AHC: Swahili City States In The Indosphere

Possibly. I'm wondering how we get Indian traders extending their routes to East Africa though when the Arabs have a thriving maritime culture. What's the incentive?

In SE Asia they had trading incentives plus the advantage of not having to deal with any intervening maritime cultures. In the western Indian ocean, however, what's the incentive that makes Siva the South Indian Trader go all the way to the East African coast when he can get whatever trade goods he wants from there in Oman. Is there anything lucrative enough to spur a drive to finance expensive and risky expeditions to cut out the middlemen as the Arabs and later the Portuguese did in SE Asia?

Unless we assume that South Arabia is being Indianised first... in which case, the Arabians who conduct the business along the East African seaboard would be Indiansed Arabians and thus maybe the ones who bring Indianisation there.
 
For the Arabs -- destabilized by Persian turmoil, Ethiopians and peninsular migrations/power struggles.

As for the economic incentive, I'm thinking ivory and slave soldiers, spurred by religious conflict against a Christianizing post-Palabhra Chera dynasty.

Could an Indian kingdom like the Chola Dynasty play a role in Indianization if they went west instead of east with the Indianized Arabians then going on to Indianize East Africa via trade, etc?

Perhaps featuring a scenario where a destabilized Arabia is divided up for a time by the Chola Dynasty (or another Indian kingdom), Romans / Byzantines, Persians and Ethiopians.
 
Could an Indian kingdom like the Chola Dynasty play a role in Indianization if they went west instead of east with the Indianized Arabians then going on to Indianize East Africa via trade, etc?

Perhaps featuring a scenario where a destabilized Arabia is divided up for a time by the Chola Dynasty (or another Indian kingdom), Romans / Byzantines, Persians and Ethiopians.
OTL´s overseas Chola expansion is rather too late for our purposes (in the late 10th, early 11th century, Arabia had been the centre of a world-spanning civilization and powerful empires for more than three centuries), but an earlier expansion by South Indian kingdoms like the Chola, the Chera, or the Pandya is of course possible.
If what we want is an Indianization of a part of South Arabia prior to the 6th century, a few options come my mind:

  • Kushans, beginning their expansion most likely from the Sindh, circumventing the Parthians, in the 2nd century CE, when they were well Indianised, yet still strong
  • Guptas in the late 4th century, when both Sassanids and Romans were suffering under nomadic invasions
  • any Southern Indian dynasty (not just the above-mentioned, but also the Kalabhra), if resistance is not too strong.
But there could also be Indian kshatriyas marginalised for some reason in their home, who decide to move on and serve as mercenaries in one of the conflicts in the region.

Or maybe even just a peaceful emporion for merchants, which begins to disseminate ideas into its surroundings?

Lots of people have said that Arabians were looking for religious reorientation in the 4th-7th centuries, and that this was a fertile ground for the emergence and the rise of Islam. By the same argument, a creative Buddhist sect with a set of ideas suited to an Arabian audience could score, too.
 
Unless we assume that South Arabia is being Indianised first... in which case, the Arabians who conduct the business along the East African seaboard would be Indiansed Arabians and thus maybe the ones who bring Indianisation there.

This is more doable, I think. Indianised kingdoms in *Yemen and *Oman could be pulled off.
 
If the Mauryan Dynasty is more stable...

Have one unifying heir after Ashoka's death and keep the Empire united. With the Tamil kingdoms as tributary states along with the Deccan valley kingdoms, expansion is either by naval means, will take them into Persia, or the jungles of Burma. While the Burmese are already starting to be culturally influences and the Seleucids are a tempting target, naval expansion is also plausible. Trade will reach farther and the Indosphere might reach Malaysia and Indonesia earlier than OTL. Ultimately in a more stable environment the ships might lead to larger trading posts, possibly outright control, of Masirah and Socotra. Getting Bahrain and/or Qushm would also be plausible and might push the Indosphere into the Persian Gulf. Dahlak and Farasan archipelagos in the Red Sea might also come into the Indosphere as well. But with Socotra as a port of call, adventurous merchants and settlers would be literally at Somalia's doorstep. Indian trading ships eventually reached the area anyway, the Romans were known to have made a deal with the Somalis and Nabateans to bar Indian ships from their ports to promote local commerce. So supposing these ships are there much earlier before such a ban can take place, trade between the Levant and India itself can be very lucrative. Somalia is not only a logical stopping point but also home to half a dozen major city-states that relied on trade as a major source of income, and possibly one of the origins of cinnamon among other spices. Trade over a century before the Romans are in the area would mean their influence is more solidified before any other major power has a chance to compete with it, especially if India remains a unified state into the second century BC or even first century BC. Ultimately the Romans were known to have traded much farther south for gold, perhaps into Mozambique, and if the Indians can get there ahead of the Romans or compete with them it could result not only in an Indian Zanzibar but potentially an Indian Madagascar or as more of a long shot an Indian South Africa.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosylon#/media/File:Periplous_of_the_Erythraean_Sea.svg
 
I don't really see South Arabia Indianising though.
The area has urban life, thriving trade and states for about as long as (Vedic) India and has documented writing way earlier (I'm discounting the IVC here and all the theories, very popular in India, that connect it to the Vedas. I am going with the mainstream view of Western Indologists that see a discontinuity in urban life between the IVC and Vedic phases, although I recognized that this poses some problems).
I mean that it is difficult to see what could lead Indian cultural traits to impose themselves to urbanized, literate South Arabians with the same level of prestige they had to pre-state Austronesians. The were in considerable interaction with the Hellenistic/Roman world, felt its prestige clearly and incorporated some its fashions and styles - but never considered Hellenizing or Romanizing.

It is worth noting that South Arabians exerted significant trading influence (according to the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, actually political control) over the would-be Swahili coast. The Periplus refers to at least a city, Rhapta, that has to be in that general area in the first century AD (it is said to be ruled by "Homerites", that is, the South Arabian kingdom of Himyar - I am not aware of any idependent confirmation though, and standard work on South Arabia hardly mention rule over East Africa that far south). By the way, the name "Azania" is also from that text, so I assume it's Greek, not Persian (although I suppose it's related to the Arabic-Persian word "Zanj" indeed). This is supposedly even before Bantu speakers settled the area.
I don't how this relates to the archaeological record, but to my knowledge, not a single letter in any South Arabian script has ever been found in Africa south of Ethiopia. Which would be expected if the Himyarites actually had colonies there, I'd guess.

A problem is that this East African trade looks, overall, like it was marginal (I am talking Roman times,. The main items involved were probably ivory and ostrich feathers. Gold is also mentioned, and I've read suggestions that Rhapta was actually the sea outlet for gold from Great Zimbabwe -except that this does not seem to add up with the accepted dating for the latter IIRC.
However, I gather that India had plenty of ivory, easier ways to get gold, and ostrich feathers... you don't create a new Indianised cultural area just to get those.
But this is all about before the Bantu moved in.
 
I also don't see South Arabia Indianizing, since a lot of these ideas are way, way, way before my POD in my TL.

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What I was thinking was South Arabia being destabilized/invaded/hurt enough to disrupt their leg of the trade route, combined with a need for slaves in India as soldiers or whatever. This gives Indians reasons to go to Azania -- and introduces the Bantu to Indian mercantile culture.
 
Another problem is that some of the trading sites are still undiscovered. Rhapta was thought to be settled by any number of peoples from lost Carthaginians to Persians to Ethiopians to even Malagasy peoples. Its location is unknown, though Roman coins have been found at Pemba. If this is Rhapta, great, but the speculation is that this may actually the next port (Nikon?) or second-to-next port (Menuthias) before Rhapta. Reportedly Rhapta was 'two day's sail' from Menuthias, that puts the Comoros and other islands within range if Pemba is actually Menuthias. Ptolemy wrote about areas in his Geography that may correspond to Mozambique, Hamilco wrote of areas going at least into Ghana, and personally I think rumors of African circumnavigation in antiquity might be much more substantial than previously supposed.
 
I also don't see South Arabia Indianizing, since a lot of these ideas are way, way, way before my POD in my TL.

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What I was thinking was South Arabia being destabilized/invaded/hurt enough to disrupt their leg of the trade route, combined with a need for slaves in India as soldiers or whatever. This gives Indians reasons to go to Azania -- and introduces the Bantu to Indian mercantile culture.

This is possible, South Arabia experienced a crisis in the fifth century AD from which never really recovered until far into the Islamic period.
 
Borderline ASB, because Swahili ethnogenesis itself has strong Islamic elements. The thing a lot of people miss is that the Swahili haven't been there since the beginning of time. Their name itself comes from an Arabic word for coast.

The Periplus if the Erythraean Sea suggests that coastal trade networks and city-states were already in formation six hundred years before the rise of Islam, fostered by South Arabians, Ethiopians, and Egyptians. We also have archaeological findings of Roman trade goods in the area, and, correct me if I'm wrong, the existence of Zoroastrian communities and temples in the Swahili states also suggests pre-Islamic development.
 
The Periplus if the Erythraean Sea suggests that coastal trade networks and city-states were already in formation six hundred years before the rise of Islam, fostered by South Arabians, Ethiopians, and Egyptians. We also have archaeological findings of Roman trade goods in the area, and, correct me if I'm wrong, the existence of Zoroastrian communities and temples in the Swahili states also suggests pre-Islamic development.
I realize the existence of Rhapta et al, but they were generally unimportant. I've read Periplus, and it never implies city-states, only rulers (and complex chiefdoms also have rulers). This is all that The Oxford Handbook of African Archaeology, the definitive work on the topic, says on Rhapta:
Both documents [Ptolemy and the Periplus] are consistent with archaeological evidence that, before the emergence of Swahili society, some coastal populations engaged in trade and social relations with Mediterranean and Indian Ocean societies during the Early Iron Age, perhaps even earlier.
No city-states, just "some coastal populations." A few pages later it discusses pre-Swahili archaeology:
In the late first millennium BC and until the founding of Swahili settlements, the coast was home to a mosaic of smaller-scale societies with economies based on cattle pastoralism and mixed farming and fishing. Early Iron Age Urawe and Kwale ceramics (de Maret, this volume) were used throughout both coastal and more interior regions, suggesting little cultural or economical separation of the coast [.....] over the 6th-10th centuries, therefore, a new pattern for coastal life emerged.
TL;DR the roots of independent Swahili culture really take off only about a century before Islam, and obviously true Swahili civilization long post-dates Islam.

Also I'm not sure why you're even mentioning African Zoroastrians, since the current population primarily comes from Indian Parsis who accompanied sultan Barghash bin Said (who had been exiled in Mumbai and thus knew many Parsis) in 1870.
 
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