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Wednesday, July 30, 2025
TopicThinking Medieval

Topic: Thinking Medieval

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.

A medieval Malayan king beat Cholas at their game. Almost created a superpower

Not all invasions went from India/Sri Lanka to Southeast Asia. The Malayan rulers of Tambralinga tried to establish an empire across the seas.

Buddhists ran sophisticated medieval hospitals in Sri Lanka—heated pool, forceps, acupuncture

Excavation projects in Sri Lanka have come up with the ruins of medieval monastic hospitals of a scale that hasn’t yet been seen anywhere in South Asia.

Shiva, Skanda: How Hindu gods absorbed Iranian, Greek ideas

Some of the most important gods of modern India were influenced by Central Asian elites of the Kushan Empire.

Buddhism did not spread by the sword. But the empires that helped it grow did

Greater Gandhara—the forgotten superpower that shaped India, Central Asia and modern-day Buddhism.

India’s Buddhist nuns you don’t hear about: Landladies, loan sharks, merchants

Voices of Buddhist women have been lost to us. But new research reveals they had brilliant commercial and religious minds, and shaped the financial fortunes of the Buddhist sangha.

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.