Christian India

let me preface this by saying i love eastern Christian minorities, the Syrian Malabar Nasrani (Saint Thomas Christians) most of all

it's said that St Thomas came to India around 52 AD, is there any way to get the majority of people on the subcontinent to convert to Christianity over the next 200 years? how about the vast majority? how would this change the interaction between Europe and India?
 
In 200 years ??!!:eek: I think you're taking the strengths of Indian societies too lightly here...
Ja, it took a lot longer in Europe, where there was relatively little competition. Now, over a thousand years, you might have a chance - but it would probably take (a) southern Christian kingdom(s) ruling most of the subcontinent - for hundreds of years.
 
In 200 years ??!!:eek: I think you're taking the strengths of Indian societies too lightly here...

thats about how long it took in Rome, and yes i know those were two different societies and i know that all of Rome wasn't Christian in 200, but 200ish marks the start of the take over, so it's not all that out there, but to make you happy, 200-500 years
 
thats about how long it took in Rome, and yes i know those were two different societies and i know that all of Rome wasn't Christian in 200, but 200ish marks the start of the take over, so it's not all that out there, but to make you happy, 200-500 years

Still not enough. India was disunited, civilized, wealthy, strong and a ground of competition between native sophisticated ideas. You can't just breach through those so easily. Unless it involves ASB or at least, some kind of a mysterious event you can hardly got an Indian Christian plurality in a millennium. The absolute requirement to even get the ball rolling is that you must make Christianity be able to give Indian people political and economic advantage, and this won't happen without some kind of a helluva change like, for example, disastrous collapse of Indian societies.
 
get a indian constantin fer a start i would guess. Christianitiy did spread iinto the cities in rome first, it is i the country side that pageanisem heald the most sway. Get the elits and citys and the rest should follow i would think. But probably not i 200 years. How long did it take islam too get a following?
And that fare away from a pope, you would probably see several sects emering if christianit becam dominat.
 
A conquering Emperor converts along the way to unification?

That'd involve a lot of changes to OTL though, no?
 
I'm figuring that you could get most of India to convert by the time that European 'colonization' of the continent begins?
And the OP states about the interaction between India and Europe.
Personally I think that it could put Persia/the middle east in an awkward position, Islamic nations wedged between two large Christian areas.
When the crusades kick off, if the Indian Kingdoms get involved then I think its possible the crusades could go 'better'.

?
 
I'm figuring that you could get most of India to convert by the time that European 'colonization' of the continent begins?
And the OP states about the interaction between India and Europe.
Personally I think that it could put Persia/the middle east in an awkward position, Islamic nations wedged between two large Christian areas.
When the crusades kick off, if the Indian Kingdoms get involved then I think its possible the crusades could go 'better'.

?

Dunno about that though. The main problem to get India become majority Christian is.... well, there are lots of it. There is no reason to think India as was just like Dark age Europe. Disunited ? Yes. As backward as contemporary Europe ? Not in hell. Not to mention terrain, trade network links, jibba jabba like that....

If you can get Christian Romans to expand into swallowing all of eastern side of the Red Sea, expanding all the way to Yemen then there's a possibility, but will still be unlikely. The best way would be to make a condition where as the Indians would perceive the dawn of Christianity as a good political and, more importantly, economical opportunity that native ideologies just can't provide. What you need here is pretty much some kind of a Dark Age India and a Christian, obviously have to be also more advanced, Arabia (at least southern coasts of it).
 
Since i am absolutely no expert on Indian culture and society, I hesitate to express much of an opinion on the matter. But it is my underatanding that for reasons beyond my knowledge, Indian cultures and societies have been resistant to many efforts over the last two millinenia to christianize. Although small pockets of christians have existed there intermittently for 2000 years, overall, there have never been many converts. As I recall, British missionaries in the 19th and 20th century have attempted to make inroads and had little success. As a result, missionary efforts went to China and Africa instead where they were much more successful.
 
Think about this a little:

Since Asoka (250 BC) to Harsha (650 AD), passing through Gandhara Buddhism (1 AD) and the Kushans (150 AD), many kingdoms and great kings tried to impose Buddhism as the predominant faith. Constantine is a joke comparing to the likes of Asoka, Kaniska and Harsha in the "imposing religion" category. Buddhism was a native faith, it had a great story, great background, many advantages, an interesting philosophy. In 650 AD, for example, both China and India were clearly Buddhist in spirit. Three hundred years later you couldn't find a Buddhist there with a magnifying glass.

The morale? Hinduism would crush Christianity as a mainstream religion in India anytime, anywhere. Yes, it would remain as the main faith of fringe groups or nationalities, but it would have never transformed into a "cool" trend.

So Christian India = ASB
 
Think about this a little:

Since Asoka (250 BC) to Harsha (650 AD), passing through Gandhara Buddhism (1 AD) and the Kushans (150 AD), many kingdoms and great kings tried to impose Buddhism as the predominant faith. Constantine is a joke comparing to the likes of Asoka, Kaniska and Harsha in the "imposing religion" category. Buddhism was a native faith, it had a great story, great background, many advantages, an interesting philosophy. In 650 AD, for example, both China and India were clearly Buddhist in spirit. Three hundred years later you couldn't find a Buddhist there with a magnifying glass.

The morale? Hinduism would crush Christianity as a mainstream religion in India anytime, anywhere. Yes, it would remain as the main faith of fringe groups or nationalities, but it would have never transformed into a "cool" trend.

So Christian India = ASB

Buddhism is a native faith to India and rulers and elite classess openly accepted it and inturn spread to common folks also. Buddhism was patronized by women and merchant communities who aslo saw advantage of following emperor's faiths atleast merchants. i belong to a merchant class from india and am sure my folks were buddhist once upon a time and later moved back to hinduism. i found this long time back when i was a kid as i was seriously searching for some historical aspect of my community. Lord Buddha is a son of India and buddhism is nothing but an offshoot of hindu faith. Though his teachings more were like simplified form of hindu faith and spoken in native tongue instead of sanskrit, hinduism rebounced and accepted this son of India as Lord god Vishnu's incarnate and neatly incorporated everything back. Droves of people moved back to hinduism and put Lord Buddha as one in 'Dasavatharas' (10 incarnations) of Lord Vishnu. Buddhism does not exist in India even in little packets as it tried to move away from hinduism.

Hinduism as such will accept any belief and i know it is hard for abrahamic faith followers to understand so as such for hindus to get converted in droves to christianity in ancient india the incentive is much lesser than now. Now the conversion rates are extremly high due to politicians and false promises. so India might become christoislam in near future but ancient India being christian is nearly impossible in any time line if ever hinduism is in the picture.
 
There was a thread done on this a few months ago:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=102392&highlight=saint+thomas+india

I think the best way for India to convert is for St. Thomas to target the lower castes for conversion. iOTL in the Roman Empire the first converts were mostly lower-class, only becoming a religion for the wealthy and powerful when they had become an Empire-wide religious-political power. St. Thomas goes with the same strategy, converting members of the lower classes, establishing a Patriarchy in Cochin, maybe getting martyred, and it goes from there. With a 'reward in the next life' lower class focused missionary strategy I think the Church of St. Thomas could go pretty far.

Southern India seems to have been pretty resistant to empire-builders from the north of the sub-continent, so perhaps the Church provides the political unity that the region otherwise lacks. Monasticism emerges, which would easily go along with the rural poor who the Christians appeal to, aproviding centers of Church-directed learning and protection in times of trouble, along with providing a corps of priests who can compete with the contemporary Buddhist movement, and you have a pretty strong religious and political infrastructure.

When Muslim invaders start in on India, you could see Buddhist institutions going over to Christianity in order to avoid their OTL destruction. The two religions will have been contemporaries for over 1000 years by the time of the Muslim invasions, and if Thomas-ist Christianity has become a mass religion, then it will have picked up a very strong local flavor.
 
This still would not work as hindu system of class/caste is different from roman system. Hindu society is divided into different number of castes/subcastes but all these are actually based on work/skill they have/do. so say you are a carpenter you are usually from a carpenter caste and as soon as you tell your caste people would recognize your skill. The only exception to all this is presence of untouchables. These untouchables were created from vagabonds, people who are antisocial, people who committed grave sins etc. The only mistake of hindu society is it did not visualize that these untouchables who should have integrated into their own communities after their punishment time were just left out and their descendents were all condemned. These are the people who converted to christianity/islam first.

As per my knowledge Kerala's hindu society was/is much more rigid than other south indian states. so st.thomas could create his syrian christian church but it did not mean whole hindu community will be converted in a ziffy to christianity. This christian community of malabar area is right now very rigid with little flexibility to accept every lost soul into the fold.
South India already had well developed dynasties chola, chera, chalukya, pallava, vijayanagara, nayaka empires ruling/ruled most of south india. so this patriarchy/monostacism is irrelevant. majority of south india already moved from matriarchy to patriarchy millenia ago only matriarchy stayed active in kerala area. it is urban areas which would be influenced first than rural areas. Rural areas it needs to be local to make these conversions happen.

so to become christian i see 2 possible ways
1. hinduism should not develop in a philosophical way should remain only pagan with rituals and no meaning. so it should be just gibberish spoken by shamans/priests. (but as such hinduism is anything but gibberish, it is extremely methodical, philosophical, beautiful)
2. Christianity will not be spread by st.thomas alone so something more, like a group of evangelicals/business people who did not have adverse opinions on India and Indians in general, who integrates into societies and customs first.

If you observe islam's initial converts (peaceful ones atleast) are mostly merchant communities like bohras in gujarat who had extensive trade links with arabs/arabia.
 
the last census i belive has 100,000 christians in india. there is currently a lot of anti-christian seniment. I feel if St FX went to india instead of china than there would have been a greater chance of a christian india.
 

Hendryk

Banned
Maybe in a TL in which the Mughals have converted to Christianity somewhere along the line, one may see a Christian plurality in India about the size of OTL's Muslim plurality. I suppose it would be Nestorian Christianity from back when it was somewhat influential among Turco-Mongol tribes, and it would likely take a local flavor as it is imposed in India.

Anyway, Indian history isn't my area of expertise.
 
You need a christian denomination that yields certain customs to Hindi beliefs and rituals. AND major cities that subscribe to this type of christianity.
 
I think the Mughals are a great example of why christianity could not become anywhere close to a majority religion. The Mughals tried extremely hard to islamify india following in the tradition of generations of muslim invaders before them. they attempted peaceful integration, conversion by the sword and syncretism. They might have achieved a slight majority at their height but that was only after many many years.
 
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