Muloghonto Posted June 16, 2014 Share Posted June 16, 2014 One interesting empire to study is the Chinese Empires. The historic Chinese value system is unique- as i mentioned before, they are the only society I know of where merchants were of a lower class than farmers. What is also interesting is that we know China as one thought, one control entity but the Chinese society once had a period known as the 'hundred schools and hundred thoughts', in the Spring and Autumn period, lasting roughly IIRC from 600s BC to 400s BC. In that period, China was very diverse in thought and policy. But one two thoughts became dominant: the legalist and the Confucians. They both shared one thing in common: they stressed that it was the POSITION of the emperior from which all power derived (NOT the emperor himself- which was our focus. Thats why we wrote so many books and ideas on what makes an ideal emperor). The confucian doctrine was that everyone had a duty- the emperor to his people, the farmers to the country, the warriors, etc etc. If you fail in duty, you are killed/dismissed. If you succeeded, you are good doing whatever you are doing. The legalist doctrine was that the emperor and his council of ministers make the law. The law is supreme, anyone who breaks the law deserves the harshest punishments and anyone who obeys the law requires good gifts as appreciation. What they also shared in common was very little regard for individual rights (something that we were good at). The legalists were openly denial of any individual rights whatsoever (you exist to serve the kingdom. Period.doesnt matter who you are) whereas the confuicians were very harsh on individual rights and priviledges also. Long story short, it was the legalist backed kingdom of Qin (pronounched Chin) that united China into a centralized empire for the first time and he was a very brutal man. But shortly after his death, the Qin Empire fell apart and the Han Empire was formed- which was formally staunchly Confucian but actually saw the stunning power weided by the legalist system (Qin Shih Huang did some epic God-king things due to the total strictness in upholding every single law) and adopted a legalist core which remains in chinese societ to this dy. And they accomplished some unique things in history too. Like, take this for example: The Chinese did not have good horses and were very prone to being tooled by the Central Asian cavalry forces for a very very long time. First the chariots, then horse riders. Even in the early Han period, Han could only secure their border zones by deploying armies of 200-300 thousand soldiers and going on 5-10 year long campaigns. Still then, defeat was only a corner away. Armies of 20-30 thousand nomadic horsemen (or chariots) used to tool the Chinese very well right up to the middle of the han emipre. So the Han empire hatched a plan. They had to fight the enemy on their own terms but problems: where to get horses and how to find land that are good for horses. Plan 1 was very amibitious: the Chinese bought & rounded up every single horse they could find, along with training the best infantry possible, to create an army of 100,000 soldiers. Then they sent this army west through a less used route, hugging the lower end of Tarim Basin, to go all the way into Central Asia proper ( west of the Tien Shan). Purpose ? to go threaten the kingdoms of Balkh & Kambojas/Sugdh, who were the master horse trainers and the balkhi horse being a very good breed. The idea was they were there to get horses (not just buying mares or geldings or youngsters, but also stud breeders!) and they are prepared to fight for it. well as it happened, the Balkh people were pretty tired of nomadic invasion that had ravaged their country for almost a century now (this hapens around 50 BC i believe) , fought a brief war but gave the chinese what they wanted- the chinese general returned with thousands of prime horses & breeders from Balkh in 5 years or so. Their plan-2 ? Well, the region south- west of the Ordos loop ( Chinse geography) before the tarim basin begins, happens to have a solid 50-60 thousand sq km patch of land that is good for ranching but happened to be outside chinese control for all of history till this point and on it lived some mongol-type nomadic people. Now, with horses from afghanistan, the chinese launched a total war campaign, conquered them, killed most of them and what remained, enslaved them. then the chinese moved in, build some cities, set up ranches and extended the great wall some more. this region became part of china for most of rest of history and from then on, the chinese had a solid footing vs the nomads up north. No longer could any two bored chieftians band together set up 10-15 thousand horse army and go pillage the chinese till the cows came home. Now, atleast the nomads would require serious political unity and resource commitment to threaten china. This type of very advanced geo-political thought was uniquely a chinese development. But our society was simply not geared towards this- which imo, was not necessarily a bad thing. i can easily say that if i were to be a rich & educated guy or a poor farmer, i'd rather be an indian than a chinese for practically all of history till the islamic-turkic genocides began in frequency Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detonator Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 Thanks a lot for all the rich info Mulo :hatsoff: bookmarking this page. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CasualVisitor Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 :Hats Off: Mulo... Amazing info! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muloghonto Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 Wow Muloghonto is like an encyclopedia :hatsoff: Fascinating discussion so far. One that has been thoroughly ignored by the NCERT textbooks. @Muloghonto -- "Respect" .../ Mullaghonto change your moniker to world encyclopedia :protest: @mulo Thanks a lot for all the rich info Mulo :hatsoff: bookmarking this page. :Hats Off: Mulo... Amazing info! :cantstop::dance::hatsoff::hatsoff::bow::bow::icflove::icflove: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Number Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 What about Ranjit Singh's Sikh empire ? What caused its fall ? Heard even Peshawar was captured by Sikhs at one time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muloghonto Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 What about Ranjit Singh's Sikh empire ? What caused its fall ? Heard even Peshawar was captured by Sikhs at one time. British caused its fall. The Sikhs chose the pragmatic way out- they showed up for battle but except for a few commanders, the rest just said 'this !@#$ is serious, we are gonna get pwned. Bye bye'. The end. When the Brits defeated Siraj ud-Daula and took over most of Bengal, it was over for the rest. The British controlled the seas, meaning they could fight on a location and time of their choosing. It also meant that they could bring supplies right up to the coast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sachin=GOD Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 @Muloghonto - suggest some books on Indian History (pre British history) plz. Till now I have read books by Abraham Eraly and John Keay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muloghonto Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 Could you expand on this. Dont worry if its sensitive its an anonymous forum and everyone is old enough to take your opinion. Thanks in advance man Look, the question of whether a pre-islamic structure was 'converted' into Babri masjid/Taj Mahal or if they were built from scratch is a moot point. These are exposed buildings, meaning radiocarbon dating is useless. As for 'Indian motifs' on these buildings- well, the bulk of the artisans & stone masons were desi hindus working for the mughals( or whoever employed them!). Obviously, they are going to use what they know(traditional Indian motifs) to fill up the 'filler space'. IE, why are we suprised that a building built by 80% hindu Indian workers carry hindu motifs in them ? IMO, claiming that Babri Masjid was a temple before, is completely baseless. Even if I were to accept that there was a pre-Islamic building at the site of Babri masjid that got converted into the masjid, what proof has been presented that it was a temple ? How do we know it wasn't the mansion of the local raja ? Or the mansion of his wife...or a merchant's house, a *****house, a warehouse....how did the hinduvtas determine the identity of the pre-islamic building (if such existed) ? There are no honest answers to this question, which is why I dismiss most hinduvta tilt to indian history. They are not interested in history, they are interested in a pre-concieved image and trying to fit history into it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muloghonto Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 On the other hand, lets say the hinduvta 'factoid' is right- lets say they saw a great temple, decieded that its most worth building around, but only over its foundations (thus some Indian artwork survived, exposing the evil b@stards that did this as fraudsters) and that they not only killed a whole bunch in the name of religion, they also stole *OUR* religious monument, tore it down and made their own. Okay, so what ? If it happened, it happened. We should really try to see what happened,why and when, instead of always just coming to the conclusion of 'they were jihadis, duh!' and leaving it at that. For, history exists for history's sake. Really, thats all it is- to keep record of what happened. How, what, when and how it happened are always open to speculation (if there can be so much conspiracy theories about what happened in our own lifetimes, then how the feck can we be so fricking sure what happened hundreds of years before we are born ?@! Thats logic fail!) It happened a very long time ago and IMO, it has no bearing on what the Babri mosque represents or has represented for the last few centuries atleast- just another old, decrepit mosque that is 'holy' to some people for a different reason- apparently the first mosque in the ganges region. And its not like we've not done it either: in some parts of India, we did kill off Buddhist monks and turned their monasteries into temples. Sangam era poems exist about this, FYI. Archaeological evidence suggests this too. You guys may be shocked to know, but there are actually some genuine(if ultimately unproven and cannot be proven without cooperation from the adversary) murmurs amongst some buddhist sympathizers about the Temple of Jagganath in Orissa, one of the holiest site of hinduism, is actually a converted Buddhist temple. But if we wish to approach it from history, we gotto be honest. I've looked into this, there is not a single fecking inscription in any indian language anywhere. There are quintessential Indian designs on some walls of the Mosque. Even if we were able to somehow date these walls to way before Babur and say, in the 400s-600s AD period, there is no justifiable evidence to say it was a temple. Last I checked, we Indians have been building cities for a very long time, good enough to've blown away the Greek ambassador Megasthenes, who promptly punted off Athens and Susa and put Pataliputra as the grandest city he's every seen. So a piece of our pre-islamic urban wall survived (assuming the hinduvtas can ever prove that it is conclusively, a pre-existing structure). There is a lot of dishonesty towards the temple thing- its backed up by not a shred of evidence, this is simple 'our faith vs your faith' fight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmreekanDesi Posted June 17, 2014 Author Share Posted June 17, 2014 ^ Great analysis bro and makes a lot of sense. Ive always felt that these theories are looking to provoke and the facts and dates just dont match up. Its been a pleasure reading your analysis bro. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akshayxyz Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 if not anything, I am seeing circumstantial evidence of a time machine here. You put up a history question, and Mulo immediately goes and comes back with 100s of names and dates and events.. /s Seriously, good stuff mulo! I second S=G, suggest some good,unbiased history books .. especially pre-british. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Precambrian Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 muloghonto of course it has been a superb history lesson. i am a huge buff of all this and thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it. thanks was just wondering if you could also include south india in your analysis? the chola empire was a great seafaring nation from accounts - and little is known about the southernmost part - particularly kerala - from where i hail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FischerTal Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 Muloghonto should be writing history books :hatsoff: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tothepoint Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 Mulo :hatsoff:..just as SG and others, I would humbly request you to suggest some books Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
velu Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 muloghonto :woot: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muloghonto Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 @Muloghonto - suggest some books on Indian History (pre British history) plz. Till now I have read books by Abraham Eraly and John Keay. Mulo :hatsoff:..just as SG and others' date=' I would humbly request you to suggest some books [/quote'] I will try to put together a book list but it will take time. History is a hobby of mine, something I've been nurturing for the past 15 years. it began as a fascination with archaeology, which lead to an interest in history and sometimes in associated fields such as archaeo-botany (where the study is of ancient climate and ecosystems, based on pollen data and wind dispersal models) and linguistics (which is a good, if sometimes misguided field). I've read books, talked to experts (in the western world its easy to nurture an academic hobby- just be a part time student or audit courses over time, etc) and visited some of the sites of interest. Its actually been a while since i read a book on history but i will try to put together a book-list soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muloghonto Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 muloghonto of course it has been a superb history lesson. i am a huge buff of all this and thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it. thanks was just wondering if you could also include south india in your analysis? the chola empire was a great seafaring nation from accounts - and little is known about the southernmost part - particularly kerala - from where i hail. I am no expert on Indian history- there are gaps in my knowledge of Indian archaeology and history- Kerala is one of them unfortunately. In short, this is what I know of Kerala: it first finds mention in the mauryan records, where the mauryas call it the land of 'keralputras'. To my knowledge, they were typically allies of the Pandyas (another illustrious Tamil dynasty who ruled in the region of madurai and bottom half of Tamil Nadu) and typically sided with them against the Cholas in the later years. However, the Keralputras (or Cheras as they are known too) don't seem to've been very expansive on land- perhaps due to Kerala's restricting geography. They survived as city-states with large land jagirs, ruled by dynasties that are related to or were related to the Cheras, held together in a loose confederation, without a capital city IIRC. They existed as these city-state kingdoms for very late in history- as late as the 1800s IIRC. Kerala has a great claim to fame in history: the Madhava school of mathematics that flourished in kerala for 2 centuries but for some strange reason, shows very little evidence of penetrating anywhere else in India. This school of thought was the first ever to define integration and differentiation (though they did not know of the fundamental theorem in calculus, which links integral and differential calculus together) a solid 200 years before Issac Newton or Goffried Leibnitz. Southern India has a complex history. It mostly remained relatively isolated from rest of India because the area of Maharashtra & northern Karnataka formed a big mass of forest and surrounding scrubland called Dandaka forest till very late in history. This mass of forest stretched north-south and east west covering the peninsular width. Except for being broken up by a few farming communities and small towns on the krishna & godavari region, this mass of forests merged with the forests in Southern Orissa highlands. The contact was through Orissa (Kalinga), which was a quite powerful thalassocracy ( a psuedo-empire ruled by a council, who often elected kings/dynasties but derived their power from naval trade and strategic advantages,not land-based power). In the middle ages ( starting 400s AD, lasting through till 1600 AD), the south had 3 major contestants: 1. the Tamil power, who at first were Pallavas, then Cholas and lastly (briefly) Pandyas 2. Orissa kingdoms, such as the mahamegavahannas, gajapatis, etc. 3. The power that developed in the central parts of maharasthra/north karanataka on the banks of manjra/bhima etc : such as the chalukyas of badami, western chalukyas, rashtrakutas, etc. These three powers contested what was the seat of Buddhism in ancient peninsular India: the krishna-godavari delta region, called Vengi in medeival times. This was the Kanauj of the south- it lacked the sustained intensity of the Kanauj conflict in the north over centuries but it lasted much longer, with periods of calm and periods of brutal 3-way warfare campaigns. The tamils and the Oryas came into natural conflict over this area, as their civilizations crept towards each other in early medeival times, the oryas expanding south towards Vengi following the coastline, the Tamils expanding north from southern AP regions. The Power of Maharashtra (they were not marathis, i am just using a geographic designation for this group) was interested in an east-west coastal link that would allow them to break into the Bay of Bengal trade. They have a much different history than the rest of India in the 'muslim period' and this region has been one of the few areas of India that have been able to 'rebound' with stunning acclaim vs the islamist invaders & looters- after the Delhi Sultanate ransacked the south all the way to Madurai (when the South was weaker and followed outdated combat norms) they were just as hurt as rest of india and had a lot of bloodshed and destruction. Yet, they were able to come back as the Vijayanagar empire, that thrived for 2 centuries and was once rated one of the richest places on the planet along with a very competent army & navy. Its history is too big to just write on a messageboard, i will try to answer questions where i can regarding them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmreekanDesi Posted June 18, 2014 Author Share Posted June 18, 2014 No hijacking my thread Precambrian :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sachin=GOD Posted June 24, 2014 Share Posted June 24, 2014 Why India Is A Nation http://sankrant.org/2003/10/why-india-is-a-nation/ .. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Temujin Khaghan Posted June 24, 2014 Share Posted June 24, 2014 knowing stuff is only half knowledge. but to explain it in context with good clarity is the real deal. superb posts by muloghonto in this thread. great job mate. please suggest a book list mate. thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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