Indian History Carnival – 30

1. Analyzing a paper by P.A. Underhill et. al on the Indo-European migration Giacomo Benedetti writes

The mid-Holocene period is around 6000 years BP, that means that after 4000 BC we cannot suppose a migration from Europe to Central Asia and South Asia, and this refutes all the theories supposing that the Kurgan people of the Pontic region went to Afghanistan during the Bactria-Margiana civilization (III-II mill. BC) and then to India (II mill. BC).

2. Is Hinduism a missionary religion? While most people don’t think so, Arvind Sharma writes about an exception

The diffusion of Vaisnavite and Saivite ideas outside India is strong enough to show that Hinduism, too, was a missionary religion; at a very early date a Hinduist movement took root in the Hellenistic world and penetrated as far as Egypt. The decline of Hinduism after the Moslem period must not be allowed to obscure this fact.

Hinduism long ago advanced beyond the limits assigned to it by Manu, by means of conquest or peaceful absorption, by marriage, and by adoption.

3. Sandeep has a three part post (1,2,3) on his visit to Ajanta and Ellora. In his final post he laments about the state of the monuments and Hindu apathy.

This one-upmanship game is one of the chief reasons why Hindu monuments continue to languish this horribly. The other reason though is the near-complete deracination of Hindus. As I mentioned in the opening part, Ellora is simply another drop in the sea of similar monuments across the country. Take any state, city, town and village: the two magnificient Hoysala temples in Nagalapura village (in Karnataka) are orphaned but for a moronic ASI signboard. The state of most of the grand temples in Tamil Nadu evokes tears of blood.

4. Was Chola art of the 13th century influenced by Ancient Greek sculpture? Vijay has the answer.

The diagrams of the movement and flow in the Greek sculpture so closely resemble the Chola bronze. The rear view of bronze shows the exaggerated `S’ so talked off above to move in conjunction with the Contrapposto.

5. Maddy looks at the period 1732-1805 when Tipu Sultan started his conversion spree and the Zamorin went into exile. During that time two gentlemen tried to hold on to power sometimes aligning with the British and sometimes even with Tipu.

So these two will always remain as enigmas, fighters with faces unknown, and fighters with no personal life, who spent their entire youth and middle age fighting the Mysore Sultans & the British, mainly the former. The populace in the eagerness to name only the British as the oppressors and conquerors forgot the two lone fighters who fought for Malabar against both. Nevertheless, the Pazhassi raja that joined later got into the limelight mainly because his fight was against the declared invader the British and much better chronicled.

The next Carnival will be up on July 15th. You can send the nominations by e-mail to jk @ varnam dot org or as a tweet to @varnam_blog