SOUTH ASIAN HISTORY & CULTURE

Why to study history?

Studying history means expanding our understanding on the human identity and the transformation of societies and cultures over time. We study the past and reconstruct the diversity of human experience, combining individual lives and collective actions into narratives that bring critical perspectives to both our past and our present. Studying the diversity of human experience helps us appreciate cultures, ideas, and traditions that have dominated particular times and places and continue to shape global, national, and local relationships between societies and people. By learning about the past, we discover the eternal archetypes of human experience that remain unchanged in an ever-changing world. The past teaches us about the present and shapes the future.

History of South Asia

The history of South Asia covers a period of more than four thousand years during which it saw the rise and fall of many dynasties and empires. The South Asian History and Culture course begins with the Indus Valley Civilization and the early Vedic Age (ca. 1500 BCE) and ends with the division of the Indian Peninsula after liberation from the British yoke and the subsequent developments in the newly created states. Particular emphasis is also placed on Greek influence and Greek-Indian relations from the pre-Alexandrian era to the present day.

The Indian Peninsula, despite its great differentiation in geographical and ethnocultural terms, was known both in the Greek and the Western worlds under the name “India”. Today the region is divided politically into the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

With a population close to 2 billion, South Asia is of the utmost economic and geostrategic importance. The region has offered a multitude of cultural elements that cover all areas of human thought, while it is characterized by a strong dominance of the spiritual and religious elements. South Asia is home to 98.47% of the world’s Hindus, 90.5% of Sikhs, and 31% of Muslims, as well as 35 million Christians, 25 million Buddhists, and 5 million Jains. The free coexistence of religions is not everywhere and always acceptable and it determines, to a significant extent, the political and cultural development of each region.

The courses are addressed to scholars of history and ideas, students, diplomats, businessmen, and in general any person who wishes to expand his knowledge on the history and culture of South Asia as it develops from ancient times up to the present. The Athens Center for Indian and Indo-Hellenic Studies invites distinguished scholars and people of art and culture from Greece and abroad to take part in this cross-cultural platform that aims to better understand the South Asian area, its people and its culture.