This is the 4 year anniversary edition of the Indian History Carnival. So let me take this opportunity to thank my contributors who e-mail me various links. This has become important as various other things, like work, has been keeping me terribly busy leaving less time for reading and blogging. So Sandeep V, Feanor and others – Thanks for making my life easy.

1. Shubo Bose has an excellent blog which looks at the coins of India with lots of pictures.
2. The Taj Mahal diamond owned by Elizabeth Taylor is going to be auctioned. That rock has an interesting history.

Though the gem is associated with one of the most famous marriages of this century- the one of Burton and Taylor, its provenance goes back to one of the greatest love stories in history. The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahangir gave it to his son Shah Jahan who in turn gifted it to his favorite wife Mumtaz-i-Mahal and later built the Taj Mahal in her honor.

3. Matthew Gibb (1849-1920), great-grandfather of the Bee Gees, was a military man and he served in India. Fëanor writes

He was one among the many BOR – British Other Ranks – soldiers from these isles who served in India, along with the much larger native forces. They bivouacked in Cantonments waiting to be called out on campaign. When he joined, India was the largest and most important of British colonies. The Army acted as a vast Imperial police force, maintaining law and order and British interests in the region. Gibb was one of sixty thousand white soldiers living and working along with Indian army men in garrison towns across the subcontinent.

4. New Delhi is 100 years old and the NYTimes blog has the story of its birth.

Herbert Baker and Edwin Lutyens, the two architects appointed to design much of the city, seemed to be curious choices for such a venture. Baker worked in South Africa, where he had become a disciple of the arch-imperialist Cecil Rhodes. Lutyens, who previously had mostly designed English country houses, was known for his occasional prejudiced outbursts against India. In a letter to his wife, for example, Lutyens described Indian architecture as “essentially the building style of children.” Even the Taj Mahal, he complained, was “small but very costly beer.” Both men reveled in their assignment to create a monument to imperialism.

5. Bhaskara has a detailed history of Air India from its humble origins in 1932. This is only the first part in a three part series.

During World War 2; the growth in new routes slowed for Tata Airlines. But because the War was relatively docile in India; demand on existing routes continued to grow. They upgraded their fleet constantly; eventually jumping up to a fleet of 3 Stinson Model As, as well as multiple 14 seat Douglas DC-2s. This new lift helped Tata spread its wings to Bangalore, Nagpur, Calcutta, and even Baghdad, Iraq by June of 1945 (nearing the end of the war).

If you find interesting blog posts on Indian history, please send it to varnam.blog @gmail or as a tweet to @varnam_blog. The next carnival will be up around Jan 15th.

1. Sriram explains how the Sabha culture originated in Chennai

Chennai was uniquely positioned for the birth of such a concept. When Chennai or Madras first came into existence in 1639, the performing arts were dependent exclusively on the patronage of the rulers, landholders and noblemen. They held private soirees to which their intimate friends were invited or on occasion sponsored public performances in temples or open spaces where the ordinary folk could attend. Temple festivals and weddings in the houses of the rich were occasions when people could attend these performances without invitation.

2. Fëanor has some photographs of the Mughal miniatures he saw at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin
3. Based on the 17th century notes by Roger Hawkes, Maddy gives us a glimpse of life in Calicut during that period.

7. We see that the textile traders in Calicut were mainly from West Godavari regions.
8. We see that the Shabander or governor had responsibility for repayment of goods sold. Dubious practices of him needing to be bribed can be seen as a lack of law and order, and more consistent with activities today. We also see that he had authority to decide who got control of the goods cleared through customs.

4. One of the earliest photographers in India was Felice Beato. But before Beato, there was Linnaeus Tripe who took photographs of South India and Burma. India Ink has more with some of the photographs.

The part of Mr. Tripe’s career that he is most well-known for can be broken into three parts: The first was in December 1854 when, on leave again, he went to photograph the temples at Halebid and Belur in Mysore. One of Sotheby’s portfolios contains 56 prints from this trip, including 26 unique prints and three previously unknown photographs. One of the newly discovered images is of a Hoysala-era Ganesha statue at the temple in Halebid.

5. Apparently, the plan to move the capital of India from Calcutta to Delhi was a secret, writes India Realtime blog

Those who did know about it referred to the plan by the codename “Sesame.” The queen wasn’t told about it till the party arrived in India, according to architectural historian Robert Grant Irving. The viceroys of the provinces concerned weren’t told a thing till the night of Dec. 11.
The ceremonial laying of the foundation stone of the new capital, which took place on Dec. 15, isn’t mentioned anywhere in the detailed official program of the week’s events, which had been released earlier. Two days after the Durbar, 500 invitations were hurriedly distributed for the stone-laying, wrote Mr. Irving.

Thanks: Sandeep V & Fëanor
If you find interesting blog posts on Indian history, please send it to varnam.blog @gmail or as a tweet to @varnam_blog. The next carnival will be up on Dec 15th.

1. “ ‘Wonder of the Age’: Master Painters of India, 1100-1900” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art showcases 800 years of Indian art. NYTimes has a review of this exhibition and Alain Truong has some samples.
2. Mahmood Farooqui writes about Dastangoi, a lost and old art form of storytelling.

The word Dastangoi refers to the art of storytelling, it is a compound of two Persian words Dastan and goi which means to tell a Dastan. Dastans were epics, often oral in nature, which were recited or read aloud and in essence were like medieval romances everywhere. Telling tales of adventure, magic and warfare, Dastans mapped new worlds and horizons, encountered the unseen and protected the hero through many travails and lovers as he moved on his quest. The hero’s adventures could sometimes parallel the mystic quest, at other times the story narrated a purely profane tale.

3. Maddy has the fascinating tale of Gaspar de Gama, a Polish Jew who ended up as a slave in India, worked for the king of Bijapur as a Muslim, met King Manuel as a Christian and became one of the first Europeans to set foot in Brazil.

Whether by intent or not, Gaspar was the person who provided Gama with large doses of misinformation, he explained that most of India was ruled by Christian kings (see CHF blog on this subject) including the Vijayanagar kingdom. He was later to become the person who arranged the meeting of Cabral with the King of Cochin and thus become the primary reason for the later problems of Malabar after the Portuguese were welcomed at Cochin. But let us see how this interesting meeting came about. I would assume that he was thus the reason for the Gama to fall somewhat out of favor with King Manual some years after he got back.

4. Sriram has a brief introduction to Harikatha, a form of story telling which evolved in the 18th century

The Maratha kingdom of Thanjavur was where it came up as a result of several important influences. The art of Katha Kalakshepam or passing of time by listening to stories was already a powerful presence in the area, but it existed more as a form of religious discourse where learned scholars would take up a topic and embellishing it with some shlokas, speak on the subject for a few hours. Based on the type of subject matter, such discourses looked to different works for material. Thus if the subject matter was the Periya Puranam, the Kanda Puranam or Kamba Ramayanam, it was called prasangam and had quotes from the Tiruvachakam, the Tevaram and similar Tamil works. If the subject matter was from the Puranas, there were quotes from the Bhagavatam, the Maha Bharatham and the Ramayanam.

Thanks: Sandeep V & Fëanor
If you find interesting blog posts on Indian history, please send it to varnam.blog @gmail or as a tweet to @varnam_blog. The next carnival will be up on Nov 15th.

1. Fëanor quotes André Wink to argue that the rise and fall of the Rashtrakuta kingdom was connected to trade with Persian Gulf

Towards the late 10th century, however, the great ports of Gujarat began to decline. According to Wink, the proximate cause was the steady erosion of the Persian Gulf trade as the Red Sea and Egypt became more important. These countries dealt more with Malabar and Coromandel. The resultant decline in wealth and power of the Rashtrakutas was matched by the growing clout of the Cholas in the south of India, with the predictable result.

2. This is a post from two years back, but it is interesting as it talks about how the postal system worked during the Mughal Period.

The Dak Chawki system was initially restricted to royal and official use. For urgent letters people had to make their own arrangements at personal cost or await the arrival of the regular messengers and prevail upon them to carry the same. In fact, it was this random practice of the postal employees being subject to inducements by the common public, which compelled Babar to introduce the system of transfer. News was conveyed through an efficient channel of confidential reports, supplied daily, bi-weekly and weekly by different agencies acting independently. This system ruled out erroneous information reaching the ruler, not only because of the inbuilt cross-checks but also by giving the emperor different perspectives to a situation.

3. The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore has the illustrated edition of Baburnamah — the autobiography of the Mughal invader — from the 16th century CE. The book was originally written in Turkish and was translated and copied by various of his successors. BibliOdyssey has some of the pictures and Flickr has the complete set.
4. Airavat has a post on how camels were used in Indian warfare.

An illustrated folio of the Akbarnamah depicting the 16th century Mughal siege of Champaner in Gujarat. The two camels are probably the twin-humped Bactrian breed and are carrying naggada beaters. Such foreign breeds were less resistant to heat and Indian camel breeds from Baluchistan westwards began to be used by Mughal armies primarily for transport. Baloch camel traders are shown as forming the long tail of Aurangzeb’s army that caused so much devastation in the Deccan Wars late in the 17th Century. Jadunath Sarkar wrote in his History of Aurangzib: “The worst oppressors of the peasants, however, were the tail of the army……Particularly the Beluchi camel-owners who hired out their animals to the army, and unattached Afghans searching for employment, plundered and beat the country people most mercilessly.”

5. There is news that very soon a Malayalam movie, which is a historical about Tipu Sultan and Unniarcha, will start filming. Kamal Haasan has signed on. Maddy had a post on this a while back.

The story thus continues to remain a myth. If Unniarcha was born in 1766 and was taken away by Tipu in 1789, then it is impossible for her to have mothered Aromal, unless he were Tipu’s son. But that is also not possible for according to legends, Unniarcha was very much around Malabar and goading Aromal to take revenge on Chandu. Even then the timelines would not be right for such events would not have occurred in difficult times when the Sultans and their army were encamped in Malabar (those events would have found their way into the ballads). Then again, let us for a moment assume that Unniarcha was a favored queen in the Zenana. This is also not possible for the name was never seen in Wellesley’s or Marriott’s papers. The queens listed and the sons that come up do not indicate any person of Malabar origin

6. Last month’s Carnival featured a post by Sriram on de Havilland and the Madras Bulwark. He has another post on the Eastern and Western Castlets of de Havilland

Western Castlet appears to have survived for much longer, though its exact location is even more difficult to identify. Considering that most accounts say it was off Mount Road, it is very likely that de Havilland’s property extended from east to west with Eastern Castlet being on Mount Road itself and Western Castlet in the rear. After they were divided it is probable that Western Castlet was accessed by a service lane from Mount Road.

Thanks to Fëanor and Sandeep V for sending the links. If you find interesting blog posts on Indian history, please send it to varnam.blog /gmail or as a tweet to @varnam_blog. The next carnival will be up on Oct 15th.

1. Jayarava looks at some of the urban myths behind the swastika

THE URBAN MYTH that the Nazi swastika goes one way, but the sacred symbol of India goes the other way seems to still be current. Sadly, this is not true. The official Nazi Party emblem, adopted in 1932, was the clockwise swastika, and this is often seen on Buddhist images as well. Jains even use the rotated svastika. Both clockwise and anticlockwise are used in Indian religious iconography, and both are found, for instance, in the Tibetan Unicode block: U+0FD5 卐 (right-facing/clockwise), U+0FD6 卍 (left-facing/anti-clockwise). The svastika is also a Chinese character, and is pronounced wàn. If you look at Google maps of Japan you’ll see temples marked with the 卍.

2. In a post on Indian and Greek theater, mAnasa-taraMgiNI writes

The Christianized West sees the Greek theater as one of the important precursors of its modern culture and as a direct ancestor of its theatrical traditions. What is missed as a result of this equation is the real nature of the Greek theater because it, unlike modern Western society, was a product of heathen sensibilities, just like its Hindu sister culture. The key point underplayed by modern Western treatments is that the Greek theater, like its Arya counter part was not merely for the enjoyment of men but also for the gods. This is what Gupt calls hieropraxis (the sacred drama). This element is very clear in the nATyashAstra and the fact that through the centuries the chief patrons of nATya was the Arya orthropraxy, both in its smArta and sectarian tAntrika manifestations.

3. The barbarity of Aurangzeb is well known. What about Jehangir?

Not even high-ranked nobility was safe from Jahangir’s fury. There’s a story that his chamberlain broke one of his favourite Chinese porcelain dishes. In a panic, the chamberlain sent a servant to scour China for a replacement. Two years later, the servant still wasn’t back, and Jahangir asked to see the dish. Quaking, the chamberlain informed him that it was broken, whereupon the Emperor exploded in rage. He ordered the guard to lash the poor man a hundred and twenty times with a corded whip, as he watched, and then told his porters to beat him with cudgels until those broke. As the English traveller William Hawkins (who was the imperial court at the time) reports, “At least twenty men were beating him, till the poore man was thought to be dead, and then he was hauled out by the heels and commanded to prison.”

4. Kals has a new project and she welcomes anyone interested to join

British Raj is my small project of sorts, an attempt to chronicle and compile a host of material – books (A Passage to India, Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire, The Far Pavilions, The Siege of Krishnapur, Train to Pakistan, The Discovery of India etc), photos, videos, articles etc – that tell the story of the era preceding India’s ‘tryst with destiny’ which can be viewed by anyone interested in the subject.
This will include book reviews (for useful recommendations, check India- Book Recommendations), movie reviews, excerpts from books, snippets from articles, links to interesting websites, quotes, photographs and just about anything history and literature-wise relevant to the British Raj. I hope to post as and when something interesting comes my way and hopefully, once a week.

5. When India got independence, Tawang was part of Tibet. It became part of India in 1951 due to the work of Major Bob Khathing. Pragmatic Euphony has the story

On 17 January 1951, Khathing, accompanied by Captain Hem Bahadur Limbu of 5th Assam Rifles and 200 troops and Captain Modiero of the Army Medical Corps left Lokra for the foothills, bound for Tawang. They were later joined by a 600-strong team of porters. On 19 January, they reached Sisiri and were joined by Major TC Allen, the last British political officer of the North East Frontier Agency. Five days later the party reached Dirang Dzong, the last Tibetan administrative headquarters, and were met by Katuk Lama, assistant Tibetan agent, and the Goanburras of Dirang. On 26 January, Major Khathing hoisted the Indian flag and a barakhana followed.

Thanks Samir Patil, Fëanor, Sandeep V
If you find interesting blog posts on Indian history, please send it to varnam.blog @gmail or as a tweet to @varnam_blog. The next carnival will be up on July 15th.