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Compare and Contrast Ancient India and Egypt Combined Politics and Religion

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Compare and Contrast ancient India and Egypt combined politics and religion
Through history, religion has shaped civilizations in several aspects. In ancient Indian and Egyptian civilizations it was very strong shaping force in political structures, but both the religious beliefs and the resulting political system were different, just like pharaohs were different from rajas.
The way Egyptians and Indians blended religion with politics bears certain similarities. First of all, the central role of priests, who were the Egyptians pharaohs most important advisors during the New Kingdom and at one point gained more power than the pharaoh himself. In the other hand, in India priests or Brahmans were also important political figures since they …show more content…

Because of this, priests and nobles overthrew this religious system in Egypt and regained their power.
Even though religion was an important part of the Indian political system, neither rajas nor later emperors established a theocracy, while the Egyptian pharaohs did. In Egypt the pharaohs were religious and political figures, in fact, during the New Kingdom they had no standing army, while Rajas were warriors and the authority of Indian emperors also derived from military power. This is due because Egyptian civilization was peaceful through most of its history, so religion, rather tan an army was used to justify the pharaohs rule. In India, on the other hand, Indo-Aryan tribes spread through war, and the Indian empire was established by overthrowing the Macedonians through military conquest. So in both the positions of the Raja and the emperor were sustained by their ability to conquer and subdue others, even during the reign of Asoka diplomacy was used to expand the empires domains.
As we can see, religion in India and Egypt became a factor of importance, but in clearly different ways and yielding different structures and interactions. The religious and political structures of both ancient civilizations can be related to the Japanese mandate of heaven. This comparison can be made because in India and

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