India was indeed a rich country in terms of the overall world GDP share that we had (Pakistani Punjab and Sindh were a part of that ancient India btw)
In terms of per capita income we were more or less at the same level as the West until 1000 AD (ahead of them actually). In fact, if you see even until 1820 the West wasn't that far ahead of us. Difference in 1820 between India and the West was only equal to the difference between Russia and Western Europe today. It is only in the last 200 years, due to British colonisation that Western GDP per capita went so far ahead of us while we kept lingering around the 500-600 dollars mark.
How do you know Indian subcon per capita income to be the same as the West? According to which economist/historians? Angus Maddison? Do you know which geographical area he included in the study. Do you know how Maddison derived his numbers??
What manufactured goods did you produce during those times?? Silk Road starts from China to the West. Indian subcon just happened to lie in between.
There is a reason why India was invaded by inferior civilisations from Afghanistan and Central Asia during the middle ages. It was always to loot India's wealth. Even the Mongols tried but failed.
The reason why you were most invaded:
1) you're at the crossroad between the West and East.
2) India subcontinent was well known to the West after Alexander invaded, and the later, establishment of Bactria-Greek empire.
There is also a reason why Christopher Columbus came looking for a route to India. There is also a reason why a British East India Company was formed in the 16th-17th century.
Total garbage. The name "India" came from the Greeks. Any land beyond Indus river is called India, according to the Greek's definition. It very well includes South East Asia too.
Christopher Columbus was looking for the new world, the land beyond Indus river which was unknown to the west. Columbus was NOT looking for a country. India as a country didn't existed then.
Thanks for proving it. Angus Maddison's study is the best authority to prove how Western imperialism drove two rich civilizations such as India and China into the ground. Anyway, we are catching up now.
Angus Maddison is no authority. Economics can hardly be considered as science without any empirical data. His work on ancient world economy are not based on empirical data, They are guesstimate at best.
Gregory Clark, Economics Department, University of California, Davis
"In the past decade, however, Maddison has sought to extend his estimates back into the pre-industrial era, first to the year 1000, and now to 1 AD. Contours of the World Economy projects a revised set of these estimates, for every country on earth, back to 1 AD.
There is, however, a problem at the core of this book, and indeed at the core at the whole Maddison project of the last ten years. The numbers Maddison estimates for the years before 1820 are fictions. They are based not on empirical evidence, but on unsubstantiated and demonstrably implausible theories of the nature of life in pre-industrial societies. Even some of the post 1820 estimates have an equivalently dubious provenance. Having built up some reputational capital for his earlier work, Maddison seems determined to squander it all on this new venture."
Angus Maddison: Contours of the World Economy 1-2030 AD. Essays in Macro-Economic History. Oxford 2007. - H-Soz-u-Kult / Rezensionen / Bücher
your religious text?
