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| Aryans: | those who speak one of the many Indo-European languages; people who dispersed from the Caucasus region of Central Asia to migrate west to central and western Europe, and then south to Greece and Italy, and east to Persia and India beginning sometime around 2000 BCE |
| Brahmans: | Hindus of the highest castes; the priests of the Aryan tribes that migrated to India in ancient times. |
| Buddha: | the Enlightened One; title given to Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, by his disciples who deified him. |
| Buddhism: | the religion begun by Siddhartha Gautama in India in the 6th century B.C. as a reform of Hinduism; a religion begun in India and spread to other parts of Asia, but later almost completely died out within India. |
| caste system: | a basic belief of Hinduism that assigns all people to hereditary groupings that determine their social standing, occupations, food choices, marriage partners, and religious rituals; the four basic castes (ranking from highest to lowest) of priests, warriors and kings, merchants and landowners, and peasants and laborers are divided into hundreds of sub-castes. |
| dharma: | the rules and rituals governing a Hindu's behavior as a member of a caste. |
| dowry: | money and/or goods that a woman brings to her husband in a marriage, usually provided by the bride's parents and often negotiated in advance as a condition of the marriage. |
| Dravidian: | a member of the ancient, pre-Aryan inhabitants of India; also a family of languages spoken by about one-fourth of the people of India, mostly in southern India. |
| extended family: | a family group made up of people related by blood or marriage; usually all the descendants of a common grandfather or great-grandfather and their wives and children; a family in most traditional societies in which the members of the extended family live closely together under the leadership of the oldest male. |
| Four Noble Truths: | part of the basic teachings of Buddhism: 1. life is full of pain and suffering; 2. worldly desires, including the yearning for material objects, are the cause of suffering; 3. a person ends suffering by rejecting worldly desires; 4. a person can find the means to end worldly desires and attain happiness. |
| Hindu-Arabic numerals: | the cardinal numbers 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 developed in India and carried by Arab merchants to the Middle East from where they were later brought to Europe to replace the awkward system of Roman numerals. |
| Hinduism: | pantheistic religion of most Indians that also is a way of life because it prescribes different specific rules of behavior and rituals for each of the castes; religion formed from the blending of pre-Aryan and Aryan beliefs and practices; written down by Brahmans in the 1st and 2nd centuries BCE |
| Huns: | war-like tribes from Central Asia, possibly of Turkic origin, who began threatening northern India in the 5th century A.D. and overran it to bring an end to the Gupta dynasty in 550 CE |
| karma: | Hindu belief that a person's present station in life reflects past life; the accumulation of previous actions that determines a person's future state. |
| meditation: | focusing one's thoughts, pondering or reflecting on a thought or an issue; usually best achieved when isolated from distractions such as family and material goods, and sometimes accompanied by fasting. |
| monsoon: | seasonal rain-bearing winds from the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, and Bay of Bengal that are essential to Indian agriculture. |
| nirvana: | the perpetual state of bliss achieved when the soul escapes from the life-and-death cycle by following the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path taught by Buddha. |
| Noble Eightfold Path: | a basic teaching of Buddhism of the ways one can end worldly desires: 1. correct knowledge of the causes of pain and suffering; 2. worthwhile intentions; 3. truthfulness; 4. proper behavior; 5. a livelihood that does not injure living things; 6. training oneself to do what is right; 7. proper thoughts; 8. meditation. |
| outcaste: | in Hinduism, a group that is so beneath the castes that it belongs to no caste and is assigned by society to do the dirtiest and most degrading work, such as picking up garbage and tanning animal hides to make leather. |
| reincarnation: | the belief in Hinduism and Buddhism that the soul or spirit of a deceased person enters the body of another life-form unless released from the cycle of life and death. |
| Sanskrit: | an Indo-European language that was the classical language of India and Hinduism; the language of the Vedas; the ancient language that formed the basis of many of the languages of India today. |
| Sutras: | books complied by the disciples of Buddha to preserve his teachings. |
| suttee: | ancient Hindu practice of a widow committing suicide by casting herself on the funeral pyre of her dead husband; practice outlawed by the British during their occupation and by independent India. |
| untouchable: | a member of the outcaste (see outcaste); Indians called the harijan (children of God) by Mohandas Gandhi. |
| Vedas: | books that put into writing the oral traditions of the Aryan tribes who migrated to India; books written by Brahmans between 1200 and 600 B.C. to form the basis of the Hindu religion and way of life; books that include creation stories, myths and legends of gods, religious rituals, descriptions of battles, and rules of behavior for everyday life. |
