Indian History Carnival – 21

The Indian History Carnival, published on the 15th of every month, is a collection of posts related to Indian history and archaeology.

Sukumar has a hypothesis about the Indus valley women: unmarried women wore bangles only in one arm, whereas married women wore bangles in both arms. He wants help with this symbology associated with bangles and marital status.
R Nandakumar writes about this visit to the Harappan site of Lothal.

That of course, leaves out the famous ‘dock’, a very big and very neat rectangular depression, now looking more like a vast, shallow tank. If it really was a ship-building place/port, it would have held several dozens of vessels the size of modern mechanized fishing boats.

Manish Khamesra visited the Chittaurgarh Fort and tells us the history behind it.

Sometimes I wonder who among the rulers of Mewar, was most powerful. Was it Maharana Pratap? We all are aware of his defiant resistance to Akbar. Or, was it Maharana Sanga or Sangram Singh? He was once very close to rule Delhi. It was his miscalculation that Babur, being a foreigner, will leave Delhi after plundering and looting it, that cost him the throne of Delhi. Recently, I read in detail about Maharana Kumbhakaran or Kumbha, and I was forced to include his name also in this list.

Murali Ramavarma has the story of Sankaranatha Jyotsar, who served as the the chief astrologer and spiritual advisor to Maharajah Ranjit Singh:

Under continuous persuasion of Ranjit Singh, Sankaranatha returned to his court in 1835 and served him till his death in 1839. Though he continued to serve the disintegrating and tragedy-struck Sikh empire under Kharak Singh and Sher Singh, he was not comfortable and chose to return to the cooler shores of the south in 1844.

Till 1890, the British were respected in the North-East. Feanor, explains how that changed.

The most popular man in Manipur ordered his troops to fire upon the British, who then withdrew to the Residency. The Senapati’s troops attacked the Residency, whereupon Quinton was forced to sue for peace. He, Grimwood and three military officers went to the palace to negotiate. By now, the atmosphere was vitiated, and an angry soldier mortally wounded Grimwood. Realising that if they were to be hanged for a penny, they might as well hang for a pound, the Manipuris beheaded Quinton, attacked the Gurkhas, and chased all the British out of the kingdom.

Since Jinnah, Nehru, the British and partition are hot topics, 2ndlook examines three scenarios— a federal India, two nations, many nations — that could have happened in 1947.

f you find any posts related to Indian history published in the past one month, please send it to jk AT varnam DOT org. Please send me links which are similar to the ones posted, in terms of content.The next carnival will be up on Oct 15th.
See Also: Previous Carnivals

Indian History Carnival – 20

The Indian History Carnival, published on the 15th of every month, is a collection of posts related to Indian history and archaeology.

Where do Nairs come from? Maddy does a literature survey and “To summarize, the Nayars have been considered a derivative of local people with invading Aryans, have been wandering Scythins who settled down, the Nagas and so on. No one theory holds forte, though from all the above, the Scythian link seems to be the near fetched one”
In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Paul Beckett wondered why Indians were not contributing to charity like Americans. He also used the derogatory term “Hindu rate of growth” to which Sarvesh Tiwari responds, “Here we shall share some random thoughts from the historical perspectives on Hindu outlook to economy and charity, and try showing how, there is continuity even today, although latent, of the same outlook prevailing among the more traditional Hindu shreShThins of our age.”
The effort to set up a Sanskrit University in Karnataka is facing considerable opposition. Sandeep B says, “Sanskrit is what gives identity to the Indian civilisation as we know it. From Valmiki to Kalidas, every major Sanskrit literary work spoke of this identity in its own way.”
History and Mythology, a blog about Amar Chitra Katha, has a post about Chandragupta II: “He is almost certainly the King Chandra eulogized in the Sanskrit inscription on iron pillar in the Quwat al-Islam mosque in New Delhi’s Qutub Minar campus, which dates back to 4th century.”
“Located near the city of Jogjakarta on the island of Java, it’s a stunning remnant of the days when the Dharmic religions were politically ascendant in the islands. It was commissioned and built between 800 and 900 CE by the local monarchs so that devotees need not travel all the way to India for spiritual pilgrimage.” Usha Alexander writes about the Borobudur stupa.
“In 1193 CE, Nalanda was put to a brutal and decisive end by Bakhtiyar Khilji, a Turkish Muslim invader on his way to conquer Bengal. He looted and burned the monastery, and beheaded or burned alive perhaps thousands of monks,” writes Namit Arora on his post on Nalanda.
Feanor has translated Afanasii Nikitin’s fifteenth century memoirs of his travel to India. Nikitin was a merchant from the Mongol areas of Russia. He had heard that horses were in demand in India and spent few years in Deccan.
Hari, based on Vaasanthi’s Cut-outs, Caste and Cine Stars, looks at the life of MG Ramachandran (1917-1987), “one of the most important figures of Tamil politics, who, with help from other prominent leaders of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), including the crafty script writer Karunanidhi, seamlessly moved between cinema and politics as if the two were one.”

Indian History Carnival – 19

The Indian History Carnival, published on the 15th of every month, is a collection of posts related to Indian history and archaeology.

Ravi Mundoli summarizes the current debate on the Indus script: “Seems like the lay person can’t do much other than remember that everyone has an axe to grind, and while one needn’t reject everything everyone says out of hand as being motivated by extraneous, non-academic/scientific reasons, it’s good to examine the evidence keeping in mind who is doing the analysis.“
Sandeep scanned through the NCERT history books and found appalling distortions. In his post he goes through four examples.
Three years back, the Kannada actress Jaimala triggered a major controversy when she said that she had entered the sanctum santorum of Sabarimala. varnam writes aboutMt. Athos in Greece where even female animals are not allowed
There have been debates on of if Marco Polo visited China, but now Calicut heritage asks if Marco Polo visited Calicut?
Sarvesh K Tiwari’s series
on Akbar’s U-Turn continues with a look at Sufis. “Their islamization was to however complete soon, and whatever the origins of their real traditions, the later sUfI-s came down to become zealous missionaries of Islam, often displaying no lesser bigotry than the orthodox ulemA”
Nick Balmer continues his investigation into the coffee plantations of Mananthavadi: “Henry Baber was not the first person to grow coffee at Mananthavadi. As far as it is possible to tell, that honour belongs to Captain Henry Bevan, who was appointed in April 1825 to command the Wynaud Rangers, a force set up from the recently disbanded Seringapatam local battalion.”
Maddy looks at Sardar K M Panikkar’s contributions – in the Tibet issue, creation of a naval doctrine — and his relationship with Nehru and Krishna Menon.

f you find any posts related to Indian history published in the past one month, please send it to jk AT varnam DOT org or use this form. Please send me links which are similar to the ones posted, in terms of content.The next carnival will be up on Aug 15th.

Indian History Carnival – 18

The Indian History Carnival, published on the 15th of every month, is a collection of posts related to Indian history and archaeology.

The June 2009 issue of Pragati is a history special with two editorial perspectives, five short feature essays (including one piece of historical fiction), one book review, and passages from five books written over a spread of two thousand years.
Mekhala visited the rock shelters of Bhimbetka and has a report with some wonderful photographs.
During 1000 – 1500 CE period, when the maritime networks in the Indian ocean were active, a Sephardic Rabbi named Benjamin set out to travel around the world in 1160s. Except for the Orient and Spice Islands, he visited most lands traveled by Ibn Battuta. Feanor says, “There is a suspicion that this otherwise very dependable author has possibly not travelled beyond Arabia..”
Did the 1857 mutiny happen in Chittagong, Dhaka, Jalpaiguri and Tripura also and were those reports supressed? Raj investigates.
In August 1863 Maharani Jind Kaur died in England.”It was a peculiar and remarkably quiet end for a woman once the scourge of the British Raj in India. Only 15 years earlier, Jind Kaur, the Maharani of the Punjab, had encouraged the Sikh Empire to wage two disastrous wars against the British which led to the annexation of the Punjab and Jind being torn from her son when he was just
nine-years-old”, writes Raza Rumi.
“Around the time William Logan was writing Malabar Manual (1887), an American scholar, diplomat and lawyer was describing Calicut and its inhabitants to his young readers almost as if he were describing some little known tribe deep in the jungles of the ‘dark continent.” Calicut Heritage analyzes Towle’s Adventures of Vasco da Gama (1878).
“I would not go so far as some who would insist that a Hindu is not the person to ask about Hinduism” wrote Prof. Wendy Doniger. This prompted kupamanduka to examine the biases in Hindu studies.
In his post Linguistic Nationalism, Vishal looks at the consequences of imposing a national language in India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

Indian History Carnival – 17

The Indian History Carnival, published on the 15th of every month, is a collection of posts related to Indian history and archaeology.

One fundamental dispute regarding the Indus script is not on if it represents Dravidian or Indo-European language, but if it represents a language at all. A new paper published in Science showed that “Indus script has a structured sign system showing features of a formal language.” This started a debate with posts supporting (1,2) and questioning (1, 2) the paper. In a series of posts (1, 2, 3) Rahul Siddharthan explains the concepts in the paper.
In the BJP Manifesto, Dr. Murali Manohar Joshi made some claims about Indian history which was dismissed by some anomymous eminent historians. Tamil Talk examines Dr. Joshi’s claims.
From the ruins of Pompeii (79 CE), a statue called “Goddess Lakshmi statue in Pompeii” was found. Maddy finds out how this statue reached Rome from India.
Since pirates are the newsmakers these days, CKR narrates the events of Nov 1696 when pirates took over some ships in Calicut harbor.
Via Jim Davila we get a PBS video on the Syrian Christians of Kerala and on the efforts to preserve ancient manuscripts.
Aparna blogs, in three parts. about a talk given by Dr. Chitra Madhavan on the Art, History and Architecture of Kanchipuram.

Indian History Carnival – 16

The Indian History Carnival, published on the 15th of every month, is a collection of posts related to Indian history and archaeology.

Recently about 70 Harappan graves were discovered in Farmana, Haryana. From this is it possible to find out if Harappan were an indigenous population or migrants? Suvrat Kher says, “My money is that they were like the rest of us living Indians, mostly native but with little pieces from outside as well.”
“There are also no historical records of slave trades, prices, quantities, ownership anywhere in India. In fact, Sanskritic Indian languages have no word for slaves,” writes Anuraag in a post about Demons, Satan and Ogres and Monsters.
While we know details of Chandragupta Maurya’s death, less is know about the last days of Chanakya. At varnam, there is one story of Chanakya’s death.
“We do think now, that Akbar had not only finally managed to come out of the prison of Islam, and returned to his own roots, but that he was also determined to stamp out Islam from India, forcefully if needed, just before his life came to a premature end when he died of poisoning
(killed?).” Sarvesh K Tiwari explains this in a multi part post, A Ghazi turned Kafir: the Case of Akbar’s U-Turn (Part 1, 2, 3)
A Mughal painting from 1625 shows Holi being celebrated including a “drunk Jahangir being carried to to bed.”
According to Thomas Hervey Baber (1777 to 1843), the man who tracked Pazhassi Raja, “the natives of the Malabar Coast were more strict observers of truth than the other inhabitants of Hindostan”
“The irony can’t be harsher: While the Muslim League demanded — and got — separateness, the Hindu Mahasabha was reprimanded for fighting against this very demand for separatism.” Sandeep explains the importance of the Lucknow Pact of 1916 and Pirpur Report of 1938.
In a post about Nagas in World War II Feanor says, “It is a sad fact that Indian history (at least as taught when I went to school there) has nothing at all to say about the Northeast.
As India goes to the polls, Hari, based on excerpts from Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi looks at the first election of 1951.
Is there any difference between Manmohan Singh and Flavius Belisarius? Arby finds out
Combining mythology and history, Kamini Dandapani has a travelogue about Kanya Kumari.

Indian History Carnival – 15

The Indian History Carnival, published on the 15th of every month, is a collection of posts related to Indian history and archaeology.

On February 21 and 22, a conference on the Sindhu-Saraswati civilization was held at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles. K B Nair has a report.
Prof. Arvind Sharma explains why “Western assumptions of time and space can be potentially distorting when applied uncritically in an Indian context.”
Anuraag Sanghi has a long post on three battles that changed both world and Indian history
Three silk fragments dating to the Mature Harappan Period (2600-1700 BCE) has been found in Harappa and Chanhu-daro which shows that Indus people knew about wild silk around the same time as the Chinese.
The Thalassery Protestant Church was built sometime after 1840 and was in real bad shape when local authorities decided to restore it. Nick Balmer has a post with some photographs.
In his trip to Kerala, Nikhil visited many forts, temples and caves. He too mentions the Thalassery church.
Sir Richard F. Burton, known for his translation of Arabian Nights and Kamasutra visited Malabar in 1846. He met the Zamorin as well as a crowd of dames in the palace: “The translator of Kamasutra turns poetic while describing the ‘sight of Nair female beauty’ : ‘The ladies were very young and pretty-their long jetty tresses, small soft features, clear dark olive-coloured skins, and delicate limbs, reminded us exactly of the old prints and descriptions of the South Sea Islanders”, writes Calicut Heritage.
Chandrahas in his post on the Surya Mandir at Modhera in Gujarat writes, “The idol of Surya inside the garbhagriha, or sanctum sanctorum, of the Modhera temple is long gone, plundered by Mahmud of Ghazni on one of his many raids on northern and western India in the eleventh century CE.”
Now that the general elections are upon us, Arby_K looks at the elections from 1952 to 1999 and reads between the numbers.

If you find any posts related to Indian history published in the past one month, please send it to jk AT varnam DOT org or use this form. Please send me links which are similar to the ones posted, in terms of content.The next carnival will be up on March 15th.
See Also: Previous Carnivals

Indian History Carnival – 14

The Indian History Carnival, published on the 15th of every month, is a collection of posts related to Indian history and archaeology.

After reading Nicolas Ostler’s Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World, Hari writes about Sanskrit.
Venetia Ansell has an interview with Prof. Lakshmi Thathachar who was a Professor of Sanskrit at Bangalore University on why the modern world needs Sanskrit.
The Michael Wood documentary, The Story of India, which was telecast in six parts on PBS mentioned the connection between bird songs and mantras. varnam asks how old are our mantras?
The previous post was based on a paper written by Frits Staal of UC Berkeley. Sandeep analyzes the paper to say, “We clearly see that the “pre-language era” is a shrewd excuse to push Staal’s ill-understood concoction about Mantras.”
R S Krishna explains Harappan town planning and techniques on teaching this to children.
Chandragupta Maurya’s son Bimbisara once requested Antiochus of Syria to send him figs, Greek wine and a Greek teacher. He got the first two, but a note came back saying that Greek law does not permit the sale of professors. But when Alexander came to Punjab, he took a Jain guru named Calanus back with him. Maddy has that story.
How did ancient India deal with crime? Feanor surveys literature to find the answers.
In an article about Somnath,Manish Khamesra writes about Mahmud of Ghazni’s attacks on the temple and Sardar Patel.
In 1857, the British offended Hindu and Muslim sentiments and paid a price. A similar incident happened on July 10, 1806 and the Indian garrison at Vellore broke in revolt. Even before these two incidents, on April 14, 1721, more than 150 Englishmen were massacred in Kerala by a combined force of Nairs and Muslims. “After all, history teaches us that it teaches us nothing !”, writes Calicut Heritage.
Sir Mirza Mohammed Ismail served as the Diwan of Mysore since 1926, of Jaipur since 1941 and of Hyderabad during independence. Murali Ramavarma has his biography. Murali writes, “Sir Mirza was a Shia Muslim by birth but he encouraged Sanskrit learning, and helped the Hindu and Christian institutions too and attended to the needs of the society with an impartial outlook holding the interest of the state above that of the individual.”
Maiji who first visited Madras in 1945 writes about the differences she sees now.

Indian History Carnival – 12

The Indian History Carnival, published on the 15th of every month, is a collection of posts related to Indian history and archaeology.

A while back, at varnam, we looked at the myth of Cheraman Perumal’s conversion to Islam. Now Maddy at Historical Alleys investigates the story of the Perumal and the pickle and writes that, “While the persons and the dates are shrouded in a veil of confusion, the one less disputed fact that remains was that a person of high standing reached Makkah after conversion and shared a jar of ginger pickle with some dignitaries.”
Continuing on the same topic, Calicut Heritage wonders if this conversion was part of embracing the religion of trade like the conversion of Parameswara, a Hindu from the Srivijaya dynasty, to Islam in 1400.
Bharatpur was in the news due to various political chess games being played there. Murali has a brief history of the place the British called Bhurtpore.
In 1780s, William Hodges, a member of James Cook’s expeditions traveled across India. He witnessed sati in Benares and wrote about it. Feanor has an excerpt.
Do you want to know how Bangalore was in the 1950s and ’60s? E. R. Ramachandran’s post is great for reading while sitting in the current Bangalore traffic.

Indian History Carnival – 11

The Indian History Carnival, published on the 15th of every month, is a collection of posts related to Indian history and archaeology.

As Tamil Nadu politicians and film stars are protesting against the killing of innocent Tamils without uttering a word against the LTTE terror, Priya Raju explains the relationship between the Sri Lankan Tamils and the Indian Tamils.
A two hour climb on a hill in Nijagal near Bangalore takes you to a once-impregnable fort which has a story to tell. Sandeep has a gripping account of how Madakari Nayaka of Chitradurga captured Hyder Ali’s fort with the help of among other things, Giant Monitor Lizards.
Did the Portuguese have a part in “cementing the dowry system and color consciousness into the Malabari cultural fabric?” Maddy writes about various Portuguese customs in Malabar.
Calicut Heritage has a story about the Kerala Soap Institute, “which used to supply soaps to the Viceroy, among other dignitaries.”
The Muslim community in Malabar had a monopoly in trade as “exporters of pepper and ginger, importers of horses and necessary produce for the great Vijayanagar empire that controlled almost all of the Deccan.” Soon they faced competition with the arrival of the Portuguese and the conflict between the Portuguese and Moplahs is the topic of Mamale of Cannanore: An Adversary of Portuguese India by the French Indologist Geneviève Bouchon. tangentialia has a translation.
Search Kashmir has a detailed account of the nautch girls based on the accounts of various western travelers.
Writing about the Divide and Rule policy of the British, Disjointed Laptop says, “If somebody asks me, about the British Divide and Rule policy, I would say it was purely Made in India.”