[Don’t be alarmed! I’m not going to present an entire series on Indian history like I did for China. Just this one post will be the extent of if.]
As with most other places, understanding India’s history allows for a better appreciation of its historical sights. To me, this is particularly true for India. North India was much more Islamic than I was expecting. I was curious as to why. I discovered that with India, it’s hard to separate history from religion.
Spiritual Beginnings
Indian civilization grew out of the broad, fertile valleys of the Indus and Ganges Rivers thousands of years BC. Hinduism developed from Indian folk religions during this period. Buddhism developed from the teachings of Siddhārtha Gautama, known as the Buddha (the “enlightened one”). He lived in India in the 4th century BC. Whereas Hinduism took hold on the Indian subcontinent, Buddhism spread throughout Asia. (In addition to Hinduism and Buddhism, 2 other major religions originated in India. Jainism, like Hinduism and Buddhism, developed in ancient India. Sikhism, on the other hand, is only about 500 years old.)
For millennia, there was no such thing an Indian entity. Like so much of world geography, “India” was a Western concept. “India” referred to the land beyond the Indus River. The names for “Hindi” and “Hindu” are also derived from the Indus River. (Perhaps ironically, the Indus River is now the defining feature of Pakistan’s geography.) Various Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms ruled over separate regions of South Asia. [I use South Asia and the Indian subcontinent here interchangeably.]
The Decline of Buddhism and the Rise of Islam
Eventually though, Hindus of the Brahmin caste became very powerful on the Indian subcontinent. This led to the prominence of Hinduism over Buddhism in society. Furthermore, Buddhist concepts began being incorporated into Hinduism. This was able to happen as both traditions grew out of ancient Indian culture and had many similarities. By the 9th century, Buddhism was in gradual decline on the Indian subcontinent.
More abrupt change occurred when Muslim Turks from Central Asia began conducting raids into South Asia in the 10th century. The raids led to a full-scale invasion. In 1206, the Muslims invaders took control over much of the subcontinent. Thus began the Delhi Sultanate, an Islamic empire in India that lasted for 320 years.
The Delhi Sultanate led to a merger of Islamic and Indian cultures. The mixing of the Persian spoken by the Muslim rulers with the classical Sanskrit of India gave birth to today’s Hindi and Urdu, known together as Hindustani. (Basically, Hindi is Hindu Hindustani and Urdu is Muslim Hindustani.) The Delhi Sultanate was militarily beneficial to Indian society. Throughout the 13th and 14th centuries, the Delhi Sultanate protected India from invasions by the Mongols. Our old friends the Mongols conquered most of the rest of Asia during that time.
Nonetheless, there was much conflict between the ruling Muslims and the subject Hindus. The Muslims destroyed much of the classical architecture of Hinduism. There were forced conversions. The Buddhists had it much worse. As Buddhism was already in decline in South Asia, the Buddhist were in a much weaker position. The Muslim conquests of the subcontinent hastened the decline of Buddhism. Before too long, Buddhism had been all but eliminated from the land of its birth. Today, Buddhists make up less than 1% of the population of their religion’s country of origin.
Islamic Conquest: The Next Generation
The Sultans of Delhi had protected India from a Mongol invasion. But in 1526, the Delhi Sultanate fell to a new breed of Muslim invaders from Central Asia–the Mughals. The Mughals were, in fact, decendants of the Mongols. They were of Central Asian Mongol-Turk stock. The name “Mughal” actually derives from “Mongol”. It is also the source of the word “mogul”. The Mughals were indeed quite the moguls.
Relative to the earlier Sultans, the Mughals were relatively more accepting of non-Muslims under their rule. The Mughals were more interested in building a great civilization. They largely succeeded. Because the Mughals had strong ties with Persia, the Islamic-Indian hybrid culture that developed under the Sultans took on a very Persian flavor. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the design of the one and only Taj Mahal. Many of the great monuments I visited on my trip (such as the Red Fort, above) were built during the reign of the Mughal Empire. The Mughals weren’t just great builders. They were great managers. Under the Mughal Empire, India because the world’s greatest economic power. But as we know from the story of China, once you develop great wealth, Europeans come sniffing around.
[Aw geez, I thought for sure I’d get through all of India’s history in one post. But it will take two. I hope you think, as I do, that it’s fairly fascinating so far. Coming up next, of course, Britain’s misadventures in South Asia and possibly the world’s most violent migrations. Stay tuned.]
[Historical information is primarily gathered from Wikipedia, so you know it must be true.]
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