AHC: Swap India and China

The problem with Ashoka is that we don't know that much about him. And there are estimates that his empire was crumbling while he was still emperor!

I certainly think a larger core area is possible to maintain as a united state ( and arguably has what with the Mauryas, Guptas, Harsha, Mamluks etc.) but not the whole of India. This would be more similar to China's core vs its periphery.
 
Perhaps making him have the revelation that uniting the land a la Qin Shihuang but nicer is a surer path to peace than simple pacifism? And making the language of Buddhism into a lingua franca?

Pali (or rather the group of related labguages we now call Pali) was a lingua franca of sorts across India during the Maurya period.

And yes, having Ashoka do that could work (although as Badshah points out we don't know very much about the historical Ashoka- perhaps he did try but the campaigns petered out and his supposed pacificism was an ex post facto excuse)
 
The problem with Ashoka is that we don't know that much about him. And there are estimates that his empire was crumbling while he was still emperor!

I certainly think a larger core area is possible to maintain as a united state ( and arguably has what with the Mauryas, Guptas, Harsha, Mamluks etc.) but not the whole of India. This would be more similar to China's core vs its periphery.

I think this is the most plausible scenario for a United India, however it is debatable what should be the core territory. I would recommend all of the Hindi belt, Punjab, Bengal and Gujurat, the capital of such a state would be Paliputra, rather then the later Delhi as I feel the Islamic era and it's various consequent invasions prevent a core state from really staying stable. (Unless we are talking about Mughal era, but then it's far too late for India to have had a history akin to that of China).
 
Could Rana Sanga have united North India while his descendants expanded southward? What I'm thinking is that his battles against Babur are more successful, and we get a Rajput-ruled, primarily Hindu Delhi-based state.
 
I think this is the most plausible scenario for a United India, however it is debatable what should be the core territory. I would recommend all of the Hindi belt, Punjab, Bengal and Gujurat, the capital of such a state would be Paliputra, rather then the later Delhi as I feel the Islamic era and it's various consequent invasions prevent a core state from really staying stable. (Unless we are talking about Mughal era, but then it's far too late for India to have had a history akin to that of China).

I'd say the Hindi belt + Punjab, Gujurat and Rajasthan. Bengal has generally been quite culturally distinct from the others. It would probably be on the inner periphery of the heartland.
 
The core could be the Aryavarth, the land between the mountains of Himalayas in the north and the Vindhya-Satpura ranges in Central India, also known as Gaud, ie. ringed by mountains. Dravid, the peninsular land ringed by water (Drav = Liquid/water) could be the hinterland to which expansion was natural when strong empires rose in the northern plains. But I think the capital could be better somewhere at or near Ujjain, rather than at Pataliputra, which was far to the east, as in the ancient period the agressors always came from the north west.
 
Pali (or rather the group of related labguages we now call Pali) was a lingua franca of sorts across India during the Maurya period.

And yes, having Ashoka do that could work (although as Badshah points out we don't know very much about the historical Ashoka- perhaps he did try but the campaigns petered out and his supposed pacificism was an ex post facto excuse)

Hm, I wonder what could have happened if Alexander hadn't invaded during his great-grandfather Chandragupta's time. Would that have helped or hindered the Maurya efforts to unite India?
 
Hm, I wonder what could have happened if Alexander hadn't invaded during his great-grandfather Chandragupta's time. Would that have helped or hindered the Maurya efforts to unite India?

Was Alexander really relevant to the early Mauryas? Wasn't he stopped in the Punjab, before he got to modern Central India which is where Chandragupta's state really developed. Except for leaving behind a legacy of Indo-Bactrian states and opening up trade between the Hellenic world and India I don't think it really mattered to Ashoka's conquests.
 
The goal of Chandragupta was the conquest of Magadha, the most important kingdom in India at that time. The King Nanda who ruled over Magadha was not affected by the invasion of Alexander. Hence Alexander's invasion did not aid or obstruct the efforts of Chandragupta directly. But the political churning that the invasion of Alexander created in the North west helped Chandragupta to fish in those muddy waters and build up a launching pad for his adventure across the Gangetic plain towards Magadha. Thus ultimately the invasion of Alexander, indirectly at least, was helpful for Chandragupta in the long run.
 
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