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Thread: Was India poor before Islamic Invasions?

  1. #41
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    Re: Was India poor before Islamic Invasions?

    Quote Originally Posted by Anirudh View Post
    Namaste

    There is an opinion that India (as a single nation ) never existed before Britishers united us under one flag. Few political outfits down south too voice this thought to get votes every five years. The chief of one such political outfit while in office as CM even wondered whether Sri Raama Chandra Prabhu ever lived on this earth? Keeping such intellectually motivating scientific derivation away from the scope of this discussion can members share their wisdom with me on the question I have raised?

    I hope Indians too will share their opinion

    Thanks ...
    Namaste Anirudh Ji.

    No & No. India was very rich before foreign invasion. So much so that europeans were clamoring to find a sea route that they ended up finding a new continent , called the natives 'Indians' and plundered the new land.

    India before invasions was never a united nation in the way the word 'nation' is interpretted.

    It is difficult to define the concepts behind India in terms used by Europeans. "Nation" is a European concept of political division. Usually Europe was governed by groups that were similar based on language (French , English, Spanish) or language/ religion combinations (Germany, Austria). European nations like Switzerland are an exception to this.

    In the middle east & Africa , it was mostly tribal alliances. Arab speaking nations were divided into multiple nations by Europeans after the world war & oil discovery. Concept of nation was imposed on Africa & South America , based on colonial territories held. In each of these cases , heterogeneous communities could not get along and this led to nation states.

    Bharat varsha is very unique in the world w.r.t to the tolerance to people of different views and faiths. This is true to this date. By and large Hindus accepted Jains , Buddhists , atheists , Christians etc.. There was never a sustained inquisitions , pogrom's or jihads carried out by the state on people with differing cultural practice. Mohammadism was opposed mainly due to the brutality and violence that accompanied by its adherents.

    What defines India as a cohesive group is adherence to Hinduism and resulting tolerance.
    This will be the case even going forward. This is where India will be unique and thrive into the future, while balkans , USSR or even Canada - think of french canada - fail. We have to thank our Rishi's & Vedas for imbibing "ekam sat viprah bahudha vadanti" as part of our culture.

    If we go by the current European notion of "nation" , India was always an aggregate of different nations . Every now and then , some dynasties (Mauryas, Magadhs , Guptas , Mughals etc..) asserted dominance and made other nations vassals. During those brief periods , the empires resembled the present day India.

  2. #42

    Re: Was India poor before Islamic Invasions?

    Quote Originally Posted by devotee View Post
    Namaste,



    This is not true. The map at the time of Chandragupta Maurya shows that India he ruled included even today's Nepal, Burma, Bangladesh, P:akistan and Afghanistan. Yes, sometimes when the ruler was weak, many kings used to declare their independence which was a norm at that time. In fact, this situation was there even when Ashoka ascended to the throne.

    India started getting weaker when Buddhism was adopted as state policy by Ashoka and the money which could have been used for technological advancement and scientific research was spent on spreading the message of Buddha. As the centre was no longer that strong, it led to disintegration of states and made India easy prey to Islamic invaders.

    OM
    Yes, this is correct. Along with Chandragupta Maurya and Ashoka, I would also add Samudragupta and Chandragupta II as emperors who exerted sovereignty over much of the Indian subcontinent.

    However I would say that the main reason for the disintegration of the Indian empire was due to the ban on sea travel by some Brahmins with the threat of outcasting. The motive of this ban was to prevent Indians from connecting with the neighbouring buddhist nations. This prevented Indians from accessing the latest technology and scientific research that was coming up in other foreign countries, and hence they stagnated and regressed.

    This was a major reason for the victories of the Islamic invaders who assimilated the latest military technology and tactics where-ever they could find them. When Babar fought with Rana Sanga , the former fought with cannons and guns while the latter fought with mere bow and arrows and javelins.

    An another reason was that Islamic invaders were united under a single banner while the Indians on the other hands were divided into many castes, many of which did not bear arms because of outdated scriptural injunctions prohibiting it. If a united front was put up by the Hindus regardless of caste, the islamic invasions would have never happened.

  3. #43

    Re: Was India poor before Islamic Invasions?

    Quote Originally Posted by satay View Post
    Namaste,

    The OP is complete nonsense. Please get your hands on the book called Asia and western dominance by K.M. panikkar. He explains how indian economy was more than 24% of the world GDP before the invasions began in 1400s where as England, Germany, France combined GDP was 6%.

    I have the pdf version of the book. Email or pm me if you want it. It is available on the Internet under free licence.
    Namaste, Satay!
    I found your information to be impressive and interesting. It makes sense that India was so prosperous that this is why so many nations wanted to conquer or dominate it like you said.

    One thing that attracted me was this. Notice the situation in 2500 BC based on archaeology. What civilizations are more impressive than Egypt, India, and Sumer in that ancient time? I can't think of any. China did not really become a civilization until 2100 BC or so. Minoa was small. I think India is very impressive then, like you said.

    Peace.

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