Why did indian kings did not conquer Iran and middle-east?
Answers
Geography : Let us start with the Indian Geography. Geography of India plays a paramount role in confining the Indian empires to the Subcontinent.
In North. there lies the greatest mountain ranges of the world , which till date stands as an unconquerable natural feature on this Earth . And that is the main reason why two ancient civilizations , placed so near to each other did not have any worthy contact and thence, the expansion in this direction is impossible.
In the North west and West , to enter the Central Asia or Persia from the subcontinent , one has to cross the cold and perilous mountain chains of Hindukush and Karakorum [ which are extensions of Himalayas] and the deserts of Balochistan and Cholistan [ through which Alexander's arduous return journey happened as tens of thousands of his men perished] .
And the immediate vicinity of the parched dry lands invoked little interest from the Indian Emperors.
In contrary , it was always a rich prize for the invaders from the west invade [ and so Darius , Alexander , Seleucus , Genghis , Timur , Babur , Nadir shah , Ahmad Durrani.. made their way. ]
So any expansion in North West and West, though not ruled out, is deemed unnecessary.
2. Economic Factors - Regardless of what a few try to suggest, the lands of India are bequeathed with innumerable natural resources including Thick Forests, Huge Rivers, Plenty of Mineral Resources and the lands in the immediate vicinity of Indian Subcontinent offered nothing of significance .....
3.Geopolitical reasons -
The area of the Indian subcontinent is around 4.4 million km2 which is as large as the European Continent [ without Russia] and this itself posed a major challenge to most of the Indian Emperors. And during most of the times, the Indian Subcontinent supported 2 to 3 Empires , which warred against each other.
4. Military Reasons - The Least Known, but the most Important Factor is This
WAR ELEPHANTS
This factor is mostly overlooked , but many of the armies of powerful Indian empires had elephants as their backbone and this completes the link about why Indian rulers never ever gave a try to come out of their land.All the vicinity zones in the frontiers of the subcontinent are unsuitable to start campaigns using elephants .
The kings might have been aware of the fact of the futility of their ace weapons [Elephants]beyond their frontiers and never tried to fool around.
All Indian Empires maintained thousands of War Elephants in their armies and they were virtually invincible, if the opposite army lacked a significant numbers in Elephantry. It is not coincidental that many of the foreign invaders invaded India when there was a serious power vacuum and no significant challenge posed from any Indian Empire and were successful during their Indian campaigns as they had not faced the Military might of the Indian War Elephants. And when they were Indian Empires that had the capabilities to field thousands of Elephants on Battle field, few foreign rulers forayed into India.
Nandas had 6000 War Elephants
Mauryans fielded 9000 War Elephants
Guptas had 10000 War Elephants
Likewise, all major empires possessed this Super Weapon that were effectively invincible till the advent of Canons.
Military history of India
For instance, the Seleucus faced a defeat by Chandragupta Maurya and while the Powerful Sassanids of Persia had continuous struggles with the Romans, they seldom fought with the Guptas of India.
The Elephants were insurmountable ancient Indian War Weapons that were often overlooked and went unappreciated…
As mentioned, the only Indian empire that controlled a formidable part of the Central Asia was the Kushanas [ at their peak , their empire extended into the Central Asia comprising whole of Bactria , Ferghana i.e. the modern day Afghanistan , Kygystan , Tajikistan and Uzbekistan ] to the north of Deccan and to east until Pataliputra [ modern day Patna , Bihar, India] . And it is no surprise that they had the best breeding grounds to produce horses which formed their core of the army that controlled the parts of Central Asia substantiated by the fact that they were expert horse riders , and at the same time , had enough elephantry divisions to fight the subcontinent empires in order to hold such diverse regions . [ They had to compete with two powerful empires in India i.e Satavahanas and Western Kshatrapas]
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