Disclaimer: My knowledge of pre-western-influenced Indian history comes from reading a (probably bad) translation of the Bhagavad Gita and Wikipedia history sum

Disclaimer: My knowledge of pre-western-influenced Indian history comes from reading a (probably bad) translation of the Bhagavad Gita and Wikipedia history summaries - and as such my insight necessarily is slanted. Those sources, though, do make me question your line of argument though, that the Indian subcontinent somehow was run by enlightened merchant/philosopher princes being determined to fair exchange of goods and peace. Other societies had trade focus - I'm thinking of the Hanseatic League and Renaissance Venice - but they also had a military arm used to "protect trade routes", which all too often meant discouraging/destroying other people trying to attempt trade on the same routes. I would not be surprised if we found the same being true for Indian merchant navies.