AHC: Buddhist or Hindu Europe
- Thread starter Tredecimus
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You can have this way possibilitries of a Buddhist Modern area Russia/Ukraine/etc, perhaps.. or parts of Russia/Ukraine/Etc...
I can see a Buddhist Armenia or Georgia possible in some conditions, there was some cultural links with Persia in the past I heard...
It all depends of butterflies.
I can see a Buddhist Armenia or Georgia possible in some conditions, there was some cultural links with Persia in the past I heard...
It all depends of butterflies.
Flocculencio
Donor
There's no incentive for the Mauryas to do so, though. Their base was in the Gangetic valley and for an empire based in a rich, metropolitan area like that with a natural frontier at the Hindu Kush, there's absolutely no reason to try to conquer the Iranian plateau. Compared to India the Persian heartland has nothing that makes it worth the taking- Mesopotamia does but that's so far off that it doesn't justify the effort.
In the end it still boils down to logistics and money. Why try to force the passes of the Hindu Kush when all the riches of South India are still there, unconquered?
True, although to be fair, both Chandragupta and Ashoka extended the Mauyran domain very far West. Further West than any other Indian polity would until the Moghuls, I believe, encompassing all of todays Pakistan and Afghanistan, and even parts of the Eastern Iranian plateau.
These western parts of the Mauyra Empire were among the 1st to fall from their control and later (after an Indo-Greek interlude)would became the domain of the Kushan. The Kushan acted as the arbiter for cultural exchange between India and the North and West for several centuries. The longer you keep the Kushan going, the longer you keep this exchange happening, which ended due to pressure from both the Sassanians and the Gupta. The longer you keep the Kushan going, the longer one of the most active expansions of Buddhism keeps going. I don't know if you can translate any of that drive Westwards, but it wouldn't hurt.
By the way, the Hindu Kush runs east-west. There were routes and states south of the Hindu Kush that gave access all the way to the Iranian plateau. It was over the Kush that invaders from the North would come from to invade the sub-continent.
Flocculencio
Donor
Fair points but I still think it's more likely that you'd see Indianised intermediaries rather than a direct Maurya drive to Mesopotamia. Sort of an analogue of what happened in SE Asia.
A full-out conversion of Europe to Hinduism doesn't make sense, not only because Hinduism is an ethnic religion that doesn't seek converts, but because Hinduism really doesn't have anything to offer that the European pagan religions don't have already. European pagan religions were very open to adopting foreign gods into their pantheons, however (the Romans and Mithras, or the fact that Swedes were worshipping the Christian God alongside the Norse pantheon before they converted to Christianity). It's plausible that a cult based around a Hindu god or goddess could make it to Europe and become popular there.
Buddhism is more probable, especially if Pythagorean philosophy is more popular. European pagans would simply practice Buddhism on top of ancestor worship and polytheism just as the Chinese and Japanese always have.
Buddhism is more probable, especially if Pythagorean philosophy is more popular. European pagans would simply practice Buddhism on top of ancestor worship and polytheism just as the Chinese and Japanese always have.
I don't disagree...
I wasn't suggesting the Mauryas would get any further West than they did.
Flocculencio
Donor
Well, that's a bit of a stretch. Hinduism was in many ways far more philosophically complex than many Northern Europe paganisms.
I do admit, however, that if we're looking at the Mauryan period, nothing like the later bhakti devotional forms of Hinduism had developed yet and it was those forms that were most effective at spreading (in conjunction with Buddhism) to SE Asia.
During the classical/early medieval era? Not very likely. Yeman/Oman was alternatively under the influence of the Ḥimyarites, a later fascinating Jewish Kingdom, the Ethiopian-based Axum Empire, and the Sassanids. India was either too fragmented or never had the bug for such an isolated western expansion in the relevant time frame.
If Asoka never ventured this way, who would?
Hmm. Do you have any reading suggestions for this era - for Yemen/Oman/Axum/Somalia?
Flocculencio
Donor
Tom Holland's In the Shadow of the Sword has some initial chapters on Arabia in Late Antiquity. He talks about the Himyarites etc.
Flocculencio
Donor
Rather than Europe, perhaps you could see a Hindu/Indianised East Africa in a TL where the South Indian kingdoms are more assertive in dominating the Arabian Sea trade routes.
I really should read that. He also has an entertaining twitter feed. Mad ramblings and sometimes cricket.
Flocculencio
Donor
His hypothesis about Muhammad's life (he posits that the city the Quran refers to as Mecca wasn't actually the city now called Mecca) is a little weird but other than that it's a highly entertaining and eminently readable account of Arabia and the Levant in Late Antiquity and about the early Islamic conquests. He's a very, very interesting writer- his books on the Persians and on the Roman Republic are also excellent.
Well I guess I'll ask the final question. Is it plausible or not ? Can Buddhism (As we have taken Hinduism out of the equation) survive?
Adopting sarees, the Hindu epics, the architecture, the writing system...
I wonder what language will they use as lingua franca
I've read some of his other works, just not this particular one. Although he does shill it occasionally on Twitter, but then that is a fair use of the service IMO
Robert Hoyland's "Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam" (2001) good, general work with relevant discussion of S. Arabia.
and everyone talks about or quotes Korotayev.
Andrey Korotayev. Ancient Yemen. Oxford: Oxford University Press, (1995)
I've not read the later but have seen paraphrased work.
Axsum:
Phillipson, David W. (1998). Ancient Ethiopia: Aksum
is a reasonably useful work. Brief, though.
Dorozhand
Banned
Carthage conquers Rome, centralizes under Barcid kings, and conquers a great empire around the western Mediterranean and North Africa.
Carthaginian mariners begin exploring the coast of Africa extensively. Carthaginian settlement extends deep into the Sahara after conquering the Garamantes and figuring out their secrets to aquifer irrigation.
When the fossil water of the Sahara starts to run out, the population comes under pressure, and Carthaginians begin to establish settler-colonies along the coast of West Africa, from the Gambia river to the Niger. This further spurs naval developments, including fast sailing vessels that can ferry troops to respond to developments in the colonies.
An Arab empire hostile to Carthage arises and blocks land trade from the east.
Bingo, a Carthaginian Da Gama finds a route around Africa to India, and begins an age of exploration in antiquity.
Contact with India brings Hindu ideas back to Carthage and the Mediterranean world. Carthage, which has no state religion and is very open to new ideas, takes a liking to this. The cult of Vishnu becomes a major religious force, and the Upanishads begin to influence Carthaginian philosophy.
And now you have the beginnings of a Hindu Europe.
Carthaginian mariners begin exploring the coast of Africa extensively. Carthaginian settlement extends deep into the Sahara after conquering the Garamantes and figuring out their secrets to aquifer irrigation.
When the fossil water of the Sahara starts to run out, the population comes under pressure, and Carthaginians begin to establish settler-colonies along the coast of West Africa, from the Gambia river to the Niger. This further spurs naval developments, including fast sailing vessels that can ferry troops to respond to developments in the colonies.
An Arab empire hostile to Carthage arises and blocks land trade from the east.
Bingo, a Carthaginian Da Gama finds a route around Africa to India, and begins an age of exploration in antiquity.
Contact with India brings Hindu ideas back to Carthage and the Mediterranean world. Carthage, which has no state religion and is very open to new ideas, takes a liking to this. The cult of Vishnu becomes a major religious force, and the Upanishads begin to influence Carthaginian philosophy.
And now you have the beginnings of a Hindu Europe.
I don't know if you are being tongue-in-cheek (in which case, well-played -- think you incorporated any number of AH.com tropes
) or whether you seriously see all this as plausible. There are so many assumptions, copious handwavium, and unacknowledged butterflies, here...
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Claiming that one religion is more or less "philosophically complex" than any other seems rather ethnocentric, doesn't it?