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Nomads Vs Aryans

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Force: a verb, which is defined as: coercion or compulsion, especially with the use or threat of violence. Force was a key method pastoral nomads used to overthrow settled communities during the Nomadic Invasions and Migrations period during 2000 to 1700 B.C.E. The pastoralists and the settled people disagreed on many things and had very different ways of living. For example, the Aryan’s, located in Northern India, were polytheistic, while the settled people believed in only one god. Some societies disagreed on whether farming or breeding animals was most beneficial to the prosperity of their community. Because of variance in opinion, societies couldn’t live in a unified manner -- one society had to lead. Through primary sources, like the…show more content…
After the Aryans (a very patriarchal and militaristic group of pastoral nomads) invaded and destroyed the Indus River Valley civilization, they took charge. The Aryans already were superior -- they had demolished an entire settlement. This left the original settled people scared, and being scared, easily controllable. The Aryans then wrote the Lawbook of Manu, which is the origin of a caste system known as the Varna system that is still in practice today. The Varna system, which placed people into a social category, was a way to categorize and create, in the writers of the Lawbook of Manu’s eyes, a well-run society. In the Lawbook of Manu it states: “For the sake of the prosperity of the worlds, he created the Brahman, the Kshatriya, the Vaishya, and the Shudra to proceed from his mouth, his arms, his thighs and his feet…"2The four different groups of people were initiated to create a society in which everyone knew their place. the Brahman (the voices of society) were the religious leaders, the Kshatriya (the arms of society) were the warriors, the Vaishya (the thighs of society) the workers, and the Shudra (the feet of society), who “served meekly to the three other castes” and were generally the former Indus River Valley people. The last caste, the Shudra, didn’t have a religious…show more content…
In Mesopotamia, the Babylonians (another group of pastoral nomads) invaded and conquered Sumer, following a similar method to the Aryans. They also similarly kept laws that tied the poor and inferior to a stake. Hammurabi, one of the kings of Babylon, went on a mission to create a list of rules for people to follow, but in order for him to be worthy of this, Hammurabi made sure he had religious legitimacy. He did this by portraying an image of himself next to the Shamash, god of light and prosperity, to show that he was worthy of this god’s attention. Hammurabi completely glorified himself. Furthermore, he thought of himself as fair and revolutionary, which is why there was so much appeal to his name. Some laws that he created benefitted society, but other laws were made to benefit the indigenous people really just kept them in their boxes. “If he has broken another seignior’s bone, they shall break his bone. If he has destroyed the eye of a commoner or broken the bone of a commoner, he shall pay one mina of silver. If he has destroyed the eye of a seignior’s slave or broken the bone of a seignior’s slave, he shall pay one-half his value."3This was another method that, in Hammurabi’s eyes, kept people where they belonged. Even though
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