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Wednesday, November 5, 2025
TopicThinking Medieval

Topic: Thinking Medieval

Mahabharata war to Dasaratha sacrifices—Tripura’s Manikya dynasty used religion as a force

In Tripura, the Sanskritic culture served as a veneer over a vibrant, cosmopolitan Northeastern world that we are often too quick to dismiss today as 'tribal' or 'violent'.

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.

This is how Shiva became Asia’s most popular god – innovation, assimilation, conquest

In a diverse religious environment, the Shaiva recipe for success was rather crafty.

The Great monastery of Ratnagiri – this is how Buddhism thrived in medieval Odisha

Female musicians played as the Buddha was offered ‘flowers, fruits, medicinal plants, and all other treasures’ at the Ratnagiri monastery.

South Asia’s greatest stupa isn’t in India but Bangladesh. This is its story

The decline and fall of Indian Buddhism was as complex a process as its rise. But all that remains of this dramatic history are silent ruins of brick.

How medieval Kashmir became centre of the world — Vaishnavism, Puranas, and war

The Pancharatrins and the Karkotas of Kashmir seized the subcontinent’s centre stage, religion supporting the State, State supporting religion.

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.

This is how Jains came to dominate Gujarat – grand temples, ascetic monks, spectacular rituals

Five sites in present-day Gujarat and Rajasthan came to be seen as the places where the five most popular Jain tirthankaras obtained enlightenment.

How an Odia queen became medieval Sri Lanka’s greatest politician

Queen Sundari’s husband had infuriated the Buddhist Sangha by appropriating their properties; she had to find a way to appease them.

Dancing Shiva in Samarkand: Central Asian traders spread Hinduism, Buddhism along Silk Road

800 years before Babur, Hindu gods were worshipped by merchant diasporas in Central Asia.

On Camera

Sudan shows what happens when the world is happy to let mass killers rule

Fourteen million refugees, and 25 million facing acute hunger, should be reason enough for the world to dismantle the dystopia in Sudan — even if the sadism of its rulers is not.

Kerala’s silent startup surge—work near home, smooth roads, fast internet & diaspora engagement

Once seen as a fading presence on India’s investment & startup picture, the state is slowly moving up the ladder, with policy reforms & infrastructure building.

India & Israel ink agreement to share, co-develop & co-produce advanced defence tech

Agreement signed during 17th Joint Working Group (JWG) on defence cooperation. Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh met Director General in Israeli Ministry of Defence Amir Baram Tuesday. 

Trump’s trade wars have rewritten powerplay, but India didn’t get the memo

This world is being restructured and redrawn by one man, and what’s his power? It’s not his formidable military. It’s trade. With China, it turned on him.