Help me make an Evil Hindu Empire!

Alkahest

Banned
I'm currently screwing around with a GURPS Infinite Worlds-like setting (without the Homeline-wank and Psionic Nazis) and I had the idea that the obligatory Evil Empire should be Hindu. In every other TL it seems that all the Indians do is sit around for someone to colonize them while they are being generically pacifistic, so it would be a welcome break to make them proactive arseholes. Thing is, India is probably one of the parts of the world I know the least about, so I have few ideas where to start. Here's a short wish list:

A hegemonic Hindu empire in India and/or Southeast Asia that promotes:
- Militarism.
- A caste system (duh).
- Slavery.
- Cruel and unusual punishments.
- Severe gender inequality.

Bonus points for:
- Persecution of Buddhists and Jainists.
- Colonization or at least vassalization of large parts of Europe.
- Human sacrifice.

The POD should preferably be between 400 BC and 0 AD.

The only concrete idea I have so far is to make Ashoka less of a softie or replace him with someone who won't convert to Buddhism. Any other ideas?
 
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Winnabago

Banned
It’s not enough for the Indians to be assholes: Asoka was only an asshole (until he went soft) to other Indians, and Indians treating each other like crap does not a stable Indian empire make.

So, you have to figure out how to turn Indian power outwards, and get millions of Indians to all stop fighting mostly. To get that, you need some kind of pan-Indianism (so that Indians could stop fighting each other long enough to get out of relatively isolated India), which would probably be hard.

Perhaps you could have a Maurya emperor declare a vendetta against anything Greek, and have it be a movement that got very popular.

Then, once the Indians create “crusader states” in the Mideast, they would be in a position to attack other Greekified states, and be able to mobilize men from India to go to other places and be evil Hindus.
 
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Dathi THorfinnsson

Alkahest said:
I'm currently screwing around with a GURPS Infinite Worlds-like setting (without the Homeline-wank and Psionic Nazis) and I had the idea that the obligatory Evil Empire should be Hindu. In every other TL it seems that all the Indians do is sit around for someone to colonize them while they are being generically pacifistic, so it would be a welcome break to make them proactive arseholes. Thing is, India is probably one of the parts of the world I know the least about, so I have few ideas where to start. Here's a short wish list:

A hegemonic Hindu empire in India and/or Southeast Asia that promotes:
- Militarism.
- A caste system (duh).
- Slavery.
- Cruel and unusual punishments.
- Severe gender inequality.

Bonus points for:
- Persecution of Buddhists and Jainists.
- Colonization or at least vassalization of large parts of Europe.
- Human sacrifice.

The POD should preferably be between 400 BC and 0 AD.

The only concrete idea I have so far is to make Ashoka less of a softie or replace him with someone who won't convert to Buddhism. Any other ideas?
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Gee, didn't Eric Flint and David Drake already do that in 5 books?
Edit: just get "Link" to be sent back some million years to the Malwa in India, while "Aide" goes to Belisarius....
 

Alkahest

Banned
Winnabago said:
It’s not enough for the Indians to be assholes: Asoka was only an asshole (until he went soft) to other Indians, and Indians treating each other like crap does not a stable Indian empire make.

So, you have to figure out how to turn Indian power outwards, and get millions of Indians to all stop fighting mostly. To get that, you need some kind of pan-Indianism (so that Indians could stop fighting each other long enough to get out of relatively isolated India), which would probably be hard.
Click to expand...
I guess a large part of the problem is that the Indian subcontinent is not all that exposed, except to the northwest. The only realistic external threat I can see is the Persians and, well, Alexander and his heirs. Is there any way to make, say, the Chinese a credible threat earlier?
Winnabago said:
Perhaps you could have a Maurya emperor declare a vendetta against anything Greek, and have it be a movement that got very popular.

Then, once the Indians create “crusader states” in the Mideast, they would be in a position to attack other Greekified states, and be able to mobilize men from India to go to other places and be evil Hindus.
Click to expand...
What would be the cause of such anti-Hellenistic sentiments, though? A long war against the Seleucids?
 

Alkahest

Banned
Massa Chief said:
Kali ma! KALI MA!
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That's the spirit!
The Ubbergeek said:
I wonder if Indians could go east, but I wonder what they may find in Burma and the like...
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As far as I know, most of the culture of the Pyu states of the area were straight-up imported from India IOTL. They became Buddhists rather than Hindus, though.
Dathi THorfinnsson said:
Gee, didn't Eric Flint and David Drake already do that in 5 books?
Click to expand...
Clearly, there are no original ideas left. Maybe if I made the Evil Empire Swiss...
 

Alkahest

Banned
Another question worth asking is about what kind of Hinduism would be the easiest to make into an evil, imperial religion. It's a bit too early for Kali-worshipers (not to mention that it probably would be far too silly even for my tastes), but what about Shaivism? The whole "creator and destroyer"-thing Shiva's got could be made pretty sinister.

And how realistic is it for one single "sect" of Hinduism to become that dominant? The Hindus I am familiar with are pretty relaxed about people not believing that the same dude is the super-god above all other. Has Hinduism always been that easy-going about different sects believing different things?
 
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Winnabago

Banned
Alkahest said:
I guess a large part of the problem is that the Indian subcontinent is not all that exposed, except to the northwest. The only realistic external threat I can see is the Persians and, well, Alexander and his heirs. Is there any way to make, say, the Chinese a credible threat earlier?What would be the cause of such anti-Hellenistic sentiments, though? A long war against the Seleucids?
Click to expand...

Well, I was thinking after 400 AD, because that was the OP. That makes Greekness dominant in the Mideast.

A war against the Seleucids or other Greekified power would do fine.
 

rmanoj

Alkahest said:
Another question worth asking is about what kind of Hinduism would be the easiest to make into an evil, imperial religion. It's a bit too early for Kali-worshipers (not to mention that it probably would be far too silly even for my tastes), but what about Shaivism? The whole "creator and destroyer"-thing Shiva's got could be made pretty sinister.

And how realistic is it for one single "sect" of Hinduism to become that dominant? The Hindus I am familiar with are pretty relaxed about people not believing that the same dude is the super-god above all other. Has Hinduism always been that easy-going about different sects believing different things?
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What tends to happen isn't so much "we'll kill you if you don't acknowledge our god's superiority" but more "we'll go around telling stories in which your god gets humiliated by ours". Seriously, a lot of the content of the puranas is just Shaivites, Vaishnavites and Shaktas trying to one-up each other in this way (and Indra gets embarrassed by everyone, in stark contrast to his dominant position in Vedic religion proper).

There have certainly been episodes of violence, such as Shaivite Cholas persecuting Vaishnavites, but that's in a much later era. I don't really know if such things occurred in the time period you're talking about.

The only thing I can really suggest is an earlier and more violent Brahmanic reaction to the Sramanic tendencies (eg Buddhism). Perhaps Ashoka's successors are as vigorous in promoting Buddhism as he himself, resulting in an intensification of resentment among traditionalists. Pushyamitra Sunga, or an ATL analogue, is a strong backer of this faction and when he takes power, starts persecuting Buddhists energetically (he might have done OTL, but it's not clear). The new hardline Brahmanism anchors itself to the "purity" of Vedic ritual, perhaps discarding some of the sophisticated theological corpus that had developed attempting to "explain" the Vedas, and encourages people to focus on ancient, warlike Aryan deities such as Rudra*, and above all, Indra.

Now, if this ATL Sunga dynasty is for some reason very succesful and long-lasting, I could see a militaristic and fanatical culture really taking root in India.

*I'm not sure if Rudra had evolved into "Shiva" by this point, but either way, the focus would probably be on Indra.
 

Alkahest

Banned
Winnabago said:
Well, I was thinking after 400 AD, because that was the OP. That makes Greekness dominant in the Mideast.

A war against the Seleucids or other Greekified power would do fine.
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I think you mean 400 BC, but gotcha. A war against the Seleucids it is.
rmanoj said:
The only thing I can really suggest is an earlier and more violent Brahmanic reaction to the Sramanic tendencies (eg Buddhism). Perhaps Ashoka's successors are as vigorous in promoting Buddhism as he himself, resulting in an intensification of resentment among traditionalists. Pushyamitra Sunga, or an ATL analogue, is a strong backer of this faction and when he takes power, starts persecuting Buddhists energetically (he might have done OTL, but it's not clear). The new hardline Brahmanism anchors itself to the "purity" of Vedic ritual, perhaps discarding some of the sophisticated theological corpus that had developed attempting to "explain" the Vedas, and encourages people to focus on ancient, warlike Aryan deities such as Rudra*, and above all, Indra.
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A version of Hinduism with Indra as the supreme deity and without Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma would be very interesting, if you could even call it "Hinduism". Perhaps a kind of pseudo-monotheism could develop in time.

Researching ancient proto-Hinduism is a real pain, especially since many Wikipedia pages about Hinduism seems to suffer from some serious NPOV problems. (Apparently a whole bunch of sects in Hinduism is the oldest, for example.) But as far as I understand it, some modern schools of Hindu thought are more old-school and "Vedic" than others. Mimansa seems especially interesting, as it focuses on ritual and doesn't seem to give a damn about the actual existence of deities. That's a fascinating memeplex. Are there any other current schools in Hinduism that are older than the whole Shiva/Vishnu/Brahma-thing and could be used as a template for an alternative Hinduism?
The Ubbergeek said:
I was asking more like, why they would conquer those areas - any ressources worth it?
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Not sure. Rice and silver, perhaps?

Alright, thanks for the input everyone. Let's see, what else is there... a version of the devadasi tradition could be interesting to include, religious child prostitution seems like something an Evil Hindu Empire should be dabbling in.

Any further ideas? Basically, anything that turns the *Hindus into the Tsalal from Green Antarctica is welcome, even if it requires a POD earlier than 400 BC or later than 0 AD. Everything Lovecraftian, depraved and human sacrifice-related is greatly appreciated.
 

Alkahest

Banned
tormsen said:
You might be able to get some mileage out of my 'Maaga' concept, which is essentially a religion that emerges at around the same time as Buddhism but with _very_ different concepts. It's expansionistic, and has some religious elements with unfortunate implications which could be turned very dark indeed.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=195106
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Hnh, very interesting, thanks! There aren't enough threads about alternative religions and ideologies on this forum. (Far more interesting than General A beating General B and making Country X slightly larger, in my opinion.) I might steal the whole "a third big Nāstika religion"-idea from you, but I don't think I'll make it "Gnostic". (Mainly because I already have a "real" Gnostic faction.)

As cool as your idea is, I don't see how (the more evil version of) Maaga could be tenable in the long run, to be honest. When people discover that all humans are fundamentally the same in terms of genetics, cognitive abilities, emotions and so forth, could a religion that divides people into "real humans" and "soulless automata" survive? Maybe I put too much faith into humanity...
 
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B_Munro

Alkahest said:
As cool as your idea is, I don't see how (the more evil version of) Maaga could be tenable in the long run, to be honest. When people discover that all humans are fundamentally the same in terms of genetics, cognitive abilities, emotions and so forth, could a religion that divides people into "real humans" and "soulless automata" survive? ...
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Well, the question as to how you could _tell_ if everyone else is a conscious being or are just zombies with sophisticated programming remains a philosophical condundrum: it's not like you can measure a soul or that there is a distinct "sense of self" organ in the brain.

Bruce
 

Alkahest

Banned
B_Munro said:
Well, the question as to how you could _tell_ if everyone else is a conscious being or are just zombies with sophisticated programming remains a philosophical condundrum: it's not like you can measure a soul or that there is a distinct "sense of self" organ in the brain.
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This seems relevant. :D
 

Faeelin

Banned
Wasn't there some scifi novel about Byzantines with aid of a magic space gem fighting an evil Indian empire aided by eugenic supremacists from millenia in the future?

IIRC, the gem was sent by space whales.
 

Alkahest

Banned
Faeelin said:
Wasn't there some scifi novel about Byzantines with aid of a magic space gem fighting an evil Indian empire aided by eugenic supremacists from millenia in the future?

IIRC, the gem was sent by space whales.
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Well, where else are you gonna place an evil eugenic supremacist caste-based empire? South Africa?
 
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