Civilizations in

South Asia 
Civilizations in South Asia 
 South Asia, subregion of Asia, consisting of the Indo-Gangetic Plain and peninsular
India. It includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and 
Sri Lanka; Afghanistan and the Maldives are often considered part of South Asia as
well. The term is often used synonymously with “Indian subcontinent,” though the
latter term is sometimes used more restrictively to refer to Bangladesh, India, and
Pakistan.
 The region is bounded to the north by a series of mountain ranges: the Hindu Kush to
the northwest, the Karakoram Range in the central north, and the Himalayas to the
northeast. South of the mountains is the Indo-Gangetic Plain, formed from the 
combined alluvial plains of the Indus, Ganges (Ganga), and Brahmaputra rivers,
which lie in a deep marginal depression running north of and parallel to the main
range of the Himalayas. It is an area of subsidence into which thick accumulations of
earlier marine sediments and later continental deposits have washed down from the
rising mountains.
Religion-philosophical beliefs 
 philosophy of religion, discipline concerned with the philosophical
appraisal of human religious attitudes and of the real or imaginary
objects of those attitudes, God or the gods. The philosophy of religion
 is an integral part of philosophy as such and embraces central issues
regarding the nature and extent of human knowledge, the ultimate
character of reality, and the foundations of morality.
Brahmanism 
 Brahmanism, ancient Indian religious tradition that emerged from the earlier 
Vedic religion. In the early 1st millennium BCE, Brahmanism emphasized the rites
performed by, and the status of, the Brahman, or priestly, class as well as speculation
about brahman (the Absolute reality) as theorized in the Upanishads (speculative
philosophical texts that are considered to be part of the Vedas, or scriptures). In
contrast, the form of Hinduism that emerged after the mid-1st millennium BCE stressed
devotion (bhakti) to particular deities such as Shiva and Vishnu.
 During the 19th century, the first Western scholars of religion to study Brahmanism
employed the term in reference to both the predominant position of the Brahmans and
the importance given to brahman (the Sanskrit terms corresponding to Brahman
and brahman are etymologically linked). Those and subsequent scholars depicted
Brahmanism either as a historical stage in Hinduism’s evolution or as a distinct religious
tradition. However, among practicing Hindus, especially within India, Brahmanism is
generally viewed as a part of their tradition rather than as a separate religion.
Hinduism 
 Hinduism, major world religion originating on the Indian subcontinent and 
comprising several and varied systems of philosophy, belief, and ritual. Although
the name Hinduism is relatively new, having been coined by British writers in the
first decades of the 19th century, it refers to a rich cumulative tradition of texts
and practices, some of which date to the 2nd millennium BCE or possibly earlier. If
the Indus valley civilization (3rd–2nd millennium BCE) was the earliest source of
these traditions, as some scholars hold, then Hinduism is the oldest living religion
on Earth. Its many sacred texts in Sanskrit and vernacular languages served as a
vehicle for spreading the religion to other parts of the world, though ritual and the
visual and performing arts also played a significant role in its transmission. From
about the 4th century CE, Hinduism had a dominant presence in Southeast Asia, one
that would last for more than 1,000 years.
Buddhism 
 Buddhism, religion and philosophy that developed from the teachings of the Buddha
 (Sanskrit: “Awakened One”), a teacher who lived in northern India between the
mid-6th and mid-4th centuries BCE (before the Common Era). Spreading from India
 to Central and Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan, Buddhism has played a
central role in the spiritual, cultural, and social life of Asia, and, beginning in the
20th century, it spread to the West.
 Ancient Buddhist scripture and doctrine developed in several closely related literary
languages of ancient India, especially in Pali and Sanskrit. In this article Pali and
Sanskrit words that have gained currency in English are treated as English words and
are rendered in the form in which they appear in English-language dictionaries.
Exceptions occur in special circumstances—as, for example, in the case of the
Sanskrit term dharma (Pali: dhamma), which has meanings that are not usually
associated with the term dharma as it is often used in English.
Political Institutions
 institution, in political science, a set of formal rules (including constitutions),
informal norms, or shared understandings that constrain and prescribe political
actors’ interactions with one another. Institutions are generated and enforced by
both state and nonstate actors, such as professional and accreditation bodies.
Within institutional frameworks, political actors may have more or less freedom to
pursue and develop their individual preferences and tastes.
 Institutions have always been a major subject of social science research,
particularly in political science and sociology. Beginning in the 1980s, their
importance was reinforced with the emergence of the methodological approach
known as new institutionalism and its intellectual streams, including rational choice
institutionalism, historical institutionalism, normative institutionalism, and
sociological institutionalism.
Role of Village Administrators
 Village government is the lowest level administration in Indonesia. It is formed by law.
However, a village head is not a government official and also village employees are
not civil servants. The Village Government has authority to administer government
affairs; nevertheless, the central government doesn’t decentralize the government
affairs to the Village. The organizational structure is like a municipal, consisting of a
mayor and council; yet the mayor is not chief of local bureaucrats and the council is
just a voluntary board that func-tions like a council. Such a fact is problematic, which
raises the question re-garding the legal status of village in the administration of the
Republic of In-donesia. The study used a post-positivistic approach with a qualitative
meth-od. Jabon Mekar village, Bogor Regenstschap (Municipal), Banten Province was
chosen as the locus of the study. The results conclude that the village administration
is a pseudo local self-government. To that end, a village institution needs to become
a public organization to comply with the Indonesia Constitution of 1945, in order to
provide public services that would prosper the people.
Social Stratification 
 Since social stratification is the most binding and central concern of sociology,
changes in the study of social stratification reflect trends in the entire 
discipline. The founders of sociology—including Weber—thought that the 
United States, unlike Europe, was a classless society with a high degree of
upward mobility. During the Great Depression, however, Robert and Helen Lynd,
in their famous Middletown (1937) studies, documented the deep divide
between the working and the business classes in all areas of community life. 
W. Lloyd Warner and colleagues at Harvard University applied anthropological
methods to study the Social Life of a Modern Community (1941) and found six
social classes with distinct subcultures: upper upper and lower upper, upper
middle and lower middle, and upper lower and lower lower classes. In
1953 Floyd Hunter’s study of Atlanta, Georgia, shifted the emphasis in
stratification from status to power; he documented a community power
structure that controlled the agenda of urban politics. Likewise, C. Wright Mills
 in 1956 proposed that a “power elite” dominated the national agenda in
Washington, a cabal comprising business, government, and the military.