East Asian Beliefs
The Confucian value emphasizing children respecting and obeying parents and ancestors.
What is filial piety?
The oldest branch of Buddhism focused on individual enlightenment and monastic discipline.
What is Theravada Buddhism?
A powerful Hindu empire in southern India known for resisting Muslim expansion.
What is the Vijayanagara Empire?
This fast-ripening rice from Vietnam increased population growth in Song China.
What is Champa rice?
A wealthy African kingdom that controlled the gold trade in southern Africa.
What is Great Zimbabwe?
A revival of Confucian thought blended with Buddhist ideas that shaped Chinese government and education.
What is Neo-Confucianism?
This branch of Buddhism emphasizes bodhisattvas helping all people reach enlightenment.
What is Mahayana Buddhism?
A Buddhist maritime empire controlling trade routes in the Strait of Malacca.
What is the Srivijaya Empire?
The massive Chinese waterway that connected northern and southern China for trade.
What is the Grand Canal?
The only major Christian kingdom in medieval Africa.
What is Ethiopia?
A Confucian social expectation that women obey fathers, husbands, and sons.
What are Confucian gender traditions / patriarchy?
A form of Buddhism practiced mainly in Tibet that mixes Mahayana ideas with rituals.
What is Tibetan Buddhism?
The Hindu-Buddhist empire in Cambodia famous for building Angkor Wat.
What is the Khmer Empire?
Song China produced huge quantities of this metal for tools, weapons, and construction.
What is steel and iron?
West African city-states that participated in trans-Saharan trade and later adopted Islam.
What are the Hausa kingdoms?
The spread of Chinese writing systems and civil service exam traditions influenced these two places.
What are Korea and Japan?
A Hindu movement emphasizing personal devotion to a deity and less focus on caste rituals.
What is the Bhakti Movement?
A powerful maritime empire in Java dominating trade in the Indonesian archipelago.
What is the Majapahit Empire?
Luxury goods from China widely traded across Afro-Eurasia.
What are silk textiles and porcelain?
A tribute-based Mesoamerican empire with its capital at Tenochtitlan.
What is the Mexica (Aztec) Empire?
This painful practice among elite women in China symbolized beauty and obedience in Confucian society.
What is foot binding?
The mystical branch of Islam that seeks a direct personal experience with God.
What is Sufism?
The early Thai kingdom considered the birthplace of Thai culture and Theravada traditions.
What is the Sukhothai Kingdom?
A community of monks and nuns living together to study and preserve Buddhist teachings.
What is Buddhist monasticism?
The largest empire in South America, known for its road system and labor tax (mit'a).
What is the Inca Empire?