[shardinator]

India was like Greece, China like Rome. China had central control while India had independent states that didn't control each other politically but were unified in terms culture, communication, roads, infrastructure and importantly commerce.

Today it wouldn't make sense to say "there really was no 'Greece'". Same for India.

[tacomonstrous]

The Greeks at least had a common language, from what I understand. That's far from true for India.

[shardinator]

If you said it's not 'strictly true for India', you'd be correct, but when you say it's 'far from true' then not so much. India has two ancient languages Tamil and Sanskrit and modern languages are derived from these (but I am def not an expert). The modern forms are considered different languages, but they are quite close to each other, easy to learn one from the other e.g.the grammar is the same and words are usually just different pronunciations/intonations of a common root. It's easy to see that in the ancient past they would have had more similarity.

The original point was "there really was no 'India' before the British cobbled one together". If so, then where was Columbus trying to go? Of course there was 'an India', it just wasn't structured like a modern nation state, which is true for every other modern country as well.

[tacomonstrous]

Everything you say applies just as well to all of Western Mediterranean Europe. In fact, even more so, since you're dealing with just one branch of a larger language group (the Latinate/Romance languages) rather than two completely disparate ones (Indo-Aryan and Dravidian). No one now thinks of this area as a nation-state.

Western Europe, through the British conquest of the subcontinent, was woefully unaware of the internal differences. That Columbus ill-advisedly thought of India as a monolithic entity is no marker of anything.

[shardinator]

>> Everything you say applies just as well to all of Western Mediterranean Europe.

The language thing sure does. But the only time in ancient history Western Mediterranean Europe has been part of a single state was during the Roman period. the rest of the time they evolved separately and uniquely. In contrast each part of modern India has been politically linked to the other parts multiple times through history resulting in a common culture but with some obvious diversity. E.g. Indian festivals are largely common throughout the country, a marker of commonality stretching back through history.

>> That Columbus ill-advisedly thought of India as a monolithic entity is no marker of anything.

He said nothing about it being monolithic, just that there was a place called India, and it was worth a visit.

Your original comment was "there was no 'India' ...".

There has been an India through most of history. But of course the borders of the modern state were drawn relatively recently. These are two different things.