Directions,+Diversities,+and+Declines+of+Classical+Civilization

(Notes on the Decline of Rome, India, and China will be scanned)

The New Religious Map (when a culture adopts a religion to fit with its first beliefs)
 * The end of the classical period (200-600 AD) saw the rise of many major religions.
 * Political instability causes people to turn to spiritual relief from these religions.
 * Christianity becomes widespread throughout Mediterranean while **Buddhism** surges through Asia as classical china faces problems.
 * **Islam** is introduced later and civilization during this period is gradually altered through religious beliefs.
 * Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism
 * Hinduism mostly remained as is with reincarnation as a major principle, and Buddhism was considerably altered as it traveled away from India into China.
 * Buddhist doctrine of **bodhisattvas** was developed to allow for the acquisition of nirvana through one’s own meditations and actions.
 * Buddhism evolved further as it spread to the Eastern Pacific through Mahayana, its East Asian form. Basic Buddhist beliefs were retained, but some values such as emphasis on Buddha being a divine savior were added.
 * Buddhism was changed to reinforce patriarchal China as elements of Hindu culture combined with Chinese Buddhist beliefs in what is called **syncretism**
 * Buddhism is seen as a rival of Confucianism; though of as a way to distract people from politics and to disrupt loyalty to emperor, Buddhism was revived and put out for a while; Buddhism never dominated a whole civilization.
 * Christianity and Islam
 * **Christianity** moved westward as **Buddhism** move eastward; church organization, religious intolerance, and heavy missionary activity resulted in much success.
 * **Jesus of Nazareth** is born near 6 A.D. to redeem human sin and preach of one, loving God. His disciples carried out his message following his crucifixion and spread it throughout the Roman empire. Christianity’s spirituality was what Greece and Roman peasantry needed in times of hardship with a sterile Grecco-Roman religion.
 * Under guidance of **Paul**, a devout convert, Christians see themselves as part of new religion. As Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire, the church adopted the basic organizational structure of the providential governments throughout the empire.
 * In East (**Constantinople**), state control of the church was the way of life. In the more chaotic West, a centralized organized under the leadership of the bishop of Rome, the **Pope**.