Vikayak Devagiri
Banned
I do think that the regional languages would be closer due to geographic proximity with each other, compared to latin or arabic world
AHC - United Indian Subcontinent
- Thread starter Vikayak Devagiri
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Sanskrit tends to demand exactness in pronunciation as well- incorrectly pronounced or accented Sanskrit is simply not seen as good Sanskrit in otl. I suppose in a timeline where Sanskrit reaches a wider audience, the view of what is and what isn’t Sanskrit would have to change so that these corrupted versions are still seen as Sanskrit.
Kaushlendra pratap singh
Banned
Problems with Sanskrit is that - it is to much codify like a modern computer languages , a Mistake in pronunciation can change whole meaning of sentences . There is no difference in Sanskrit from 600 BC to the present ,it happens due to Panini's Vyakaran book Astadhyai ( Grammar) . After that a book name as Amritkosh codify the word for Sanskrit languages Around 400 AC . After that for using new word in Sanskrit you have to go through this codification after that creating a new Mul(a word ) which can follow Vyakaran formulation for further use.
Vikayak Devagiri
Banned
Yeah, a large population will lead to more research on lingusitics and grammer of sanskrit being done
Vikayak Devagiri
Banned
So. by the polls, it seems that many feel that a United Subcontinent is possible, can anyone state some of the reasons why ?
HistoricalArthropod
Banned
I think we should remind ourselves as to what exactly constitutes the Indian subcontinent. This elevation map highlights pretty well. It goes from the start of the Indo gangetic plain to the Arakan mountains, and from the Himalayas to Sri Lanka.
Interestingly, the divide between Indic and iranian languages matches up very closely with the geographic boundary.
This is the easiest condition of the three-- the difficult part isn't really bringing the regions together but keeping them together even when they are capable of going it alone. High autonomy for outlying regions has to happen, but the head of government needs to retain a "centrally governed" area large enough to draw revenue/troops from themselves. I'd also argue that "capability to go alone" decreases over time. As modernity eliminates "vassalage" as a concept and makes national borders stronger and less permeable, it's easier to argue for pan-Indian political unity as a way to maintain certain social formations that cross language barriers. After all, dividing South India into a sovereign Tamil state, Malayali state, etc. sounds doable-- but then which state gets to have the temple of Tirupati Balaji, or have Shirdi? Both of those places draw in pilgrims from everywhere; there's a limit to how "closed" a state's borders are really allowed to be.
Besides that, large infrastructure projects like the Grand Trunk Road can help too. But those are costly, and cost is what all-India conquests come down to. There might be a long-term profit but can your state handle the short-term cost? China's most iconic megaprojects (Great Wall, Grand Canal) were often the work of several dynasties in succession, and I've already talked about how "several national dynasties in succession" is more unlikely in India. If one dynasty takes everything on its shoulders and tries to do too much at once... well, the Tughlaq idea of moving the Indian capital to the Deccan really isn't that bad in theory. It just didn't need to happen as a forced migration to the new capital site before it even had the infrastructure to host the new population.
In some ways, it's better if the governors of outlying regions don't consider themselves as (and aren't required to serve as) a vital part of a larger Indian project. The Maratha confederal model wasn't too bad but since all the rulers were members of the same Maratha inner circle, all of them wanted to be recognized as important within that circle, leading to rivalries over army command. National politics bleeds into regional politics and vice versa. Meanwhile, there's two funny stories with the Mughal conquest of the Deccan:
- Zulfiqar Khan, who was at the very front lines of Aurangzeb's wars, conquered Gingee (near Chennai) from the local Maratha dynasty. He then marched all the way back north to help Jahandar Shah in the succession war after Bahadur Shah's death. Good news: he won and gets to try his ideas of isolating rebel movements (the Sikhs) and improving governance for people who might rebel but haven't yet. Bad news: he's stuck with Jahandar Shah, who needed Zulfiqar Khan's help because there's no way he would have won otherwise.
- After Zulfiqar ruling in the name of Jahandar, and the Sayyid brothers in the name of Farrukhsiyar, we got Chan Qilich Khan ruling in the name of Muhammad Shah. At first he tried to govern from the prime minister's chair like his predecessors did, but this was such a difficult and thankless task by the time (Bengal had gone its own way, the Marathas were on the rise, the Sikhs were still rebelling) that he actually gave up, went to Hyderabad, and set up the Hyderabad State. That's why the rulers of Hyderabad were Nizam (a prime-ministerial title), not Nawab. But no one filled the void he left behind, and in the end he was still the commander of Delhi during Nader Shah's ransacking of it 14 years later despite his real interests being very far from Delhi.
This offers a little bit more promise. But even if Modern Standard Arabic is the Modern Standard, I've been told that the Egyptian dialect dominates pan-Arab TV shows. MSA doesn't dominate the spoken language anywhere and actually I'm not even sure literacy rates are high enough to give MSA 90% unity in the Arab world.
Agreed. The impulse for preserving exact sound/grammar actually isn't that strange in context (the Persians preserved the Avestan hymns for several centuries, no matter how archaic the language got), but the way Panini did it (establishing a replicable procedure, not just memorizing endless lists of words by rote) is still unrivaled.
Another problem with adopting a "Low/Common/Simple Sanskrit" is that it would probably follow the same trajectory as Buddhism's Pali: initially accepted as compromise between common and liturgical language, but then even it stops being the spoken language. And you can try to keep "updating" Low Sanskrit to stay ahead of the curve but again: when agni becomes aag, it's still "fire". But is it still Sanskrit?
True, but Pashtun is an Eastern Iranian language (diverged from Western Persian a couple millennia ago) and while the Baloch are a more recent cast-off, their lifestyle and political organization were alien enough to Iranian authorities that only after 1920 was Balochistan treated as "just another Iranian province". And the area is still very receptive to the influence of the Subcontinent, but now it's influence from Indian Islam instead of Indian Buddhism. I don't think either India or Iran is especially favored over the other in trying to rule the area.
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It should be noted that medieval Muslim geographers like Biruni, the anonymous author of the Hudud al-Alam, etc considered the eastern parts of modern Afghanistan to be within India.
I think we should remind ourselves as to what exactly constitutes the Indian subcontinent. This elevation map highlights pretty well. It goes from the start of the Indo gangetic plain to the Arakan mountains, and from the Himalayas to Sri Lanka.
Interestingly, the divide between Indic and iranian languages matches up very closely with the geographic boundary.
One could certainly make the case for Nuristan being within Greater India....
Vikayak Devagiri
Banned
Indus was not the official border for the subcontinent, Hindu Kush was as it was perfectly dividing Afghanistan between Indian and Iranian influence
I think we should remind ourselves as to what exactly constitutes the Indian subcontinent. This elevation map highlights pretty well. It goes from the start of the Indo gangetic plain to the Arakan mountains, and from the Himalayas to Sri Lanka.
Interestingly, the divide between Indic and iranian languages matches up very closely with the geographic boundary.
Vikayak Devagiri
Banned
1. Which dynasty do you think would unite India the most and longest
2. Do you think Sanskrit will become the language of the elite while local variants are spoken across the empire
3. If Balochistan and Pashtunistan Remanined Hindu, will they be Indian Influenced
4. How strong do you think a United Subcontinet would be?
HistoricalArthropod
Banned
I mean there are some indo aryan speaking areas of Afghanistan
Arakan mountains
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Vikayak Devagiri
Banned
That is the generally accepted part of Indian Cultural Entity, Hindukush to the West, Arakan to the East, Himalaya to the North and all of South Including Sri Lanka
If we go by "Iranian" then Afghanistan is mostly that, religiously pre-islam it's hard to say, again Hinduism is so heterogeneous that you can stretch the definition enough as to include Iranian polytheism when it is reinterpreted, but regardless west of Gandhara was native Indic presence existed?
Vikayak Devagiri
Banned
Gandhara was considered the Border of Indic Influence, remember, it is said that the Helmand River was the was the Fabled Saraswati River, as such we can see that the Eastern Pashtun regions were of Indian influence
I mean ok there was Indian influence but it's influence on an Iranic speaking populations, using the same logic you could say Punjab and Sindh is not India/South Asia because it had Iranian influence since the Achaemenid.
Vikayak Devagiri
Banned
Punjab and Sindh were always considered a part of India due both cultural and religious connections, for example, it is said that Holi was celebrated in Multan, Panini, was from north west India, most likely from pasthun speaking area
As I understand Gandhara was Indo-Aryan until the late antique period.