monarchs of history. The Gupta Age (320 526 AD) is called the Golden Age or the Augustan Age of ancient India. Its great emperors such as Chandra Gupta I, Samudra Gupta and Chandra Gupta II, brought great progress and prosperity to the country. The Vardhana Empire was established after the fall of the Guptas. One of its greatest kings was Harsha, a great warrior, an able administrator, and a patron of art and learning. The Chinese civilization is certainly one of the oldest in the world. One of the important dynasties was the Chou dynasty, during whose rule, there lived the two great philosophers, Confucius and Lao-Tze. Lao-Tze established Taoism, an abstract, speculative philosophy. Confucianism became extremely popular, since it was essentially a religion of morals. The Chinese made valuable contributions to the history of mankind, such as the art of making paper, the invention of black ink, the mariner’s compass a gun-powder, as well as the art of silk-weaving. The Great Wall of China, one of the wonders of the modern world, was built in 214 BC by the Qin dynasty to prevent Mongol and Turkish attacks from the North. It was extended towards the West by the Han dynasty. It is the only man-made structure that can be spotted from the moon with the naked eye. The Greeks and the Romans laid the foundations on which the edifice of the European civilization was built. The contribution of Greece was spiritual rather than material. The Greek language, with its rich literature is a great legacy from Greece to the west. The Greeks learnt the alphabet of 22 consonants from the Phoenicians. By adding the vowels, they gave to the west, the alphabet as is used currently. The Greeks gave the earliest lessons in direct democracy: freedom of speech and thought. They made an inestimable contribution to philosophy. The foundations laid by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle should be regarded as the basis of western philosophy. Rome, a city covering se...
