The achievements of the Gupta Empire

UNIVERSITIES AND LITERATURE

•Time of great learning

•Built many colleges and universities (Some Hindu, some Buddhist)

•Primarily for males however teachers’ daughters allowed to attend

•Hindu universities provided upper classes with religious training

•Subjects: religion, mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, Sanskrit, sculpture, painting, music, and dancing

•Students of medicine learned the practices of the day.  Trained how to question patients about their physical problems.  Learned how to make cures from bark, roots, leaves, and minerals.  

•Gupta writers wrote poetry, fables, folktales, and plays.  Plays were comedies, dramas, historical, and political.  

•Scholars and lawyers wrote about Hindu law and religion

•Gupta literature spread beyond India and influenced cultures as far away as Greece and Persia.  Aladdin and his magic lamp was inspired by a Gupta folktale

PAINTING

•Famous for paintings-an important part of life

 •Painted deities and other religious topics

•Paintings done on long scrolls (a roll of material like paper or papyrus)

 •Greatest Indian paintings: Ajanta cave murals-covered the walls of 30 caves-some show scenes from Buddha’s life and values such as love and understanding 

SCULPTURE

 •Sculptors created statues-many portrayed Buddha or Hindu deities

•Some sculptures showed scenes from important peoples lives

•Portrayed the human form simply and gracefully 

MATHEMATICS

 •Used a decimal system to write numbers

•Decimal system uses 10 basic numerals that have different values depending on their place

•Example: 105..1 Is in the hundreds place

•The first to treat zero as a number (Many calculations are impossible without the zero)

•The first to figure out that a year was 365 days long

•The first to calculate that the planets are spheres

•This system spread to Europe and is the system we still use today

ROADS

•Gupta rulers encouraged trade by creating a huge system of well-built roads

•Built a few feet off of the ground

•Ditches and canals ran along the side to prevent flooding

•Signs along the way told travelers where they were

•Roads allowed traders to move easily from city to city