scorecardresearch
Monday, November 4, 2024
TopicMedieval India

Topic: Medieval India

Olympics of medieval India were grisly, wacky, & thrilling. Elephant racing, polo, wrestling

Sports in medieval India were primarily conducted for royal entertainment. The prizes were dazzling, but some sports could end in death.

Gyan Chaupar—the spiritual ancestor of Snakes and Ladders

The medieval game was meant to educate players on which traits and practices were morally desirable and what consequences lay in store for negative habits.

Yoga, Sanskrit inspired Sufi epics—Chakras became ‘mystical stations’, gods turned ‘angels’

Maulana Daud’s ‘Chandayan’ originated in a cultural context we can think of as Hindu, above which Sufism had become a major strand of elite devotion.

Chola kings divided people into 2 caste groups—to pit them against each other and exploit

In 'Caste Away', NA Vanamamalai talks about inscriptions from the time of Chola dynasty that reveal caste politics in medieval Tamil Nadu.

Vijayanagara was the Indian Renaissance State. It contains memories of older empires

Just like Europe’s neoclassical monuments, Vijayanagara’s temples reformulated memories of the older Chola and Chalukya empires.

Sanskrit texts show Medieval Indians loved foreign goods, luxury. Not just temples

This flies in the face of all ideas that medieval South Asians were somehow insular or uninterested in the rest of the globe.

There’s more to Assam than Ahoms. Ancient Kamarupa, Bengal challenge assumptions

The Mughal-Ahom wars were really the culmination of 1,000 years of geopolitical rivalry.

Raising taxes was Palas’ biggest mistake—it killed 2 kings, ended their 300-yr-rule in Bengal

The Kaivartas survive today as a faint reminder: the medieval world was not a utopia, nor was it one of complete and benevolent royal domination.

Medieval Indian engineers in the 7th century built robots. Powered by water and clockwork

Using hydraulics and clockwork, engineers could make wondrous devices that are now lost. These were more credible than claims about pre-modern Indian technology such as UFOs and genetic engineering.

Yogi Adityanath isn’t the first. Shaivite monks have been in politics for 1,000 years

Like their Buddhist and Jain predecessors, medieval Shaivite monasteries used their royal connections to defeat rivals and accumulate followers.

On Camera

Kashmiri jihadists more resilient than we think. Rebuilding J&K Police is key to counter them

The new jihadists in J&K have harried Indian forces, staged a series of ambushes, and now begun to target Indian civilian infrastructure projects.

Watch CutTheClutter: Flattening INR-USD rate, and debate on pros and cons of a ‘strong’ rupee

In Episode 1544 of CutTheClutter, Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta looks at some top economists pointing to the pitfalls of ‘currency nationalism’ with data from 1991 to 2004.

Indian firms sanctioned by US didn’t violate laws, says MEA. Hyderabad firm that supplied to Army on list

Among 19 Indian firms sanctioned by US Treasury Dept was Lokesh Machines Ltd accused of coordinating with 'Russian defence procurement agent to import Italy-origin CNC machines'.

Xi wanted to teach India about imbalance of power. We should take a budgetary lesson from it

While we talk much about our military, we don’t put our national wallet where our mouth is. Nobody is saying we should double our defence spending, but current declining trend must be reversed.