Topic: Thinking Medieval

Srivijaya today is one of Southeast Asia’s most puzzling polities. It made temple gifts from Thailand to Bengal and Tamil Nadu. And many of its remains have disappeared into private collections.

Tirumala was once a minor shrine with only local devotees. It grew as an investment destination for Vijayanagara elites in the 16th century.

Ancient and medieval Indian theorists had a grim view of justice. Arthashastra insisted on harsh punishments—but also restrained state power in surprisingly moral ways.

Even as Indian women were sold off, Central Asian, Turkic, and Caucasian women were purchased. Many medieval kings had foreign ladies in their palaces as palanquin-bearers and bodyguards.

Before and after 1947, Bengal experienced many episodes of religious violence, often driven more by 20th-century nationalism than by the region’s rich Islamic history.

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

In Tamil Nadu, we have an extraordinary archive of over 13,000 stone inscriptions on temple walls, recording the taxation, sale, and cultivation of land.

For over a millennia, the Bengaluru region has been the meeting-point of the Kannada, Telugu, and Tamil cultural zones.

The Cholas built massive temples dedicated to Shiva in Tamil Nadu, inspiring other kingdoms. But because they were too expensive to maintain, the Ganga dynasty in Odisha chose to patronise an existing local deity — Jagannath in Puri.

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.