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I'd wager a crisp twenty-pound note that upon hearing the words “India” and “Empire” most people would think of the British Raj, and yet of course India has been home to many large and powerful native empires that have exerted influence over a pretty wide area. So the questions is, just how large could an Indian colonial empire get and how could it survive? Could we see Pala or Mughal colonies in Madagascar? Somalia? Australia? What are the obstacles to true Indian domination of the Indian ocean and which of the sub-continent's historical empires would be the likeliest candidate?
So the challenge: Given a POD not before the founding of the Gupta Empire in 320 CE what is the largest possible extent for an empire based on the Indian subcontinent?