Indian empires in Space and Time

2700 years of history plotted on an Excel spreadsheet

As one of the world’s oldest continuous civilizations, India has gone by many names (Jambudvipa, Aryavarta, Bharat, Hindustan, and more) and the people of this land have had many conquerors, kings, leaders and builders. Multiple philosophies have permeated through our societies; a multitude of languages have flourished; and through all this diversity, there is a definite thread of oneness stretching back from the 21st century into the land’s ancient past.

This is an attempt to understand an aspect of this oneness by exploring the power-structures that have ruled over Indian peoples (and divided them), each adding in their time a unique aspect of what can today loosely be termed Indianness. This is a concise study of historical Indian empires in space and in time.

The graph above plots various empires in space (measured along the x-axis) and time (measured along the y-axis), and helps one build a mental picture of the influence of an empire on India in 2022.

Before we begin drawing inferences from the plot, a few caveats:

• The plot shows geographical extent with a least count of 2.5 lakh square kilometres i.e. the smallest boxes are approximately the size of Uttar Pradesh (2022).

• The plot measures progress vertically in 50-year pulses of time. So it may miss out developments that happen in shorter intervals, but one can argue that these tend to have a small impact on the big picture.

• The geo-extent maps don’t take into account the number of cities administered by a certain empire/dynasty, nor do they consider the population within the empire’s borders. The plot only shows spatial expanse of political powers along the x-axis.

• The cultural, religious, social, economic, philosophical, or political impact of dynasties/empires are outside the scope of this work. So an empire of small geographical expanse could have potentially exerted great influence on future empires and peoples (but such knowledge cannot be gleaned from this graph).

• I have tried to keep all entries from West to East (when read left to right), but this has not always been possible. I have broken this rule at such places where the legibility of the plot is enhanced by ignoring the West-to-East method. The last block (furthest right) usually clubs distinct geographies covering Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and a few states in India’s North East.

• I’m not a professional historian or a qualified data-scientist. And I did this for fun (I think it helps me understand history better). So kindly engage constructively, if at all :)

With the long list of caveats behind us, here are some interesting insights from the plot:

1. If a composite variable called Impact can be calculated as a product of spatial and temporal extent of an empire (IMPACT = AREA OF EMPIRE x DURATION OF EXISTENCE), then the top empires are:

   • British Raj: 123 (impact score)

   • Mauryas: 110

   • Mughals: 110

   • Delhi Sultanate: 105

   • Gurjara-Pratiharas: 95

   • Satavahanas: 73

   • Guptas: 70

   • Republic of India: 60

   • Cholas: 55

   • Marathas: 40

   • Chalukyas: 40

   • Rashtrakutas: 35

   • Note: All scores are useful only on a relative basis. Absolute values and units of scores do not carry any objective meaning.

2. We may further try to assign more importance to recent events (superimposing Impact on an exponential decay function) and arrive at a quantity called INFLUENCE TODAY = IMPACT x e^(NUMBER OF CENTURIES SINCE EMPIRE). The most influential rulers then turn out to be the following:

   • Republic of India: 39.4 (influence score)

   • British Raj: 16.6

   • Mughals: 2.0

   • Marathas: 2.0

   • Delhi Sultanate: 0.1

   • Others: 0.0

   • Note: Our current discourse revolves around these empires and their achievements/actions, and proves our hypothesis around their respective levels of influence on Indian modernity.

3. Most empires have historically achieved scale and power for a maximum of ~150 years i.e. not more than 4-5 generations of rulers. Medieval and modern empires have lasted slightly longer as processes have taken the place of people. So empires may retain a name but need not have rulers of the same bloodline. The longest running dynasties - like the southern kingdoms of the Cholas, Pandyas, and Cheras - understood this long before the rest.

4. Only four empires have held control over areas in excess of 30 lakh square kilometres: India, the British, the Mughals and the Mauryas. Four empires have conquered and held 20 lakh - 30 lakh square kilometres: Guptas, Gurjara-Pratiharas, Delhi Sultanate and the Marathas.

Those are some insights for now. Please let me know if you would like me to explore some of these topics further in future posts/threads. Thank you for reading!

Sources:

• Wikipedia pages of respective empires and dynasties

• https://www.worldhistorymaps.info/

• Wikimedia maps of the world at various points of time

P.S. This post was initially published on 15th August 2022, as millions of Indians celebrated the 76th Independence Day (75 years since 15th August 1947) of the latest version of their motherland, with the Har Ghar Tiranga campaign. This edit is dated 9th October 2022.