History in india

[Midas]

I've recently began reading quite a bit about indina for a while now. I came across this in a book i started a couple days ago. Which has confirmed my view on Indian history
"not a single document from any royal archive has been preserved for the period covered in this book" ( the period he is talking about is all of premodern india)

for a long time now ive been trying to find something on Indian history but nothing comes up. Thats when it dawned on me that there is basically no recorded Indian history before the Muslims and even then it only really begins with the mughals who came to power in the 1500s. To put it into perspective we know more about the han dynasty (200b.c -200 a.d) then we do all of premodern india before the mughals put together . It's why you never hear about Indian history the way you do about the chiense dynasties. I also suspect that india was even more commonly decentralized than we assume. Consdier the fact that the largest hindu and buddhist temples are from southeast Asia. Nothing in India comes even remotely close to what the southeast asian empires which were much smaller built.

 

[Idilinaa]

The Chinese are most unique group from historical written aspect, because they maintained the most extensive continuous written documentation of history not seen anywhere else and it partly had to do with their system of governance, i am not sure how much of it was destroyed during the great leap forward, but i know a lot of monuments and heritage was lost sadly. Some of it survived in Taiwan when the nationalist government fled there.

India was complete opposite in every respect, they had the lack of historical tradition not found in anywhere else. I am not sure it was because India was decentralized, there are temples/monuments and inscriptions left by Hindu kingdoms and dynasties. Could be part of the reason though. i think it was because it is always argued that Hinduism had no sense of history. So it was their religion and culture really.

The first real historical book or manuscript written on India's history is by a Muslim Alburuni called Tarikh Al-Hind in year 1030 and even he was skeptical about historical and chronological Sense of the Hindus, which according to him was invariably replaced by ‘Tale- telling’

It was argued that it was the ideological and mental culture of Hindu's that created that dearth of historical sense. Even here i suspect that this is an inaccurate framing, i believe that that they just had a difference sense of writing history, it was more of religious art form rather than scientific endeavor. So most of their works act like semi-quasi history blurred between historical facts and myths and legends.

I think their biggest setback was not being able to separate religious mythology from factual inquiry, like the way Roman and Greek historians could at times when writing history.

 

[Midas]

The Chinese are most unique group from historical written aspect, because they maintained the most extensive continuous written documentation of history not seen anywhere else and it partly had to do with their system of governance, i am not sure how much of it was destroyed during the great leap forward, but i know a lot of monuments and heritage was lost sadly. Some of it survived in Taiwan when the nationalist government fled there.

India was complete opposite in every respect, they had the lack of historical tradition not found in anywhere else. I am not sure it was because India was decentralized, there are temples/monuments and inscriptions left by Hindu kingdoms and dynasties. Could be part of the reason though. i think it was because it is always argued that Hinduism had no sense of history. So it was their religion and culture really.

The first real historical book or manuscript written on India's history is by a Muslim Alburuni called Tarikh Al-Hind in year 1030 and even he was skeptical about historical and chronological Sense of the Hindus, which according to him was invariably replaced by ‘Tale- telling’

It was argued that it was the ideological and mental culture of Hindu's that created that dearth of historical sense. Even here i suspect that this is an inaccurate framing, i believe that that they just had a difference sense of writing history, it was more of religious art form rather than scientific endeavor. So most of their works act like semi-quasi history blurred between historical facts and myths and legends.

I think their biggest setback was not being able to separate religious mythology from factual inquiry, like the way Roman and Greek historians could at times when writing history.

Yeah chinese record are so extensive it's mindboggling even chinese chinese after 200 a.d and before the next tamg dynasty. Has hundred of volumes primary sources historical records. Not including literary stuff.

Even the Muslims sources before the mughals in the 1500 are mainly a handful of court chronicles . Which while very useful keep in mind how massive india was and how a lot of it wasn't under full muslim control before the mughals. It's thanks to inscriptions and some poems that we even know the names of the dynasties and some of the kings the years they ruled. But beyond that, there is literally nothing it's an empty void. That's why if you try to look into Indian history, like 90% of is focused on the mughals and beyond.

 

[Idilinaa]

I also suspect that india was even more commonly decentralized than we assume. Consdier the fact that the largest hindu and buddhist temples are from southeast Asia. Nothing in India comes even remotely close to what the southeast asian empires which were much smaller built.

I haven't looked far into this but perhaps you are right there are even Burmese Historical Chronicles the earliest written down in 13th century-18th century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_chronicles

Before this they were just small settlements and seperate city states, which are only known through archeology.

And they are Hindu and Buddist as well.

 

[Idilinaa]

Yeah chinese record are so extensive it's mindboggling even chinese chinese after 200 a.d and before the next tamg dynasty. Has hundred of volumes primary sources historical records. Not including literary stuff.

Even the Muslims sources before the mughals in the 1500 are mainly a handful of court chronicles . Which while very useful keep in mind how massive india was and how a lot of it wasn't under full muslim control before the mughals. It's thanks to inscriptions and some poems that we even know the names of the dynasties and some of the kings the years they ruled. But beyond that, there is literally nothing it's an empty void. That's why if you try to look into Indian history, like 90% of is focused on the mughals and beyond.

There was a Jstor article i read a while back ago that i vaguely remember, it was going through how and why Chinese in comparison to India has such an extensive written history. I'll try to find it again it went into the Chinese dynastic rule system and fluid shift between rulership, and how scribes and historians were free to write what they wanted basically unaffected by the government and the shifts leadership.

Even their neighbors have just handful of documents and texts historians rely on to understand certain early periods and most often times they rely on Chinese sources to know more about them. Before the 8th century they are all Chinese sources.

 

[Midas]

I haven't looked far into this but perhaps you are right there are even Burmese Historical Chronicles the earliest written down in 13th century-18th century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_chronicles

Before this they were just small settlements and seperate city states, which are only known through archeology.

And they are Hindu and Buddist as well.

Theu literrtaly found thosuands of bamboo stick administrative documents in an ancient well from the qin dynasty . The gap is unreal

 

[Midas]

There was a Jstor article i read a while back ago that i vaguely remember, it was going through how and why Chinese in comparison to India has such an extensive written history. I'll try to find it again it went into the Chinese dynastic rule system and fluid shift between rulership, and how scribes and historians were free to write what they wanted basically unaffected by the government and the shifts leadership.

Even their neighbors have just handful of documents and texts historians rely on to understand certain early periods and most often times they rely on Chinese sources to know more about them. Before the 8th century they are all Chinese sources.

Yeah that's tue but southeast asia is much smaller and developed way later. But they have one thing they beat both india and china . Which is the size of their monumental architecture. Especially compared to China .

There is suprsingly very little ancient Chinese architecture that survived . Like there is nothing on the scale of what you see in europe and the middle east. Even india has way more massive anicnet temples than the Chinese do. The oldest stuff in china is really like a few hundred years old at best. I suspect this is due to them mainly not building with stone . There is also no massive old buildings in china at all.

 

[Rayaale]

@Midas @Idilinaa you guys are brilliant,history was my favorite subject in high school i would always score 90% on most tests,what books do you recommend on East African history

 

[Midas]

@Midas @Idilinaa you guys are brilliant,history was my favorite subject in high school i would always score 90% on most tests,what books do you recommend on East African history

Haa thanks. I'm not even really familiar with east african history partly because in not aware of any real good comprehensive books on it. Most of what I've learned is just from the articles and random scans of pdf books people posted on here. As well as random speculation as I read about how urbanization and state formation work in other parts of the world.

 

[Idilinaa]

Yeah that's tue but southeast asia is much smaller and developed way later. But they have one thing they beat both india and china . Which is the size of their monumental architecture. Especially compared to China .

There is suprsingly very little ancient Chinese architecture that survived . Like there is nothing on the scale of what you see in europe and the middle east. Even india has way more massive anicnet temples than the Chinese do. The oldest stuff in china is really like a few hundred years old at best. I suspect this is due to them mainly not building with stone . There is also no massive old buildings in china at all.

The biggest reasons i've seen given is that the cultural revolution destroyed many of the monuments of China.

I was inclined to believe this after i saw what they did to the great wall. But then i realised a big chunk of the wall is actually just rammed earth,clay and tatchwork they had to continue to reinforce and only a small section of it is made of stone.


It is more than likely as you suspected, most chinese buildings and houses where built out of wood and some out of mudbricks. This could also be the reason why there wasn't any grand structures built out of stone.

I am reminded by the Chinese man that was captured along with the British pirate in Mogadishu during the early 1700s and acted as his interpreter. He was shown the monuments in Mogadishu and was asked about it.

He said ''He had not seen anything equal to it in all of his life and he believed Strangers from all parts of the world would travel to see them'' i feel this is an admission that there is lack of similar structures in China

This book is also the same source for the interesting tombs of Mogadishu that was posted by @Emir of Zayla a while back. The Asian interpreter of the English was apparently shocked at the grandeur of those monuments;

 

[Midas]

The biggest reasons i've seen given is that the cultural revolution destroyed many of the monuments of China.

I was inclined to believe this after i saw what they did to the great wall. But then i realised a big chunk of the wall is actually just rammed earth,clay and tatchwork they had to continue to reinforce and only a small section of it is made of stone.


It is more than likely as you suspected, most chinese buildings and houses where built out of wood and some out of mudbricks. This could also be the reason why there wasn't any grand structures built out of stone.

I am reminded by the Chinese man that was captured along with the British pirate in Mogadishu during the early 1700s and acted as his interpreter. He was shown the monuments in Mogadishu and was asked about it.

He said ''He had not seen anything equal to it in all of his life and he believed Strangers from all parts of the world would travel to see them'' i feel this is an admission that there is lack of similar structures in China

I dont want to speculate too much but that was probaly more about how diffrent the city looked. Chinese had lots of large buildings but they were still noram city buildings they just didn't built anything on the level of the coliseum or the Parthenon often. ( even that had to be prefaced since some of the buddhist statues at the grotto are humongous and some even date back to the 700s a.d

You have to be skeptical with the china doom youtube guys. We've been seeing videos like that and then you look india which is like a 1000x times worse and nobody made those videos about india till like 3 or 4 years ago.

 

[Idilinaa]

I dont want to speculate too much but that was probaly more about how diffrent the city looked. Chinese had lots of large buildings but they were still noram city buildings they just didn't built anything on the level of the coliseum or the Parthenon often. ( even that had to be prefaced since some of the buddhist statues at the grotto are humongous and some even date back to the 700s a.d

You have to be skeptical with the china doom youtube guys. We've been seeing videos like that and then you look india which is like a 1000x times worse and nobody made those videos about india till like 3 or 4 years ago.

You are right of the Buddhist statues are crazy big, carved out of bedrock and limestone too.

Yeah i scaled back on watching them, they really are western propagandists and they use mostly silly tiktok videos. India is an ally of the west , so they don't say nothing about it.

When you compare China to India who has a similar large population, you can see it has made more strides.

 

[Midas]

You are right of the Buddhist statues are crazy big, carved out of bedrock and limestone too.

Yeah i scaled back on watching them, they really are western propagandists and they use mostly silly tiktok videos. India is an ally of the west , so they don't say nothing about it.

When you compare China to India who has a similar large population, you can see it has made more strides.

This is why I'm very bearish on indias future. I have nothing against India and find it's civilization fascinating. But the reality is that the bigger the countrh the harder it is to develop. China which is the master of beurarcry and administration at a massive scale. That has been mass manufacturing for more than a thousand years. And had the best most peaceful period for economic growth is at 12k gdp and they likley plateau at 25k at most. Maybe 30 if there extremely lucky.


What chance does india have when it has none of china's advantages and the once in a lifetime unique economic opportunities of the global economy that china got? On top of climate change in the coming decades, which will make section of india unlivable. I haven't even gotten to the corruption in india which is even worse than africa or the rise of southeast asia as the next manufacturing hub( which has already happening by the way for like the last decade)


So yeah the future seems bleak for india

 

[Idilinaa]

This is why I'm very bearish on indias future. I have nothing against India and find it's civilization fascinating. But the reality is that the bigger the countrh the harder it is to develop. China which is the master of beurarcry and administration at a massive scale. That has been mass manufacturing for more than a thousand years. And had the best most peaceful period for economic growth is at 12k gdp and they likley plateau at 25k at most. Maybe 30 if there extremely lucky.


What chance does india have when it has none of china's advantages and the once in a lifetime unique economic opportunities of the global economy that china got? On top of climate change in the coming decades, which will make section of india unlivable. I haven't even gotten to the corruption in india which is even worse than africa or the rise of southeast asia as the next manufacturing hub( which has already happening by the way for like the last decade)


So yeah the future seems bleak for india

If you only listened to western pundits, India is a vibrant democracy.

A country could be a corrupt hellhole for the people that live there but protect democracy

 

[Midas]

If you only listened to western pundits, India is a vibrant democracy.

A country could be a corrupt hellhole for the people that live there but protect democracy

I use to think it was that way too. But no it's that when it comes to non western countries these people genuinely have no idea of the real situation. They find a few areas the countries improved in and a couple new intatives a country started. Then they write an article about the future of that country. People just assumewd that india would just be a slower and somewhat weaker china. But would ultimately develop their economy. The problem comes from that they have no understanding of the on the ground reality . It's the same for africa.


For example i once thought about learning other african languages. When I looked into it for a while I realized it would be very diffcult and pointless. Outside swahili, amharic and somali. There's basically no material for these lanaguges to learn them. And even if you do learn them there is nothing to read or watch in any of these african lanaguges. Even wilder is that there's barely any books even in english or French published in africa (like 70-80% of book titles are textbooks since thats where the money is)