Indianized China or Sinicized India?

Clash of Civilizations

  • Indianized China?

    Votes: 19 42.2%
  • Sinicized India?

    Votes: 22 48.9%
  • And yes, assimilation is an option

    Votes: 4 8.9%

  • Total voters
    45
A clash of Asia's biggest civilizations, say one of the civilizations crossed the Himalayas and influenced the other. Which one is more possible?
Which one would be possible? Oh I would love to hear your PoDs, and what would the butterflies cause?
 
Last edited:

Philip

Donor
Um, they did influence each other. Note, for example, the prevalence of Buddhism in the history of China.
 
Like the other chap said, they did influence each other. With two such huge cultural blocs I doubt you'll see assimilation on either side- even in SE Asia where their cultural spheres overlapped you can see a reasonably distinct difference between Sinicised Vietnam and the other Indo-Chinese cultures which are Indianised (Thais, Cambodians and further south the Malays and Indonesians).
 
As has been said they did and it was India which did most of it with buddhism.

If we want more I think India is more likely to win out too- China proper is quite far from India with the border regions being various other peoples. India meanwhile has some of its richest lands quite near the borders.
 
Agreed with everyone above me

Both have influenced the other, but India probably more so to China because of Buddhism in the long run.
 
It would've been interesting if India had copied China's bureaucracy and state nature, it would've made a native unified India last alot longer.
 
It would've been interesting if India had copied China's bureaucracy and state nature, it would've made a native unified India last alot longer.

Difficult to do because unlike in China there was no one ethnic group which overwhelmingly dominated the rest.

India is more like Europe. To take an example, a Punjabi and a Malayalee are both Indian but only in the sense that a Swede and an Italian are both European i.e. there are certainly cultural commonalities but also many differences.
 
Difficult to do because unlike in China there was no one ethnic group which overwhelmingly dominated the rest.

India is more like Europe. To take an example, a Punjabi and a Malayalee are both Indian but only in the sense that a Swede and an Italian are both European i.e. there are certainly cultural commonalities but also many differences.

Han Chinese were originally not one ethnic group either. The name itself refers to all the subjects of the Han empire. The melting pot was stirred for a couple thousand years.

India and China are more or less complete civilizations. They could borrow from each other but assimilation is neither likely nor necessary.
 
Han Chinese were originally not one ethnic group either. The name itself refers to all the subjects of the Han empire. The melting pot was stirred for a couple thousand years.

Certainly but what I meant is that for the past few hundred years, at least, the Han have seen themselves as a generally related and unified group, despite dialect and regional differences. In India the different Indian ethnic groups generally did see themselves as different ethnicities altogether.
 
Certainly but what I meant is that for the past few hundred years, at least, the Han have seen themselves as a generally related and unified group, despite dialect and regional differences. In India the different Indian ethnic groups generally did see themselves as different ethnicities altogether.

Then the question becomes whether the ethnic homogenisation led to the state centralisation, or the other way around. The ethnic homogenisation of various ethnic groups into the Han was definately a long and slow process and the modern Han ethnicity definately contains many many traces of other ethnic groups who have disappeared or significantly reduced.

To follow Jared Diamond, it is the geography of China that allowed for both the homogenisation and the centralised united state (and those factors both influenced and helped each other). I am not a strict geographical deterministic, so I wonder if a similar process is not impossible in India.

Any connection with the caste system? By placing different ethnic groups into different castes, these ethnicities endured in India while in China they were absorbed into the Han melting pot. Perhaps a very early PoD wherein the caste system develops differently.

As it is said that the caste system originates with the Aryan invaders, perhaps an enduring Indus valley culture? Thus the Indus valley becomes an analogue with the Yellow river in Chinese history, while the Ganges plays the role of the Yangtze. These river cultures unite into a single unitary culture, and slowly assimilate the peoples to the south over the centuries into a more-or-less ethnically and culturally united bloc.

Would it be too cheeky then to reverse the roles of China and India, sending Aryan hordes to destroy the cultures of the Yellow river and leading to the development of a caste-based civilization that refuses to unite for very long along the banks of the Yangtze? We couldn't labour the analogy too long, as a China-esque politically unitary and culturally enduring culture in India would have huge effects on the rest of the world. It might be interesting though.
 
Any connection with the caste system? By placing different ethnic groups into different castes, these ethnicities endured in India while in China they were absorbed into the Han melting pot. Perhaps a very early PoD wherein the caste system develops differently.

Caste isn't equivalent to ethnicity, though- it's a lot more complex than that.

As it is said that the caste system originates with the Aryan invaders, perhaps an enduring Indus valley culture? Thus the Indus valley becomes an analogue with the Yellow river in Chinese history, while the Ganges plays the role of the Yangtze. These river cultures unite into a single unitary culture, and slowly assimilate the peoples to the south over the centuries into a more-or-less ethnically and culturally united bloc.

Would it be too cheeky then to reverse the roles of China and India, sending Aryan hordes to destroy the cultures of the Yellow river and leading to the development of a caste-based civilization that refuses to unite for very long along the banks of the Yangtze? We couldn't labour the analogy too long, as a China-esque politically unitary and culturally enduring culture in India would have huge effects on the rest of the world. It might be interesting though.

I did a TL along these lines about a surviving Indus Valley civilisation- if you search you can probably find it.
 
Caste isn't equivalent to ethnicity, though- it's a lot more complex than that.

Oh, absolutely. I was just thinking that the caste system of India tended to encourage the maintainance of distinct ethnic groups when compared with Chinese assimilationism.

I did a TL along these lines about a surviving Indus Valley civilisation- if you search you can probably find it.

I'll track it down, thanks.
 
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