- Are there any references in Tamil to Valmiki Ramayanam? Are there any sculptures to support it? Vijay has an analysis
- Fëanor writes about the fall of Hindu Sindh at the hands of an invading Muslim army.
- Maddy has a post with the translation of the Vencaticota Ola – a manuscript describing Malabar history and the Portuguese arrival
- Dr. Koenraad Elst writes about a painting which shows Guru Nanak wearing a Hindu-style cap and worshipping Lord Vishnu and the later events.
- Calicut Heritage has a brief history of those tea chests which used to come with the words E&SJCWS inscribed on them.
- Nicole Bovin says good bye to Dr. Raymond Allchin, who died on 4th June 2010.
The Pullamangai sculpture is part of the base stones of the Vimana and the latest date for this Vimana is 953 CE, and the portrayal clearly show the curse of Ahalya to turn to stone had taken firm root by then. Was valmiki unclear in the actual wording of the curse, did he mean that she be turned to stone as well. But one thing is clear, that she was turned to stone was part of tamil folkore as early as in the late sangam period as evidenced by the Paripadal verse.
The first engagement of the war was the siege of Daybul. al-Thaqafi set up a large catapult, a swing-beam hand-pulled weapon, to bombard the city. The artillerymen targeted a big Buddhist stupa atop which a red flag fluttered; when it was brought down, the spirit of the defenders wilted, and the Arabs penetrated the city and slaughtered the inhabitants for three days. Dahir’s governor fled ignominiously, but hundreds of priests were murdered, and their temples laid waste.
Considering that this document has not seen light in recent times, it would surely be of some interest to history enthusiasts, buffs and Malabar specialists. I can only begin by offering a small token of thanks to today’s modern search engines like Google and the good sense of the long lost Englishman who consigned this to paper and archived it for posterity. Regrettably, our own precious original history & manuscript collections are slowly rotting away and disintegrating in Kerala, if not gone already, for lack of care & finance.
In 1970, he presented to the publishing unit of Punjabi University Patiala a manuscript with illustrations for a book, 100 Years Survey of Panjab Painting (1841-1941). It was eventually published by the PUP in 1975, but only in mutilated form. The Senate Board of the University objected to the inclusion of one particular painting, and threatened that if it were published, the grant for the whole publishing unit would be stopped.
Starting with the business of wholesale merchanting, these CWSs expanded to cover every item of business from production to retailing. It also dabbled in banking and insurance. At one time, the English CWS owned 174 factories in different parts of England and Wales. Similarly, the Scottish CWS owned 56 factories and employed 13000 workers. In the pre-world war years these two CWSs came together to form the English and Scottish Joint Co-operative Wholesale Society (E&SJCWS).
Raymond helped to educate and inspire numerous generations of South Asian archaeologists, including my own. I knew him only late in his career, after his retirement from the University ofCambridge, but was nonetheless struck by his intelligence and warmth. While I lived in Cambridge, our families met occasionally for tea or dinner, and I remember his lively and often humorous stories with great fondness. Also memorable was the grace that he sang at my wedding to a fellow South Asian archaeologist – in Sanskrit and, naturally, without notes.
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 send a tweet to @varnam_blog. The next carnival will be up on Aug 15th.
