How Religions Shaped the Ancient World

Primitive cultures all started with similar concepts throughout all different parts of the world. But what allowed them to be able to sprout up and have a hierarchy? How were civilizations in the old world able to develop and regulate themselves? The answer is quite simple: faith. A great example of this is in India. Aryans in India used it to warrant their reign of the domestic Indians. Religion was able to give ancient major civilizations structure through organizing a social system and providing legitimacy to their power. Two literary sources that provide sound information for this concept are The Upanishads: Karma and Reincarnation and The Rig Veda: Sacrifice as Creation.

My first document is a selection from the Rig Veda. It is a sacred Vedic collection that was held in high regards. In the excerpt, it describes how the mighty god Purusha had his body sacrificed by other gods to create different objects in the world. “With him as oblation, the gods preformed the sacrifice…” Most importantly, he had some parts of his body sacrificed to form the caste system. “His mouth became the brahman; his two arms into the rajanya; his two thighs the vaishyas; from his two feet the shudra.” It gives reasoning to how the Brahmin priest were important people in the Indian society. They had the duty of preforming sacrifice, which was a key aspect to their faith.

The second document is information from the Upanishads. Like the Rig Veda, it is an important Vedic religious collection but with a philosophical focal point. This snippet of it focused on how karma and dharma dictated how you would be reincarnated. In the ancient Indian society, the priests were at the top of the social class system. They were seen as the holiest and most pure of the people. They became brahman because of their actions in the previous life. “Those who are of pleasant conduct here… they will enter a pleasant womb, either the womb of a brahman, or the womb of a Kshatriya, or the womb of a Vaishya....