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In a sudden turn of events, I shall start rambling on about obscure matters relating to India rather than Mesoamerica. Shocking, I know, but nevertheless, I've been wanting to make a topic like this for many months and now that I'm considerably more knowledgeable on the subject now I feel now to be an appropriate time to start. It is one of the strange twists of fate that India should have suffered such an ignominious fate as to be relegated to being such an obscure land with very little attention being paid to them despite their previous status of being the richest land in the entire world. So I got to wondering, how you have it so that foreign powers do not take over any significant parts of the subcontinent and perhaps have an Indian kingdom rising to major prominence?

The first thing to be averted would be the Muslim invasions of the Middle Ages. When the Ghorids and others invaded, many of the cultural treasures and riches were lost, and society itself changed. In fact I have heard that after the invasion the caste system became far more rigid. The British Raj changed things even moreso. So to start, the best way to avert both of these invasions would be to have a more unified India. Now I am quite aware that having the entire subcontinent under one ruler is very ASB, so instead it would have to be more a regional thing. Like perhaps having most of North India ruled by one empire making vassals of the others in the area, controlling the areas bordering the Ghorids is especially important. However I am not very knowledgeable on the north.

South India I think might be an easier area of discussion for me. I was thinking perhaps that the Cholas could have more luck and eventually come to subjugate or make vassals of most, if not all of, South India. Then they would be quite the major power, what with colonies out east and regular contacts with the Abbasids and the Song Dynasty. So would it be possible at all to have the Cholas establish and even larger empire to control the south and a northern empire to arise that permanently blocks the Muslim invasions? And what would the long term consequences be, do you think?
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