Ancient India/China Writing

AgnesYu  

World History 1 Period 7

12/1/14

Dear citizens：

  I'm your king Ashoka. Today I want to tell you about my early years when I fought the 

Kalinga War. it relates to why I oppose wars today and begin to spread out Buddhism.

  It's all started with my grandfather. When I was in the 8th year of my reign, my grandfather 

Chandragupta wanted to annex Kalinga, which I knew that he wants to do that for a long time. But 

he failed to do so

  Later there was a cruel battle for the throne of the Mauryan Empire, it happened after the death of 

my father Bindusara. I won the battle and inherit the idea from my grandfather: I wanted to annex 

Kalinga. And I killed 100,000 people for success! But after seeing how many people I've killed, I was

filled with sorrow and remorse: this battle changed my view on wars. I remember one time there's a

woman told me that "Your actions have taken from me my father, husband, and son. Now what will I

have left to live for?" I was moved by these words, and vowed to never take life again and I found my 

relief in Buddhism and became an emperor with values. I adopted Buddhism. My wish for peace was

undisturbed by famines or natural disasters. And under my rule, my people did not suffer from 

onslaught by any migration, in addition, the peaceful country helped extend economic prosperity. 

  All life knows suffering. Nobody gets what they want out of life.

The cause of suffering is ignorance and clinging. Wanting it is the problem.

There is a way to end suffering. By learning not to want it.

This is the way to end suffering: The Eightfold Path.

Right Understanding Learning the nature of reality and the truth about life.

Right Aspiration Making the commitment to living in such a way that our suffering can end.

Right Effort Just Do It. No Excuses.

Right Speech Speaking the truth in a helpful and compassionate way.

Right Conduct Living a life consistent with our values.'

Right Livelihood Earning a living in a way that doesn’t hurt others.

Right Mindfulness Recognizing the value of the moment; living where we are.

Right Concentration Expanding our consciousness through meditation.

[They are essentially the same through every sect and tradition of Buddhism]

[The Four Noble Truths are a very important aspect of the teachings of the Buddha]

Non-violence is at the heart of Buddhist thinking and behavior.

  Thank you for being here today.

  

Digital Scrapbook Entry #4 －Egypt

Agnes Yu

World History 1 Period 7

11/21/14

                     The writing systems in ancient Egypt compared to Chinese characters.

Link 1: Ancient Egypt Writing systems

http://www.ancientscripts.com/egyptian.html

Link 2: Chinese characters development

http://www.interestingchinese.com/chinese-written-language/characters-history-development.html

  As we all known, ancient Egypt's writing systems are one of the greatest writing systems in the 

world. They called this system as Hieroglyphs. It combined logographic and alphabetic elements 

together. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood. It was a 

really categories which are: logograms, phonograms and determinatives.

 

(These are the two pictures of the Hieroglyphs, they are not like "words" but more like symbols that 

have their own meaning.)

The systems of Hieroglyphs affected the literature, ancient Egyptians use it to write. And it has been 

inspired the philosophers from the Renaissance period. For example, the philosopher Aristotle, his 

philosophy was inspired by Egyptians and their great Hieroglyphs. Ficino said that "Hieroglyphs are 

symbols by means of which it was possible to express the real significance of things." Thus you can 

see how Hieroglyphs could actually develop in a way that shows people the truths. It's complex and 

hard to understand but what it really means affected people.

Now we are going to talk about Chinese characters, they are logograms. People reminded of Egyptian 

hieroglyphs when they see those Chinese characters. But hieroglyphics are not all logographs that 

represent spoken words. In ancient China, the words were like symbols, but they developed a lot of 

generations and now we have our Chinese. Today, Chinese words are not like symbols or images, 

they are the words to represent knowledge and information. To know Chinese words you have to 

learn at least 4000 words and they are just the basic that help you to learn the rest, it's more complex 

than the hieroglyphs.  And as the develop of Chinese characters, many countries in Asia take some of 

those characters and change them into their own languages.

Chinese Philosophy Activity

Confucius

Because of Confucius, ancient China started to have Confucianism, and it's the most profound impact 

in China.He failed at philosophy so he became and teacher and had a lot of followers. He didn't care 

about the creations and what happened before human species appeared. He cares about Family, 

Friends, government and society.

 Lao Tzu, he's the symbol of Taoism. He's a religion instead of a social practice. The Taoism includes

the worship of nature and be in  one of the nature, they believe people after death will become one of

nature. It's the natural order. The Yin and Yang are the symbols of Taoism,  and the 5 agents are:

Wood, Earth, Metal, Water and Fire.

 Han-Fei is the leader of Legalism, Legalism believes in laws and it's the collective name given to

number of schools of practical political theory. The laws should be written and publish thus people

should follow the laws. Shu is Method, it makes the rulers to make sure that no one takes over the

control of the state. Shi is the Power, it means the control of the power.

The buddha , is the symbol of Buddhism. , Buddhism is a nontheistic religion that encompasses a

variety of traditions, beliefs.


BIG QUESTIONS:
1): Confucianism: Friends, Family, government and society. It's a social practice.

2): Buddhism: People are reborn after death. Also, it teaches the way to make people calm when they    

                         become full of anger.
3): Legalism: Everything should follow the Laws and has its orders.

4): Taoism: Yin and Yang, everything has two sides, Taoism believes in natural order and nature, they

                     believe people after death will be in one of nature.

1): What is the difference between a religion and a philosophy?
   
     Religion is something that you have to believe in, but philosophy is more like a knowledge thing,

and you can have your own opinions about it and argue it, you don't have to 100% believe it.

2): Confucianism and Legalism are philosophies, they're the thoughts and ideas that came from a

person and the person spread out their's opinions and later they started to have followers, they are the

ideas about society. Buddhism and Taoism are religions, they appeared with no reasons and have a lot

of followers that those who are the followers must believe in their religions.

Thoughts and Reflections on The Indifference of Confucius

Agnes Yu
World History Period 7
11/16/14
Thoughts and Reflections on: The Indifference of Confucius
Source of the article: Unknown

Big questions:
What was Confucius indifferent about?
What did Confucius think was important?
Is Confucianism a religion or social practice?

    Confucius was one of the greatest people which affected and change China in some way.

Confucius was not indifferent about the fame and the interest in the mysteries of origins and

creations.

   Confucius thought that everyone in this world has their own positions when they were born, and

they meant to do the things for this position and only do their own things , also, low level people

should always follow the rules from the "High Level's", in addition, don't pretend that you know

everything, people should study what they are good at, different people study different things because

they don't have the same knowledge level.

    I think Confucianism is not really a religion but more like  a social practice, religion is something

that you have to believe in, but Confucianism is like a philosophy, people can have their own

opinions about and you don't have to 100% believe it. Confucianism is a thought that came from one

person and spread out into other people's mind when they have the same connections. And there's a

lot of ideas like Confucianism out there such as Taoist. They all are people's opinions about the world

and they all have their own followers. So I think Confucianism is a social practice.

China Map Activity (Includes the question)

     What effect did the physical features of China have on its early      development?
     The earliest civilization appear in the Yellow River Valley, it has good water supplies, so people could raise cabbages and millet. And early dynasties started near the Yellow River, so it has an early culture record there.
  

Thoughts and Reflections on Mother Cow.

Agnes Yu
World History1 Period 7
11/5/14
Thoughts and Reflections on: Mother Cow
Source of the article: Cows, Pigs, Wars and witches.

Big questions:What are all of the functions served by cows in India? What does the author of the

piece feel is the real reason cows are said to be sacred in India? How do we in America procure the

same services that cows provide to people in India? Whose way is more environmentally friendly?

Who uses their cows more efficiently, Americans or Indians?


  Cows are really important in India, it provides so many essential functions and Indians people live

base on them. Cows are the symbol of everything that is alive. Farmers treat the cows are their family

members and they even pray for the sick cows.  Oxen is made by cows, even though its rare and less

than cows, oxen is still a  really important animal in agriculture, it helps the peasants to plow India's

fields. And cows provide milk for people although they are not provide lots of them. Cow dung has

different types of function. Indians people have less kerosene and fuel, so they use the dung from the

cows for making heat and fire and cook meals. And it takes a long time so it doesn't scorch the food.

In addition, people in India often mix water and cow dung together into paste and use them for

household flooring material.

  In the USA, people use tractors instead of animals when they are doing farming things and plow.

The author thinks that why cows are important and sacred is not because they worship cows but

because they can't afford to but tractors. In India, people can't build factories that are competitive and

they are unable to pay for those farming products. So Indians want to raise cheap animals and benefit

themselves.

  There're loads of American families live in farm and they keep cows for getting milk and do other

things, but when plowing, they can use tractors instead of cows, but cows are still a part of their

farming, Americans can actually gain the same functions that cows bring to India. They can have

milk, they can use cows for farming or sell them for money.

  The way that Indians people use cows for plowing is more environmentally friendly, it's natural and

it doesn't have any pollution affects to environment. But if people use tractors, it actually brings

poisonous pollution and in my opinion, chemical fertilizers are not alway good.

  From my personal perspective and my conclusion from the article, I think Indians use cows more

efficiently, they use cows in so many ways because cows are so important to them thus they must

keep them as holy animals and can't kill or eat them. They know what way is more convenient to use

cows for plowing, and when they cows would't provide milk anymore they know how to sell them.

And the untouchables have their own way to get food, they eat the cows which dead and send to

slaughterhouse to be sold to Muslims or Christians. Indians people manage the cows in so many ways

that other countries are not actually do it. So you can see how important are cows are.