Tamil Nadu HSE First Year History key terms

An adjective meaning made of stone, used to describe tools and industries of the Stone Ages; archaeologists classify lithic assemblages as Palaeolithic, Mesolithic or Neolithic according to shape and technique.

A very small, often blade-like stone tool, typically under a few centimetres, produced in the Mesolithic and later periods and used as arrow barbs, sickles or composite implements set in wood or bone.

The long transition from hunting and gathering to farming, herding and settled village life, beginning around 10,000 BCE in West Asia and later elsewhere; it brought pottery, polished stone tools and food storage.

A large stone monument or burial structure, such as a dolmen or cist, erected in the Neolithic and Iron Ages; in South India megalithic burials often contain iron tools, pottery and grave goods.

The wedge-shaped script of ancient Mesopotamia, written with a reed stylus on damp clay tablets; it began as pictographs in Sumer around 3200 BCE and later recorded Sumerian, Akkadian and other languages.

A massive stepped temple tower of mud brick built in Mesopotamian cities such as Ur and Uruk; its platforms and shrine were dedicated to a city god and served as administrative and religious centre.

The pictorial writing system of ancient Egypt, using signs for sounds, words and ideas, carved on monuments and painted on papyrus; it was deciphered through the Rosetta Stone.

The title of the ruler of ancient Egypt, regarded as a divine king who maintained maat, or cosmic order; the pharaoh controlled the bureaucracy, army, temples and monumental building projects.

A granodiorite slab found in Egypt in 1799 bearing the same decree in hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek scripts; its trilingual text allowed scholars, notably Champollion, to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics.

The Chinese political idea that a ruler governs because Heaven approves his virtue; natural disasters and rebellion were read as signs that the mandate had passed to a new dynasty.

A shoulder blade or turtle shell inscribed with early Chinese characters and heated to crack for divination, mainly from the Shang dynasty; these inscriptions are the earliest substantial body of Chinese writing.

The independent Greek city-state, comprising an urban centre and its surrounding farmland, with its own laws, army, coinage and cult; Athens and Sparta are the best-known examples.

The spread of Greek language, art, city institutions and ideas across the eastern Mediterranean and western Asia, especially after Alexander's conquests; it shaped later Mauryan, Bactrian and Gandharan culture.

The Roman state before the emperors, in which power was shared among consuls, a senate and popular assemblies; its expansion across the Mediterranean created the provincial system later inherited by the empire.

The long period of relative peace and stability within the Roman Empire, roughly from Augustus to the second century CE, which encouraged trade, road building and the movement of goods to India.

A major city of the Indus Valley Civilisation in Punjab, Pakistan, excavated from 1921; its brick platforms, granaries, workmen's quarters and cemetery gave the civilisation its alternative name.

The largest known Harappan city, in Sindh, Pakistan, laid out on a grid with a citadel and lower town; it contains the Great Bath, a large granary and extensive drainage and well systems.

A rectangular brick-lined tank at Mohenjo-daro, about 12 by 7 metres, with steps and a waterproof bitumen layer; it was probably used for ritual bathing linked to purity ideas.

A set of short inscriptions, mostly on seals, of about 400 distinct signs, written right to left; it remains undeciphered, so Harappan political and religious ideas are known mainly from material remains.

A large basin with inlet channels at Lothal in Gujarat, interpreted as a tidal dock for bead and shell trade with West Asia; it shows Harappan maritime commerce and craft specialisation.

The oldest Vedic text, a collection of about 1,028 hymns in ten mandalas addressed to gods such as Agni and Indra; it is the main source for early Vedic society and religion.

The fourfold Vedic social order of brahmana, kshatriya, vaishya and shudra, first set out in the Purusha-sukta; it is an ideal classification distinct from the many endogamous jatis.

The four stages of an ideal upper-caste male life: brahmacharya as a student, grihastha as a householder, vanaprastha as a forest dweller and sannyasa as a renouncer; a later Vedic and post-Vedic scheme.

Two early Vedic assemblies mentioned in the Rig Veda; the samiti was a broader gathering and the sabha a smaller council, both involved in deliberation and in choosing or advising leaders.

Philosophical texts appended to the Vedas that discuss brahman, the ultimate reality, and atman, the self, through dialogue and debate; they mark a shift from ritual sacrifice to knowledge and renunciation.

A wandering renouncer or ascetic outside the Vedic ritual tradition, such as a Buddhist, Jain or Ajivika teacher; sramana movements of the sixth century BCE challenged brahminical authority and sacrifice.

The core Buddhist teaching that suffering exists, has a cause in craving, can cease, and is ended by the Eightfold Path; the Buddha set them out in his first sermon at Sarnath.

The three baskets of the Buddhist canon: the Vinaya rules for monks, the Sutta discourses and the Abhidhamma systematic doctrine; it was transmitted orally and written down in Pali in Sri Lanka.

Non-violence or abstention from harming living beings, a central Jain principle stressed by Mahavira and later adopted by Buddhist and Hindu thinkers and by Gandhi in modern politics.

Vardhamana, the twenty-fourth Jain tirthankara of this age, born near Vaishali in the sixth century BCE; he taught strict ahimsa, asceticism and the doctrine that the soul is bound by karma.

A Sanskrit treatise on statecraft, economy and war attributed to Kautilya, Chandragupta Maurya's minister; it discusses taxation, espionage, diplomacy and the ideal seven-limbed state.

The first empire to unify most of the Indian subcontinent, founded by Chandragupta Maurya around 321 BCE and extending under Ashoka; it had a centralised bureaucracy, a standing army and provincial governors.

Inscriptions on pillars and rocks issued by Ashoka in Prakrit, Greek and Aramaic, recording his dhamma policy, welfare measures and remorse after the Kalinga war; they are primary sources for Mauryan rule.

Ashoka's public moral code of tolerance, respect for elders and teachers, non-injury to living beings and welfare work; it was propagated through edicts and officials called dhamma-mahamattas.

A school of Buddhist sculpture in the northwest, from about the first century BCE, blending Hellenistic naturalism with Indian themes; it produced schist reliefs and the earliest anthropomorphic Buddha images.

The greatest Kushana emperor, ruling around 127 to 150 CE from Purushapura, whose realm stretched from Central Asia to the Ganga plain; he patronised Buddhism and issued gold coins with deities.

The network of overland caravan routes linking China, Central Asia, India and the Mediterranean; Kushana control of its Indian sections boosted trade, urban growth and the spread of Buddhism.

A body of Tamil poems in eight anthologies and ten long songs, composed roughly between 300 BCE and 300 CE; they are the main source for early Tamil society, kingship and trade.

The earliest surviving Tamil grammatical and poetic treatise, describing phonology, morphology and the conventions of akam love poetry and puram heroic poetry; it is a key source for early Tamil culture.

A Sangam long poem describing the Chola port of Kaveripattinam, its markets, crafts, foreign traders and the king Karikala; it is valuable evidence for early Tamil urban and maritime life.

A dynasty ruling from Kanchipuram in the Tamil country from about the fourth to ninth century, known for Sanskrit patronage, the Mahabalipuram monuments and the beginnings of Dravidian stone temples.

A pillar inscription of Samudragupta, composed by Harishena, listing his conquests and tributary kings; reused later for Ashoka's edicts, it is a key source for Gupta military and political history.

The period of Gupta rule from about 320 to 550 CE, remembered for political unification of north India and achievements in Sanskrit literature, mathematics, astronomy, sculpture and temple building.

A major Buddhist monastic university in Bihar, flourishing from the fifth century under Gupta and later Pala patronage, attracting students from China and Southeast Asia; it taught Buddhist philosophy, logic and medicine.

The sequence of Turkic and Afghan dynasties ruling from Delhi between 1206 and 1526, including the Slave, Khalji, Tughlaq, Sayyid and Lodi houses; it introduced new administrative and revenue institutions.

A unit of land revenue assignment granted by a Sultan to an officer, who collected the surplus in return for military service; the system was later reformed under Alauddin Khalji and the Mughals.

The Khalji Sultan of Delhi from 1296 to 1316, who repelled Mongol invasions, conquered much of the Deccan, fixed prices in Delhi and reformed the army and revenue system through strict control.

The Mughal system ranking officers by mansab, a numerical position determining salary and the cavalry troops they maintained; it tied the nobility to the emperor and was later weakened by inflation and corruption.

The Mughal revenue system associated with Raja Todar Mal under Akbar, which measured cultivated land, classified it by fertility and fixed cash demand on the basis of a ten-year average yield.

The third Mughal emperor, ruling 1556 to 1605, who expanded the empire across north India, built Fatehpur Sikri, promoted sulh-i kul tolerance and encouraged dialogue among religions at the Ibadat Khana.

The maritime exchange between India and the Roman world through Red Sea and monsoon routes; Roman coins, glass and amphorae in South India and texts such as the Periplus record it.

A South Indian temple architecture marked by a pyramidal vimana over the sanctum, gopuram gateways, pillared halls and enclosure walls; it developed from Pallava and Chola experiments into huge complexes.

A North Indian temple style with a curvilinear shikhara above the sanctum, a platform, an assembly hall and often an ambulatory; its regional variants include Odisha, Khajuraho and Solanki forms.

A domed Buddhist monument built over sacred relics, with a hemispherical anda, a railing, gateways and a circumambulatory path; Sanchi and Amaravati are famous examples of its architectural development.

A Chinese Buddhist monk who travelled to India between 629 and 645 CE, studied at Nalanda and left a detailed account of places, monasteries and rulers, a key source for Harsha and Gupta times.

The study of coins, including their weight, metal, legends and images, used by historians to date rulers, map trade and reconstruct economic and religious history, as with Kushana and Gupta gold coins.

The study and interpretation of inscriptions on stone, metal or other durable material; Indian epigraphy supplies dated records of grants, edicts and temple donations that complement literary and archaeological evidence.