| * Boldface
titles indicate works in the anthology. |
TEXTS
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CONTEXTS
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ca. 3000–1500 B.C. Indus Valley civilization flourishes in urban
centers • Writing in use
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| ca. 1500–1200
B.C. Composition of the Rig Veda, oldest
of the four Vedas, texts of hymns and chants in
an archaic form of the Sanskrit language, for the fire
sacrifice of the Aryan Vedic religion |
ca. 1500 Aryan tribes speaking Sanskrit, an Indo-European
language, enter India via the northwest and settle in the Indus Valley
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ca. 900 The Sanskrit Upanisads, dialogues and meditations
of philosophers on the nature of existence, the soul, and the universe
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ca. 700 Homer's Iliad and Odyssey
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ca. 700 Emergence of kingdoms and republics in northern India
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ca. 550 Valmiki's Sanskrit poem The
Ramayana, a
heroic epic recounting the deeds of the north Indian prince Rama
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563–483
Gautama Buddha, founder of Buddhism, preaches in Pali,
a dialect related to Sanskrit. He establishes an order
of monks and nuns and spreads his new religion in the
Ganges River Valley in north India • Mahavira, Buddha's
contemporary, founds Jainism, a religion emphasizing nonviolence
and asceticism |
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480–400 Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
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| ca. 400 B.C.–400
A.D. The Sanskrit epic the Mahabharata,
the narrative of a great war among north Indian clansmen,
takes shape |
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| ca. 400 B.C.
Panini writes the Astadhyayi (eight chapters),
the authoritative grammar of the Sanskrit language and
a model for modern linguistic science |
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| 4th century
B.C. Early version of the Jataka,
a collection of stories about the Buddha in the spoken
dialect known as Pali |
ca. 326 Alexander of Macedon invades India
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269–232
Asoka Maurya, emperor of India, spreads Buddhism in Sri
Lanka, patronizes Buddhist art, and issues royal edicts
in praise of Buddhist ethics in Prakrit, spoken dialects
related to Sanskrit |
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200–100 The Sanskrit text Saddharmapundarika (The lotus
of the good law), expounding the doctrines of Mahayana (later)
Buddhism, is written
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ca. 200 Beginning of Buddhist cave sanctuaries and art at Ajanta
in western India, and of the Hindu Bhagavata cult of devotion to a
personal God
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100 B.C.–A.D. 250 Under the patronage of south Indian kings,
anthologies of lyric poems of love and war are produced in Tamil, a
language unrelated to Sanskrit and the north Indian languages
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| 1st century
B.C. The Bhagavad-Gita,
the mystical teaching of the god Krishna to the hero Arjuna,
is added to the Mahabharata
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ca. 90 The Sakas, a Scythian tribe from Bactria (to the
northwest of modern Afghanistan), invade India
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50 B.C.–A.D. 250 The Satavahana kings of central India patronize
lyric poetry and narrative literature in Prakrit dialects
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| ca. A.D. 100
Asvaghosa writes Buddhacarita (Acts of the Buddha),
a Sanskrit epic poem in the courtly style, on the life
of the Buddha • The early Buddhist canonical texts
in the Pali language, including the Jataka
stories, are written down in Sri Lanka |
1st–2nd centuries Buddhism spreads to China
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100–200 The Dharma Sastra of Manu (The laws of Manu), the
authoritative treatise on laws and codes of conduct according to the
Hindu religion, is completed
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