Societies and Economies

In Song China,South Asia,and Southeast

AsiaOctober 30, 2012

Review• Who ruled northern China during the

Southern Song?

• When did women start crippling themselves by binding their feet?

•Why does a priest (brahmin) rank higher than a merchant in South Asian Society?

•Did merchants rank above or below peasants in traditional South Asian society?

Shrinking China: The Song dynasty

• Northern Song 960--1127 The Liao (Khitan) empire occupied what is now northern China, and the Xixia controlled what is now northwestern China. Song paid tribute to both the Liao and the Xixia

• Southern Song 1127-1279 Jurchen (from Manchuria) forced the Song south of the Huai River.

• Yet military weakness was accompanied by cultural brialliance and economic strength, and this was the time when gentry (literati) began to dominate Chinese life

• Here we see the classic prescriptive social hierarchy:

• scholar, peasant, artisan, and merchant.

Song, the Khitan, and the Xixia

•The Khitan (Qidan) win 16 prefectures south of the Great Wall, create the Liao dynasty.

• Song has to pay them tribute: silk and silver

•The Liao had a dual administration: one for Chinese and one for non-Chinese

•The Xixia, out west, also were able to force Song to pay them tribute. Song had to give them silk, cloth, silver, and tea

•Korea is forced to shift its allegiance from Song to the Liao. Vietnam continued to be a tributary state of Song.

The rise of the Gentry•Who are the gentry? the land-owning, degree-

holding Confucian scholar elite

•By Song times, they have largely replaced the aristocracy of earlier dynasties (although imperial relatives remain aristocrats.)

•Printing technology erodes the advantage the aristocracy had in obtaining the books needed to study for the civil service examinations.

•Finally, we see substantial social mobility in China, but, at the same time, the power of the emperor is enhanced.

Women in Song China

• Unlike the Tang, Song had no female emperor, nor did it have a femme fatale like Yang Guifei

• It is under the Song that the patriarchal, patrilocal, and patrilineal ideal was firmly established. Also the dowry become more important.

• Foot-binding appears– “the conspicuous consumption of women” by the upper-class

• Some argue that there are changes in concepts of both masculinity and femininity during the Song, and that foot-binding was introduced, not to subordinate women, but to make them look more“dainty.” Nevertheless, it crippled women.

Southern Song• Pushed south of the Huai river by the Jurchen from

Manchuria, who established a Jin dynasty in the north. The Jurchen at one point captured the Song emperor. Song had to pay the Jin tribute of silk and silver.

• Despite its military weakness, the Song prospered. In the Song, we see a commercial revolution in China.

• Increased agricultural productivity, combined with cheaper transportation in the south, fuelled an expansion of traffic in commercial goods.

• Song China led the world in iron and steel production.

• But China did not have an industrial revolution. Instead, it moved toward a more labor-intensive economy.

The commercial revolution• Agricultural revolution: better manure, better

seeds, better irrigation, more specialization

• cheap water transportation made commerce more convenient, and dense population made it imperative.

• the use of paper currency also made commerce more convenient, though it created inflation (China had the world’s first paper currency).

• no push for labor-saving machinery. Instead, China underwent an “industrious revolution,” in which, in agriculture, small plots of land were farmed more intensively.

• Song gave birth to Chinese cuisine because increased commerce made a greater variety of ingredients available.

New-Confucianism• Confucianism acquires metaphysics: the Confucian

response to the Buddhist denial of the ultimate value of life in this world.

• li and Qi form a moral metaphysics. (The world is created by patterns of appropriate interaction directing matter-energy)

• The Four Books became the fundamental texts for Confucians (the Analects, the Mencius, The Doctrine of the Mean, and the Great Learning).

• Sincerity was a key value. Selfishness was the source of evil.

• Neo-Confucianism is a manifestation of the pattern perspective, also seen in painting, pottery, poetry, and medicine.

• Buddhism and Daoism remained important as well

Social Structure: South Asia• A segmented society: caste (varna and

jati)

• A caste society is one that is segmented, with the segments hierarchically arranged and endogamous. Caste status is inherited

• Varna: 1) priest, 2) ruler/warrior, 3) merchant/landowner/merchant/farmer, 4) servant/tenant + untouchables (Dalit)

• Jati: occupationally-defined and regionally-based (sub) castes. Endogamous. Rejects food prepared by a lower caste.

Criteria for caste ranking•Ritual pollution: dealing with

bodily products makes you unclean and unable to take part in higher status rituals

•Food pollution: What you eat, and whom you receive cooked food from, also determines how “clean” you are. Beef is the most polluting food.

•Castes sometimes try to change their ranking through Sanskritization.

•Hinduism supports caste hierarchy.

Religion and and South Asian

Society•Doctrine of Karma legitimized the existing social hierarchy (you deserved your current status because of what you did in your previous life).

•Social status was defined partially by relative ritual purity and impurity, which was partially determined by one’s occupation.

•Women’s status was devalued, especially in the north. That’s why a dowry was required of brides.

Mainland Southeast Asian States

• Except for Champa, the first states appeared along major rivers.

• In many cases, the peoples who created the first states were replaced by new peoples from the north who had more advanced agricultural methods (using irrigation systems).

• Governments were like a solar-system, with power weakening away from the centre.

• Except for Vietnam, religion in the first millennium was a mixture of Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism, just like in the islands.

The Khmer

• Related to the Mon. Together, they used to be the dominant ethnic group across mainland Southeast Asia.

• Angkor represents the height of their power.

• Rich from agriculture supported by the flooding of the Great Lake when the Mekong River backed up into it.

• Was more Hindu than Buddhist. Built Angkor Wat, a mostly Hindu temple complex.

• Fought with the Cham

The Vietnamese•Gained their independence from the Chinese in the 10th century.

•are more influenced by Chinese culture than any other people in pre-modern Southeast Asia.

•Slowly began moving against the Hindu Champa kingdom.Took several centuries to eliminate it.

•Successfully resisted Mongol attacks in the 13th century.

•Did not cover the same amount of territory Vietnam covers today until the 19th century.

New peoples: Burmese

•Who controlled Burma (Myanmar) first? The Mon

•Where did the Burmese come from? the North

•What was the name of the first kingdom they established? Pagan (Bagan) (9th to 13th century)

•Adopted Theravada Buddhism (relations with Sri Lanka)

The Tais and the Thais•Pushed out of Yunnan by the

Mongols in the 13th century.

•Toppled a weakened Khmer kingdom

•Call their new kingdom Ayudhya (taken from the name of Ram’s capital in the Ramayana)

•Pushed down into the Malay peninsula to benefit from trade between India and Southeast Asia.

Majapahit (1293-1528)

•Largest Malay kingdom, and the last that had a Hindu-Buddhist orientation.

•Used a Mongol attack to get rid of a previous royal family.

•Like previous Malay kingdoms, it was primarily a trading kingdom, though it could also rely on the rich agricultural economy of Java.

•Trade with India led to inroads by Islam.

Southeast Asian society

• Despite South Asian influence, no strong caste system.

• And there was never any foot-binding, even in Vietnam.

• In Islamic Southeast Asia, there was no purdah (confinement of women) or even veiling of woman.

• Women had more economic and social status among Malays than they did in the rest of Southeast Asia, but even mainland Southeast Asian women enjoyed greater autonomy and status than did women in China. This is true even of Vietnam.