India and Greece by William McNeil

1. McNeill’s establishes the point, about how India and Greece were taken over by foreign Eurasian population and given structure and order at the same time, but developed, over time, in a completely different way. His argument is that the Indian caste and the Greek territorial sovereignty had enormous effects on the Indian and European society.  

2. McNeil defines the cast system as a system of division amongst a group of people that separates them by some feature or mark. He states that the system establishes difference in power amongst a population. The book defines the cast system to have emerged as the Aryans established settlement though India where the Aryans established a difference in color between the Dravidians and themselves; over time the different populations mixed until they were all the same. Both, the book and McNeil’s definitions for a cast system are different.

3. Three feelings and thoughts that helped maintain the idea of caste.

1. Ceremonial purity, a fear of contaminating oneself by establishing contact with a member of a lower caste
2. All castes of people, except the lowest of the lowest, had a caste to look down upon.
3. The doctrine of reincarnation and of “varna” gave the idea that all men were divided into different castes, naturally.The Brahmins at the top, then the Kshatriyas, followed by the Vaisyas, and at the bottom is the Sudras.

4. Yes, the cast system was indeed convincing due to the fact that reincarnation made logical sense when it came to explaining the natural separation in castes. The logical basically surrounded the principle of how castes were based off punishment for whatever sin a person may have done in a past life. So, basically a person was led to believe he/she exist in the cast they do, based on weather they have lead a good or bad life in a previous existence.

5. Caste itself did not allow for strong political organizations to form because people were so divided, into their separate caste, that they refused to follow any ruler or king from a different caste. The caste became a primary government for each separate population. Taxes and legislation were only followed when they are applied within the same caste; anything else was seen as foreign and unnecessary to follow.

6. The idea that, by performing a ritual perfectly, brahmans could compel the gods to grant their demands was the cause for Indian religion to shift from diety pleasing to the act of worshiping, itself.

7. The Upanishads changed the nature of Indian religion by stating that a persons only goal is to break free of the cycle of reincarnation. This changed the goals of Indian society by making it a necessity that people live conservative lives in order to break free of the cycle of life and be spiritually enlightened.

8. McNeil defines “Territorial Sovereignty”  as self governing city states that the Greeks used as method of government, and division.

9. The Greeks turned away from religion as an explanatory factor in organizing society, because philosophers who pondered about the creation of the world did not like mythical ideas but rather wanted a theory derived from the laws of nature.

10. The consequence of the Greeks’ adherence to the polis was the limitation of ideas being approved by society due to the lack of seekers of knowledge being able to be accepted in the polis system.

11. I do agree with McNeil’s argument because I feel he has made a good case on how indian and Greek societies have developed so differently, in areas of religious and scientific understanding of the world, political system, and social structures.