Indian History Carnival – 22

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

1. In February 2009, a conference was held in Los Angeles titled, “The Sindhu-Sarasvati Valley Civilization: A Reappraisal“. This title was the cause of grief in some circles due to the association of Sarasvati with the Harappan civilization. Few of those lectures have been posted in their blog
• Opening Address by Navin Doshi
• Indus Valley Conference Report by Greg Heffernan
• Dholavira Excavation by R S Bhist.
• Time, Space and Structure in Ancient India by Subhash Kak
• The Latest on Sindhu and Sarasvati by Dilip Chakrabarti
• Genetics and The Aryan Debate by Michel Danino
2. Did Islam spread in India through violence? Were Hindu kings more violent than Islamic conquerers? Sandeep takes a look

I hate to disappoint him but this particular morsel of history dates farther back than Ghaznis and Ghoris. As early as CE 664, Abdur Rahman, an Arab invader took Kabul (then part of India). However, it took at least two centuries for Mohammad Bin Qasiman Arab againto successfully occupy parts of Sindh around CE 711-712. Subuktgin and his prodigious son, Mohammad of Ghazni, and then Mohammad Ghori were all Turks. I leave it to the readers intelligence to deduce from this piece of historical evidence that Qasim, Subuktigin, and the two Mohammads were merchants.

3. Based on Prithviraj Vijay, a 12th century account of the Kingdom of Ajmer, Airavat writes about the political and militrary details.

The pages following this eyewitness account are missing but this seems to have occurred in 1178 when Muhammad Ghori invaded Gujarat, sacking Nadol and Kiradu on the way. The manuscript continues, “When these fiends in the shape of men took possession of Nadol, the warriors of Prithviraja took up their bows and the emperor became angry and resolved to lay Ghori’s glory to dust.”

4. While Hampi is a well known destination, Pattadakkal which is about 90 miles is masked by Hampi’s shadow, says Arundhati.

After all, was Pattadakkal not considered so auspicious that Chalukya kings made it a point to be crowned on its soil? Did its literature not include some of the earliest work in the nascent Kannada language? And did not its architecture set the standard for future temple building? Even Vijayanagar for all its confidence could not resist incorporating Chalukya architectural styles.

5. Visiting Mahabalipuram after many decades, Kamini writes about the journey, how this place captured Western imagination and different versions of Arjuna’s penance.

Marco Polo is said to have visited Santhome (now in modern-day Madras) where he was regaled with tales of the lost temples of Mahabalipuram. His descriptions found their way, in part, to the Catalan Atlas of 1375. The Catalan Atlas is one of the most important atlases of the medieval era, and was put together by a Catalan Jew (from Spain) called Abraham Cresques. It shows India in peninsular form, and Mahabalipuram is mentioned there as “Setemelti”, which is assumed to be an erroneous version of “Sette Templi” – or seven temples.

6. Another place which Marco Polo visited was Tanjavur, the Chola capital. Hari was there recently and writes about how Dravidian politics has caused a surge in faith.

Being pious and following certain customs are ways of projecting one’s elevated caste status. This has resulted in a resurgence of local gods and goddesses — Adi Parasakthi for example. And feature stories in Tamil weeklies are often about film stars and prominent personages visiting their villages to worship their family deities.

7. Arby explores the similarities between Roman religion and Hinduism

It is more likely that the over the last three millennia, Hindutva evolved across the Indian subcontinent integrating itself with local beliefs, much like the Roman religion as mentioned earlier. However, without a central point of authority, the evolution has been chaotic and inconsistent. Also, the evolution was slow and time consuming. But in the end, Hindutva is a religion similar in character to the Roman one, with respect to religious belief, though not theology.

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 Nov 15th.

See Also: Previous Carnivals