Asia: India

Asia: India Images Index

<AsiaIndia2Large.html> A large map of India. (216kb)
<AsiaIndiaSriLankaWater.html> A map of Sri Lanka - with Rivers and Lakes Included.
<Asia600.html> The index map for the India's region: Asia.

	Asia (map)
Middle East (map, 100kb)	Click here to return to the main Asia map. Click here for a large map of the India. (216kb)	China (map)
		Oceania (map)

NASA/JPL/NIMA. “WorldSRTM-noPoles-giant” Online Image. Earth Observatory. 16 May 2005 <http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/PIA03395_lrg.jpg>

Asia: India

This image was created from a larger Public Domain world map produced from data obtained by NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). The world map was cropped to the India and resized to 600 pixels wide using a trial version of Adobe Photoshop. Using Google's free Picasa2 program, the color and lighting were then enhanced and finally sharpened to obtain the image above. The original image can be viewed at the NASA link above.

India is the safest cradle of civilization in Asia. The Middle East is important specifically because it is central and open, and therefore exposed to the ravages of the barbarians of the Central Asian Steppe, and China has always had to defend its exposed North. By contrast, India is enveloped by ocean and mountains which have provided it with enough protection for stability, enough contact to drive change and growth. It is therefore little wonder than India has grown some of the world's most powerful civilizations. The Indus Valley civilization emerged in NW India around 2600BC, contemporary with Egypt’s emergence in Africa. However, India’s first state collapsed about 1700BC and was replaced wholesale by the Vedic Aryans who migrated into India from Iran 200 years later. Their culture expanded across the entire subcontinent forming the basis of Indian culture to the present day, until the Nanda dynasty came to power in 364BC and began to unify northern India under one state. This was given increased impetus when one of history’s greatest conquerors, Chandragupta Maurya seized the Nanda throne, inaugurating his own dynasty in 321BC, the Mauryan Empire. He created a central government, drove the Greeks from NW India in 304BC, and conquered much of southern India. No Indian state would control as much of the subcontinent for 2000 years. However, in 261BC the emperor Ashoka converted to Buddhism and attempted to impose it by force on his people. He so alienated his subjects, that when he died circa 200BC the Greek kingdom of Bactria was able to seize all of NW India and by 185BC the Mauryan Empire had collapsed.

For the almost 600 years Central Asian invaders were the most prolific force for change and culture in India. The invading Sakas erected the first monument in Sanskrit in 150AD, and the Kushan penetrated the mountain passes and consolidated all of Northern India in an artistic, tolerant, and highly cultured kingdom until they were conquered by the native Gupta dynasty in 380AD. The Gupta are correctly hailed as the “Classical” Age of India which experienced a burst of art, literature, and learning similar to the Greeks who launched Europe into the Ancient Era. Its poetry and plays are cherished around the world to this day including the Mahabharata and Ramayana which were completed under the Gupta. Astronomy and mathematics flourished, and around 575AD, Indian mathematicians developed the decimal system, including the number 0. It was so sophisticated that Muslim scholars scrapped their own notation to use “Indian numerals”, and through them Europeans adopted “Arabic numerals” which the world continues to use to this day. However in 510AD, a barbarian invasion broke the Gupta hold on northern India, though the dynasty controlled its own heartland for another 200 years. This inaugurated a long period of decentralization that lasted until the first successful Muslim invaders established the Sultanate of Delhi in 1206 across northern India. The Sultanate was broken by the Mongols and their successors, but held on until 1526AD.

Then in 1556AD, the nearly defunct Mughal dynasty was resurrected by Akbar at the 2^nd Battle of Panipat, and catapulted the Mughal to the forefront of the superpowers of the Renaissance. Akbar pushed Mughal power across all of northern and into central India and erected the professional bureaucracy necessary to effectively control such a large empire. He encouraged education, religious toleration, and credit and banking houses which drove the Indian economy. Their economy was the most sophisticated and dynamic in the world. Despite the benefits of the Industrial Revolution in Europe, European goods could still not compete. Like the Romans before them, Europeans could only trade in India with precious metals to buy Indian manufactured goods, especially cotton fabrics and other textiles. At Akbar’s death, the Mughals were poised to establish themselves as the dominant culture through their extensive trading networks across land to Europe, and across the Indian Ocean. The Mughals also boasted unparalleled military might, at their peak their army numbered a million men, something not duplicated in Europe until World War I 200 years later, and possessed the most advanced military technology on the planet, field artillery which was studied intently by Europeans and shaped the future of European wars. However, Akbar’s successors were more and more devout Muslims who persecuted and angered the largely Hindu population. When Delhi was sacked in 1739, officially ending the Mughal dynasty, India was already a sea of warring states which allowed the Europeans to establish economic/military bases.

In 1876, Queen Victoria was formally declared the Empress of India, completing Britain’s tumultuous conquest of the subcontinent. After India’s Herculean efforts on behalf of the allies in both World War I and II, and more importantly the push for self-rule led most famously by Mahatma Gandhi, India and Pakistan were granted their independence in 1947. However, turmoil between Muslims and Hindus has continued to be a critical and difficult problem, especially as India attempts to reconcile its immense wealth, resources, and blossoming high-tech industry with its cultural traditions that include crushing poverty, caste prejudices, and the world’s largest population of slaves, mostly lower caste indigenous Indians.