Closer links between India and Persia

Could a more united northern India take persian lands, to reverse things? I don't think I have ever seen a timeline or such about an empire based in India, and conquering FROM India, WESTWARD...

This thread, I wanted it to be also not just 'from Persia to India' stuff, but also 'from India to Persia'..
 
Could a more united northern India take persian lands, to reverse things? I don't think I have ever seen a timeline or such about an empire based in India, and conquering FROM India, WESTWARD...

This thread, I wanted it to be also not just 'from Persia to India' stuff, but also 'from India to Persia'..

...so like Persian curries.

I got the impression it was both ways, it just happens that Persian empires did more conquering in India than vice-versa.

I think to amend that you need an empire of the sort that would span from one to the other starting in India - which means the ingredients for such an empire need to exist there at the right time.

Why didn't that happen OTL? Not sure. But probably for some reason other than chance.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
> Why didn't that happen OTL? Not sure. But probably for some reason other than chance.

People from more fertile region (China, Indus River) rarely have incentive to conquer less fertile areas (Mongolia, Baluchistan/Persia). plus region that less fertile usually have more warlike culture.

The Sikhs during Sikhs Empire did managed to capture Kandahar / parts of Afghanistan.

it will be interesting to see TL where Sikhs worshipped Ali and recognized by Shiite on Iran as coreligionnist.
 
> Why didn't that happen OTL? Not sure. But probably for some reason other than chance.

People from more fertile region (China, Indus River) rarely have incentive to conquer less fertile areas (Mongolia, Baluchistan/Persia). plus region that less fertile usually have more warlike culture.

The Sikhs during Sikhs Empire did managed to capture Kandahar / parts of Afghanistan.

it will be interesting to see TL where Sikhs worshipped Ali and recognized by Shiite on Iran as coreligionnist.

True on the fertility thing. It would be interesting if there's any reason to expand westward though - my knowledge of what's worth taking in Iran is looking from the Bosporus eastward.
 
True on the fertility thing. It would be interesting if there's any reason to expand westward though - my knowledge of what's worth taking in Iran is looking from the Bosporus eastward.

The fertility thing is it- there's no real reason for a power based in Northern India to want to expand into Persia. The Hindu Kush provides a natural border and pushing beyond that isn't really worth the cost it would take.
 

Maur

Banned
I guess everyone's roadblocking you at the moment
Indeed, but i think with a reason. Let me quote Jawaharlal Nehru:

"Among the many peoples and races who have come in contact with and influenced India's life and culture, the oldest and most persistent have been the Iranians."
(and then he elaborates. It's "Discovery of India", p.146)
 
No, I know. But maybe a more hardling Muslim dynasty rules Northern India, and from earlier on? A few extra centuries of Muslim rule - more centralized, perhaps, and less tolerant - and perhaps you get a Muslim majority.

Especially if Persia stays Sunni, then the two regions form a very obvious cultural pairing, as two large Muslim empires, adjacent to each other, sharing similar pre-Islamic traditions and languages.

Don't forget that the Muslim rulers dominated the Subcontinent for about five centuries and a half. Even after all these years of suppression and forceful conversions they could get only a quarter of population converted. India and Persia could have developed closer relations if Islam had not appeared.A Zorastrian Persia and Hindu India would have developed better relations than in OTL.
 
On the subject of Indians going west, I've read that it didn't happen because Afghanistan was dirt poor so and conquering India was a much MUCH better use of your time and money than slogging through Afghanistan to meet whatever tough Persian power existed. The incentive for the other way was the riches of India, plus if you were Persia you had access to better and more numerous horses than the Indians had so you were able to conquer things more easily.
 
On the subject of Indians going west, I've read that it didn't happen because Afghanistan was dirt poor so and conquering India was a much MUCH better use of your time and money than slogging through Afghanistan to meet whatever tough Persian power existed. The incentive for the other way was the riches of India, plus if you were Persia you had access to better and more numerous horses than the Indians had so you were able to conquer things more easily.

Yes, I pointed this out halfway down this page. That's the main problem- there's zero economic incentive for an Indian ruler to go conquering Persia and militarily it's easier to defend the passes through the Hindu Kush than to try to push through.
 
I think that having Iran and northern India in the same religious sphere would be the best option for creating a cultural area that seems more obviously interrelated. People have stated that the two regions are heavily interrelated, but it doesn't seem so in the popular (albeit western) eye. A common religious tradition would change that.

A Persian religion such as Zoroastrianism could spread into northern India, though as people have mentioned Hinduism is resistant. Alternatively, a Dharmic religion could take over Persia. Is there any way to get a Hindu Iran?
 
Oh, I was forgetting this.. I wonder if there is a way to bring Zoroastrism or a related religion in India relatively early - not just fleeing refugees from the fall to Islam - and make converts, relatively 'big' in some regions at least, substential % of population. Maybe a syncretism with indian ideas..

One wonder if the zoroastrian reforms of the indo-iranian old religion would not be, or went a different way...
 
It seems to me that I've read that several spirits or avatars are flipped in their moral significance between Zoroastrianism and its relatives on the one hand, and Hinduism on the other. Compare the Western concept of devils (evil) to the Hindu Devas (good). As I remember the argument, Zoroastrian and Hindu civilizations therefore have the potential to misunderstand each other as "Satan-worshipers." So Zoroastrian survival in Iran may may not be the best way to bind the civilizations together. This is also a major obstacle to mass conversions from one of these faiths to the other.

I do think an Iran that stays Sunni, and a North India that stays Sunni-ruled, will be considered even closer relatives than the two zones are OTL. I don't think mass conversions are necessarily required for this perception to arise. And it's not completely impossible for a massive Timurid-style empire to retain control of both. Unlikely in the long term, but one could last long enough to further bolster the perception of a common cultural zone.

Beyond that, maybe a Seleucid Empire that retains the Iranian Plateau for longer imports Buddhism from Bactria, and Buddhism wins out in at least parts of the subcontinent as well. Depending on the later history of Southeast Asia, we may see ATL social scientists categorize the "Indosphere" as a zone stretching from the Zagros to the Mekong.

Christianity made some inroads in both civilizations as well, but seeing either, much less both, assume a Christian identity is far more unlikely than any of these other possibilities.
 
It seems to me that I've read that several spirits or avatars are flipped in their moral significance between Zoroastrianism and its relatives on the one hand, and Hinduism on the other. Compare the Western concept of devils (evil) to the Hindu Devas (good). As I remember the argument, Zoroastrian and Hindu civilizations therefore have the potential to misunderstand each other as "Satan-worshipers." So Zoroastrian survival in Iran may may not be the best way to bind the civilizations together. This is also a major obstacle to mass conversions from one of these faiths to the other.

Meh. This is overemphasised by Westerners IMO. Hinduism really doesn't work that way with definite devil figures. Some auras are adversaries of the devas, but by no means all.
 
Well, there were a number of Zoroastrians who fled to India, particularly, I believe, to around what is near Mumbai today. Boost that, and you might get a small amount more community building in that region.

But I think they were pretty close anyway, it's difficult to get them closer.
 
Well, there were a number of Zoroastrians who fled to India, particularly, I believe, to around what is near Mumbai today. Boost that, and you might get a small amount more community building in that region.

But I think they were pretty close anyway, it's difficult to get them closer.

Yup- the Parsees were an integral part of Bombay and the West coast of India in general anyway.
 
The pre-Zoroastrian religion of the Iranians was essentially the same as Vedism. If you prevent Zoroaster from converting King Vishtaspa, them the Iranians retain the same religious beliefs as the Indians. Coupled Witt the fact that Avesta and Sanskrit were mutually intelligible, the you have the recepie for a larger, united Aryan cultural sphere.
 
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