Why Genghis Khan Refused To Invade India | Abhijit Chavda

[Music] 799 years ago in the year 1221 the great mongol conqueror chinggis khan stood victorious on the western bank of the river indus with fifty thousand soldiers he had just defeated jalal deen the shah of khwaraz jalal dean's army was completely destroyed in this battle which took place near the town of kalabagh in present-day punjab across the river lay the richest country in the history of the world india a land of fabulous wealth a land that accounted for over a third of the entire world's gdp a land that would be invaders fantasized about a land that was groaning under foreign islamic occupation because northern india was ruled at the time by shamsuddin the third sultan of the turkic mamluk dynasty which was founded by kutpaldin ibak in 1206. a few months before this battle zhingiskan had conquered jalaladin's vast empire of quran quran was a turkic empire that ruled iran its rulers were turks not iranians it consisted of iran turkmenistan uzbekistan parts of kazakhstan tajikistan kyrgyzstan and much of northwestern india which is today's afghanistan sacked and destroyed the great cities of samarkand bukhara nishapur utrar and many more he laid the islamic heartland to waste his army burned islamic libraries and replaced mosques with temples it devastated iran and afghanistan and jungiskan pursued jalaluddin all the way from uzbekistan into western india geraldine had the same turkic mamluk ancestry as did the invaders who ruled northern india at the time which is why he hoped that mesh would grant him asylum in india jalaluddin was a foreign turkic invader who ruled iran the same way that iltutmish was a foreign turkic invader who ruled india the iranian people do not look upon jalaluddin as one of their own the same way that the people of india do not look upon iltutmish as one of their own or babur or akbar or olong so being granted refuge in india was jalal only hope and he had chosen an excellent defensive position for the battle with the mongols it was flanked by high mountains on two sides and the great river on the third side he had prayed fervently for deliverance but the miracle he sought never came his army proved to be no match for the polytheistic warriors who came from two thousand miles away it was swept away and slaughtered to the last man jingiskan watched as jalaladdin frantically rode his horse across the indus in a desperate bid to escape all he had to do was cross the river if he crossed the river not only would he be able to kill his enemy but he would also have the chance to smash the delhi sultanate and conquer the world's richest country and he had at his command the great mongol army which he had personally forged into the greatest and deadliest fighting force in the entire world it had already done the unthinkable by conquering china and capturing beijing it had conquered the karakitai empire in central asia and it had conquered the enormous empire of quran this was an unstoppable all-conquering war machine the delhi sultanate was no match for it drinking is the greatest conqueror in recorded history he did not lose a single military campaign in his entire life he could have simply walked into india made short work of the delhi sultanate and become the wealthiest man in the world instead to make a long story short he turned back he spurned the heaven sent once in a lifetime chance to conquer india he chose to retreat all the way back to mongolia he did leave behind soldiers and administrators to govern afghanistan those were the ancestors of today's hazaras his decision to not invade india has perplexed historians for centuries it endures as a mystery even to this day and there are a number of theories about why he made that decision biographies of one of his chinese advisors claimed that a talking unicorn appeared to drink his khan at the border of uzbekistan in india which is present-day afghanistan and this unicorn instructed him to return early from india some historians believe that india's hot climate was too harsh for the mongol army which was accustomed to fighting in cold weather now the problem with this theory is that the mamluks who established the delhi sultanate in 1206 also came from a cold climate and future islamic invaders of india such as temur and babur would also come from cold climates if they could invade india successfully then why couldn't the far superior mongols so it's clear that these theories do not really hold up to close scrutiny and then there are claims that genghis khan refused to invade india for religious reasons mongolia's ancient polytheistic belief system which is called tangirism in english has interesting commonalities and similarities with hinduism this was the religion or rather the belief system of ching is khan and buddhism which essentially is just another form of hinduism has had a presence in mongolia for nearly two thousand years chung is khan's grandson kublai khan would go on to adopt buddhism as the mongol empire's de facto state religion most mongols today are buddhists because of this it is speculated that genghis khan may not have wanted to spill blood in the land that gave birth to hinduism and buddhism now this is possible but it's also true that by conquering india genghis khan would have freed the land of the genocidal barbarians who had not only destroyed buddhism and hinduism in afghanistan but were also doing their best to eradicate it from the rest of india so how do we deduce the reasons for his decision to do that we need to understand chinggis khan as a person and as a leader ching's khan is an enigmatic personality despite his immense fame and reputation we don't really know a lot about him he did not seek to explain his actions and decisions he did not leave behind a memoir or an account of his career the way julius caesar or marcus aurelius or napoleon bonaparte did what we know about him comes from two sources the first is the secret history of the mongols which was written after his death and the second is the accounts of the people he conquered the accounts of his enemies these sources tell us about the man's deeds but not much about his motivations we know what he did but we don't know why he did those things to understand why he decided against invading india we need to gain an insight into his motivations and to do that we must examine his life and his career because there in lie the clues to what motivated him so let's do that genghis khan was born in mongolia sometime around the year 1158 his birth name was temujin his father yesugae the leader of the borjigin tribe was a wealthy and powerful man the mongols were and still are a nomadic people and the mongolia that temujin was born in was a disunited fragmented nation whose tribes were perpetually in conflict they were always fighting each other and this conflict was engineered by the empire to the south of mongolia china chinese rulers collected tribute from various mongol tribes and encouraged rivalries and conflicts among them whenever the mongols tried to unite the chinese launched punitive expeditions against them either killing them in large numbers or enslaving them in large numbers one of themojin's relatives the khan who attempted to create a confederation of several tribes was captured brought to china and executed by crucifixion and dismemberment a few years before timojin was born the chinese kept the mongols fighting each other for centuries in this manner when temujin was about 12 or 13 years old his father was murdered by turkic tribesmen and his family was abandoned by his tribe and left to die in the harsh mongolian winter now mongolia is a vast frigid mostly barren land very little grows there and the temperature routinely goes below minus 30 degrees celsius in winter it's almost impossible for a family to survive alone in this environment without the support system and division of labor that a tribal group provides so being abandoned in this manner was essentially a death sentence the family did manage to survive just barely it was a harsh and brutal childhood temujin realized that although his father was a wealthy and powerful man his wealth proved to be of no use after he died it was just casually stolen away he realized that power can make you wealthy but wealth cannot buy you power when you are powerful wealth can buy you more power but when you have no power your wealth cannot save you from those who have it power trumps wealth every time timeless wisdom this is something he never forgot for the rest of his life he sought only one thing power he disdained wealth using it as nothing more than a tool to make a long story short he spent the best part of the next three decades fighting and raiding and gaining power he began at the very bottom with absolutely nothing to his name over the years he learned the secrets of power he acquired a profound understanding of the levers of power and how to wield them by the year 1206 when temujin was in his late 40s he had conquered every single mongol tribe and created a unified mongol nation they gave him the title of chinggis khan which means universal or oceanic ruler now when you have a newly created nation whose tribes have been fighting each other for centuries it's essential to integrate them and keep them occupied so that old divisions don't crop up it's essential to give them an overarching common purpose and that's what genghis khan did he led them on an invasion of china this was a retaliatory invasion its purpose was to avenge the murder of ambakai and to punish the chinese for centuries of interference and atrocities china was ruled at the time by two dynasties the western shia dynasty in northern china and the jinn dynasty to the east genghis khan conquered the western shia by 1210 whose emperor agreed to submit to mongol rule and become a mongol wassal chingishkandan invaded the jinn dynasty's territories and he captured and sacked beijing in 1215 in the year 1218 the karakitai empire captured a mongolian city and killed its king now this king happened to be genghis khan's grandson in low so there was a very bad move in retaliation the mongols invaded and conquered karakitai which gave them a direct border with the khwarasma empire that same year genghis khan sent a 500-man strong trade delegation to quarasm to establish official trade relations visha of qurasm allah deed muhammad ii who was jalal deen's father had the trade delegation massacred in the city of uttarar and the goods were auctioned off in bukhara genghis khan then sent three ambassadors to meet the shah and demand that the governor of uttar be handed over for punishment the shah had one ambassador beheaded and the other two humiliated before sending them back what an idiot so this left ching is khan with no alternative but war he responded by invading and devastating the muhammad ii escaped to a small island on the caspian sea where he died his son jalaladin became the new shah and was pursued by genghis khan all the way to india where what was left of the army was destroyed in the battle of the indus in the year 1221. now when jingiskhan went on his invasion of qurasm the emperor of the western shia who was his wasall refused to contribute troops for the invasion this was a betrayal in retaliation for this after conquering quarasm chungiskan brought his army back to china and re-invaded the west india empire this territory was re-conquered by the year 1227 jungish khan then prepared to invade the jinn empire because they too had rebelled against him however before he could do that he died in the year 1227 the cause of his death remains a mystery his third son ogude who succeeded him as the great khan of the mongol empire completed the task of conquering the jinn empire genghis khan's grandson kublai khan founded the yuan dynasty in china and was this dynasty's first emperor so let's recap chinggis khan's career as a conqueror he invaded the western shia empire and the jinn empire in retaliation for the murder of his relative ambagay and for centuries of chinese interference and atrocities he invaded the karakitai empire in retaliation for capturing a mongolian city and for killing genghis khan's grandson-in-law he invaded in retaliation for extremely grave provocations and he reinvented the western shia in retaliation for their betrayal so do you see the pattern genghis khan's invasions were always retaliatory in nature he went to war only when there were just causes for war he did send his sons to conquests on far-off lands so that they would each have more than enough territory to call their own after he died his sons were highly ambitious and he did not want a civil war among them after he died that would have been disastrous for his newly unified nation but he himself went to war only in retaliation only when his red lines were crossed now let's bring our attention back to india the mamluk invader sultan was extremely careful not to provoke chingaskhan when genghis khan entered punjab in pursuit of jalaladin tutmish wisely stayed away even though punjab was part of his territory and even more wisely refused to give jalaluddin asylum in india and by doing this he ensured that genghis khan had no reason to feel aggrieved with him but why didn't genghis khan pursue and kill jalaluddin the answer to that is simple with his empire lost and his army destroyed jalaluddin had lost everything he had become a non-entity he remained a shah only in name he would never be a real threat again so it was pointless to pursue him after his army was destroyed especially when there was a chinese betrayal to avenge but what about india's fabulous wealth didn't that tempt zhingis khan so like i said earlier genghis khan regarded wealth as nothing more than a means to an end his armies did plunder enormous amounts of treasure during his conquests but he personally kept none of it he insisted that it be divided equally amongst his soldiers and commanders and he did earn vast amounts of wealth in the form of tribute from his tributary states but he used that only for administration and governance the mongol empire had more than enough wealth ching is khan understood instinctively that too much wealth would make his people lose the hunger and the iron discipline that set them apart from all others there was the last thing he wanted it's also possible that he may not have wanted to inflict pointless collateral damage on the indian people who were already suffering under brutal foreign rule he knew that an invasion would cause a massive number of deaths among india's civilian population whether he liked it or not it's possible that he did not want to hurt the people of india even though he was not in a position to help them it's possible that he felt a cultural affinity with india the kind of affinity he could not feel with iran or afghanistan which had already been almost completely islamized by this time we don't have primary evidence or testimony that proves this conclusively but i do not rule this out if you look at mongolia's society and culture you will see indian influences everywhere even today to summarize there are four reasons why genghis khan refused to invade india firstly his national interest dictated that he should return to china at the earliest to deal with the chinese betrayal the longer he waited the bolder would the chinese become and the greater would be the scale and the magnitude of their rebellion he had already spent too much time conquering qurasm time was of the essence second he did not face any provocation from the mamluk dynasty which was ruling northern india third he did not want to pursue a man who had already lost everything and who was no longer a threat and lastly he was not motivated by a desire for getting wealthy he was not motivated by wealth he was motivated by a desire for revenge and justice he went to war only in retaliation he invaded countries only when his own country was wronged do you know what that is called it's called having principles genghis khan is one of the most misunderstood and misportrayed historical figures of all time and this miss portrayal is deliberate western historians despise the fact that a non-european was far greater than alexander caesar or napoleon islamic historians loathe the fact that a polytheist non-muslim kafir brought the islamic world to its knees and reduced it to utter helplessness and the less we say about indian historians the better their attitude is why should we even talk about somebody who did not do us any harm why should we glorify someone who did not hurt india let's just stick to glorifying the mughals so historians have almost universally portrayed genghis khan as a bloodthirsty savage and a greedy barbaric genocidal monster it's curious that jalaladin on the other hand is depicted as a towering heroic figure even though he was a complete failure jalal deen achieved nothing of significance he presided over the destruction of his empire he presided over the dissolution of his dynasty and he died in obscurity napoleon bonaparte was completely right history is a set of lies agreed upon the truth is that djingiskan was no more monstrous than alexander caesar or timur or columbus or aurangzeb or churchill genghis khan was certainly less savage than the islamic and european colonizers of various parts of the world and he was definitely less monstrous than stalin and mao the reason why drinking khan is so misunderstood is because historians have adopted a simplistic reductionist approach with him while treating european and islamic rulers with a great deal of depth and nuance and sophistication and deference and this is precisely the same approach which they take with india's history shingis khan was simply a product of his time he found a way to survive and succeed in an exceedingly harsh and brutal world and he did not merely succeed he excelled he became the greatest conqueror the world has ever known maybe it's time we understood chung is khan better there's a lot we can learn from his life and career today you learned who genghis khan was you learned about his life and career you learned about what motivated him and what did not motivate him you learned why he invaded the various countries he conquered you learned why he refused to invade india you learned a little about leadership and the national interest and you gained a small glimpse into how jingis khan's actions shaped the world we know today so that's a brief introduction to an important and fascinating chapter of history that our teachers never taught us about i've given you a high level overview learning about these important passages of history empowers us because it helps us understand the world better that's the reason why we must learn about them that's the reason why we must study history do you agree let me know what you think in the comments below please like and subscribe i'll talk to you soon

Channel: Abhijit Chavda

Views: 1,821,593

Rating: 4.8113294 out of 5

Keywords: Abhijit, Chavda, Abhijit Chavda, AbhijitChavda, Abhijit L Chavda, Abhijit L. Chavda, A L Chavda, A. L. Chavda, Genghis Khan, Chinggis Khaan, Chingis Khan, Mongolia, Mongol Empire, Mongol conquests, Tengri, Tengrism, India, Mamluk Dynasty, Jalal-ad-Din, Khwarazm, Khwarezm, China, Western Xia, Xi Xia, Jin dynasty, Song Dynasty, Yuan dynasty, Kublai Khan, Ogedei Khan, Indus Valley, Yesugei Baghatir, Indian culture, Buddhism, Hinduism, Hindu Rashtra, Akhand Bharat, Bharat

Id: yN9XgwVHvK4

Length: 22min 26sec (1346 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/thr0awae_ak0unt]

Well he forgot to pass those "principles" to his son Chagatai, whose khanate eventually tried to invade india numerous times only to be smacked away by Khalji dynasty.

[u/unotrackmind]

Can anyone give a short summary of why he actually didn't pillage India? we were much more wealthy and militarily weak than the lands he did pillage.

[u/DuggalPasha]

Man,Genghis Khan,a man of principles.My Ass.He single-handedly destroyed Iran as well as killed so many people that some regions are still recovering to this day.Also,aren't the Mughals descendant of Genghis Khan.Also,i love how he likes to blame Muslims as well as shoehorn his agenda(i.e "Most Indians do not consider Babur,Aurangzeb,Akbar and Bahadur Shah as their own" line even though that line is not necessary and has nothing to do with the video).

[u/Yodathesexysocialist]

For those Chaddis who keep saying this, this is what the "man of principles" did to India: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_of_India. The Mongols during his era may not have conquered India proper but they did penetrate the frontiers of the subcontinent. Not to mention the Mongols were one of the most brutal conquerors in history and killed tens of millions throughout the Middle East and East Asia. Such role models Chaddis like this look up to...

[u/HiddenArt_00]

Anti hindu chaddi praising the ancestor of mughals

[u/[deleted]]

Mongols ripped open children from pregnant women in Baghdad. Chaddis did the same in Gujarat, Odisha and God knows where else. No wonder they both have so much similar pruncupels.

[u/RiderfromRohan]

TL;DW, juciy timestamps do babu

[u/jags1611]

"Genghis Khan as a man of principle"

WUT. FUCKING HELL.

[u/sid753]

New hero in making. I have already seen chOdes simping for Mongols under GK. He said history would have been much better if we had Mongol invasion in place of Delhi sultanate