With a POD at the founding of the Christian faith, have the majority of the inhabitants of the Indian Subcontinent (OTL India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and The Maldives) following a branch of Christianity, whether it be Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Nestorian or some other Christian branch, whether it be from OTL or an entirely different variety. Maybe the native Indian sect of the Saint Thomas Christians from Southern India becomes more successful and starts spreading like wildfire, or maybe Persia becomes Christian (a possible thread in its own right) and in turn spreads it to India, much like how Islam spread into the Subcontinent IOTL. How would a Christianized India change the course of history? Would there be some sort of Indian-specific Christian branch that uses Sanskrit as its liturgical language, much like Latin in Catholicism or Greek in Orthodoxy? Assuming Europe still becomes Christian (a big if for something this far back), how would the relationship between Europe and India change? Would there be more contact and trade before OTL's Age of Exploration? There are many more potential questions, but I feel like I should leave it to you guys now.
AHC: Christian-majority Indian Subcontinent
- Thread starter Gabingston
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- christianity india
I don't think this is possible and I think OTL proves that. India was dominated by Abrahamic rulers for centuries and it still didn't get more than a third of the population to convert. And this was dominated by those settling new areas in the north east and north west. Existing religious cults were far too institutionalized and the population is too big.
Could there be specific regions that become majority Christian like how OTL's Bangladesh and Pakistan became Islamic?
I've heard it had to adapt to the rise of Buddhism, which made it more resilient than other Indo-European polytheistic faiths like Greco-Roman or Norse mythology.
There are regions that are Christian majority. States of Nagaland, Meghalaya and mizoram are Christian majority with nearly 90% of them being Christian. But with some changes we can make Goa and Kerala Christian majority
I think the easiest way would be for something akin to the Mughals to be Nestorian Christian, possibly requiring the Golden Horde or one of the Mongolian successor kingdoms to maintain on this path.
The areas most amenable to Christianity in terms of it's continued preeminence were the ones where local religion was less orthopraxic and more animist/nature worshipping but not exposed to much in the way of Islam. This is mostly in the Assam region. To get a Christian majority anywhere where persuasion of that nature is unavailable will likely require significant civil strife and eventually, population transfer or external demand, none of which are easy to deal with.
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I imagine you would need a major Indian kingdom (or more) to officially convert through the baptism of it's ruler and somehow become the leading state on the sub-continent. Meanwhile, the Arabian peninsula doesn't become the cradle of Islam but instead becomes even more thoroughly Christian and Persia also ends up going Christian. Various Indian dieties become reinterpreted as Christian saints, holidays and festivals are filtered through a Christian lens, and the whole idea of castes would have to be abandoned.
It may not lead to a billion person megacountry, but perhaps a massive loss of population approximately coincident with the beginning of the Age of Discovery. Maybe a greater isolation of population leading to a demographic collapse from European diseases much like what happened in the Americas. Or peut-être a large natural disaster, even a meteorite wiping out most of the population. India might then develop like the Americas or Australasia where a Christian European population overwhelms the aboriginal peoples.
Even if India somehow suffered 90% casualties from European diseases, I doubt it would ever become a European settler colony. I'm sure even then India had 100 million or so people, more than the entirety of The Americas over a vastly smaller area.
Also East Bengal and the North West Provinces are more apt to adopt the rulers religion, as the Empire was responsible for enabling settlement in these places. In the NE, it was deforestation that created new farming land and in the NW, it was expansion of irrigation that did the same.
One only has to look at COVID to see how impossible it is to keep out diseases. Places like North Korea cannot keep it out. Trying to do the same for India, a geography lying on a spur on the Silk Road and also deeply connected into the Indian Ocean trade, isn't going to happen.
If you assume no Islam, and that Christianity manages to spread into India like Islam did IOTL, I could see there being a bare majority of Christians in South Asia. (As in just over 50%.)
It might be something with what they mentioned above about how they adapted to other religions but it also could be their large population.
The main thing is the strength of religious institutions that were allied with the ruling powers and interwoven into everyday life. There's also the huge population compared to any invading elite and the fact that India was a pretty wealthy place, so there's no sense of cultural backwardness vs Middle Eastern or Central Asian powers.
Demographic collapse is unlikely as it is part of Eurasia and thus exposed to many of the same diseases, while the Native Americans had no natural resistance.
To be Christian it will almost certainly need mass conversion of the native population.
I don't disagree with the above. I did find it difficult to imagine that India could remain isolated from the rest of Eurasia. Nonetheless, we shouldn't exclude the possibility that a disease arises which will wipe out 1 racial group. For example, if a disease arose that required the lactase enzyme, it would wipe out nearly all of the European derived population whilst having modest effects on others. It's rather improbable, but probably less improbable than the alternative, which is also possible, a meteorite of the right size, landing in the right place. There are 2 possibilities. A meteorite landing in relatively deep water of the Indian Ocean causing a massive tsunami which wiped out 80% of the Indian population & returned the rest to hunter-gatherers; yes, this would effect Africa, Australia & other parts of Asia., or a meteorite landing slap-bang in the middle of the sub-continent. Yes, it would also cause many years without a summer in the entire world, but the Indian population could be almost completely devastated.
The OP could be achieved by a few things:
- Neighbouring Christian invaders conquering India rather than Muslim rulers. This would be helped by a No-Islam scenario where the faith is butterflied away to not exist.
- The Christian conquerors not being able to expand west, and not being completely destroyed by another invading force from the east, allowing them to focus all their efforts eastwards on India
- The Christian conquerors aggressively evangelising, rather than the laissez faire approach of the OTL Muslim rulers.
- The Christian conquerors maintaining a single polity over all of India (North and South), rather than the fragmentation that occurred under the Muslim dynasties. This unity would accelerate the evangelising above
How about this scenario:
Islam does not exist. The Arab expansion still happens due to population and resource pressures in the Arabian Peninsula, but it is via several disjointed migratory waves by different and feuding Arab tribal confederations like the OTL Germanic migrations, rather than a single unified conquest like the OTL early Islamic conquests. These Arab tribesmen overrun swathes of the Byzantine and Sassanid Persian Empires, but fail to wholly conquer either. Syria, the Levant, Egypt, Libya and the rest of North Africa as well as most of Anatolia is conquered from the Byzantines, while Mesopotamia and parts of the Caucasus are conquered from the Sassanids. Due to their disunity and haphazard migratory waves, the Arabs will fail to break into the Iranian Plateau, where the Sassanids linger on. These conquering Arab tribesmen settle in the captured regions and Christianise over time (especially those that settle in former Byzantine territories), establishing independent Arab Christian Kingdoms.
In the west, these Arab Christian Kingdoms are linguistically and socio-culturally a mishmash of Hellenistic, Roman, Syriac, Coptic, Berber and Arabic influences. Later on, the Byzantines will somewhat recover and retake some of their lost territories (including the entirety of Anatolia) from these Arab Christian Kingdoms, but will not reconquer all of them.
In Mesopotamia and the Caucasus, these Arab Christian Kingdoms are linguistically and socio-culturally a mishmash of Hellenistic, Roman, Mesopotamian, Persian and Arabic influences, but are likely to become some form of heterodox (probably Nestorian) Christian. The Sassanians will try to recover and retake their lost lands from these Nestorian Arab Kingdoms, but they will be hit from the east by a large, powerful and warlike migratory confederation of Nestorian Christian Turkic tribes (much like the OTL Seljuqs). These Nestorian Christian Turks topple the last Sassanian vestiges and conquer all of Iran and the Nestorian Arab Kingdoms that were established in Mesopotamia and the Caucasus. The conquest of the Nestorian Arab Kingdoms goes fairly smoothly for the Nestorian Turks as they are coreligionists, but they face stiffer resistance as they try - and fail - to push west against the Byzantines and western Arab Christian Kingdoms. Unable to overcome this western resistance, the Nestorian Turks settle down to rule over their new empire, which encompasses Iran, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus, large parts of Central Asia and all of the Eastern Arabian coast (granting them control over the whole Persian Gulf). Over time, all of these regions become heavily Nestorian, encouraged along by aggressive evangelising efforts by the Nestorian Turkish rulers. However, whilst their empire is religiously Nestorian, it is also linguistically and socio-culturally a blending of Turkish, Arabic and Persian influences (much like the OTL Turco-Persianate Muslim dynasties).
Unable to expand westwards, the Nestorian Turks turn east and begin sending raiding parties into India, which over time grow into full scale invasions. Often, the Nestorian Turks also divert - using a combination of bribery, intimidation and force - their migrating Turco-Mongol kinsmen from the steppes southwards into also invading India, avoiding their depredations upon their own imperial Iranian heartland. (Due to butterflies, Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire do not exist ITTL). These migrating Turco-Mongols are fervently Christian, especially because of long exposure to their Nestorian Turkish kinsmen, and view their invasions of India as holy crusades to Christianise the region.
Thus, the Christian Turco-Mongols conquer all of India in several successive waves, even as the Nestorian Turkish Empire in Iran begins crumbling due to internal stagnation and external pressure, which only sends more Christian Turco-Mongol warriors flooding into India as refugee-crusaders. Eventually, a Christian Turco-Mongol dynasty arises that encompasses all of India (like the OTL Mughal Empire at its height). These Christian Turco-Mongols are much more zealous than their OTL Muslim counterparts and impose a thorough evangelical policy to Christianise their Indian Hindu subjects, seeking to emulate their Nestorian Turkish kinsmen who successfully Christianised Iran and Central Asia. If they have sufficient zeal and manpower (which is reinforced by continuous waves of Christian Turco-Mongol migrant-crusaders), over time they will grind down Indian Hindu resistance and Christianise the majority of India. This is how India ITTL becomes majority (likely Nestorian) Christian.
- Neighbouring Christian invaders conquering India rather than Muslim rulers. This would be helped by a No-Islam scenario where the faith is butterflied away to not exist.
- The Christian conquerors not being able to expand west, and not being completely destroyed by another invading force from the east, allowing them to focus all their efforts eastwards on India
- The Christian conquerors aggressively evangelising, rather than the laissez faire approach of the OTL Muslim rulers.
- The Christian conquerors maintaining a single polity over all of India (North and South), rather than the fragmentation that occurred under the Muslim dynasties. This unity would accelerate the evangelising above
How about this scenario:
Islam does not exist. The Arab expansion still happens due to population and resource pressures in the Arabian Peninsula, but it is via several disjointed migratory waves by different and feuding Arab tribal confederations like the OTL Germanic migrations, rather than a single unified conquest like the OTL early Islamic conquests. These Arab tribesmen overrun swathes of the Byzantine and Sassanid Persian Empires, but fail to wholly conquer either. Syria, the Levant, Egypt, Libya and the rest of North Africa as well as most of Anatolia is conquered from the Byzantines, while Mesopotamia and parts of the Caucasus are conquered from the Sassanids. Due to their disunity and haphazard migratory waves, the Arabs will fail to break into the Iranian Plateau, where the Sassanids linger on. These conquering Arab tribesmen settle in the captured regions and Christianise over time (especially those that settle in former Byzantine territories), establishing independent Arab Christian Kingdoms.
In the west, these Arab Christian Kingdoms are linguistically and socio-culturally a mishmash of Hellenistic, Roman, Syriac, Coptic, Berber and Arabic influences. Later on, the Byzantines will somewhat recover and retake some of their lost territories (including the entirety of Anatolia) from these Arab Christian Kingdoms, but will not reconquer all of them.
In Mesopotamia and the Caucasus, these Arab Christian Kingdoms are linguistically and socio-culturally a mishmash of Hellenistic, Roman, Mesopotamian, Persian and Arabic influences, but are likely to become some form of heterodox (probably Nestorian) Christian. The Sassanians will try to recover and retake their lost lands from these Nestorian Arab Kingdoms, but they will be hit from the east by a large, powerful and warlike migratory confederation of Nestorian Christian Turkic tribes (much like the OTL Seljuqs). These Nestorian Christian Turks topple the last Sassanian vestiges and conquer all of Iran and the Nestorian Arab Kingdoms that were established in Mesopotamia and the Caucasus. The conquest of the Nestorian Arab Kingdoms goes fairly smoothly for the Nestorian Turks as they are coreligionists, but they face stiffer resistance as they try - and fail - to push west against the Byzantines and western Arab Christian Kingdoms. Unable to overcome this western resistance, the Nestorian Turks settle down to rule over their new empire, which encompasses Iran, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus, large parts of Central Asia and all of the Eastern Arabian coast (granting them control over the whole Persian Gulf). Over time, all of these regions become heavily Nestorian, encouraged along by aggressive evangelising efforts by the Nestorian Turkish rulers. However, whilst their empire is religiously Nestorian, it is also linguistically and socio-culturally a blending of Turkish, Arabic and Persian influences (much like the OTL Turco-Persianate Muslim dynasties).
Unable to expand westwards, the Nestorian Turks turn east and begin sending raiding parties into India, which over time grow into full scale invasions. Often, the Nestorian Turks also divert - using a combination of bribery, intimidation and force - their migrating Turco-Mongol kinsmen from the steppes southwards into also invading India, avoiding their depredations upon their own imperial Iranian heartland. (Due to butterflies, Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire do not exist ITTL). These migrating Turco-Mongols are fervently Christian, especially because of long exposure to their Nestorian Turkish kinsmen, and view their invasions of India as holy crusades to Christianise the region.
Thus, the Christian Turco-Mongols conquer all of India in several successive waves, even as the Nestorian Turkish Empire in Iran begins crumbling due to internal stagnation and external pressure, which only sends more Christian Turco-Mongol warriors flooding into India as refugee-crusaders. Eventually, a Christian Turco-Mongol dynasty arises that encompasses all of India (like the OTL Mughal Empire at its height). These Christian Turco-Mongols are much more zealous than their OTL Muslim counterparts and impose a thorough evangelical policy to Christianise their Indian Hindu subjects, seeking to emulate their Nestorian Turkish kinsmen who successfully Christianised Iran and Central Asia. If they have sufficient zeal and manpower (which is reinforced by continuous waves of Christian Turco-Mongol migrant-crusaders), over time they will grind down Indian Hindu resistance and Christianise the majority of India. This is how India ITTL becomes majority (likely Nestorian) Christian.
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