Speaking of the South Asian subcontinent, the first country that everyone thinks of should be India, India as one of the four ancient civilizations, because of its closed, unique geographical environment, it is not too much to say that it was born with a golden spoon, but India has been invaded by foreign tribes many times in history, resulting in many cultural changes, why is this?
Blessed with a unique geographical environment
The South Asian subcontinent plate is formed by the squeeze impact of the Indian Ocean plate and the Eurasian plate, due to the movement of the plate, numerous alpine plateaus have been formed here, and from the map we can see that the South Asian subcontinent is generally in a triangular shape, almost surrounded by alpine plateaus and ocean clusters:
To the southeast and west are the open Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, respectively;
Bordered to the south by the vast Indian Ocean;
In the north, there is the tall Himalayas, which stretch for more than 2,400 kilometers, with an average altitude of more than 7,000 meters, and behind the mountains is the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau;
Northwestern with Central Asia and the Persian Plateau, there is the Suleiman Mountains with an average altitude of 2,000 meters;
In the northeast, there is the Nokai-Naga Mountain Range, which has an average altitude of more than 2,000 meters, and although the mountains are relatively narrow, the dense tropical forests and tropical mosquitoes, ants, poisonous snakes, and miasma make it more difficult to cross.
It is precisely because of so many mountains and oceans, the Indian subcontinent can be said to be a completely independent region geographically, is isolated from other regions, in the case of ancient transportation technology is very backward, here should be the most difficult place for foreign civilizations to invade, compared to our Central Plains of China, it is simply not too safe, plus most of the territory of India is suitable for human habitation and arable land plains, self-sufficiency is completely sufficient, and such a geographical location is also very easy to preserve civilization.
Nightmare Khyber Pass
But we all know that in fact, it is not as theoretically claimed, and in the thousands of years of India's history, there have been many foreign invasions, and all this starts with the Khyber Pass.
Although the Indian subcontinent appears to be airtight, the Khyber Pass has "betrayed" the land, located in the northwest corner of the Indian subcontinent, on the Hindu Kush Mountains, now in the northwest of Pakistan, which is the only land gap in the entire South Asian subcontinent and the only passageway for the entire Central Asian subcontinent.
Beyond the Khyber Pass, the Portvar Terrace is formed by the three major mountains of the Himalayas, Hinduscu and Suleiman, with the endless Indus Plain below and the wider Ganges Plain further east.
Due to the location of the Khyber Pass, here will not be affected by the cold air currents in winter, all year round, after it was discovered, the ancient West Asian and Central Asian empires are like discovering a great treasure, because they can not defeat the Eastern Central Plains Dynasty, so they have entered the South Asian continent from here, invading India and other countries.
The earliest aborigines here were the diminutive, dark-skinned Negritos and primitive Australians (not really Australians, but named for their physical similarities to those of indigenous Australians), and later the Mediterranean Europa race entered the South Asian subcontinent, combined with the indigenous peoples to breed hybrids to form the Dravidians, and created one of the oldest native civilizations of mankind in the Indus Valley: the Hapala civilization.
The Hapala civilization is not only ancient, but its agricultural and handicraft achievements are not inferior even to the Nile and Two River basin civilizations, where the tropical monsoon climate, the vast plain area and the hard work of the Dravidian people have injected a steady stream of blood and power into the Hapala civilization.
But after that, the Aryans (about the 15th century BC), the Persians (about the 6th century BC), the Macedonians (about the 3rd century BC), the Ōtsuki (early years AD), the Kheda (6th century AD), the Arabs (after the 7th century AD), the Turks (after the 12th century AD), the Turkicized Mongols (16th century AD), and the modern British (after the 17th century AD) invaded the Indian subcontinent successively, and among these peoples, only the British did not invade from the Khyber Pass. All other peoples reached the continent through the Khyber Mountains.
In the continuous invasion of foreign civilizations, the indigenous historical civilization here has been significantly broken and crushed, and the vast majority of people in the Indian subcontinent today are Aryans and Dravidians, but they are very chaotic in culture, in addition to hundreds of languages, the embodiment is more obvious in religion: Buddhism, which was born here in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, has almost disappeared after the 8th century AD, and the most important religion in the Indian subcontinent today is Indian Hinduism; Islam in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sikhism.
And all this is to blame on the Khyber Pass, which can be said to have witnessed too much humiliating history of being trampled by aggression, and its existence has always been the geographical pain of this continent.
Why not build a pass
Seeing this, many friends may wonder, since the invasion was caused by the Khyber Pass, why did the ancient Indians not build a pass here in the Khyber Pass and send troops to garrison it?
In fact, this is also caused by many reasons.
First of all, although the Indian subcontinent has been invaded by outsiders many times, we can carefully calculate that from the aryans entered the subcontinent before 1500 BC, in the subsequent 3500 years of history, the foreign invasion is about 10 times, the smallest of which can reach 200 years, 200 years is nothing in the long river of history, but it is too long for an individual life, and for the local indigenous people at that time, it may not be able to learn the lessons of history at all; And to build a threshold that will not work until 200 years at the shortest, seems to be a threat that is so far away from it that people will not have a clear perception.
Secondly, the Indian subcontinent has formed a caste hierarchy as early as 3,000 years ago, which is very unfavorable to the unity and cooperation between ancient Indians and the resistance to the common enemy, everyone is different, and the sense of national cohesion is very weak for them.
Third, the cost of building a gateway fortress in the Indian subcontinent is also huge, and it will continue to be repaired after it is built, and the shortest one will be repaired for 200 years, which will cost a lot of manpower, financial resources and material resources, and in ancient times, people and property were still very scarce, so it was more difficult for the ancient Indian residents at that time.
Write at the end
From the history of the invasion of the Indian subcontinent, we can also see very clearly that even if the heavens have given almost perfect innate conditions, but without the maintenance and efforts of acquired manpower, then even the most brilliant civilization will not go far, and it will be put on the country and the nation, and it will be the same for us individuals.
Bibliography:
SU Li. What is a system? Why does it happen (or doesn't happen)? ——The Great Wall from the Khyber Pass. [J]Comparative Law Research, 2018(06).
Author: Arbor