AbstractAn idealized simulation of the Indian monsoon is performed using a prescribed heat source representative of the time‐averaged latent heating due to convection over India, and a simple representation of the east African orography. A quasi‐equilibrium model is used to solve this problem in three dimensions on a sphere. the model is shown to be able to simulate the cross‐equatorial flow and monsoon circulations driven by this problem and to be in good agreement with parallel integrations carried out with a hydrostatic primitive‐equation model except in areas affected by orographically forced gravity waves. the solutions given by these time‐dependent models are in good agreement with those found by using linearized steady‐stat