: École Française d" Extrême-Orient, 1997. Rhys Davids T. W., Oldenberg H. Introduction // Sacred Books of the East. Vol. XIII (Vinaya Texts). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1880. R. XXXI-XXXII. Hinüber O. von. Der Beginn der Schrift und frühe Schriftlichkeit in India. Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, 1989. S. 31; Idem. Untersuchungen zur Mündlichkeit früher mittelindischer Texte der Buddhisten. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1994.
See Renou L. Les divisions... P. 20; Scharfe H. Investigations in Kautalyas "s Manual of Political Science. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1993. P. 16 f. True, a number of archaeologists claim that they discovered objects with Brahmi writing signs in layers of the 4th century BC during excavations in Anuradhapura in Lanka. BC (Salomon R. Indian Epigraphy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. P. 12. However, this information needs thorough verification. Bühler G. Indian Paleography. Delhi: Munshiram, 2004. P. 18. Mayrhofer M. Kurzgefasstes etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindischen, Bd. III. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1976. S. 103. From lipi "letter"
(in Prakrit livi) the word "scribe" also occurs (lipika - livika), see Divyävadäna, 293, 5; 9.
Filliozat J. Paléographie // L "Inde classique. Tome II. P .: EFEO, 1996. P. 670.
Janert K.L. About the Scribes and their Achievements in Asoka's India // German Scholars on India. Vol. I. Varanasi: Chowkhambha Sanskrit Series Office, 1973. P. 141.
Voigt R. Die Entwicklung der aramäischen zur Kharosthl- und Brähml-Schrift // ZDMG. bd. 155. 2005. S. 48. Bühler G. Indian Paleography. P. 18, 33.
Fick R. Die sociale Gliederung im nordöstlichen Indien zu Buddhas Zeit. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlags-Anstalt, 1974, pp. 93-94, 164. The fact that experienced phoneticians were the inventors of Indian writing has long been noted. In our opinion, this contradicts the assumption that merchants who traveled to Asia Minor could play a significant role in the creation of writing. Vaisya merchants were hardly people versed in the science of phonetics.
Janert K.L. Abstände und Schlussvokalverzeichnungen in Asoka-Inschriften Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1972.
Schneider U. Zum Stammbaum der grossen Felseninschriften Asokas // Indologen-Tagung 1971. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1973; Idem. Die grossen Felsen-Edikte Asokas. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1978. S. 18. For a critique of these constructions, see: Fussman G. Central and Provincial Administration in Ancient India: the Problem of the Mauryan Empire // IHR. Vol. XIV No. 1-2. 1987-1988.
Upasak (Upasak C.S. History and Palaeography of Mauryan Brähml Script. Varanasi: Siddhartha Prakashan, 1960. P. 27) believes that it was an engraver.
SalomonR. Indian epigraphy. P. 65; Sircar D.C. Indian Epigraphic Glossary. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1966, p. 171.
Falk H. Asokan Sites and Artefacts. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 2006. P. 58. "Yajnavalkya" II.88: etanmayä lihitam hyamukeneti... lekhako "nte tato likhet ("Let the scribe at the end write: it was written by me, such and such"). Norman K.R. Middle Indo-Aryan Studies X // Norman K. R. Collected Papers, Vol. I. Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1990. P 161-162. Hinüber O. von. Der Beginn der Schrift. S. 59-60; Falk: Falk H. Schrift im alten Indien Tübingen: Günter
Narr, 1993; see also Goyal S.R. Ancient Indian Inscriptions. Recent Finds and New Interpretations. Jodhpur: Kusumanjali Book World, 2005. Perhaps sometimes they were officials who migrated from Magad-khi - in any case, inscriptions from the southern borders of the state are written in the same eastern dialect (and the population there was completely Dravidian).
K.L. rightly draws attention to this circumstance. Yanert. See JanertK.L. Abstände... S. 19.
Luders H. A List of Brahmi Inscriptions. Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1912. No. 209, 1037, 1045, 1138, 1148, 1149, 1291 ink (masya saha lekhanya) - but not the Vedic text (vaidikam)." Biruni A. India // Biruni A. Selected works. T.II. Tashkent: Ed. AN UzSSR, 1963. P. 141.
Dearinger D. Alphabet. M.: Ed. foreign literature, 1963. C. 388. Yavanl.
Vorobieva-Desyatovskaya claims that the text dates back to the border of BC. e., which is difficult to reconcile with the mention of the Huns (Vorobyeva-Desyatovskaya M.I. Manuscript book in the culture of the peoples of the East. Book 2. M .: Nauka, 1988. P. 23).
Stein O. Versuch einer Analyze des Sasanadhikara // Stein O. Kleine Schriften. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1985.
Wilson H. A Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms. London: W.H. Allen and Company, 1855, p. 406.
Strauch I. Die Lekhapaddhati-Lekhapancasika. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 2002. S. 17.
Inscriptions of the Early Gupta Kings (CII, Vol. III). Varanasi: Indological Book House, 1981, p. 360.
Visakhadatta. Mudraraksasa. Poona: Royal Book Stall, 1948. P. 20. Ibid. P. 24.
Parasara-smriti XII.25; Vishnudharmottara Purana II.61.28; Agni Purana 223.11, cf. "Nitisara" V.81; "Manasollas" II.155-156; "Yogayatra" I.18.
Already in the Mahabharata it is said (II.5.62) that "scribes and counters" (ganakalekhaka) are used in matters of "receipt and expenditure" (ayavyaya) at the royal court. Apararka explains the word kayastha in Yajnaval-kya II.336: "tax officials" (karadhikrta). In a similar sloka, "Manu" is simply "the king's servant" (bhrtya). At least after the 11th century. some kayasthas received villages with dependent farmers (Thapar R. Social Mobility in Ancient India
with Special Reference to Elite Groups // Indian Society: Historical Probings. Delhi: People's Publishing House, 1974. P. 112). See EI. XVIII.243: vallabha from kayasthavamsa "a feudal lord from the family of scribes", compare Vijnaneshvara's comments on "Yajnavalkya" II.336 about scribes - royal " favorites" or feudal lords (rajavallabha).
Kane P. V. History of Dharmasastra. Vol. II. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1974, p. 76.
Baines A. Ethnography (Castes and Tribes). Strassburg: K.J. Trubner. 1912. P. 38-39; ThaparR. cultural pasts. Essays in Early Indian History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. P. 202. See Angavijja. Banaras: Prakrit Text Society, 1957, p. 160; cf. Kane P.V. history. P-76 (quotation from the Veda-Vyasa-smriti, according to which scribes associate with barbers, potters and other sudras). Food from a scribe should also not be accepted, as from a goldsmith or a harlot. masisaka - lit. "wielding ink".
See in Sabdakalpadruma (Sabdakalpadruma. Vol. II. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1961) a selection of derogatory characteristics of scribes (kayastha, Lipikaraka), who are de Sudra caste: they come from the soles of Prajapati's feet and are supposed to be servants of Brahmins (viprasevaka ). Kane P. V. History. P. 75-77.
Periodization of the history of ancient India. Indian civilization, its culture. Types and source of the worldview of the Indians. Fundamentals of Brahmanism and Hinduism. Buddhism and its influence on the formation of the spiritual culture of the Indian people. Religion and Law, "Laws of Manu" and "Arthashastra". Yoga, its essence and varieties. Science and art. Relationship between art and religion.
India has given the world one of the most advanced ancient civilizations, and its rich literary sources, originally transmitted orally, make it possible to penetrate into the minds of people who lived at least more than 4000 years ago. Formed in antiquity, the spiritual culture of this country has not undergone fundamental changes throughout the entire historical development, it has always been considered the most spiritual culture of the East. And today, the mystery of its spirituality is far from being revealed to everyone; it seems especially incomprehensible to the technized consciousness of Western man.
Archaeological and literary sources testify that the culture of India has about 5 millennia. Chronologically, it highlights:
Harappan civilization (2500-1700 BC);
Vedic period (1700-600 BC);
Pre-Maurian period (600-320 BC);
Mauryan era (320-185 BC);
The era of the Kushans (78-200 BC);
Gupta Empire (320-510 BC).
Medieval Muslim period of development (Delhi Sultanate, Mughal Empire).
Back in the III millennium BC. e. on the territory of India, a highly developed Indus civilization developed, the decline of which came under circumstances still unclear in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. Its centers were the cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. They differed in the purposeful planning of city buildings in comparison with the disordered buildings of Mesopotamian settlements. The buildings consisted of three floors. In addition, the Indian population used for construction fired in a special way, and not dried in the sun, as in Babylon, brick. Residents of cities built the most complex sewers, built, in addition to residential buildings, public buildings, granaries. During the excavations, a public bath was discovered - an unusual hydraulic structure, possibly for ritual ablutions, an assembly hall, a school.
Based on this, we can say that the architecture of the Indians reached high level development. The things found during the excavations testify to the perfection of weaving, spinning, weapons art, sculpture, jewelry and arts and crafts. Threads were spun from wool and cotton fibers. From them weaved thin multi-colored fabrics. Tools and weapons were made of copper and bronze. The statues were created from stone and sandstone, and they reflected the high skill of transferring movements. human body. "Miniature reliefs of lions, bulls, mountain goats are distinguished by the clarity of the silhouette, the perfection of surface treatment." *
* History of arts from antiquity to the Middle Ages / Ch. ed. and compiled by S. Ismailova. M., 1996. P. 109.
Harappan culture in the Indus Valley. Archaeological complex. III-II millennium BC e.
Settlement of Harappa. Plan.
 |
Made from gold, silver, all kinds of precious and semi-precious stones Jewelry- rings, bracelets, necklaces, beaded belts, seals-amulets - were worn by both men and women. In addition, men decorated themselves with feathers, cut their hair, tied it in a bun, and combed it back. “The costume was the same for everyone. But some wore jewelry made of gold and silver, ivory and precious stones, others of copper and tin, shells and simple bones. Some are woven belts made of beads, which were made of expensive stones with gilded ends, others are belts with beads made of baked clay. *
* Ancient East / Under. Ed. Academician V. V. Struve. M., 1951. S. S. 206.
Decorative and applied art is reflected in the perfection of unique tableware. Clay objects were painted with patterns and ornaments of various colors. “But perhaps the most beautiful glazed opal-cream glazed vessels with a dark purple pattern. Nowhere in the world in the IV millennium BC. e. have not yet been able to make such dishes. *
* There. S. 206.
However, the worldview and ideas of the people of this era remain a mystery to us due to the unresolved nature of their writing. Only from the next stage in the history of India, the beginning of which almost coincides with the death of the Harappan culture, has come down to us through hundreds of generations of the richest heritage of the religious and philosophical plan, which makes it possible to judge the culture of the country. This stage is associated with the arrival of the Aryans in India and received the name Vedic - from the Vedas, the oldest written monuments.
Citadel of Mohenjo-Daro. Plan III-II millennium BC e.
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The first sources of emerging philosophical thought in India, as in other countries, were sacred texts. They laid the foundations of religion and ethics. The sources of this period were called in India "shruti", that is, heard through divine revelation. In contrast to shruti, later literature, which is of a narrower and more specialized nature (treatises on certain sets of issues, in particular jurisprudence), is called “smiriti”, that is, what is remembered, attributed to specific individuals. In the first case, we are talking about "sacred knowledge" sent down by the gods, in the second - about the judgments of wise people.
Bust of a priest. From the excavations of Harappa.
The letters of the early Brahmi alphabet (Indian syllabary).
Modern Indian script (Devanagari).
The entire history of the culture of Ancient India is distinguished by the vagueness of the chronology of Vedic sources, most of which were passed down from generation to generation orally for a long time. The Vedas are collections of religious and ritual texts. (samhitas) different content and purposes. They reveal the worldview of the Indians, attitude to life, views on the essence of man. In the Vedic period, the principles that determined the development of the spiritual culture of Ancient India were formed. Their starting point is the deification of the world order and ideas about it. The idea of the divine creation of the social system becomes the basis of views on spiritual and secular power. At the same time, these ideas themselves are also declared to be divine revelation. Social division is predetermined and is the law from above for the Hindu.
In ancient times, the first philosophical schools appeared in India: “Lokayata” - the doctrine of sensory knowledge of the world, “Vaisheshika” - an atomistic doctrine, the Nagarajuna school with the theory
"universal relativity", "yoga" - a psychological school, the founder of which was Patanjali. Two major religions have influenced the culture and art of India: Hinduism and Buddhism. Hinduism is based on the Vedas and Upanishads. Veda (Skt."Knowledge") is a collection of texts reflecting the ancient religious and mythological beliefs of the population of the Ganges valley. The Vedas consist of four collections: the Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda, and the Atharva Veda.
Rig Veda * (Skt. The Book of Hymns is the oldest part of the Vedas. Passed down orally from generation to generation. The hymns of the Rig Veda sing of many gods. The most ancient basis of the Vedic religion was the cult of nature and its phenomena. Samaveda is a collection of hymns. Yajurveda (sakstsr. - “book of prayers”) is a collection of prayers, under which sacrifices were made with musical accompaniment. At-harvaveda (Skt."Spellbook") contained a collection of spells and magic formulas. The Vedas served as the basis for the creation of two grand literary epics India: Mahabharata and Ramayana. **
* Rig Veda / Rev. ed. P. Grinzer. M., 1974.
** Mahabharata. Ramayana. M., 1974.
Upanishads * (Skt."sitting down at the teacher's feet") - a secret philosophical and religious doctrine that arose on the basis of the Vedas, expanding the Vedic doctrine. Its central concept is Trimur-ti - the trinity of the Upanishads. It consisted of three main gods: Brahma (Atman), Vishnu and Shiva.
* Upanishads. In 3 books. M., 1992.
Brahma is the creator of the Universe and the world. Vishnu is the guardian of cosmic order and peace. He incarnated nine times in other beings in order to restore cosmic order in their guise and save the Earth. Shiva, who has 1008 names, is the carrier of cosmic energy, creative and destructive at the same time. He embodies a good and evil beginning, he is omnipotent, can exist in visible and invisible guises.
The teachings of the Upanishads are based on atman, maya, karma, samsara and moksha. Atman (Sanskrit "I") - the universal mental principle of the Universe, the soul of the world, as well as the individual principle of man. It is both the human soul and the world soul. Atman-Brahma is the embodiment of the one and the many, the individual and the universal, god and man. According to the Vedas, initially Atman, having created itself by means of its own will, took the form of the gigantic first man Purusha (Sanskrit "personality"). It served as material for the social structure of society, division into varnas: from the mouth of Purusha came Brahmins- priests (the highest caste of India), from the hands of - kshatriyas- warriors, from the hips - vaishyas- artisans and farmers, from the legs - sudras- slaves and prisoners of war (untouchables). The transition from varna to varna was impossible, belonging to the varna was passed down from generation to generation.
Vishnu, Brahma. Lakshmi on the snake Shesha. Medieval drawing.
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The king is naked.
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Shiva, Parvati and Ganesha.
important concept in Vedic literature is Maya. Mayan (Skt. the root "matr" - to measure, form, build) - this is the doctrine of human delusions. The desire of a person to explain reality is Maya, that is, delusion, delusion. Maya leads to the distortion of the Atman, and the distortion of the Atman leads to suffering. Therefore, the cause of human suffering is maya.
Karma (Skt."action and its result") is generated by maya, i.e. behavior, delusion. Actions can be beneficial, neutral or harmful. Accumulated deeds form a person's bad or good karma, which determines a person's existence in the past, present and future, and influences his future births.
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Samsara (Skt."wandering, circulation") - the so-called continuous cycle of lives and deaths - is determined by the karma of a person. Samsara is without beginning, but as a result of right deeds, it can have an end, which is called moksha.
Vayu, god of the wind.
Moksha (Skt."liberation"), or atma jana("self-awareness"), atma-bodha (“self-awakening”) is achieved as a result of liberation from maya, i.e. delusions.
Hinduism became the official religion of India after the fall of the Gupta empire and the weakening of Buddhism in the 7th-8th centuries. By this time, the main directions of Hinduism had developed: Shaivism with the cult of Shiva and his wife Parvati; Vishnuism, Shaktism with the cult of the mother goddess Shakti - the embodiment of the almighty female energy; Krishnaism, which developed a little later, but quickly gained great recognition.
The well-known four Vedas also go back to the provisions rooted in Indian thought and practice about the divine establishment of the estate-caste system.
The India of the Vedic period, as it appears in the hymns of the Rigveda, was a society with a desire for the possession of cattle, grain and other riches, with sharp social and political conflicts. The explanation of the structure of society was the theory of the divine creation of the four estates "varnas", first expressed in the hymn about Purusha in the last book of the Rigveda, reproduced in the Atharvaveda and in many subsequent sources and fully developed in the Yajurveda and the Brahmins. The Vedas declared the formation of the estate-caste system to be the original institution established by God. As already mentioned, numerous closed castes (jatis) with a clearly defined occupation (professionally different groups) were divided into four estates (varnas). The dominant position was occupied by the varnas of the Brahmins and Kshatriyas, who divided among themselves, respectively, the spiritual and secular power. The religious and philosophical system of the Vedic period was created by the priests and was called "Brahmanism".
Soma.
The Brahmins substantiated moral standards and were responsible for educating all people in the spirit of the Vedas.
Indian philosophy explained the birth of a person in various social strata, with different abilities And different appearance with the help of the doctrine of the transmigration of souls (the theory of incarnation). According to this teaching, there is a universal spirit that works throughout the world, it condenses cosmic matter, manifests itself in it with different strengths and with increasing energy, which then manifests itself as spiritual.
The famous iron pillar in Delhi. 4th-6th centuries
As consciousness is ignited in matter, the soul becomes more and more independent of the body, more and more capable of leading a free existence. The unpolarized soul of minerals and plants is associated with the earth elements. She, strongly attracted by earthly fire, stays in it for some time, and then returns to the surface of the globe to incarnate again in her own form, never leaving the lower layers of space. Only one human soul comes from heaven and returns there after death. But at what epoch of its long cosmic existence did the elemental soul become human? What ethereal fire did she go through for this? Transformation was possible, according to the Vedas, only with the help of already perfectly formed human souls who developed in the elemental soul its spiritual principle and imposed on it their divine prototype. However, how many incarnations, how many cycles must go through in order for the soul to become the person we know it to be? There is no clear answer to this question. Nevertheless, each person goes through many rebirths, and the next one depends on his karma, and karma depends on his consciousness and actions.
The Brahmins guarded the Vedic spiritual traditions and restrained the manifestation of free thought. However, despite the efforts of the Brahmins, the distinguishing feature of the pre-Mauryan period was the disunity that marked the thought of the Vedic period. Free-thinking religious teachers challenged Brahmanism with regard to the varna system and tribal fragmentation, and in the 6th century. in an environment conducive to the emergence of heretical teachings, two powerful currents were formed that had many followers and seriously shook the monopoly of Brahmanism on public consciousness. These were Buddhism and Jainism. However, in essence, they differed little from Brahminism and did not prevent the development of spiritual traditions.
India entered the world culture with its philosophy, religion, and mythology.
In ancient Indian mythology, the deities were divided into three groups, corresponding to the three spheres of the universe. The most important of them was considered not the highest (sky), but the intermediate one (air space), symbolizing the connection between the earthly and heavenly worlds. In some hymns of the Rigveda, the names of only three gods are mentioned, but sometimes 3339 deities - the number goes back to the same original three-term structure. In the future, the "model of the Universe" was transformed. The concept of three spheres is firmly established in the religious thought of the Indians: three lokas (three worlds) are listed in various Hindu texts, even later ones.
On the basis of the Vedas in Hinduism, a complex detailed cosmological system is formed. The principle of ordering the world is ryta. This concept is revealed as the fundamental principle of the world and the laws operating in it. Thanks to rita, the Sun moves along the ecliptic, the seasons change, the dawn dispels the darkness of the night. She is sometimes drawn in the form of a chariot driven by the gods. Its most common definition is "The Way of the Sun".
In the Vedic conception of the Universe, the movement of the stars is the most important regulating principle of the world order. The sun - the first among them - is revered especially and is extremely often mentioned in hymns. In some texts, he is called "the face of rita, pure and beautiful."
Rita embodies not only light, but also the creative power of nature, which in North India was associated with the fertile monsoon rains that replaced the all-draining sun and heat.
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The Vedic worldview was permeated by the idea inseparable connection processes in nature with a cycle of sacrificial actions. The cult practice of the priests, creators and performers of the hymns of the Rig Veda is considered an organic part of the world process. It ensured the victory of rita as a universal organizing principle, order over the chaos threatening all living things. Rita means universal regularity and morality. It turns into principles that equally regulate the movement of the luminaries and the events and states of human life - birth and death, happiness and misfortune. From this naturally followed the identity of the moral idea with the absolute and most universal laws of the development and existence of the world.
Tree of life and knowledge.
In the middle of the trunk is a wheel, the source and guardian of all that is new.
Bronze. XIV-XVI centuries
Although rita remains an impersonal principle in the Rigveda, one of the leading deities of the pantheon, Varuna, acts as its bearer and protector. He is endowed with colossal power, unlimited power, the Vedic Indians saw in him the personification of the power that governs the world, the creator and guardian of nature.
Varuna is depicted as the overseer of the cosmic order. The cosmogonic role of Varuna is intertwined with his role as a moral judge. Appeals to him are imbued with a spirit of repentance and a thirst for forgiveness.
The combination of the idea of the cosmic world order with the ritual practice of the priests, characteristic of the Vedic worldview, made it necessary to associate the observance of the precepts of morality with regular sacrifice. Later, rita became identified with satya- truth, honesty, which also included the principles of behavior.
The power of rita also extends to the gods, the fulfillment of its norms is obligatory for them. Varuna and his constant companion Mitra protect all living things with the help of the law (dharma), which is associated with rita.
The equal subordination of people to a single universal impersonal force is the cardinal idea of the Rigvedic worldview. It passes into the later Indian religious systems - Hinduism and Buddhism. The place of rita is occupied here by the "law of karma", which affirms the dependence of each being (both man and god) on previous deeds.
Rita and karma can be compared with the fate of the ancient Greeks, but the latter was not correlated with cult practice. The "world order" of Vedism is supported by and associated with sacrifice. The idea of fate in ancient society is colored by the spirit of pessimism, because nothing can be done about it, it dictates what must happen. This theme was central to Greek drama; Rita, on the contrary, is the source of the triumph of the principle of righteous behavior, a symbol of universal order and harmony. Both rita and karma leave an opportunity for a person to improve his destiny. To do this, you need to work on yourself, your consciousness. Subsequently formed yoga as a system of principles of work on oneself, on the body and consciousness.
The Vedas cover in detail the theme of the creation of the world. “Deities create elements, elements and things. From the combination of male and female principles, the world is born. Then there is an idea of some kind of “abstract deity”, who creates everything that exists. He is called differently (Vishvakarman, Prajalati, Dhatar), he is endowed with the highest power and stands above the gods.
* Bongard-Levin G. M. ancient Indian civilization. Philosophy, science, religion. M., 1980. S. 41.
Vishvakarman is called the "father of the eye", vision, knowledge. The Sun is associated with it, in Vedic cosmology it was considered one of the foundations of all things. Vishvakarman is the bearer and source of wisdom.
Many representations in the Samhita are connected with the concept of the "first embryo" - the golden egg (brahmaida), which arises in the primordial ocean, and it contains the gods and prototypes of all beings. The image of the "original" egg, which is in the waters, is found in the cosmogonic myths of various peoples.
In general, Vedic cosmology is not unified and offers a variety of answers to the cardinal question: how was the world created? The All-Creator acts along with an abstract deity - a personified image of the very process of creation, the first embryo resting in the waters and sacrificed by the primal being - as well as the "cosmic heat" (tapas).
Something impersonal is proclaimed to be the basis of being, there is no division into the existent and the carrier (subsequently, the Upanishads transform this principle into the concept of the origin of being from non-existence, arguing at the same time that something third stood above both principles, not reducible to either of them), there is neither atmosphere, nor the vault of heaven. Water, like the abyss, precedes the other elements.
Not only death, but also immortality is impossible in that indescribable state that preceded creation. There was "Something One", having a single attribute - integrity, indivisibility. The globe was seen as a realm of differences arising from the division of the original whole into two parts (existing-bearing, death-immortality, day-night).
Tapas (cosmic heat) is the embodiment of the original impersonal energy that stimulates all life processes. From tapas desire is born (Kama), called the seed of thought (buddhi).
A peculiar pantheistic tendency of the Vedas was preserved and developed later in Hinduism (sacrifice, in comparison with sacred actions of a different nature, is given a special place, it is directly associated with the process of peace creation); cosmological ideas, ritual, although they have undergone significant changes, in many respects go back precisely to initial stage orthodox tradition.
The religious and philosophical idea of the Upanishads, to a greater extent than other parts of the common Vedic heritage, was reflected in Buddhism, but it also adopted a number of early Vedic concepts (the trinity of the world, many mythological images). The creators of the new religious system were especially resolutely opposed to the complex that had developed by the end of the Vedic era. religious views, ritual rules and social regulations, called "Brahmanism".
The Upanishads are in fact the result of a long comprehension of the central principles and provisions of the religious system of Brahminism, which later passed into the Hindu system.
Major sites associated with the emergence and history of Buddhism in India.
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Buddhism originated in India in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. e. and is the time of the emergence of the first world religion.
The emergence of Buddhism is associated with the life and preaching work of Siddhartha Gautama. His father protected him from suffering, the boy did not know grief, did not see illness and death. But once during one day, Gautama quite by chance met a beggar, a leper, and saw a corpse. He decided to leave his father's house in order to independently answer the question about the meaning of human life, about the causes of human suffering. For a long 7 years, Gautama stays as a rishi (forest man) and a saman (ascetic). One day, sitting under a bo tree, he saw a morning star flash in the sky, which caused him an instant understanding of the causes of human suffering and ways to overcome them. So Siddhartha Gautama became a Buddha (Skt. "enlightened").
The Buddha decided to announce his discovery to people. For 40 years he walked along the Ganges valley, preaching his teachings and performing miracles. Very soon Buddhism became so popular that King Ashoka (268-232 BC), the third ruler of the Mauryan dynasty, recognized this teaching as the official religion of India. The popularity of Buddhism lay in the doctrine of liberation. According to the new teaching of the Buddha, all living beings suffer, have karma, rotate in samsara, regardless of caste or nationality, and any person can achieve liberation and become a Buddha during his lifetime, that is, the liberation of any person depends only on himself. The basis of the teachings of Buddhism is the "Four Noble Truths": duhkha, trishna, nirvana, sadhana.
The first noble truth of duhkha (Skt. "suffering") is that the life one leads is one of suffering. A person sees suffering around and suffers himself, and naturally asks himself questions: why is this, what is the cause of suffering?
The second noble truth trishna(Skt. "grasping", "clinging") - this is the doctrine of the causes of suffering. Trishna is the desire to possess reality. A person is attached to various circumstances, thereby connected with the Mayan world. Ignorance or false knowledge of a person about the world and himself gives rise to trishna, that is, grasping or clinging to the real world as something unchanging and eternal. Trishna, in turn, gives rise to human deeds, both harmful and beneficial, deeds form karma and samsara - the cycle of births and deaths. True peace is in the mind of a person, the purification of consciousness can become a human joy, which gives a state nirvana. Therefore, the third noble truth of the Buddha is the teaching of nirvana. The goal of nirvana coincides with the goal of yoga - the cessation of the "rotation" of the mind, liberation from false knowledge, that is, from thoughts with which the human mind tries to grasp the world and itself as something eternal and unchanging. Nirvana is that state of a person when his consciousness is liberated from the chaos of thoughts, immersed in a state of rest, this is the combination of “I” and “nothing”. To do this, a person must pacify all existing feelings and thoughts, focus on a static picture. This is necessary in order to further establish control over one's own consciousness, lead it or make a conscious choice between positive and negative thoughts.
The Fourth Noble Truth of the Buddha is sadhana- the eightfold noble path of liberation from suffering and the achievement of nirvana. This path is open to everyone and contains the main features of Buddhist morality: do not kill the living, do not eat meat food, indulging in the killing of the living, do not cause suffering to others, fulfill the requirements for castes, work on your positive consciousness, improving your karma. The operation of the law of karma is explained by the following circumstances. The spiritual center of a person from the point of view of Indian culture is in the "I". It has as an integral basis consciousness, which produces thoughts. "I" controls them, thus directs his consciousness. But thoughts are also developed by someone else's consciousness, transmitted through space by sound, word, vibration. Therefore, they can be their own and others, positive and negative, and determine the actions of a person. "I" chooses thoughts, thoughts determine actions. In some cases, the "I" may act unconsciously, not in control of its consciousness. To determine your actions, you need to control your thoughts, make a conscious choice. Since “I” chooses, a person is responsible for all his actions, he himself chooses his karma, determines it.
It seems to us that all thoughts belong to us or they exist only in consciousness, that consciousness itself is thinking, although in spoken language there are phrases that reflect something else. We say: “A terrible thought came to me” or “A brilliant idea came to me”, “I had an idea in my head”, “This thought is already in the air”. All these phrases say that it goes without saying that thoughts "walk" in space, they come and go. It is also assumed that there are thoughts that belong to me, my "I". These are those that are developed, assimilated by my consciousness, those that I consciously choose or produce myself. We say: “I lost the thought”, “The thought is gone”, thus we believe that this is my thought, which means that I created it, it belongs to me. Thus, there are thoughts of my own, which are produced by my consciousness, and there are others, those that were once developed by another consciousness. Thoughts exist in space in various forms: through written speech - in books, through thought forms - in space, through vibrations - in the air, through sound - in speech. A person chooses, he makes a choice in the case when he owns his consciousness, makes a conscious choice; if not possessed - unconscious. In the first case, it controls the choice. In the second, we say: “I didn’t do it consciously,” “I didn’t think about it.” The task of sadhana is to learn to control and produce positive consciousness.
Thus, Buddhism sets the main goal of the idea of human self-improvement. Achieving nirvana is impossible without morality, virtue and wisdom in Buddhism are inseparable. Therefore, many researchers consider Buddhism not a religion, but a system of moral and philosophical views.
Around the 2nd century BC e. refers to the most famous work of ancient Indian legal literature - "Manusmriti", or "Manavadharmashastra", the name of which is usually translated as "Laws of Manu". * But it would be more accurate to speak of "Manu's Instructions in Dharma". The collection is attributed to the mythical progenitor of people Manu, who conveyed to the sages the prescription of the Self-existent. For nearly two millennia the "Laws of Manu" existed as a valid set of rules. The collection belongs to the dharmashastra genre, which arose on the basis of the drachma sutras and differs from the latter in a clearer systematization of the material. By design, this is a comprehensive code of the world and social life of Ancient India. It regulates all aspects of the life of a true Hindu, contains all the information he needs. In the literature of Ancient India, philosophy, religion, mythology, and law are often combined.
* Laws of Manu. M., 1992.
The laws of Manu tell briefly about the origin of the world and society, the creation of varnas, the sources of dharma, the Holy Scriptures and the study of the Vedas, the stages of life, the first ashram - apprenticeship and marriage in the life of a twice-born as the head of the family and the owner of the house, the causes of death, the rules cleansing and eating, the dharma of women, the third stage of life - hermitage, the dharma of kings. This subject was specially treated in the Arthashastra. * It outlined the basics of politics and administration in wartime and peacetime, the goals of royal power, the qualities that a ruler should have, his daily routine, etc.
*Arthashastra, or the science of politics. M., 1993.
Of great importance for understanding the worldview of the ancient Hindus are the religious and ethical principles that permeate the instructions of Manu. The era of the revival of Brahmanism, in which the "Laws of Manu" was mainly formed, was reflected in the content of this document. Manu not only notes the superiority of the Brahmins, but also emphasizes their power, their involvement in supernatural forces and, symbolically, constantly keeps in view the provision of their existence, privileges and material interests. The Laws of Manu expresses an extremely contemptuous attitude towards the Shudras and attempts to preserve the institution of slavery in classical purity. There is no right for a slave, except for the exceptional cruelty of punishments.
The Laws of Manu reiterates the traditional rules of kingship. At the same time, the idea of the divine nature of the functions of the king was developed with special care. The entire set of teachings is imbued with the idea of perfection of the order originally created by the self-existing Brahma. Threatening with earthly and heavenly punishments, Manu calls to keep him intact
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Ruler in a ceremonial chair. From an ancient relief.
resolutely suppresses any inclinations to change the eternal dharma.
The Laws of Manu is one of the six main and oldest ethical and philosophical collections that have come down to us, erected by tradition to the ancient sages (smriti).
In Buddhism and Hinduism, in parallel with the study of the "outer world", the external environment, the study of the "inner world", the internal environment - the human body, given to him in internal perception and traditionally called the "subtle body" (as opposed to the "gross", physical body) was initially carried out. available to the five "external" senses).
The results of the study of various worlds were reduced to the following: in the "body scheme", in a place corresponding to spinal cord, there are a number of "centers", or chakras (also called "lotuses") - the concentration of forces that rule both the body and the world. There are seven chakras in total: muladhara, svadhisthana, manipura, anahata, vishuddha, arjna, sahashhara. The Muladhara Chakra is located at the bottom of the body. Swadhisthana is located in the lower abdomen. Manipura corresponds to the solar plexus. Anahata - approximately in the center of the chest. Vishuddha - under the Adam's apple. Arjna - between the eyebrows. Sahashara corresponds to the parietal part of the head. In the lower of the centers, the Coiled-Ring-Force, Kundalini Shakti, who created the world, sleeps, which in the process of “manifestation of the Universe” consistently “separated from itself” these centers of forces. It is believed that Kundalini "creates and maintains both the world and the body" and that she "liberates the yogis and binds the ignorant." Awakened through special yoga techniques, Kundalini rises from center to center, "dissolving" them in itself. Thus, a person is “freed from the chains of the manifest world” and acquires his true nature.
Tantras- the general name of an extensive range of works of religious, philosophical, yogic and magical content. There are Hindu and Buddhist tantras. The term "tantra" is "secret text" (tan + tra). Tantric texts reflect only the specific result of centuries of analysis of such a phenomenon as the chakra system. Yoga is not a theoretical discipline, it consists of experienced practical knowledge. It is a system of models of certain practices. The techniques for raising the Kundalini are summarized in the tantric texts.
The theory of the chakras received its second birth within the framework of the theosophical tradition, which introduced into its sphere all the baggage of ideas about a person accumulated by the end of the 19th century. European science.
Currently, there are many varieties of yoga in India: hatha yoga, sahaja yoga, raja yoga, bhakti yoga, jani yoga, kundalini yoga and others. Their methods are aimed at making a person realize what power and strength are hidden in his spiritual essence. Awareness of oneself as a spiritual being leads to the understanding that the state of the lower forms of being, material and physical, depend on the human will, consciousness, soul. Yoga convinces that the highest form - spiritual - controls the lower - material and physical, guides them, if it is not in the power of illusion - Maya. Human consciousness must free itself from the opposite influence, from the materialistic attitude to the life of all beings and master the methods of awakening the strength of the spirit, self-consciousness, and power over oneself. The techniques of Indian yoga show how to detect the influence of not your own, but other people's ideas on yourself. They are what make you do unconscious things. Yoga teaches how to become the master of thoughts and actions, learn to control them and constantly be in the realm of spirituality.
It has been known in Indian philosophy since ancient times that the human consciousness needs to be freed from chaotic thinking as the "lower mind". Yoga, through meditation, brings the mind to complete silence, emptiness, peace. In the process of getting rid of chaotic thoughts, the mind learns to control them. The free place of the calm mind can be occupied by the higher mind, which is able to control its thinking and work only with the necessary thoughts, systematize and see the connection within the mental material. Such a mind is Manas (wisdom), which corresponds to our self-consciousness and forms abstract thinking.
Spiritual tradition convinces that it depends on the person himself whether he is happy or dissatisfied, joyful or pessimistic. If a person's consciousness belongs to himself, if he owns his own consciousness, and not something painful has taken possession of him, then nothing can prevent him from being spiritualized, bright and joyful. Awareness of one's spiritual essence determines the happiness of a person, since it is his inner state. External causes can only be a motivating motive, they have a secondary character. The root cause, according to Indian tradition, is within a person, therefore, true happiness can never be found if you look for it in external things and bodily pleasures. Satisfaction with them can only be temporary, since absolute outer limit they don't. Thus, happiness does not depend on an external choice: on the place of being, on society, on parents, on children, etc. Indian yogis are convinced that it depends only on our self-determination: whether to contribute to the education of good or evil in ourselves sanskar(habits, qualities of character), spiritual consciousness, dependent on the possession of external things.
Spirituality in the culture of India itself is highest value and the main tradition of the Indian people, which has never been interrupted, but has been developed and cultivated for almost four thousand years. This is the peculiarity of the country and its people. The self-consciousness of the Hindu is highly developed, he is always and everywhere aware that, first of all, a person is a spiritual being - a soul. Today, a Western European civilized person, lacking spirituality, oppressed by rationality and spiritual pessimism, travels to India in search of a high spiritual upsurge. Modern Indian Yogis Are Really Of Interest To The Dejected material problems western person. They know the "method" of achieving nirvana, clairvoyance, telepathy, resurrection; they are subject to the spiritual at the sensory-psychological level.
India's achievements in the development of arts and sciences are great. Here, for the first time, a brilliant conjecture was born about the rotation of the Earth around the Sun, here the decimal system was created. The mathematicians of ancient India knew the meaning of the number P and solve linear equations. "Root", "sine", "digit" - all these terms originated in India.
India is the birthplace of chess. Playing chess symbolizes military action,
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Indian carved chair depicting mythological characters. From an ancient relief.
in which troops are involved. The ancient Indian army presented a picture in the center of which is the king - the main commander, foot soldiers (pawns) stand in front, elephants are next to the king, cavalry is behind them, along the edges are palms (rooks).
During the development of Brahminism in ancient India flourished wooden architecture, but his works, for natural reasons, have not been preserved. Therefore, the achievements of Indian architects can only be judged by literary works. The Mahabharata describes the palaces of the rulers - with pearl nets on the windows, graceful staircases, floors lined with precious stones, hundreds of rooms. *
* The history of art from antiquity to the Middle Ages / Ch. ed. and compiled by S. Ismailova. M., 1996. S. 109.
Due to the fact that the worldview of the ancient Indians was permeated with high spirituality, the main element of which was the connection of man with the cosmos, the architecture reflected this feature in itself. At the heart of the plan of the village and the city, the dwelling house and the temple was a magic diagram representing a model of the cosmos. Any settlement had two streets intersecting at right angles, which ended with gates, symbolizing the exit to the Universe on the four cardinal points.
Since ancient times, the temple was designed by architects-priests, based on sacred knowledge about the laws of the harmony of the world. Its geometry includes ratios in the "golden section" mode. “The image of the completion of the world is symbolized by the rectangular shape of the temple, as opposed to the round shape of the world, controlled by cosmic movements. While the sphericity of the sky is indeterminate and beyond any measurement, the rectangular or cubic shape of the sacred building expresses a definite and immutable law. That is why all sacred architecture, whatever tradition it may belong to, can be seen as a development of the basic theme of turning the circle into a square. In the emergence of the Hindu temple, the development of this theme with all the richness of its metaphysical and spiritual content can be traced especially clearly. *
* Burkhardt T Sacred art of East and West. M., 1999. S. 19-20 .
From the descriptions of the Greek Megasthenes, the wooden multi-storey palace of King Ashoka is known for its magnificence. The interior of the palace was decorated with granite columns, sculptures and carvings. Under Ashoka, Buddhism became the state religion, but the king continued to forbid the construction of buildings made of stone. Civil buildings, like temples, were built of wood, and they have not been preserved. Their main types were mortar(memorial building containing the remains of the Buddha), stambha(a column placed in the place of the virtuous deeds of the Buddha) and chaitya(rock temple - a symbol of the hermit life of the Buddha).
The stupa reflected the model of the universe, it is characterized by majestic simplicity and perfection of forms. The most famous and beautiful is the stupa in Sanchi. folded
Stupa in Sanchi. 3rd century BC e.
Indian temple gate.
On the top crossbar of the gate, the worship of elephants to the sacred fig tree, under which the Buddha delivered his first sermon, is shown, the second crossbar represents the worship of Buddhist
Buddha from Sarnath.
symbols. The third is Gautama's meeting with the hermit, who opened his eyes to human sorrows and suffering.
Fertility spirits are also depicted on the gates - yakshini girls, in the image of which
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Minaret near Delhi. 13th century
ideal of female beauty: a young woman with a thin waist, high lush breasts, arms adorned with bracelets, strong legs, massive hips.
The construction of stone buildings resumed in the 4th century. BC e. during the formation of a unified Indian kingdom. In the III century. BC e. a huge temple was built, emphasizing the power of the king of the Indian state. This temple had columns on both sides, carved from huge blocks of stone. On one of them stood four stone lions, looking at the four cardinal points and, as it were, guarding the borders of the state (the lion is a symbol of Buddha). Some temples of ancient India were carved into the rocks. Stone columns polished to a mirror effect were also installed in them along the walls. Windows were cut down only in the front wall of the temple. The side walls were decorated with sculptures of people and animals.
During the Mauryan period they built viharas- monasteries in which sciences and arts developed. Many images of bodhisattvas were created in the monasteries - eternally young beings who had reached the highest level of holiness, who devoted their lives to people trying to find the path to salvation.
The sculptures in the temples depicted the Buddha in the guise of an ideally beautiful person. The pinnacle of skill was the reflection of a state of deep peace. It was achieved with the help of complex strictly established visual techniques. The main features of Buddhist art developed in Gandhara.
The Gandhara images of the Buddha are filled with deep spiritual content; they draw a person's attention to their own inner world. Originating in the Kushan period, this skill was perfected during the reign of the Guptas. At this time, Buddhist temples turn into museums, in which monumental painting reaches its true flowering.
The art of the Gupta era created the classical ideals of beauty, which were adhered to by the masters of subsequent generations.
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