Developments in India 251-750 OTL vs. ATL (Abrittus)

As in OTL, "India" is a not a term denominating a single country, a linguistically, religiously, ethnically or even just spatially clear-cut entity. It is more of a historical and political schema: The concept has several cores (none of which absolutely defines it) and fuzzy boundaries. This concerns the space occupied by "India" as well as its ethnic groups,  its religion, culture, socio-economic structures and dynamics, and its polities.

Bearing this in mind, the following outline summarises India's development within the framework of this timeline. The major difference from OTL concerns the influences coming from Europe and the Middle East: Instead of a smaller, but continuously belligerent Sassanid Empire and then expansionist Islam, India is faced at first with a huge, but stable Sassanid Empire, which dominates large parts of North-Western India and leaves a much stronger cultural and social imprint, then with an economically powerful Roman Empire as its Western trading partner. The following outline concerns itself with developments mainly on the Indian subcontinent between the Indus and the Brahmaputra and on the island of Sri Lanka. To varying degrees, it also includes developments to the North-West of this core space (Gandhara), to the East (the Tibeto-Burmese civilizations of the Pyu and Dvaravati) and South-East (Funan, the Malayan Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, Borneo and other surrounding islands).

Sassanid India (280-c. 560)
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Kushana was conquered by the Sassanid Empire in the 240s, the satrapies of the Sakas became Sassanid satrapies in 280. The Sassanids defended their Indian conquests against the Gupta and Vakataka Empires, which had formed an alliance against the Sassanids. After the fortification of the Sassanid Empire's Eastern border, the empire's Indian possessions were not militarily challenged for two centuries.

Within the Sassanid Empire, Kushana and Shakastan contributed greatly to the empire's wealth, and they enjoyed relative autonomy. After attempts to impose Zoroastrianism and Sassanid-Parthian military organisation more or less failed, Sassanid shahanshahs allowed their Kushan and Shaka satraps to base their military around the traditional Kshatriya warrior caste and to support Hinduism and Buddhism, as long as they did not threaten Sassanid rule. (Jainists were viewed more skeptically, though. Many of them emigrated to the Dravidian lands in Southern India or to the inacessabile valleys of the Himalaya mountains.) Nevertheless, conspiracies among the Brahmin elite aimed against Sassanid rule were frequent and caused by their reduced social importance because Zoroastrian priests were still the only ones with any real influence on the political leadership. Brahmin conspiracies were supported by the Sassanid's Indian neighbour empires, the Gupta and the Vakataka. After their repeated failure, some Brahmin families were enslaved and deported to the West, while many more emigrated from Sassanid India to Gupta, Vakataka or farther East, e.g. to South East Asia, which was exposed to an even greater Indian influence than in OTL.

North-West India's integration into the booming and innovative Sassanid economy brought technological innovations like windmills, mechanised cotton carding, glass-blowing over oil lamps and many more to the land between Indus, Mahi and Yamuna. New crafts and intensified trade with the West brought more and more foreigners to the coasts of India - Romans, Ostrogoths, Sabans and many more. Dams and canals for irrigation and the use of hydromechanical power are built. The population of the Sassanids' Indian satrapies grows - and it grows quicker than that of the rest of India.

Sassanid India is also the place where Western and Indian theories and sciences meet and fertilise each other (once again, after an earlier peak of cross-fertilisation in the 4th century BCE). Indian mathematics become known and are adapated in the Middle East and Europe; Celtic empiricism enriches Indian natural philosophy and facilitates the establishment of differentiated natural sciences at universities like Barygaza, founded under Sassanid rule. The latter are also centres for the dissemination of the Pahlavi language and alphabet, which coexists during Sassanid rule with Prakrit languages written in the Brahmi alphabet.

Society, culture and religion undergo significant changes under Sassanid rule, too. While local Kshatriyas and Sassanid nobility remain in a tense relationship at the top of the social pyramid, craftsmen, traders, landowners and bankers (many of which followed old and new Buddhist schools) become the new powerful force in India's society. The poor majority of peasants and contractual workers experiences a slow economic improvement, too: education is still unavailable to them, but affordable food and clothing and access to clean water reduce child mortality and increase the life expectancy among the masses, too. Since Brahmins can no longer fulfill the vedic religious roles, personalised relations to the Hindu deities become more and more important among the general population. Thus, the Bhakti movement, partly inspired by Western religious influences like Judaism and Christianity, originates in Sassanid India in ths timeline.

Beyond Sassanid India, the differences to OTL can be summed up in a deeper- and wider influence of stronger Indian empires, societies and economies on the Malayan / Indonesian archipelago. The Gupta Empire expands into Central India and absorbs Vakataka instead of expanding Westward and conquering the Shaka satrapies. In the South, the Kalabhra reign. They forge a short-lived alliance with the Sassanid Empire at the end of the 5th century and manage to put off the re-establishment of traditional dynasties like the Chera, Chola and Pandya. To the East of the subcontinent, Buddhist city states form stable federations (Pyu, Dvaravati). Indian merchants found thriving colonies not on the Malay Peninsula (Langkasuka, Kadaram), but also on Sumatra, Java, Bali, Sulawesi and Timor. India's trade with China is subjected to the conditions imposed by the heavily Indianised Kingdom of Funan, one of the main targets of immigration by Hinduist brahmins. Funan's economic, political and religious opponents try to use all sorts of means to undermine Funan's dominance (supporting the insurgent Chenla, the Cham, and budding Malayan polities on Sumatra). South-East Asia's cities absorb some of the technological innovations from the West, too, and in Funan, rice production is revolutionised, so here, too, more wealth is generated than in OTL.

The 6th century marks the end of the Sassanid Era, shaped by the internal instability of the Sassanid Empire in the wake of the Mazdakist movement, and the spreading of the bubonic plague. Even though there are only few Mazdakists in the Indian satrapies, ever-rising taxes and a new policy of strict enforcement of Zoroastrian orthodoxy cause great dissatisfaction among the shahanshah's Indian subjects. Protests, which, after a while, are even supported by local Sassanid nobility, contribute to the emergence of a first kind of Indian nationalism defining itself in opposition to a culturally and ethnically alien force.

In the 530s, protests and secessionist tendencies arise in other provinces of the Sassanid Empire, too. The city councils of Sogdian cities along the Silk Route form the Sogdian Federation during this time, which refuses to execute Sassanid orders and seeks to negotiate increased autonomy.

Vasishka III, shah of Kushana, and Peroz VIII, shah of Shakastan, seize the moment of Indian nationalism and secessionist tendencies all across the empire for a move which some historians consider was aimed at gaining the rule over the empire of the Sassanids for themselves, while others say it was aimed at gaining independence from the start.

The second hypothesis is supported by the fact that the Sogdian Federation quickly allied itself with Vasishka and Peroz, and the latter two never attempted to claim suzerainty over Sogdia. The first hypothesis is supported by the fact that a united Kushan and Shaka army did not limit itself to defending their declared independence, but attempted to invade the Persian satrapies in 540. Their advance was stopped at Dosdab. The heavy battle ended without a victor, but several days later, shahanshah Chosrau, Vasishka and Peroz signed a treaty which defined the border between the Sassanid Empire and the new twin monarchy of Kushana-Shakastan. Chosrau sought the support of Vasishka and Peroz in an attempt to bring the Sogdian cities, which controlled the Silk Route, back under his control, but Kushana-Shakastan declined and assured the Sogdians of their support instead.

Kushana-Shakastan remains stable for two decades; a time, in which Indo-Aryan languages become more important in the East of this empire again, great advances in mathematics and astronomy are made by scholars like Varahamihira, and friendly relations with Tibet are established. Then,  Kushanshah Vasishka III. dies, like so many of his subjects, of the bubonic plague in 560. Vasishka' succession becomes a political crisis. Among the Kushana nobles,  Vasishka' son Kanishka finds the greatest support, but he is unpopular in Shakastan because of his strong ties with the orthodox Zoroastrian clergy. After Kanishka VII. becomes Kushanshah, the Shaka satrapies do not acknowledge his co-suzerainty and declare Peroz their only leader and king.

In the following years, Zoroastrianism and Persian culture are strengthened in Kushana, and the Buddhist satrapy of Gandhara breaks away from Kushana under the leadership of local Shahis, allying itself with Bactria, which in the meantime has broken away from the Sassanid Empire, too, and with the Sogdian Federation. While in the Shaka satrapies, the Bhakti movement flourishes and a new Hinduist zeal breaks out during the bubonic plague, Kushana becomes a stronghold of Zoroastrianism. After the fall of the Sassanid Empire, Kushana becomes the refuge of many Sassanid nobles, further strengthening the orthodox Zoroastrianism and the conservative position of Kushana, whose culture and society take an increasingly different path of development from the rest of India. Kushana's foreign policies are equally aggressive toward its Persian and Indian neighbours.

The bubonic plague, and with it the disruption of economic production and trade, kills millions of people in India and elsewhere around the world. It destabilises many societies, among them the Shaka's Eastern and Southern neighbours, the Gupta and the Kalabhra Empires, who fall apart into petty kingdoms and a handful of republics.

The Eastern part of India in the broader sense, i.e. OTL Malaysia and Indonesia, are affected by the plague and declining trade, too. Here, the most important result is the greater focus on domestic agricultural production and landownership, which brings the ruling Indian or Indianised class into direct and deep conflict with the Malay majority of the population.