100 Documents That Changed the World

by Scott Christianson

  Sauti said, Having heard the diverse sacred and wonderful stories which were composed in his Mahabharata by Krishna-Dwaipayana, and which were recited in full by Vaisampayana at the Snake-sacrifice of the high-souled royal sage Janamejaya and in the presence also of that chief of Princes, the son of Parikshit, and having wandered about, visiting many sacred waters and holy shrines, I journeyed to the country venerated by the Dwijas twice-born and called Samantapanchaka where formerly was fought the battle between the children of Kuru and Pandu, and all the chiefs of the land ranged on either side.

  These richly illustrated plates from an early 19th-century edition of the Mahabharata capture the cyclical nature of this literary epic. There are no complete copies of the original text, which is thought to have reached its final form by the fifth-century BC.

  This brightly coloured 18th-century painting of one of the techniques described in the Kama Sutra is from the Rajput school, which flourished in the royal courts of Rajputana. There are no surviving copies of the original Sanskrit text, which is thought to have been compiled some time between the fifth century BC and the third century AD.

  Kama Sutra

  (400 BC–AD 200)

  Although widely known today as a manual of ingeniously contorted coital positions, the original (and unillustrated) ancient Sanskrit text provides a comprehensive and surprisingly modern guide to living a sensually fulfilling life, in which sexual intercourse is simply one ingredient.

  The Sanskrit term kama sutra signifies a guide to sexual pleasure. The ancient literary work of that title is generally attributed to the sage Vatsyayana of northern India, who claims to be a celibate monk, and has compiled all of the accumulated sexual knowledge of the ages through deep meditation and contemplation of the deity; however, its origins are unclear. Written in an archaic form of Sanskrit, the Kama Sutra is the only known philosophical text from that period of ancient Indian history.

  Organized into 36 chapters containing 1,250 verses, the work presents itself as a guide to a pleasurable life. Although the central character is a worldly but virtuous male, its guidance about courtship and romance also applies to women, more or less. ‘A man,’ it says,

  should fix his affections upon a girl who is of good family, whose parents are alive, and who is three years or more younger than himself. She should be born of a highly respectable family, possessed of wealth, well connected, and with many relations and friends. She should also be beautiful, of a good disposition, with lucky marks on her body, and with good hair, nails, teeth, ears, eyes and breasts, neither more nor less than they ought to be, and no one of them entirely wanting, and not troubled with a sickly body. The man should, of course, also possess these qualities himself.

  A basic tenet is that a happy marriage requires both parties to be well-versed in pleasure in many different ways. The text gives instruction on extramarital and same-sex relationships, including recipes for spices that will help attract lovers. It also presents charts explaining which male or female body types are most compatible, and demonstrates an assortment of love techniques from embracing and kissing to oral sex and intercourse. But sexual topics actually comprise only one of the work’s seven parts.

  Indeed, the Kama Sutra values the pursuit of each purusartha, or Hindu aim in life, as worthwhile, but stresses that each four purusarthas – dharma, artha, kama and moksha – should be kept in balance. Thus the work catalogues the holistic lifestyles of refined Hindu culture, teaching a range of social skills that constitute elegant living. The graces covered include music, cooking, literature, sports, and lively conversation.

  Copied and passed down for centuries, it was rediscovered by a noted British linguist, Sir Richard Burton, in the late 19th century. Burton laboured with his Indian and British collaborators to recompile the original text from scattered manuscript collections, which the team used to produce an English translation.

  Since the 19th century, the document has been widely circulated outside of India, giving the work a unique place in world literature as it serves as a practical guide for human relations across many cultures and times – the forerunner of today’s how-to books.

  Plato’s Republic

  (c. 380 BC)

  The Athenian thinker Plato – a student of Socrates and mentor of Aristotle – is credited with one of the most influential works of philosophy and moral/political theory ever written. Presented as a dialogue, it examines such core issues as the meaning of justice and the immortality of the soul.

  Of the 35 dialogues and 13 letters that are traditionally attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato (428/427 or 424/423 BC–348/347 BC), the best-known is The Republic, in which Plato’s teacher Socrates interrogates fellow Athenians and foreigners about an ideal state.

  Kallipolis is described as the most beautiful city-state in part because it is ruled by philosopher-kings. ‘Until philosophers are kings,’ he writes,

  or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other side are compelled to stand aside, critics will never have rest from their evils – no, nor the human race, as I believe – and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.

  Plato asserts that Kallipolis’s form of government – politeia (rule by the aristocracy) – is superior to other approaches such as timocracy (rule by the honourable), oligarchy (rule by the wealthy few), democracy (rule by the people) or tyranny (rule by one). Plato analyses the nature of each type of state and its corresponding rulers.

  Plato describes the democratic state (Athens) as ‘a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.’ But he views democracy as an undisciplined society that devolves into chaos and conflicts between rich and poor that ultimately leads to the rise of a popular champion who increases oppression and becomes a tyrant. ‘The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness… This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs, when he first appears he is a protector.’

  One of The Republic’s central ideas is that ‘justice and happiness stand and fall together. Not because good consequences… follow from being just, but because justice itself is so great that nothing gained by injustice could be greater.’

  Today Plato’s work is valued as much for its Socratic methods of analysis and accounts of ancient Greek history as it is for the ideas. Its place in the canon of Western thought would not have occurred were it not for the discovery of hundreds of manuscript fragments attributed to him and other ancient commentators who had referenced him with Socrates and Aristotle.

  The Republic documents were copies made from earlier copies of the original ancient text; some of those made by Arab copyists were later found in medieval times. The oldest surviving versions are written in Attic Greek, which was the main Greek dialect spoken in ancient Attica of which Athens was a part. Following the fall of Constantinople in the mid-15th century, handwritten copies of Plato’s Republic and other works eventually found their way into Italy where they helped to fuel the Renaissance.

  This third-century AD papyrus contains a fragment of Chapter X of Plato’s Republic. It was discovered in 1897 in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, and is now kept at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.

  A page from the oldest surviving complete manuscript of The Republic, penned in Constantinople in AD 895. Known as the Clarke Plato, it is kept in Oxford University’s Bodleian Library.

  Fragments from the Gandharan scrolls, acquired by the British Library in 1994. Written in ink on birch bark, these first-century AD scriptures are the oldest surviving Buddhist texts.

  Gandharan Buddhist Texts

  (AD 50)

  Buddhist monks’ scriptures, inscribed on birch bark scrolls and buried in the desert of eastern Afghanistan 2,000 years ago, are the earliest know
n Buddhist texts and the oldest documents extant from South Asia. They are the Indian Buddhist equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

  From the sixth century BC to the 11th century AD, Gandhara was a vibrant multi-ethnic kingdom of Ancient India in what is now northern Pakistan, Kashmir and eastern Afghanistan – a crossroads of Indian, Iranian and Central Asian cultures. At the peak of its influence, from about 100 BC to AD 200, it was the gateway through which Buddhist religion was transmitted from India to China and elsewhere. From the time of its conquest by Alexander the Great, Gandhara was also a principal point of contact between India and the Western world, producing much exchange in philosophy, art and commerce.

  Two thousand years ago, Buddhist monks rolled up scriptures written on birch bark, stuffed them into round earthen pots, and buried them in a desert mound – possibly because they had already made new copies of the text and were using the discarded ones as part of the consecration of a stupa or meditation shrine. In keeping with their Buddhist principles of vegetarianism and compassion, the monks employed inner bark from the bhurja or birch tree instead of animal hide. They flattened and glued the bark together into scrolls that could be written upon using a stylus and ink.

  Acquired by the British Library in 1994, the Kharosthi manuscript collection of 13 unique scrolls written in the Kharosthi script and the Gandhara language dates from the middle of the first century. Although the original provenance of the scrolls is uncertain, they appear to have come from the ancient Greco-Buddhist centre of Hadda near the city of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. The scrolls were most likely written during the reign of the Saka rulers, in the mid-first century AD, making them the oldest Buddhist texts ever found as well as the earliest surviving manuscripts in any Indic language.

  Additional archaeological discoveries have increased the number of ancient birch-bark scrolls under study to 76, some of which along with other fragments are held by the University of Washington Libraries, the Library of Congress, the Schøyen Collection, the Hirayama Collection, the Hayashidera Collection and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

  Many of the texts are still partly readable and cover a range of Buddhist teachings. Thus far some of the translated works include philosophical and technical teachings as well as popular didactic verse, such as the ‘Rhinoceros Horn Sutra’ and the ‘Song of Lake Anavatapta’.

  They have revealed many new insights about early Indian Buddhism, which is believed to have originated in the same period when Siddhartha Gautama (‘the Buddha’) achieved enlightenment through meditation under a fig tree. As many as 500 million persons in the world today consider themselves Buddhist.

  This late first-century AD Gandharan sculpture is one of the earliest representations of Buddha.

  The Quran

  (AD 609–632)

  Over a period of 23 years, the word of Allah is revealed to the Prophet Muhammad through the angel Gabriel, in the form of sacred verses, and Muhammad later recites every word to his followers. Believers in the sacred religious text of Islam today comprise one-sixth of the world’s population.

  Islamic tradition holds that on 23 December, AD 609, an Arab from Mecca named Muhammad, who was 40 years old, was taking a solitary retreat into the mountains when he was visited by an angel in a cave at Mount Hira. The angel Gabriel (Jibril) revealed the very word of Allah (God), accompanied by visions, in what would be the first of many revelations Muhammad would receive up until his death in 632.

  Being illiterate (ummi), he was unable to read earlier scriptures or to write his own accounts, but the Prophet Muhammad faithfully recounted Allah’s words to others, directing his followers to memorize and recite them in prayers. Eventually some listeners began recording the words on clay tablets, bones and date palm fronds.

  Upon Muhammad’s death, his closest friend, the first caliph Abu Bakr (d. 634), wanted the words collected into a single authorized volume so that they would be preserved for all time. He selected Zayd ibn Thabit (d. 655) for the task. Zayd worked with a group of scribes to gather the sacred verses into the first handwritten manuscript, recorded in Arabic. A few years later a standard copy was commissioned.

  Entitled the Quran, the sacred work consists of 114 brief suras (chapters) comprised of ayats (verses), totalling about 77,000 words. The verses are designed to be memorized for prayer. The work describes itself as ‘the discernment or the criterion between truth and falsehood’, ‘the guide’, ‘the wisdom’, and ‘the revelation’, offering detailed accounts of historical events with commentary about their moral significance. Its core tenets include belief in one almighty God, and the resurrection. ‘Wherever ye be, God will bring you all back to the resurrection.’ About one-third of the verses deal with the afterlife and the final judgement day. The verses also call for its followers to ‘Fight for the religion of God’.

  The work’s language has been described as ‘rhymed prose’, and its structure is without a beginning, middle or end. Some critics say this unusual nonlinear approach can act to both intensify the power of its prophetic messages and impart different levels of meaning.

  First translated into Latin in 1143 and English in 1649, the Quran now appears in more than 100 languages.

  In 1972, manuscripts of the sacred verses were discovered in a mosque in Sana’a, Yemen, which have been dated to 671, making them possibly the oldest known copy of the document.

  The Sana’a palimpsest (AD 671) is one of the oldest surviving Quranic manuscripts.

  A handwritten edition of the Quran from 1192–93. This copy, which was produced in Iraq, was purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2004.

  This version of Magna Carta, issued under Edward I in 1297, was confirmed in parliament and became law. A copy of it was sold in 2007 for $21.3 million.

  Magna Carta

  (1215)

  Agreed between King John and his barons at Runnymede, as the first document to limit the power of the monarchy and assert the certain liberties granted to free men, the medieval Great Charter of 1215 is considered the foundation of English common law.

  M agna Carta (Latin for Great Charter), also called Magna Carta Libertatum or The Great Charter of the Liberties of England, was originally issued in Latin in June 1215. It was sealed under oath by King John at Runnymede, on the banks of the River Thames near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. At the time he issued it, the charter was intended to promote peace between the king and his powerful barons, yet it provoked war instead. In fact, it was legally valid for barely three months and its terms were never fully executed; yet it was issued several times in different forms during the 13th century.

  Nevertheless, Magna Carta was the first document forced onto a king of England by a group of his subjects, in an attempt to limit royal powers by law and protect the subjects’ feudal rights. By putting royal power under secular law, the charter initiated the protracted historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law in England and beyond, giving rise to such basic protections as representative government, common law, habeas corpus and other trial rights.

  The charter has over 60 clauses, covering many areas of the nation’s life, including the right to a fair trial. For example:

  No freeman is to be taken or imprisoned or disseised of his free tenement or of his liberties or free customs, or outlawed or exiled or in any way ruined, nor will we go against such a man or send against him save by lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land. To no-one will we sell or deny or delay right or justice.

  Several copies of the charter were written immediately after King John agreed to peace terms with his barons at Runnymede. They were sent around the country as evidence of the king’s decision. It was written in Latin by hand, by an expert scribe, on vellum.

  The document’s importance has endured to make it a cornerstone of the rule of law. As the first codification of English civil liberties, Magna Carta has come to symbolize justice, fairness and human rights. Its laws were important in the colonization of America, as England’
s legal system was used as a model for many of the colonies as they were developing their own legal systems. Three clauses still remain part of the law of England and Wales, and it is still considered to be one of the most important constitutional documents of all time.

  The four surviving original copies of Magna Carta (two held at the British Library in London, one at Salisbury Cathedral and one at Lincoln Cathedral) were displayed together for the first time in 2015, marking the document’s 800th anniversary.

  An original 1215 Magna Carta. Only four survive: one in Lincoln, one in Salisbury and two in the British Library in London.

  Ad Extirpanda

  (1252)

  Pope Innocent IV didn’t start the medieval Inquisition, but he is the first to explicitly authorize its tribunals’ use of torture for obtaining confessions from heretics. Guilt, it seems, is never to be doubted. And everyone must confess to something.

  The medieval Inquisition began in 1231 when Pope Gregory IX instituted a system of special courts to root out heresy, which was considered the most serious crime confronting church and state. Such a court was known as the Holy Office. At first much of the prosecution involved members of dissident religious sects such as the Cathars, who were based in southern France.

  After Cathars were alleged to have murdered a papal legate in Lombardy, Pope Innocent IV (born Sinibaldo Fieschi, 1195–1254) issued a papal bull in 1252 which set forth the ways and means by which heretics were to be judged, tried and punished under the Inquisition. Innocent wanted them treated no better than thieves and murderers, but proving their crimes under law required evidence of their guilt. He also stated, ‘Necessity overrides every law.’