65 pages • 2 hours read
A Little History of the World
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Chapters 10-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary: “The Enlightened One and His Land”
This chapter shifts focus entirely, leaving behind the Western societies detailed in past chapters and moving to “the opposite end of the world” during the same time period (51). First, Gombrich describes a powerful and wealthy city in the Indus River valley of India called Mohenjo Daro. At the same time that Sumerians ruled the city of Ur, around 2500 B.C, this city had workshops, granaries, canals, and drains. We did not even know of its existence until the 1920s. Though we still know very little about the people who built Mohenjo Daro, we know that the later inhabitants, invaders, are the ancestors of the people who live in that region today. When most of the region came under the power of these invaders, they kept a distance from those they had conquered by developing a system of class division, called the caste system, that persists in India today.
Turning to Indian religion, Gombrich describes it as a oneness with life and all divinity. Indian priests frequently meditated, sitting silently and reflecting on their deities and the essence of the world. One of these holy men, Gautama, lived around 500 B.C. A hermit from society, he meditated until he reached understanding and managed to free himself from suffering. From then on, he was Buddha, or “the Enlightened One” (55). He gained many followers who wanted to learn how to free themselves from suffering as he had. He taught that the root of suffering is our own desire, and if we eliminate our desire, we can eliminate suffering. If a person no longer has any wishes and longs for nothing, they can achieve “Nirvana” and be freed from the cycle of reincarnation and never-ending birth and death (55). The Buddha was worshiped as a god for his wisdom, and today there are almost as many Buddhists as there are Christians.
Chapter 11 Summary: “The Great Teacher of a Great People”
Gombrich introduces his chapter on China by recalling how it was depicted to him as a child: an alien land, almost like a fairytale in its strangeness. Turning to the real history of the region, Gombrich begins over 2,500 years ago, when China was already a vast and wealthy kingdom. One king ruled the country, while princes governed the numerous provinces. Because the princes were delegated this power, they became too powerful for the king to control. Thus, they were constantly at war with each other, with provinces invading and taking over each other. Though the country was massive, with different leaders and languages, all of China used one common script because their form of writing used images to depict objects and ideas. This writing system is still in use after thousands of years. Gombrich then describes two important thinkers in ancient China.
Around 500 B.C., there was a man named Confucius who wished to share his teachings on how one should live. He believed that what was most important was our harmonious and moral relationships with one another; between parent and child, husband and wife, rulers and subjects. He called the family the “root of humanity” (60). Not only must children respect their parents, but in turn, parents must respect their children. Confucius taught that this mutual respect was necessary in all relationships. His teachings spread, and they succeeded in allowing the Chinese to live together more peacefully than the West for thousands of years. At the same time as Confucius, there was a Chinese official named Lao-tzu who believed that all things in this world obey the one true law: the “Tao,” or the path (61). Men, in their desire and ambition, are the only force in nature that obstructs this law. Lao-tzu believed that we must do nothing—try to think nothing, and feel nothing, to have no desires and no opinions. The teachings of Confucius, not Lao-tzu, guided China, but Gombrich concludes the chapter by asking the reader which philosophy they believe is best.
Chapters 10-11 Analysis
Gombrich uses comparison as a tool to encourage building connections between cultures and time periods. He compares the teachings of Lao-tzu, Confucius, and the Buddha, three important Eastern thinkers who influenced philosophy. In making the comparison between Lao-tzu and Confucius, he asks the reader which thinker would have made a better social influence on China, encouraging consideration of how the tenets of a philosophy may be executed and its influence on a culture.
Gombrich also dedicates a portion of his chapter on ancient China to the structure of Chinese script. Offering far more than a brief, utilitarian description of how this form of writing allowed speakers of different languages or dialects to understand the same text, Gombrich provides detailed examples of this script. He invites the reader to try to understand the patterns and logic of this complex form of writing (58). As with many other aspects of civilization, Gombrich attempts to immerse the reader by prompting them to imagine using this script and encourages them to consider its benefits and drawbacks from that perspective.
In his only chapter that focuses entirely on Indian civilization, Gombrich summarizes the early society of Mohenjo Daro, Buddhism, and Hinduism. The history of Buddhism is the most substantive part of this chapter, as Hinduism is described mainly as a precursor to Buddhism. While Gombrich writes thoughtfully about the tenets of Buddhism, the existence of only one chapter on Indian civilization may be a blind spot in his survey of history.
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