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Wednesday, July 30, 2025
TopicThinking Medieval

Topic: Thinking Medieval

How a minor medieval war inspired a Telugu ‘Katha’, Tollywood movies

The Palnati Virula Katha, the Tale of the Palnadu Heroes, is a unique Mahabharata of a medieval landowning caste.

Don’t romanticise Vijayanagara as the ‘last Hindu empire’—it has a side you don’t know about

Immigrant Vijayanagara warriors were focused primarily on enriching themselves. This is revealed by temple inscriptions in the Kaveri delta and the northern Coromandel plain.

Nilgiris aren’t just for honeymoons—its peoples fought Hoysalas and Haider Ali

Haider Ali & Tipu Sultan clashed with the rulers of Tamil Nadu over control of the Nilgiris, which, played an important role in the geopolitics of early modern South India.

Odisha’s medieval queens weren’t ‘ideal wives’–they fought off invaders, ordered war & murder

The sovereign queens of the Bhauma-Kara dynasty, coming from tribal and royal backgrounds, were extraordinary examples of how Sanskritic court culture absorbed local traditions.

British Indian sepoys weren’t silent spectators to colonial brutality. They led quiet rebellions

Indian sepoys who left their homes and crossed oceans to witness a world being conquered and exploited by the British, sought to understand, interpret, and even profit from it all.

Celebrate Ahom wars against Mughals. But don’t miss how neo-Vaishnavites weakened them

The Ahoms today are spoken of with reverence, along with a handful of other dynasties who have been selected as icons of contemporary nationalism....

Gupta Period wasn’t exactly the glorious Hindu age that we are told. It’s complicated

Sources on the Guptas—and their Central Asian rivals & successors—show that ancient India’s most ostensibly ‘indigenous’ rulers had more complex identities than we think.

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.

Portuguese Gujarati Bania companies, South Indian bronzes—how Africa helped India become rich

For nearly 300 years under the Gujarat Sultanate and the Portuguese Estado da India, Indian traders made fortunes in East Africa.

For first 300 yrs of their history, Ahoms were more Thai than Indian. Here’s how they changed

Describing Turks as aliens but Ahoms as nationalists erases all their complexities.

On Camera

Meghnad Desai was a man of many passions. Marxian economics, politics to Bollywood

Meghnad’s interest went much beyond economics and politics. This is reflected in his writing, particularly after his retirement as a full-time LSE professor in 2003.

Govt’s earlier FDI limit of 74% in insurance sector has remained underutilised, Parliament told

In the latest budget, the FDI limit was increased to 100 percent, but most foreign companies are not buying such large stakes in the Indian insurance sector.

India to get last of Spain-built C-295 next month, focus now on 1st India-made aircraft

New Delhi: The last of the C-295 transport aircraft that is replacing the ageing Avro fleet of the Indian Air Force (IAF) will be...

Modi’s Bharat vs Indira’s India: 11-yr report card of politics, diplomacy, economy, nationalism

As Narendra Modi becomes India’s second-longest consecutively serving Prime Minister, we look at how he compares with Indira Gandhi across four key dimensions.