General History Thread - India : News , Updates & Discussions .

[SKC]

Continued:


Socotra is 2000 kilometers from Indian coastline. Paleographic analysis confirms the Hoq inscriptions were written in different decades, different centuries. Numerous ships must have come to Socotra between 100 BC–600 AD.

C-6: Ancient Hindus were seasoned in ship building, sailing, trading with Ethiopians, Syrians, Greeks, etc (since the cave has non-Indian inscriptions).

Hoq cave is 1000+ feet above sea level, over a long hike (takes about 2.5 hours from shore). Cave is big, beautiful, 2+ kilometers deep. After the first few hundred feet, the cave is pitch dark inside. Full of stalactites, stalagmites, few small water pools. Ancient visitors must have brought a fire torch with them. To write, they used nearby mud, burnt charcoal, and broken stalagmite. Natural barriers & darkness make it difficult to find & reach the deepest point of the cave. But ancient Hindus+Buddhists reached it, left inscriptions.

C-7: Ancient Hindus were explorers with a sense of creative adventure. We see something similar with Hindu Sanskrit inscriptions found in many parts of southeast Asia. These likely came from visitors from ports in modern Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Bengal (Kalinga+Tamils).

 

[tommy]

Vengi is the region between the godavari and krishna delta. This territory, for its size, was the richest region of India in the past 2000 years, because like ganga plains, it is a very fertile ( though tiny) part of India, but also served as entryport to the interior Vidharba and Telengana region ( the region of Dakshin Kaushal) and to top it off, until early 1800s, was the ONLY source ( yes the only source) of diamonds in the world.

This relatively small but extremely rich region saw development of local dynasties of significant power ( such as Vengi Chalukyas ( eastern chalukyas, who ruled the region from 600s to early 1000s CE), Andhra Ikshvakus, who ruled for a century and half after fall of Satavahanas, etc. But it was surrounded by 4 main powers - Kalinga, Dakshin Kaushal, Tamilakkam and the Central Maharashtra-north karnataka region.
Typically, Vengi grew strong enough to rule its own territory, but not strong enough to contest the main powers of the Kannada region and Tamil region and typically served as vassals to one or the other. It typically had more even contests with Kalinga ( a slightly bigger food-basket region but poorer due to lacking the 2 secondary points) and the only power it didnt much get into tussles with directly, is Dakshin Kaushal.
However, the main arc of South Indian history is tamilakkam based power bashing heads with power based between Godavari & Tungabhadra and everyone else coming along for the ride, because neither side was strong enough to completely crush the other or control the other for long ( whenever Cholas won vs Western Chalukyas and installed their puppet maharaja, that chap got murdered and his bro took over and vice versa) and Vengi was often the cause of conflict, because ' he who controls vengi, controls south india' was the logic of the big-2. And indeed, that was sound logic, because periods in South Indian history where there has been absolute utter dominance of South by 1 empire, such as Satavahanas, Rashtrakutas and Cholas, its *ALWAYS* been the scenario if ' its one of the big-2 of tamilakkam and maratha-kannada who holds vengi as vassal/direct lands' axiom.

The period of post Satavahana power, aka 250s CE, to the period of around 1050 CE saw by far the most wars in India over Vengi. There are stretches between Badami Chalukya-Pallava, W.Chalukya-Chola wars over Vengi that are pretty much every year for a 10 year period, peace for 10 years, restart yearly war for another 5-10 years, etc. that is extraordinary amount of warfare by Indian standards.

Let's continue this discussion here. What was the army composition of these kingdoms, were they primarily infantry based which I guess due to absence of horses? I remember reading somewhere that lot of wars in India would have been won just by buying out the some part of the army, what's your opinion about his?

And what would be the other 4 most fought places in India?

 

[Miss Firing]

https://swarajyamag.com/ideas/dravidianist-celebration-of-john-marshall-is-a-case-of-internalised-colonialism-not-pride-in-indian-history

Dravidianist Celebration Of John Marshall Is A Case Of Internalised Colonialism, Not Pride In Indian History​

 

[GaudaNaresh]

Let's continue this discussion here. What was the army composition of these kingdoms, were they primarily infantry based which I guess due to absence of horses? I remember reading somewhere that lot of wars in India would have been won just by buying out the some part of the army, what's your opinion about his?

And what would be the other 4 most fought places in India?

These are difficult questions to answer, as warfare in pre-gun powder era wasn't static and developed significantly in the 300s BC-500s AD period and further, altering compositions and such.

For southern Armies, horses were a bigger luxury than northern armies, because south imported horses from Arabia, while north imported horses from Bactria/Kamboja lands and typically horses didnt last long in India due to climate ( Khilji records show, they imported tens of thousands of horses from afghanistan region during their reign and on average a horse died in 2 years, usually of disease). Ironically, the Indian horse breeds like Kathiawari & marwari, have stronger arabian genetic component than central asian horse genes.

So to answer your question in short, it would depend on period. Generally speaking, the armies were infantry & elephant dominant, with Chola-W.Chalukya armies peaking at ~500,000 mobilized, of which 10,000-25,000 were war elephants and anywhere from 1000-5000 cavalry, usually in the upper realms.

Its important to note, that Southern Indian warfare is vastly different in nature than Northern Indian warfare, the terrain favouring a much more Rome-esque infantry formations with cavalry's job being to protect the flanks and not be direct main combat units like later medieval periods of europe for eg or iran/central asian fighting model, which sometimes the North Indian empires also imitated to a bigger degree than the south.

As for wars being won by bribing armies - they were not a thing in the pre 1000s CE period , because up to this time in Indian history, corporations were extremely strong players in Indian politics and military ( Srenis, look them up) and often played a critical role as part of the military system and had court presence.
Often, big conflicts were a hybrid of imperial military+corporate guild military model, such as seen during the first ever trans-oceanic war in human history : Chola-Srivijaya wars - the war saw thousands of soldiers from certain Srenis in Tamilakkam.

The Sreni system got destroyed around 1000 CE, with the fall of the Chola empire, as Islamic commerce systematically outcompeted Indian guilds in the Arabian sea trade region and with fall of Chola empire, the Indian sreni system began to die out ( it was dead by the time Muhammad of Ghor arrived for eg) and you see a more familiar scenario of ' king with generals where generals betray king/get bought out etc' being present in Indian warfare.