"Indians are the Italians of Asia and vice versa. Every man in both countries is a singer when he is happy, and every woman is a dancer when she walks to the shop at the corner. For them, food is the music inside the body and music is the food inside the heart."
– Gregory David Roberts
"What's wrong, why are we stopped?" "There is a cow in the road." "A cow? We just drove by a dead guy back there." "That could be him."
– Gabriel Iglesias
Bhārat Gaṇarājya, known officially as Republic of India or just India, is a nation and a subcontinent of Asia. Being the world's second most populous country, the seventh largest one and the biggest democracy on the planet, it also possesses culture and history that spans millennia and is currently the only major country where polytheism of old not only survives but thrives in modern day. It is also arguably a sort of a melting pot and a crossroads of Asia - having vast persian and islamic countries to the west and China and others to the east, it naturally was influenced and influenced it's neighbours culturally and religiously (being the land where Buddhism was born after all).
Unlike medieval Europe, Japan, or the Middle East, medieval India has served as the inspiration for relatively few fantasy gaming settings, perhaps because none of it's literary canons have quite had the influence of the Arabian Nights or the Arthurian Romances. Nonetheless in the 21st century representation has grown a bit compared to past decades.
Wargaming representation is similarly muted; to the extent that Indian forces are represented it's usually as generic Commonwealth troops rather than a uniquely stated fighting force. However with the growth of the gaming community in India it's likely that more detailed characterizations will emerge in time as they have for ANZAC forces.
The Indian subcontinent has a history spanning some 5000 years which puts it next to long-runner heavyweights like Egypt or China. The history of the place can roughly be divided into a period before the 10th century AD when the various cultures were developing independently and then after the 900s when the islamic invasions happened and India was under the boots of several waves of foreign conquerors before finally gaining it's independence in the decolonization period post WW2. So buckle up as we take a walk through these five millenia.
Neolithic Period (6000 - 3300 BC) - Human habitation in the area has been confirmed as far back as 33000 BC though it took until around 6000s before permanent habitation and agriculture would develop. The general area west of India near the border with Pakistan and within Pakistan itself is one of the so-called 'cradles of civilization' where early humans could live and develop on easy-mode and so the settlers there inhabited a valley with a system of rivers that provided fertile land for farming while being cradled safely by the mountains at their western border which kept those pesky barbarian bands at bay. This all culminated with the eventual rise of the Indus Valley Civilization.
Bronze Age (3300 - 1800 BC) - This is where shit gets real and interesting as we proceed from typical stone-banging cavemen to a proper Bronze Age civilization - The Indus Valley Civilization. It was a contemporary of the Egyptians and the Sumerians while being the most expansive of the three and also actively trading with the Sumerians. The cities of this era are notable for the high degree of urban planning and infrastructure (sewers, drainages and waterworks) while also having buildings made of baked brick and being well versed in metallurgy (sans iron). The most notable and important cities are Rakhigarhi, Harappa and the famed Mohenjo-Daro - with an average population of 30-60k EACH, these were the veritable metropolises of Bronze Age India. The civilization started to decline after several earthquakes and general climate shift disrupted the many river that the large cities and conurbations were dependent on, ushering in a familiar pattern of cities getting abandoned as people fucked off to the countryside where there was food and less desparate people to contend with.
Iron Age (1800 - 200 BC) - This period overlaps with the “Vedic Period,” where Indian culture starts to solidify, particularly with religion, the caste system, and the many different political domains. Hinduism becomes the dominant religion, though it’s chief rival Buddhism also crops up. Towards the end, Alexander’s short-lived invasion of India brings the subcontinent in contact with Europe for the first time, bringing with it Greek influences in the arts and even in Buddhist thought. This is also the era where Sanskrit is first developed, which is one of the oldest languages still in use today.
Classical Period (200 BC - 650 AD) - Contact with Europe via the Roman Empire continued, as India flourished under the Gupta empire, which would set the standard for how later Indian kingdoms would be run. Major advances take place in architecture, mathematics, medicine, and classical Sanskrit Literature, when Sanskrit is finally written down after Brahmic script was invented. India gets consolidated into two large empires - the Gupta Empire and later Harsha Empire which both collapse and usher in the indian version of the Age of Strife/Romance of the Three Kingdoms callet the Tripartite Struggle/Kannauj Triangle Wars.
Early Medieval Period (650 - 1200) - After the collapse of the major indian empires of Gupta and Harsha, The good 'ol days.India went into a period where three polities - Pratihara Empire, the Pala Empire and the Rashtrakuta Empire engaged in a prolonged conflict that eventually saw the Partiharas victorious and rulers of central India until the islamic conquests. Far from being a time on constant struggle, this period also marked the high-point of indian civilization as some of India's finest art was made during this time and the development of what will become the main spiritual and philosophical systems in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism also took place.
Late Medieval Period (1200 - 1526) - India fell under Muslim rule by the Delhi Sultanate. However, they were continuously threatened by the Chagatai Khanate to their north. Towards the very end of their rule a small new religion, something of a hybrid of Islam and Hinduism emerged called Sikhism. They're important.
Early Modern Period (1526 - 1858) - Goddamn Mongolians. One of Genghis's descendants named Babur was kicked off his land in the steppe, decided he had nothing to lose, and invaded India. They did really well at first, but then they ran into the Sikhs; some people were martyred, some massacres happen, and before you know it the whole of India spends about two hundred years at war. Not continuously, and not always between the same people, but between the Mughals, Hindis, Muslims, and Sikhs, everyone had someone they wanted dead. On top of this, the coast was SWARMING with English, French, Dutch, Danish, and Portuguese, and nobody approved of that. By the mid 19th century the Sikhs were on top thanks to General Nalwa, who was being spoken of as an equal to Napoleon or Washington. Speaking of that guy, the English defeat him, and expand governance of the East India Company over the country. This culminates until the mutiny of 1857, which resulted from dozens of reasons that we won't go into here.
The British Raj (1858 - 1947) - After the Rebellion of 1857, India is placed under direct rule of the British. This does little to stop the establishment of political parties favoring independence. India receives infrastructure upgrades from the British, and is highly integrated into the British economy, serving admirably in both World Wars. Following the war, a political figure named Mahatma Gandhi invents the modern-day practice of Civil Disobedience, gaining massive support for the Indian independence movement and influencing civil rights movements in other parts of the world. This period is one of the skubiest eras in indian history and suffice it to say that Churchill is seen by some as going so far as to commit genocide against Indians, and we will leave it at that.
Modern Period (1947 - 20XX) - You are here! India gained independence shortly after WWII, but was soon wracked by internal division between Muslims and Hindus, resulting in the Indo-Pakistani war and subsequent formation of Pakistan. The Soviet Union backed the Pakistanis, but India overlooked a lot of this and even bought some Russian hardware of their own in order to maintain their very deliberately neutral stance on the Cold War. This accelerated after the Sino-Indian border war in the Himalayas; as America worked to splinter China from the Soviets, India's animosity with China inclined them to seek favor with Russia. Also worth mentioning is that India's first prime minister Nehru made some substantial steps in moving the country forward - giving greater rights to downtrodden castes and expanding literacy.
Since the end of the Cold War, India's chief problems have been internal. With the second highest population and highest overall density, India presides over roughly 1/6th of the world's population. They have a massive domestic economy and educated populace, but commercial interests run rampant. Pollution, overcrowding, poverty, and corrupt officials are the norm in most cities. The hundreds of minor ethnic regional enclaves with unique languages means that uniform education in the rural areas is almost non-existent. Classism is quite literally institutionalized, with the Hindi 80% of the country representing most of the upper and middle class. Despite these challenges, they do have a highly developed nuclear power industry (and nuclear weaponry), a fledgling space program, and quite a great deal of productive farmland to sustain their teeming masses.
On the international scene, India is poised to overtake China as the hot-new-shit rising star country that will ¨take over the world in X-ty years¨ owing to it's still expanding demographics as China's transition into a usual slump after getting modernised and further suppressed by One-Child Policy. This has naturally lead the two major superpowers - USA and China to keep one eye on the subcontinent. For now India seems to be playing the wise game of being neutral and even subtly playing off both sides though their proximity to China causes some problems as the Chinese are (among other things) in good position to dam most of the major rivers flowing into India from their territory. Overall, India's modern situation is not terrible but as with any country that is rinsing in power and ambitions there may need to come a time when India will need to assert itself, for better or worse.
Indian Culture
There's quite a lot of it.
No, really. India is the ORIGINAL polyglot society. There are 447 living languages in India, of which 22 are used for government business in at least one state. Regarding religion, 4 major religions can claim at least 1% of the population, with two more close behind.
However, the Hindu majority uses its political power to wield considerable control over mass media, in something of a parallel to Christian dominance over entertainment in America or the UK prior to the 1960's. So the outward, commercialized face of Indian culture (aka Bollywood) is Hindu culture with Hindu social norms.
The chief vestige of India's period as a crown colony is seen in sports. Cricket is the dominant professional sport in India, while association football is preferred in areas that had Portuguese or Dutch colonial presences.
Indian Religion, Gods and Mythology
India is most notably from a religious/mythological perspective to foreign nerds because it's one of the only major countries in the world (other than Japan) where its original polytheistic religion survived the coming of the monotheistic religions more or less intact. We are talking, of course, about Hindu.
Now, India is a huge place with a fuckton of people, so there are a lot of religions, including Christians, but the three major religious powers of India are definitely Islam (imported centuries ago, as described above), Buddhism, and Hindu, which is generally perceived as the "original" Indian religion by foreigners.
Also there's Sikhism, which is pretty new (barely 600 years old) but historically has punched well above its weight in actual fights due to their specific beliefs, which sorta resembles what you'd get if Christ had been a Klingon. The Sikhs took advantage of British rule to spread throughout the empire, and today most Commonwealth militaries have rules to allow Sikhs their turbans and beards while serving, 'cuz two world wars showed they are really good at fighting. Anyway, back to Hinduism...
Hindu is a glimpse into the world when polytheism was the norm, and it can be quite hard for foreigners to wrap their heads around. Seriously, if you think Classical Mythology is complicated, you ain't seen nothing yet. There is a vast and sprawling pantheon of gods and spirits in Hindu, with a tangled family tree that only gets more complex because Hindu deities are prone to spontaneously generating sub-gods, transforming into new gods to embody different aspects of themselves, and simply reincarnating as beings that are at once entirely separate from their "progenitor" deity and yet one and the same. Not helping is that Hindu shares certain themes of cosmic balance and harmony with Buddhism, so deities can have "dark" roles or aspects but still be considered sacred and holy.
Since Hindu is a living religion with hundreds of thousands if not millions of practitioners, this makes people a little touchy about including it in roleplaying games, which isn't to say that it hasn't made some appearances, such as in Deities & Demigods or Scion.
One of the more well-known aspects of Hindu belief is the concepts of "karma" and "reincarnation", which probably are related to why Buddhism has very similar beliefs, but that's a topic for dusty theology professors, not a fucking 4chan wiki. In short, humans accumulate karma based on their actions in life, with good deeds granting good karma and bad deeds granting bad karma. One's karma then determines what your soul will be reborn as (human, animal, even a god or demon) in the process of samsara. Ultimately, Hindus seek to rid themselves of karma entirely, both good and bad, and by doing so escape the cycle of reincarnation. Important note: Hinduism regards the cow as a higher form than man.
As with all forms of polytheism, Hindu has never been short of religious conflicts, as dominant sects frequently absorbed deities from competing sects into their mythos as aspects of their own favored deity, so many of those once distinct deities have coalesced together over the centuries. The Puranic period saw a deliberate effort to harmonize rival sects together, which gave rise to the Trimurti ("Three Forms"); this is the subset of the Hindu pantheon that is most well known in the Western world. It is also the subset of Hinduism which formed the mythological backbone of two popular RPG games: Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Mage: The Ascension. The three cyclical concepts underlying the Trimurti are Creation, Preservation, and Destruction, with a particular deity filling each role as the divine manifestation of that concept, with deities differing by sect. When the roles are filled by goddesses (devi) the triad is known as the Tridevi. In Werewolf: The Apocalypse the Trimurti are known as the Triat, in Vampire: The Masquerade the Trimurti are known as the three Primordia, and Mage: The Ascension uses an atheist version of the concepts called the Metaphysic Trinity. The grimdark spin that White Wolf puts on the Triat is that the three deities are embroiled in a vicious theomachy against each other, and have all fallen from grace and have become corrupted extremist versions of themselves.
Deities of Creation
Brahma the Creator is said to be the creator of all things, but apart from that not much is known about him save for his tendency to be a bit too free to grant favors. Unlike Brahma who has no dedicated temples, his feminine counterpart Sarasvati the Creatrix sees active worship not only in India but in surrounding countries in various permutations, such as in Japan in the form of Benzaiten. In the Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes supplement from TSR, Brahama was the ruler of the Hindu pantheon (via conflation with the related Hindu concept of Brahman). In Werewolf: The Apocalypse the analogous androgynous deity of creation is known as the Wyld, and in Mage: The Ascension the corresponding concept is called Dynamicism.
Deities of Preservation
Vishnu the Preserver is one of the two best known Hindu male deities; Vishnu preserves the world from evil and upholds virtue. He is said to have had nine incarnations, or avatars that have manifested when he was needed along with one which has not yet appeared:
Matsaya the fish- Saved humanity from a great flood.
Kurma the tortoise- Aided the gods in churning the Ocean of Milk to produce the water of life amrita.
Varaha the boar- Pulled the earth out of the sea after it fell in due to the weight of the human race.
Vamana the dwarf- When the Asura Mahabali conquered the universe, Vamana won it back through cunning.
Parashurma the axe-bearer- Defeated the Kshatriyas when the warrior caste grew prideful and oppressive.
Rama- Hero of the Ramayana and prince of the kingdom of Kosala, famed for his war against the Asura king Ravana and his friendship with Hanuman the monkey king.
Krishna- The most beloved of Vishnu's avatars. Many legends speak of him, but he is best known for his appearance in the Mahabharata as the charioteer for the prince Arjuna. Notably, he's popular enough to have inspired sects that claim Vishnu is one of his avatars and not the other way around. Also the supreme God in the Hare Krishna cult/airport conga line.
Buddha- Yes, the same Gautama Buddha from Buddhism. Supposedly took on this form in order to trick atheists into obtaining enlightenment. Needless to say, the Buddhists disagree with that interpretation.
Kalkin- The "Future Avatar", who will appear upon a white horse and destroy evil forever.
In the goddess-centric denominations of Hinduism in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, the goddess Lakshmi the Preservatrix (a.k.a. Vaishnavi) sees more worship than Vishnu. In Werewolf: The Apocalypse the analogous feminine deity of preservation is known as the Weaver, and in Mage: The Ascension the corresponding concept is called Stasis.
Deities of Destruction
Despite his title, Shiva the Destroyer, the other of the two best known Hindu male deities, was viewed as a benevolent being who clears away the old and corrupt to make way for new creation. He is commonly depicted either as a slayer of demons or as a wise ascetic, and he's also strongly associated with dance (the means by which destruction and creation anew is achieved). In older scripture he was called Rudra, a deification of destructive storms.
In Werewolf: The Apocalypse the analogous masculine deity of destruction is known as the Wyrm, in Orpheus the nominally feminine deity of destruction is called Grandmother, in Mage: The Ascension the corresponding concept is called Entropy, and in Wraith: The Oblivion it is called, well, Oblivion( altrough both Grandmother and Oblivion seems to be something entirely separated and sometimes even enemies of the Wyrm).
Hindu Creation Myths
Every sect of Hinduism has its own version of the creation myth in which they somehow spin their own favored deity as the primary agent of creation, even if it is just simply claiming that a well-known name of a creator/creatrix deity is really just an aspect of the adherent's favored deity. Within the collective of Hindu myths of creation and related topics there is a running theme of recurring cycles of creation and destruction of consecutive universes; one iteration of universal creation and destruction is called a kalpa.
Furthermore, every deity is but a single aspect of the Brahman, the transcendent Godhead from which all other things derive from. It cannot be understood directly, but by adhering to one's dharma (their duties in life) and working off karma over many lifetimes a human can attain moksha- freedom from samsara and eternal communion with the Brahman.
Indian Magic (Maya)
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India Analogs in Fantasy
Quite obviously, Kingdoms of Ind in Warhammer Fantasy Battle. It is a generally unexplored region, although there are enough hints that we'll get more info on them.
The Easterlings as they are portrayed in the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies have some Indian influence to them, because war Elephants.
In the City of Brass trilogy, the whole of India is called Agnivansha. The author seems to have a bias for them, as they are disproportionately mentioned in scenes that have Hot Chicks.
The nation of Vendhya in Conan mythos is inspired by the Vedic-era India, though sadly, it's largely unexplored by Howard.
In Warhammer Fantasy we have the Kingdoms of Ind which are somewhat fleshed-out story-wise but as with any nation east of Kislev lack any army.
