a. India is often underrated in terms of its size but when you look through its geography you see dense jungles with numerous mountain ranges, rivers, deserts and highlands which helped to isolate different people groups, not within the Ganges water system.
Also, the unification of India was not as frequent as in China, as only a couple of times had mostly India been united, namely: the Mauryan Empire, Delhi Sultanate, Mughal Empire, Maratha Empire, British Raj. The unification of culture is due in part to a centralized state which was commonplace in Chinese society along with strong Confucian values that encouraged integration with society.
[–]Eric1491625 [score hidden] 1 hour ago
There are indeed high mountains in China but the central plains between the Yangtze and yellow river are remarkably flat, and half the population lives there. The mountainous areas are mostly in the southwest and far west, but hardly anyone lives there. Precisely because the geography is rough there the population densities are low and as a result the Tibetans/uighurs/Min living in those mountains/deserts are utterly outnumbered by the Han who come from the large plains.
[–]bikbar 15 points 18 hours ago
As others have mentioned before, lack of a unifying empire was the main reason for not having a pan-Indian culture like China. The great empires of the Mouryans or the Mughals were not that centralized too.
The Indian empires were more like a federation of semi-independent states. For example, even during the Mughal empire at its zenith the subahs (provinces) like Bengal or Golkonda were mostly independent. The badsah of Delhi had almost zero influence in the faraway cities and villages.
[–]alter_pro[S] 11 points 20 hours ago
When I say Han I mean in the same context as in when someone says “I am Spanish, Not Catalonian” or “I am Scottish, not English”. So I would say Political unity that would be nationalistic in nature. I realize that someone in Guangzhuo lives a very different life and has vastly different customs to someone in Beijing, however both these people call them self. A culture so far as someone can say “I am (x nationality)” even if they have very different customs in practice. Kind of like Bavaria in Germany, Bavarians are catholic vs prot and a very distinct people but still are considered Germans
[–]Lord_Malgus 7 points 18 hours ago
Jokes aside, "Spain" was actually a bunch of feudal states up until the 15th century when it unified between the three major regions; Leon (Galician/Castilian), Castile and Aragon (Catalan), it was a really volatile "empire" that would only really solidify in the 1700s. Today there's the "autonomous system", but we've seen what happens when one of the regions tries to gain actual autonomy.
[–]readinreadin 4 points 19 hours ago
When did people in the Chinese empire first start calling themselves ‘Han’? I suspect if you can find out when that happened it will go a long way toward answering the question of why so many people of different but related cultures use the term but similarly inclusive terms like ‘European’ are less commonly used for culture.
[–]Hellebras 5 points 17 hours ago
During or after the Han dynasty. The Han were a long-lasting dynasty that controlled pretty much all of China to some extent or another, along with some territory outside of it. The Han also presided over one of the golden ages of Chinese civilization. So this contributed to the conditions that allowed for the development of a central identity.
[–]Swole_Prole 7 points 14 hours ago
Do you think their very advanced city infrastructure, including by far the oldest and most advanced pre-modern sewage system, arose without any political organization at all? That seems very naive. They were the first civilization to standardize measurements too. Obviously this was a very organized society at every level.
[–]sbzp -3 points 14 hours ago
Then why is there no direct evidence of political organization? There should've been some obvious evidence of that. It's highly possible they weren't a civilization but something completely decen