In the 1960s, getting an engineering degree from IIT Bombay required passing one mandatory subject: Russian

After Soviet leaders visited India in 1955, Jawaharlal Nehru brokered a deal for USSR technical aid in setting up an IIT campus.

To respect India's Cold War non-alignment policy, the funds weren't direct. They were funneled through UNESCO.

When IIT Bombay’s foundation stone was laid in 1958, Soviet aid was shipped directly to the Powai campus: heavy machinery, instruments, hardware, and the institute’s very first mainframe computer, the Minsk-2.

The catch? Every blueprint, circuit diagram, and manual arrived written strictly in Cyrillic, the script used for Russian

To run their labs and code, students spent painful hours translating technical specs alongside Soviet faculty.

And the funniest anecdote: a Soviet Minsk II computer was delivered in 1965 at the IIT Bombay campus and sat in its crate for two years, while the USSR and UNESCO argued over who would pay the technicians' airfare to install it

brand was built on the shoulders of early students holding Russian instruments in one hand and a Russian dictionary in the other

The Dakshin Digvijay—Shivaji Maharaj’s grand campaign into South India between 1677 and 1678—was perhaps his most far-sighted move. Looking at the geopolitical map of the late 17th century, he clearly saw what was coming: Aurangzeb would eventually bring the full weight of the Mughal war machine down upon the Deccan.

To survive, the Maratha state needed depth, resources, and a backup plan. Starting from Raigad, Shivaji Maharaj first rode to Golconda, where he used clever diplomacy to secure a treaty and financial backing from Abul Hasan Qutb Shah. From there, his army moved deep into the Tamil country. He took key fortresses like Vellore and Gingee, but he didn't just conquer—he set up civil administration, lowered taxes for local peasants, and took time off for personal devotion at Srisailam. He also met his half-brother Vyankoji to sort out the family’s ancestral holdings around Tanjore.

The real payoff came long after Shivaji Maharaj was gone. When Aurangzeb invaded the Deccan a decade later and pushed the Marathas to the brink, it was Gingee Fort—thousands of miles south—that held out as the Maratha capital during an eight-year siege. By carving out a southern empire, Shivaji didn't just expand his domain; he built the safety net that saved Swarajya from extinction.

The following places were visited by Chh Shivaji Maharaj during his South India campaign:

[1] Raigad (Departure): Formally set out in January 1677 after organizing a massive army of approximately 50,000 cavalry and foot soldiers to secure southern territories and establish strategic dominance.

[2] Hyderabad (Golconda): Entered in March 1677 to finalize a mutual defense alliance with Qutb Shah (Abul Hasan Qutb Shah). He negotiated military subsidies, shared plunder agreements, and received a lavish welcome and financial backing for the expedition.

[3] Srisailam: Spent nine days performing religious rites, praying at the Mallikarjuna Jyotirlinga, meditating on the banks of the Krishna River, and constructing a rest house (chhatra) and steps leading to the river ghat.

[4] Gingee Fort: Took possession of the fortress following secret negotiations with its commander, Nasir Muhammad Khan. Shivaji immediately began massive fortification upgrades, turning Gingee into a fortified southern stronghold.

[5] Vellore Fort: Laid siege to the heavily fortified citadel garrisoned by Bijapuri forces. Leaving a detachment under his generals to maintain the prolonged siege (which eventually surrendered in 1678), he proceeded further south.

[6] Bhuvanagiri: Set up camp while expanding Maratha authority across the surrounding districts and collecting tribute from local poligars (chieftains). Shivaji Maharaj also stopped the European slave trade occuring from the Coromandel coast.

[7] Thirumazhapadi & [8] Thiruppattur: Made tactical stops along the Kollidam (Coleroon) river region to direct civil administration, set up revenue assessment systems, and mobilize troops across the newly acquired Tamil territories.

[9] Vriddhachalam: Used the location as a strategic base to encamp his main forces, resolve regional administrative disputes, and negotiate terms with European trading settlements along the coast.

[10] Vaniyambadi: Held crucial negotiations with his half-brother Vyankoji (Ekoji I of Tanjore) to settle the division of their father Shahaji’s legacy, lands, and personal estate.

[11] Bangalore: Re-asserted Maratha authority over his ancestral jagir territory, establishing military control over the region following his negotiations with Vyankoji.

[12] Bellary: Besieged and captured the fort of Belvadi/Bellary after resisting forces under Savitri Bai (Deshmukhin of Belvadi) yielded to the Maratha advance.

[13] Dharwar: Consolidated his military conquests across the Western Karnatak belt, garrisoning strategic forts along the return corridor to ensure secure lines of communication.

[14] Panhala: Halted to rest his army, inspect local defensive positions, and review the overall spoils and political gains of the campaign before returning to the capital.

[15] Raigad (Return): Successfully concluded the campaign in March 1678, integrating vast new territories into the Maratha Empire (Swarajya) and securing a safe retreat zone that would prove vital in later Maratha history.

Source: Book by J Sarkar: "Shivaji and his times" Page no 330-348.

https://archive.org/details/shivajihistimes00sarkrich/page/329/mode/1up

Can you guys imagine the if we get to see the 18th century political india in a grand show like got or shogun.

Declining mughals provide a perfect red herring of the political vaccum with powers like Marathas, British, French, etc. fighting for it.

The characters being the likes of

Peshwa Baji Rao

Raghunath Rao

Hayder Ali

Tipu Sultan

Dupleix

Clive.

It could cover events like Plassey, Buxar, Carnatic wars, the Maratha confederacy, Anglo Mysore wars, Rise of Ranjit Singh

It would be insane.

In Religion lies the vitality of India, and as long as the Hindu race do not forget the great inheritance of their fore­fathers, there is no power on earth to destroy them.

Nowadays everybody blames those who constantly look back to their past. It is said that so much looking back to the past is the cause of all India’s woes. To me, on the contrary, it seems that the opposite is true. So long as they forgot the past, the Hindu nation remained in a state of stupor, and as soon as they have begun to look back into their past, there is on every side a fresh manifestation of life. It is [out] of this past that the future has to [be] moulded; this past will become the future.

The more, therefore, the Hindus will study the past, the more glorious will be the future, and whosoever tries to bring the past to the door of everyone, is a great benefactor to his nation.

The degeneration in India came not because the laws and customs of the ancients were bad, but because they were not allowed to be carried to their logical conclusions.

Every critical student knows that the social laws in India have always undergone great periodic changes. At their inception, these laws were the embodiment of a gigantic plan, which was to unfold itself slowly through time. The great seers of Ancient India saw so far ahead of their time, that the world has to wait centuries yet to appreciate their wisdom—and it is the very inability to appreciate the full scope of their wonderful social plan by their own descendants [which] is the one and only cause of [the] degeneration of India.

Ancient India had for centuries been the battlefield for the ambitious projects of two of her foremost classes—the Brahmanas and the Kshatriyas.

On the one hand, the priesthood stood between the lawless social tyranny of the princes and the masses, whom the “Kshatras” declared to be their legal “food.” On the other hand, the “Kshatra” power was the one potent force, which struggled with any success against the spiritual tyranny of the priests and the ever-increasing chain of ceremonials, which they were forging to bind the people down.

The Brahmana was par excellence the “Karmi”; the “Kshatra,” the teacher of “Jnanam.”

The tug of war began in the earliest periods of the history of our race—and throughout the Shrutis, [it] can be distinctly traced. A momentary lull came when Sri Krishna, leading the faction of “Kshatra” power and of “Jnana,” showed the way of reconciliation. The result was the teachings of the Gita—the essence of philosophy, of religion and of liberality. Yet the causes were there, and the effect must come.

The ambition of the two classes to be the masters of the poor and ignorant was there, and the strife became once more fierce. The meagre literature that has come down to us of that period brings to us but faint echoes of that mighty strife, but at last it broke out as a victory for the “Kshatras,” a victory for Jnana, for liberality—and ceremonial had to go down, much of it—never to come back to the surface.

This upheaval is what is known as the Buddhistic reformation. On the religious side, it represented freedom from cere­monials; on the political side, overthrowal of the priesthood by the “Kshatras.”

It is a significant fact that the two greatest men Ancient India produced were both “Kshatras”—Krishna and Buddha—and still more is significant the fact that both of these Gods threw open the door of knowledge to everyone, irrespective of sex or birth.

But, in spite of its wonderful moral strength, Buddhism was extremely iconoclastic—and much of its force being spent in negative attempts—it had to die out in the land of its birth—and what remained of it was full of superstitions and ceremo­nials, a hundred times cruder than that it intended to suppress. Though it partially succeeded in suppressing the animal sacrifices of the Vedas, it filled the land with temples and images, symbols and bones of saints.

And above all, in the medley of Aryans, Mongols, and abori­gines, which it created, it unconsciously led the way to some of the hideous “Vamacharas” —and this was especially the reason why this travesty of the teachings of the great Master [Buddha] had to be driven out of India by Sri Shankara and his band of Sannyasins.

Thus, even the current of life set in motion by the greatest soul that ever wore a human form, the Bhagavan Buddha himself, became a miasmatic pool, and India had to wait for centuries till Shankara arose, followed in quick succession by Ramanuja and Madhva.

But an entirely new chapter had opened by this time in the history of India. The ancient “Kshatras” and Brahmanas had disappeared. The land between the Himalayas and the Vindhyas, the home of the Aryas, the land which gave birth to Krishna and Buddha, the cradle of great Rajarshis and Brahmarshis, had become silent, and from the very farther end of the Indian Peninsula, from races alien in speech and form, races never regarded by the old Aryans as capable of any great achievement—from families claiming descent from the ancient Brahmanas came the reaction against corrupted Buddhism.

What had become of the Aryan Brahmanas and “Kshatras” of Aryavarta? They had entirely disappeared, except a few mongrel clans claiming to be Brahmanas and Kshatras here and there, and in spite of their inflated self-laudatory assertions—that the whole world ought to learn from, “Etaddesha prasu­tanam sakashat agrajanmanam,” they had to sit before the [people of] South in sack-cloth and ashes, in all humility, to learn.

The result was the bringing back [of] the Vedas to India— a revival of the Vedanta which India never saw before, and even the householders began to study the Aranyakas.

The Kshatras were the real leaders in the Buddhistic movement, and whole masses of them became Buddhists. And, in the zeal of reform and conversion, the popular dialects were almost exclusively cultivated to the neglect of Sanskrit, and the greatest portion of the Kshatriyas had become disjoined from the Vedic literature and Sanskrit learning.

Thus this wave of reform, which came from the South, benefited to a certain extent the priesthood and the priests only. For the rest of Indian humanity, it forged more chains than they [had] ever known before.

The “Kshatra” has always been, O prince, the backbone of India; they had been the supporters of science and liberty; their voice was ringing again and again to clear the land from superstitions, and they formed throughout the history of India the invulnerable barrier to aggressive priestly tyranny.

When the greater part of them sank into ignorance, and another portion mixed their blood with savages from Central Asia and lent their swords to establish the rule of priests in India, the cup became full to the brim, and down sank the land of Bharata, never to rise again, until the “Kshatra” rouses himself, and making himself free, strikes the chains from the feet of the rest. Priestcraft is the bane of India. Can anyone degrade his brother and himself escape degradation?

Know, Rajaji, the greatest of all truths discovered by your ancestors, that the universe is One. Can one injure any without injuring himself? The mass of Brahma [Brahmin] and Kshatra [Kshatriya] tyranny has recoiled upon their own heads with compound interest—and a thousand years of slavery and degradation is what the inexorable law of Karma visiting them with.

This is what one of your ancestors [Sri Krishna] said—“Even in this life, they have gained heaven whose mind is fixed in sameness” (167)—he is believed to be God-incarnate. We all do. Are his words vain then and without meaning? If not, and we know they are not, any attempt against this perfect equality of all creation, irrespective of sex, or birth, or even qualification, is a terrible mistake, and no one can be saved until he has attained to this idea [of sameness].

Follow, noble Prince, therefore, the teachings of the Vedanta, not as explained by this or that commentator but what the Lord within you understands. Follow, above all, this great doctrine of sameness through all beings seeing the same God in all. This is the way to freedom; inequality, the way to bondage. No man, nor a nation can attain to physical freedom without physical equality, nor mental freedom without mental equality.

Ignorance, inequality, and desire are the three causes of human misery, and each follows the other in inevitable union. Why should a man think himself above any other man or [an] animal even? It is the same throughout, त्वं स्त्री त्वं पुमानसि त्वं कुमार उत वा कुमारी । (168) “Thou art the man, Thou the woman, Thou art the young man, Thou the young woman.”

Many will say, “That is all right for the Sannyasins, but we are householders.” No doubt, a householder having many other duties to perform, can not as fully attain to this sameness; yet this should also be their ideal, for it is the ideal of all societies, all mankind, all animals, and all nature to attain to this sameness. But alas! they think that inequality is the way to attain equality as if they will come to right by doing wrong!

This is the bane of human nature, the curse upon mankind, the root of all misery—this inequality. This is the source of all bondage, of all misery—physical, mental, and spiritual.

समं पश्यन् हि सर्वत्र समवस्थितमीश्वरम् । न हिनस्त्यात्मनात्मानं ततो याति परां गतिम् ॥ “Seeing the equally-present-to-all-Lord, same everywhere, he does not hurt self by self, and thus goes to the highest goal.”—this one line contains the universal way to salvation in a few words.

Letter 242 to Raja Ajit Singh by Swami Vivekananda in the book "Letters of Swami Vivekananda" source: https://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/volume_4/writings_prose/reply_to_the_maharaja_of_khetri.htm

(Image above shows a synagogue in Rawalpindi)

The Allahdad massacre took place in 1839 in which the jewish community of Mashhad,Iran were subjected to mass-killing and forced conversions. A group of jews fled to the Sikh empire where they were given refuge and thus settled in Rawalpindi and Peshawar.

Source of the information: https://asiasamachar.com/2023/04/19/the-sikh-empire-a-sanctuary-for-the-jewish-people/

I recently started looking into the history of Madgole/Madugula and the surrounding region of northern Andhra Pradesh, and I came across something that I did not expect.

Older historical sources describe the Matsyas of Oddadi/Vaddadi as an important medieval ruling family of South Kalinga. Their territory was associated with the area around present-day Madgole, and their emblem was the fish.

But the story seems to continue much later.

A historical account of the Madgole Zamindars records that they claimed descent from the Matsyas of Oddadi and described themselves as lords/chiefs of Oddadi. The same account records traditions involving a fish-shaped throne at Paderu, fish on their banners, and the use of a fish figure as their signature.

There are also references scattered through older historical works to Oddadi/Vaddadi, Madgole, Paderu, Veeravilli, Jagannadhapuram, Chodavaram and Jeypore.

This raises a much bigger question:

What actually happened to the Matsyas of Oddadi?

Was there a historical continuity between the medieval Matsya rulers and the later Madgole estate?

Or did the later Madgole rulers simply adopt the Matsya/Oddadi tradition to establish their political identity?

And where exactly was Oddadi/Vaddadi in relation to the later Madgole/Madugula territory?

I am trying to trace this backwards from the later records to the earliest independently verifiable evidence.

I'm particularly interested in finding:

inscriptions and copper-plate grants
archaeological remains and forts
old maps and survey records
Madgole/Madugula estate records
British Collector and revenue proceedings
Munsif, District Court, High Court and Privy Council cases
temple and Devasthanam records
old photographs
family papers and genealogies
local traditions and folklore

I am not starting with a conclusion. I am trying to find out what the records actually establish.

If anyone here has studied Madgole/Madugula, Oddadi/Vaddadi, the Matsyas, Paderu, Veeravilli or this part of the old Vizagapatam region, what is the one primary source, inscription, record or site you think should be investigated first?

I’ve come across claims connecting this boulder to the Treaty of Betrawati (1792), which followed the long-drawn Sino-Nepalese War. The conflict arose in the context of disputes over the circulation of debased Nepalese coins in Tibet and subsequent Gorkha incursions into Tibetan territory. After the Gorkha forces raided Tibet, Tibet, under Qing suzerainty, sought Chinese military intervention, prompting the Qing campaign against the Gorkhas. The conflict eventually ended with the Treaty of Betrawati in 1792.

Is there any reliable evidence confirming that this stone was actually present when the Treaty of Betrawati was concluded, and that it is indeed the stone on which the treaty was signed during the Sino-Nepalese War?

Peace was declared. The Portuguese lost their entire northern possessions except Diu and Daman. The fall of Vasai and the peace treaty saved Goa, where the Portuguese were able to rule for another two hundred and twenty-two years. Chaul Revdanda came into Maratha possession in 1740. With the acquisition of Habshan earlier, and Firangan in this war, the island of Bombay was sandwiched between two long coastal stretches ruled by the Marathas. It was not surprising that they were extremely anxious about what lay in store for them in the days to come.

https://ndhistories.wordpress.com/2023/12/22/treaty-and-aftermath/

Marathi Riyasat, G S Sardesai ISBN-10-8171856403, ISBN-13-‎978-8171856404.

The Era of Bajirao

Uday S Kulkarni

ISBN-10-8192108031

ISBN-13-978-8192108032.

The archaeological site that the remains were found in is now identified to be that of a Stupa, although the site may not have been functioning during the time of the ascetic's burial in the 10th century CE.

The ascetic sits in the Dhaya mudra position with the left hand resting on what would have been a stick.

The remains were moved to a local museum after a long legal battle where a section of the locals unsuccessfully tried to have the remains placed where it was found, while referring to the unnamed ascetic as "Baba".

If the dating of the skeleton is correct, the ascetic would have lived at a time when the Turkic invasions of the Indian subcontinent were on the horizon.

Sources: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/1000-year-old-meditating-mystic-to-rest-in-museum/articleshow/121195406.cms

https://www.indiatvnews.com/gujarat/dna-test-1000-year-old-skeleton-yoga-posture-vadnagar-mehsana-viral-video-2025-03-28-982797

Oil on Canvas !!
Size: A3

I recreated Raja Raja Chola from the original 11th-century Chola mural at Brihadisvara Temple, Thanjavur, carefully preserving the features and details left by the ancient artist.

Nearly 1,000 years later, I simply tried to let that original artwork speak through my medium.

Raja Raja on Right side.

An honour to recreate history. 🙏

A possible alternative history for the Indian words for “fresh ginger” begins not with Sanskrit, but with maritime contact between Southeast Asia and South India.

Proto Malayo Polynesian is reconstructed with *laqia, “ginger,” reflected in forms such as Malay halia. Tom Hoogervorst proposes that this Austronesian word travelled west through Indian Ocean trade and is ultimately connected with Middle Indo Aryan allaya and South Asian forms such as Tamil allam, Telugu allamu, Marathi āle and Konkani ālle.[1][2]

The proposed route is:
Malay halia → coastal Dravidian allam/allamu → Prakrit allaya → Sanskrit ārdraka

Why a South Indian intermediary is plausible
South Indian merchants and port communities were major intermediaries in commerce between India and Southeast Asia.

Archaeological evidence indicates that maritime networks connecting peninsular India, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia were developing by the middle of the first millennium BCE. By the second and first centuries BCE, these connections formed part of an extensive Bay of Bengal trading system.[3][4]

In this contact environment, Malay halia could have lost its initial h and been adapted to Dravidian phonology and morphology. Tamil allam contains the common Dravidian nominal ending am, while Telugu allamu has the corresponding Telugu ending amu. These adaptations are plausible, although they are not themselves proof of borrowing.

The resulting form could then have passed from multilingual South Indian trading communities into a regional Prakrit as allaya. This would explain why the same word family appears in both southern Dravidian and western Indo Aryan languages:

Tamil allam
Telugu allamu
Kannada alla
Prakrit allaya
Marathi āle
Konkani ālle

The modern Indo Aryan distribution is also noteworthy. Descendants conventionally connected with the same broader complex survive from northwestern India to Assam:

Kashmiri, Dogri, Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu adrak
Nepali aduvā
Gujarati ādu
Marathi āle
Konkani āle/ālle
Odia adā
Bengali ādā
Assamese ādā

This distribution demonstrates the success of the word family within Indo Aryan, although it cannot by itself determine whether the direction was Sanskrit to Prakrit or Prakrit to Sanskrit.

Sanskrit hypercorrection
Sanskrit hypercorrection occurs when a regional or foreign word is reshaped according to sound correspondences and grammatical patterns expected in Sanskrit. The reconstructed form may consequently appear older and more transparently Sanskrit than the vernacular word from which it was created.

A prominent example is the name Tamil:
Tamil tamiḻ → Pali and Prakrit damila/damiḷa/daviḍa → Sanskrit dramiḍa/draviḍa
Bhadriraju Krishnamurti describes Sanskrit draviḍa as a Sanskritization of earlier Pali and Prakrit forms, including the hypercorrect insertion of r.[5] The modern linguistic term “Dravidian” therefore ultimately derives from the name Tamil after its transmission through Indo Aryan and its subsequent Sanskritization.

A comparable case has been proposed for the word meaning “pumpkin”:
Vernacular or Middle Indo Aryan kumhaṇḍa → Sanskrit kuṣmāṇḍa

The Sanskrit form contains the learned looking cluster ṣm, while the simpler Middle Indo Aryan and modern forms have been interpreted as evidence that kuṣmāṇḍa may represent a Sanskritized reconstruction rather than the original source of the word.[6]

Another relevant example is Sanskrit śṛṅgavera, “ginger.” It was traditionally interpreted as a compound of Sanskrit śṛṅga, “horn,” and vera, supposedly describing the hornlike shape of the rhizome. An alternative explanation connects it with a Dravidian expression represented by Tamil and Malayalam iñci, “ginger,” and vēr, “root”:
Dravidian iñci vēr, ginger root” → Middle Indo Aryan siṅgivera → Sanskrit śṛṅgavera
Under this interpretation, the unfamiliar initial portion was reshaped and reinterpreted as the familiar Sanskrit word śṛṅga, “horn.” This would be an example of folk etymological Sanskritization closely related to hypercorrection.[1][7]

The derivation remains a proposal rather than a universally accepted conclusion, but it demonstrates the kind of process that could also have affected allaya.

From allaya to ārdraka

Hoogervorst proposes that Prakrit allaya was Sanskritized through a reconstructed form resembling *allaka. Sanskrit speakers then associated it with ārdra, “wet, moist or fresh,” producing ārdraka. The final form appeared to be a transparent Sanskrit derivative meaning approximately “the moist or fresh one,” an appropriate designation for fresh ginger.
The proposed development is therefore:

Malay halia → Dravidian allam/allamu → Prakrit allaya → hypercorrected *allaka → Sanskritized ārdraka

This interpretation does not require Sanskrit to be the source of every Prakrit or Dravidian form. Sanskrit absorbed vocabulary from regional languages as well as donating vocabulary to them. Borrowed words could be altered so thoroughly that they appeared to possess native Sanskrit derivations.

Independent evidence of Malay contact
Malay influence in Tamil is independently demonstrated by recognized historical loans such as Tamil kākkaṭṭuvāṉ from Malay kakaktua, “cockatoo,” campāṉ/sambān from sampan, caku/sagu from sagu, “sago,” and kajāṅku from kajang.[8]

These examples do not prove that allam was borrowed during the same period. Some belong to considerably later phases of maritime contact. They nevertheless demonstrate that vocabulary could travel from Malay speaking Southeast Asia into Tamil through commercial networks.

Turner’s reverse reconstruction
Ralph Lilley Turner reconstructs the development in the opposite direction:
Sanskrit ārdraka → *ārdlaka → *āllaka → Prakrit allaya → Telugu allamu
In this model, ārdraka is the original Sanskrit form, while Prakrit allaya results from regular Middle Indo Aryan simplification. Telugu allamu is then interpreted as a later borrowing from Prakrit.[6]

The difficulty is that Turner’s intermediate forms *ārdlaka and *āllaka are reconstructed rather than directly attested. His entry also does not explore the possibility that allaya entered Indo Aryan from a South Indian commercial language and was subsequently Sanskritized.

The alternative argument is therefore not that Turner’s sound changes are impossible. It is that his reconstruction begins by assuming Sanskrit priority and consequently leaves the opposite borrowing route unexplored.

Chronological addendum
The chronology is more complicated than a simple Sanskrit first or Dravidian first sequence.

Prakrit allaya, “ginger,” is reportedly attested in the Niśītha Cūrṇi, attributed to Jinadāsa Gaṇi and generally dated to approximately the seventh century CE. Its language is more precisely described as Jaina Māhārāṣṭrī or a mixed Jain Prakrit. This is presently the earliest cited attestation of allaya, although the exact edition, passage and manuscript history should accompany the citation.

Tamil allam is securely attested in the Piṅkala Nigaṇṭu, approximately the tenth century CE, in the entry:

iñciyiṉ peyar nallam, allam, naṟumaruppu
“The names of ginger are nallam, allam and naṟumaruppu.”

The University of Madras Tamil Lexicon also cites the Tivākaram for allam, potentially placing the Tamil word in the eighth or ninth century. The date and textual history of the Tivākaram, however, remain uncertain.
Telugu allamu occurs in Nannaya’s Mahābhārata at the beginning of the eleventh century. Kannada alla is securely documented in Maṅgarāja’s lexicon of 1398. The first dated literary attestations of Marathi āle and Konkani ālle still require identification.

Claims that the plant name Sanskrit ārdraka is securely attested in the earliest layers of the Caraka and Suśruta Saṃhitās require caution because both are composite works preserved through later redactions. The form associated with Pāṇinian grammar refers to something “born under the constellation Ārdrā,” not necessarily to ginger, and therefore cannot automatically be counted as an early attestation of the plant name.

Conclusion
A South Indian intermediary offers a historically and morphologically credible alternative to a purely Sanskrit first explanation. Maritime contact provides a plausible route for Malay halia to enter coastal South India, while Sanskrit hypercorrection provides a mechanism by which allaya could have been transformed into the apparently transparent Sanskrit ārdraka.

References

[1] Tom G. Hoogervorst, “If Only Plants Could Talk: Reconstructing Premodern Biological Translocations in the Indian Ocean”⁠, in The Sea, Identity and History, 2013, pages 67 to 92.
[2] Tom G. Hoogervorst, Southeast Asia in the Ancient Indian Ocean World⁠, University of Oxford DPhil thesis, 2012. DOI: 10.5287/ora-amnazwpo6⁠.
[3] Himanshu Prabha Ray, “Early Maritime Contacts Between South and Southeast Asia”⁠, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 20.1, 1989, pages 42 to 54.
[4] K. Rajan, “Emergence of Early Historic Trade in Peninsular India”⁠, in Early Interactions Between South and Southeast Asia, 2011, pages 177 to 196.
[5] Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, The Dravidian Languages, Cambridge University Press, 2003, pages 1 to 2.
[6] Ralph Lilley Turner, A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo Aryan Languages⁠, particularly entries 1341, 3302 and 6632.
[7] Thomas Burrow and Murray B. Emeneau, A Dravidian Etymological Dictionary⁠, entries 429 and 5535.
[8] Tom G. Hoogervorst, “Tracing the Linguistic Crossroads Between Malay and Tamil”⁠, Wacana 16.2, 2015, pages 249 to 283.
[9] Piṅkala Nigaṇṭu, entry 2916; University of Madras, Tamil Lexicon, entry அல்லம்.

Inspired by [u/AleksiB1](u/AleksiB1)⁠’s post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AustroTai/s/lKd6aHkwMi

Thanks to [u/Reasonable_Value6180](u/Reasonable_Value6180)⁠ for drawing attention to the Niśītha Cūrṇi attestation and other chronological citations

The Chennakeshava Temple at Belur was built in the 12th century under the Hoysala dynasty and is known for its incredible stone carvings. The temples are covered with detailed sculptures of gods, dancers, animals and scenes from Hindu mythology.

What I loved most was how much detail there is everywhere you look. Some of these carvings are over 900 years old and still look incredibly detailed.

A few photos from my visit. 📸

they already did one before iirc. It’s through the discovery channel. Well see how accurate it is lol

The museum is overall amazing, but the only problem for now is the archaeology and harappa sections are under renovation. i specially wanted to see those sections but couldn't because of these renovations. So I won't really suggest anyone going there for a few weeks

This picture is from the gopuram of the 15th century Kodanda Rama Swamy temple in Vontimitta, AP. It's a 3 hour drive from Tirumala. It depicts Venkateshwara, flanked by his consorts on either side. What I find interesting is that there's a mistake here: the palm of the deity is facing upwards, while in the orginal idol in Tirumala, the palm is facing downwards. This mistake has got me asking a bunch of questions.

How common were such errors while sculpting? What was done when there was an error? Why wasn't the scultptor aware of correct depiction of Balaji, when the temple was just over a 100 km away? Was pilgrimage to Tirumala not as common as it is today? Was the scultptor brought over from somewhere else, where Balaji wasn't a well known deity? How common was it to bring in artisans from other parts of the country to work on projects?

If any of you can answer a few of my questions, I would be very grateful.

This painting is titled A Perfumer's Shop, Bombay, created around 1890 by American Orientalist artist Edwin Lord Week.

This painting was sold for approximately 60,000 GBP in London's prestigious Sotheby's Orientalist Sale, currently held in private collection.

Description :

• Oil on canvas portrait layout painting, 65cm × 55 cm. Highly polished studio painting featuring brush finework typical of academic realism and orientation

• A bejeweled Nautch dancer wrapped in gold clothes is shown gently smelling a tiny perfume pot.

• The shop features glistening white and blue Chinese porcelain vases ,brass containers and reflective surfaces. Weeks uses these to demonstrate his exceptional ability to handle light reflections.

• Tucked inside the shaded alcove, the artisan is surrounded by his tools. Above the store hangs a dark chalkboard sign featuring elegant Nastaliq writing, signifying that the perfumer is Muslim.

• Weeks explicitly noted the identity of the seated customer on the left. In his studio catalogue notes he specifically described him as an Afghan traveler, singling him out by what he termed an "immense red turban".

• Next to the Afghan sits another man in a differently styled red turban. They are closely examining a small booklet or accounts ledger, with their traditional juttis casually kicked off against the shop's stone ledge

• Hanging from the shops ceiling is a devotional nineteenth century painting of Guru Gobind Singh Jion horseback, attended by Akali Nihang warriors. A very similar painting of Guru Gobind Singh is now held in the Government Museum and Art Gallery Chandigarh.

The piece and its foundational context are heavily tied to Weeks' travel memoir, From the Black Sea Through Perisa and India (published in 1895).

Weeks sketched a 26 × 20 in situ sketch during his travels in 1880s. He took these back to his Paris art studio where he completed the painting. The initial miniature sketch was exhibited to the public at the 1895 Empire of India Exhibition in London.

Weeks was fascinated by architecture of Indian shops

> "There is no amusement more fascinating than to wander aimlessly about and lose himself in the mazes of a new Oriental city... [including] the shallow shops, open to the street like alcoves, which line the cross-streets of Bombay and Ahmedabad."

Mark Muray Fine Paintings

Weeks understood social grammar, multi faith tradition and trading culture perfectly and even captured it beautifully in his paintings.

Timeline:

Chaturanga - 6th century CE - 2 player game invented by scholars of Gupta Empire. However name of the originator is unknown ↓ Shatranj - 7th century - adopted by Arabs & Persians from Indians via a diplomat gift sent by King of Kannuaj - Sharvavarman to Shah Khosrow 1 ↓ Chaturaji - 11th century - 4 player game (see image) - finds a mention in the book "Kitab Al Hind" of Al Baruni ↓ Chess - 15th century - adopted by Europeans with the rules applicable today ↓ Queens were made most powerful by then in the game of Chess

In the early 1920s, while the British Raj was clamping down hard on underground Marxist networks via the Kanpur Bolshevik Conspiracy Case, a writer and activist named Satyabhakta registered the Bhartiya Samyavadi Dal (Indian Communist Party) in Kanpur. Satyabhakta's brand of socialism was radically distinct from Soviet orthodoxy. He dressed in pure Khadi, advocated for vegetarianism and temperance, and published accessible Hindi literature arguing that communism was not a foreign European import, but the natural economic fulfillment of an egalitarian Ram Rajya and ancient Dharmic collectivism.

Strategically, Satyabhakta rejected clandestine underground conspiracy in favor of radical, open legalism, embodying his ideas through a distinctly Hindu ascetic lifestyle. Having changed his birth name to "Satyabhakta" (devotee of truth), he ran his party almost like a nationalist ashram, blending strict vegetarianism, temperance, and spiritual simplicity with militant labor activism. He set up open reading rooms and a printing press, distributing low-cost Hindi tracts that explained workers' rights and surplus value using cultural metaphors familiar to Kanpur’s mill workers and peasants. Rather than building secret Bolshevik cells, his playbook relied on mass vernacular literacy, public debates, and open organizing, culminating in his audacious decision to host the First All-India Communist Conference in December 1925 in broad daylight, right alongside the Indian National Congress session.

While Satyabhakta invoked Ram Rajya, he did not present it as a revivalist Hindu state, nor did he ever use the label "Hindu Communism" himself. Satyabhakta believed the greatest cultural barrier to communism in India was the dogmatic scientific atheism of the Soviet Comintern. In his view, orthodox Marxist materialism alienated both devout Hindus and devout Muslims. By legitimizing indigenous spiritual ethics, he believed workers of all faiths could embrace socialism without feeling forced to renounce their traditions. He worked directly with prominent Muslim revolutionaries, such as Maulana Hasrat Mohani (who coined the slogan Inquilab Zindabad) to ensure the movement was cross-communal.

The experiment ruptured when mainstream revolutionaries like S.V. Ghate and Muzaffar Ahmad insisted on subordinating the party to Moscow’s Communist International (Comintern). Satyabhakta vehemently refused foreign ideological control, arguing that an Indian workers' movement had to remain sovereign, nationalist, and culturally grounded. Outvoted by the internationalist faction, he walked out of his own conference to establish the Rashtriya Samyavadi Dal (National Communist Party) in 1926 before eventually drifting into historical obscurity.

While Satyabhakta did not intend to alienate Muslims or non-Hindus, modern historians note an inevitable blind spot in his method: because he operated almost exclusively within the Hindi-Hindu literary public sphere of Uttar Pradesh, his imagery and literary idiom were saturated with upper-caste North Indian references. Even without sectarian intent, this vernacular style made his brand of communism difficult to scale across India's linguistically and religiously diverse working class.

It leaves behind a fascinating question: What if the Indian left had followed Satyabhakta's model of culturally rooted, sovereign "National Communism" rather than aligning with Moscow, would communism have become India's dominant political mainstream instead of being sidelined by regional and religious divides?

https://theprint.in/opinion/a-communist-ram-rajya-satyabhakta-is-a-forgotten-figure-of-hindu-left/715126/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Bhakta

I have been researching the history of Christianity in Lucknow for a long-form piece, and the disproportion between the community's size and its institutional footprint is striking enough that I think it is worth putting down here.

Some of what I found:

1. In 1858 an Irish priest, Father William Gleeson, sold his own land to purchase a plot in what was then jungle on the edge of the city. That plot is now Hazratganj. The first church came up in 1860 and was blessed in 1862.

2. In 1885 Father Norbert began teaching two boys — Isaac and Charles Claudius — in a verandah. Several of Lucknow's oldest schools trace back to that verandah.

3. In 1870 Isabella Thoburn, an American Methodist missionary, started a girls' school in a single rented room in Aminabad with six students. It became Isabella Thoburn College, among the earliest women's colleges in Asia.

4. During the Second World War, Italian Capuchin priests of the Lucknow diocese were interned as enemy aliens by the same colonial administration that is usually credited with bringing Christianity to the city. Albert Conrad De Vito, the diocese's first bishop, was Italian. The first Indian bishop, Cecil DeSa, came only in 1971.

5. Against a diocesan population of over 20 million, the Catholic community is roughly 7,500 people.

The standard framing of Awadh's composite culture is always two-stranded. This third strand educated a substantial part of the city and is almost never mentioned in it.

I have written the full piece in Hindi, combining this history with a personal memory of visiting St. Joseph's Cathedral as a nine-year-old on Christmas Day:

https://medium.com/@syash8627/%E0%A4%B2%E0%A4%96%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%8A-%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%80-%E0%A4%88%E0%A4%B8%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%87%E0%A4%AF%E0%A4%A4-%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%B9-%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%B9%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%A8%E0%A5%80-%E0%A4%9C%E0%A5%8B-%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%AD%E0%A5%80-%E0%A4%B8%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%88-%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%B9%E0%A5%80%E0%A4%82-%E0%A4%97%E0%A4%88-583bd8d2e921

Was this pattern specific to Lucknow, or did other Indian cities also end up with a tiny Christian population running a disproportionate share of the schools? I would be curious to know how Allahabad, Kanpur or Patna compare.