tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78527690012374924812024-03-13T04:15:47.298-07:00THE World HistorySwronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-46598771389274415562010-09-30T09:08:00.000-07:002010-09-30T09:08:31.754-07:00+ Indian Mythology<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Indian Mythology is not only old (1200 B.C), but also vast. The hymns of the Rig Veda are considered the oldest mythological heritage. At this time man had faith in everything around him and godliness was attached to every wonder he saw or experienced. Thus was formed the triad of the early Vedic Gods - Agni, Vayu and Surya. The Vedic Gods were mere abstractions, intangible and illusive but in the post-Vedic phase or in the Puranas the gods assumed substantial shape and individual character. <br />
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The two Itihasa or epics Ramayana and the Mahabharata were compiled in the late Vedic period. The heroes of the Vedic age gradually dislodged the shadowy gods and found their place in the Puranas. The Puranic Gods who had their seeds and roots in the Vedas gave rise to the concept of Trimurti. Thus emerged the transition of Hindu mythology from Vedic Gods (the Cosmic Trinity: Agni, Vayu and Surya) to Puranic Gods (the Hindu Trinity: Brahma - Vishnu - Mahesha). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Om or Aum symbolizes the essence of Hinduism. It means oneness with the Supreme, the merging of the physical being with the spiritual. The most sacred syllable, the first sound of the Almighty - the sound from which emerges each and every other sound, whether of music or of language. In the Upanishads this sacred syllable appears as a mystic sound, regarded by scriptures as the very basis of every other sacred mantra (hymn). It is the sound not only of origination but also of dissolution. The past, present and future are all included in this one sound and all that transcends this configuration of time is also implied in Om.<br />
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The Indian pantheon consists of 33 Crore Gods. Although these gods are not individually worshipped expect for some, they have a special place in the Hindu mythology and are often seen in temples or in paintings or pictures beside the main three triads and their various manifestations. Here are some of the significant ones:<br />
<br />
HANUMAN - the monkey god - devotee of Rama<br />
INDRA - King of the abode of gods<br />
YAMA - the god of death<br />
GAYATRI - personification of the Vedic hymn<br />
GANGA - personification of the holy river<br />
KAMADEVA - god of love<br />
KUBERA - god of wealth<br />
NARADA - the wandering seer who features in almost all the Puranas <br />
VARUNA - the god of oceans<br />
SOMA - the moon god<br />
VISHWAKARMA - the divine architect of the universe </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Other than these lesser gods there are a host of celestial beings. These are often mentioned in the various Vedas and Puranas and are much a part of the Hindu mythology as the lesser gods. Celestial beings:<br />
<br />
<strong>APSARAS</strong>: These are beautiful ladies, who dance in the court of Indra. Indra also uses them to lure the saints and sages who by their severe penance endanger his superiority as the ruler of Swarga (Paradise of Indra). In the Vedas they were personification of vapor and in the Puranas the ballet girls in Swarga. RAMBHA, URVASI and MENAKA are the most celebrated of them.<br />
<br />
<strong>GANDHARVAS</strong>: Gandharvas are the celestial musicians who play in the court of Indra and also when some divine act of the gods had been completed in the interest of humanity. They are said to have a great partiality for women and are said to be exceptionally handsome.<br />
<br />
<strong>KINNARAS</strong>: are mythical beings, with a body of a man and head of a horse. They are singers at the court of Indra. They are also sometimes said to be the minstrels of Kubera's palace at Mount Kailasa, which is also the abode of Shiva.<br />
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<strong>SIDDHAS</strong>: are classes of spirits of great purity and holiness, who dwell apart in the sky or mid-air between earth and heaven.<br />
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<strong>YAKSHA</strong>: They are the guardians of wealth and attendants of Kubera, employed to guard his gardens and treasure. They live in ALKA-PURI (yaksha-puri). The female of Yaksha is known as YAKSHINI.<br />
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Animals have a special place in Hindu mythology. One comes across various animals in Hindu mythology some, which have been personified and given a form as the centuries passed. These animals have been symbolic as the vehicles and carrier of various gods or one, which have helped the gods in various times. Some of them appear as independent divine creatures and are worshipped in various ways.<br />
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The various animals in Hindu Mythology: <br />
<br />
AIRAVATA the elephant - vehicle of Indra <br />
AKUPARA the tortoise - on which Earth or Prithvi rests<br />
ANTELOPE - vehicle of Vayu and Chandra<br />
ARVA, mythical being half horse and half bird - one of the horses of the moon<br />
BUFFALO - vehicle of Yama<br />
CERBURA - the three headed infernal dog of the Krishna legend<br />
CROW - vehicle of Shani<br />
DOG and HORSE - vehicle of Shiva as Bhairava<br />
GARUDA the king of birds - half man and half eagle or vulture, vehicle of Vishnu<br />
JAMBAVANT, the king of bears - ally of Rama<br />
KAMADHENU - the cow of plenty<br />
MAKARA or JALAMPA the mythical sea monster - vehicle of Varuna (god of water)<br />
MOUSE - vehicle of Ganesha<br />
NANDI the bull - vehicle of Shiva and Parvati<br />
PARAVANI the peacock - vehicle of Kartikeya<br />
PARROT - vehicle of Kamadeva<br />
RAM, the he-goat - vehicle of Agni<br />
SARAMA - dog of Indra<br />
SHESHNAG or ANANTA the infinite - the king of Nagas, vehicle of Vishnu or the bed on which Vishnu rests<br />
SWAN - vehicle of Saraswati and Brahma<br />
TARKSHYA - winged horse personifying the sun<br />
TIGER and LION - vehicle of Parvati as Kali and Durga<br />
UCHCHAIH-SRAVAS - the eight headed king of horses produced during the churning of oceans<br />
<br />
In Hindu religion and mythology, the nine planets occupy an important role. The planet deities are referred to as the NAVAGRAHA and are supposed to have a significant impact on the lives of individuals. Hindus worship these planets as deities, so that they may bring peace and harmony and avert any mishap. <br />
<br />
Of the Navagrahas the first seven Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, lend their names to the days of the week: Sunday to Saturday respectively. The other two Rahu (Ascending node) and Ketu (Descending node) are also fabled as planets, the former as a planet with a head and no body and the latter as a planet with a body and no head. The Navgrahas are propitiated because of their sinister effects (Saturn, Rahu and Ketu) and for their favorable influences (Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Mars, the sun and the moon). In addition to the nine planets, twenty seven nakshatras (constellations) through which the moon passes and twelve signs of zodiac of the sun, regarded as deities, are consulted at births, marriages and on al occasions of family rejoicing, distress or calamity. Shanti (Peace) propitiation ceremony is held to appease any unfavorable constellations.</div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-27426378822029866412010-09-30T09:00:00.000-07:002010-09-30T09:00:53.592-07:00+ Monuments of India<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> India is a land rich in monumental heritage. The monuments of India not only showcase the breathtaking architectural splendor and intricate work but, also serve as a testimony to India’s affluent past.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">List of historical monuments of India<br />
</span></strong>Here is a list of the most popular monuments of India:</div><ul><li><div style="text-align: justify;">Adilabad – The Fourth Fort of Delhi: Adilab is the fourth fort of Delhi, built by Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq. Much of the fort now lies in ruins but, the basic structure has survived. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Adlaj Vav – An Architectural Marvel: The structure of the Adlaj Vav echoes the Indo-Islamic style of architecture. It is a unique water work, a five storied step-well and is located in a small village of Adlaj, 19 km from Ahmedabad.<br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Agar Sain Ki Baoli: A step-well, known for its traditional Hindu style of architecture, Agar Sain Ki Baoli is located at the heart of the city of Delhi. The history of its origin is shrouded in mystery and there are a number of plausible assumptions about the age and name of its builder. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Agra Fort: A UNESCO World Heritage site, Agra Fort is a massive building built by Akbar the great. The fort is made of red sandstone and is located on the banks of the Yamuna River. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Akbar’s Tomb: A Mughal architectural masterpiece, Akbar’s Tomb is located in Sikander, which is a small suburb of Agra. The tomb is a bright red-tired structure and is different from previous Mughal buildings.<br />
</div></li>
<div style="text-align: justify;">Alai Darwaza: Alai Darwaza is a magnificent gateway and belongs to the period of Delhi Sulatanate (1191-1526). It was built by Ala-ud-din Khilji in 1311 and showcases a new style of architecture.
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Bada Imambada: It is an important tourist attraction in Lucknow. The design pattern of the monument is the main attraction here. It reflects the era in which it was built. The great hall is presumed to be the largest hall in Asia. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Bandnore Fort: It is a seven storied fort located in the colorful state of Rajasthan. The fort reflects the fascinating history of the past and typifies the medieval Indian military style of architecture.<br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Bijai Mandal: The structure of the Bijai Mandal is a matter of controversy. It is neither a fort nor a tower. It is an oblong building which houses a number of rooms within in. The intriguing structure was built by Muhammad Bin Tughlaq, the second ruler of the Tughlaq dynasty.<br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Cellular Jail: The Cellular Jail is located in Port Blair. The jail symbolizes the hardships and inhuman treatment, which the inmates had to encounter during their struggle to attain freedom from the clutches of the British. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Charminar: A famous mosque and monument in the city of Hyderabad, Charminar stands as a pivotal structure around which the glory and history of Hyderabad prevails. The Charminar was built by Mohammad Quli Qutub Shah, the Sultan of Golconda in 1591. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Chittorgarh Fort: The fort is an exemplification of the Rajput style of architecture and highlights the story of the Rajput rulers who laid down their life fighting. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Fatehpur Sikri: It is a majestic city of the Mughal dynasty and was built by the Mughal Emperor Akbar. The Fatehpur Sikri is an amalgamation of different architectural traditions. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Ferozshah Kotla: The citadel was built by Ferozshah Tughlaq. Ferozshah Kotla was the capital city of Ferozshah Tughlaq.<br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Fort St. Georgefirst Fort of the Colonial Era: Built in 1640, it is the first fort that was built by the British in India. It is located on the coastal areas of the Bay of Bengal and is illustrative of the military architecture.<br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Golconda Fort: The fort reflects the grandeur of the military architecture. It was used as a defensive structure during the 17th century.<br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Hauz-I-Alai: It is a unique water work built by Ala-ud-din. It was built with an aim to surmount the problem of water scarcity in the capital city of Siri.<br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Hawa Mahal: Located in the pink city of Jaipur, the structure of the Hawa Mahal is a perfect blend of Rajput and Mughal architecture. It is an important landmark of the Jaipur city. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Humayun’s Tomb: Built by Haji Begum in 1569-70, the Humayun’s Tomb enhances the Mughal style of architecture. The tomb is located in the eastern part of Delhi. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Itmad-Ud-Daulah’s Tomb: A highly elaborate edifice the Itmad-Ud-Daulah was built between 1622 and 1628 by Nurjahan. It reflects the Islamic style of architecture. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Jantar Mantar: The Jantar Mantar reflects the existence and spirit of science in ancient India. The intriguing structure was built in 1725 by Sawai Jai Sing II. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Kalinjar Fort: The Kalinjar Fort is the abode of a number of monuments and sculptures, which conform to the Hindu style of architecture. It was built in the 7th century AD by Kedar Burman. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Purana Quila: The structure amply reflects the medieval military style of architecture. It was built in the 16th century by Humayun and Sher Shah Suri.<br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Quitab Minar: Built by Qutub-ud-din Aibak in 1193, the Qutub Minar is an important tourist spot in Delhi. It is a red sandstone tower, which extends to a height of 72.5 m. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Rohtas Fort: The Rohtas Fort stands as a good example of the military style of architecture. The fortress houses a number of buildings in its precincts. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Sher Mandal: Sher Mandal is an attractive structure built in the 16th century by Sher Shah Suri. It was here that the second Mughal emperor Humayun fell to his death.<br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Siri Fort: It is a defensive fort built by Ala-ud-din Khilji. It was built with an aim to protect the people of his city from the Mongols invaders. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Taj Mahal: No monuments can surpass the Taj Mahal, in terms of the beauty rendered. Built by Shah Jahan in 1632-53, the Taj Mahal marks the peak of Mughal architecture. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">The Gol Gumbaz: The Gol Gumbaz is the resting place of Muhammad Adil Shah, the seventh ruler of the Adil Shahi dynasty. Built in 1656, it stands as one of the most important building of Bijapur (Karnataka). <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">The Red Fort: The Red Fort stands as a good example of the Mughal military architecture. It was built by Shahjahan in 1638-46. It invariably stands as a symbol of India’s Independence. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Tughlaqabad Fort: It is a massive fort which dates back to the period of the Delhi Sultanate. It was built in the 14th century AD by Ghiyas-ud-din-Tughlaq and symbolizes the Tughlaq power. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Victoria Memorial: Built by Lord Curzon in 106-21, the Victoria Memorial is a wonderful example of the colonial style of architecture. It is located in the heart of the Calcutta city and houses a range of beautiful artifacts. </div></li>
</ul>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-5337442055542970542010-09-30T08:55:00.000-07:002010-09-30T08:55:48.530-07:00+ Indian Art and Culture<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Indian Art and Culture unravels the uniqueness and diversity of the country in all spheres. Each region has its own distinctive traits and they inevitably contribute to the profundity of the Indian culture.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">Dance forms in India<br />
</span></strong>Here are some of the most popular dance forms of India : </div><ul><li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Chhau:</b> This dance form originated in the region of Seraikella and is performed on the eve of the spring festival every year. The mask is the main focus of this dance. It is a traditional art form and is still performed all over the country.<br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Bhangra:</b> Bhangra is a popular folk dance of Punjab, North India. It is a dance performed on special occasions like weddings and festivals. The dance symbolizes and reflects the happiness of the Punjabi farmers. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Mohiniattam:</b> Mohiniattam is one of the major classical dance styles of India. It is an elegant dance form that originated from the land of Kerela and today, the dance form has spread to other parts of India as well. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Manipuri:</b> Manipuri is a popular dance of the state of Manipur. The main theme of the Manipuri dance is the love of Radha and Lord Krishna. In the 18th century the Manipuri dance blossomed into a classical dance form.</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Myriad Emotions:</b> It is a dance form in which myriad emotions are portrayed by the artist dancers. It originated from the Kuchipudi village, in the Krishna district of Andhra and its origin dates back to as far as the 2nd century B.C. Innumerable emotions ranging from pride to anger are expressed.<br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Odissi Dance:</b> It is one of the oldest classical dances of the country. The dance themes mainly centers on the eternal love stories of Radha and Krishna. The Odissi dance can be distinguished from other dance form by the colorful costumes, ornaments, dance steps and fine display of emotions of love and pangs of separation. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Kathakali:</b> Kathakali is a unique dance form of Kerela and dates back to the 17th century. The themes are mostly religious. The costume of the Kathakali dance is intricate and is one of the distinctive traits of this dance. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Bharat Natyam:</b> Bahrat Natyam is India’s ancient classical dance style. It originated from the land of Tamil Nadu and has come a long way since the time of its invention and days in the temples. This dance form is famous not only in India but also abroad. It is regarded as the most elegant of all the dance form in India. </div></li>
</ul><h3 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Indian Music Forms</span></h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><ul><li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tradition</b> – A story of Strings: The string instruments have reached great heights in recent times. The endless moments of ecstasy and pleasure one can derive by listening to the soothing sound of the string instruments, cannot be actually surpassed by any other form of instruments. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Carnatic Music:</b> The carnatic music of the South Indian exposes the rich history and culture of the past. It is considered to be the richest and oldest music tradition in the world. The south Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Kerela, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are famous for their strong presentation of the Carnatic music. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Hindustani Music:</b> The Hindustani Music has assumed a role of immense significance. It is based primarily on the raga system, which is a melodic scale comprising of notes. Each raga acquires a distinctive character of its own. Hindustani music is catchy, rhythmic and takes us to the depth of the Indian culture. <br />
</div></li>
</ul>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-52811619194634318602010-09-30T08:51:00.000-07:002010-09-30T08:51:36.619-07:00+ Prehistoric India<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The prehistoric years in India is speculated to have begun from 200000 B.C to about 3500-2500 B.C. Prehistory refers to the time when life first appeared on earth. It also refers to the period of time when the first civilization took shape. Ever since men set their foot on earth, they began to wander from one corner to another. The primitive men lived on food hunting and food gathering. This was their primary occupation and they shoveled in groups of small families. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Prehistoric Age can be broadly divided into:<br />
<br />
<b>Stone Age:</b> As the name signifies, it was an age when stone was used as a primary tool for utilitarian purpose. The Stone Age has been further classified into the Paleolithic Age or the Old Stone Age, Mesolithic Age or the Middle Stone Age and Neolithic Age or the New Stone Age. <br />
<br />
<b>Paleolithic Age:</b> Men of this age were food gatherers and they live in close association with nature. The Paleolithic Age is the earliest period of the Stone Age. The stone was used as an effective tool and various kinds of hunting weapons were curved out of them. These weapons were used to kill small animals and for tearing their flesh. Man also learnt to produce fire and extensively made use of them for various purpose. The Paleolithic age lasted till 8000 B.C. <br />
<br />
<b>Mesolithic Age:</b> Small communities were formed in this age. Human beings were slowly learning to lead a life of subsistence. The stone tools were modernized and farming began to take place at an alarming rate. Men made weapons like hand axes, spears, borers and burins. There were small settlements in some parts and the age witnessed a radical change in the food and clothing habits. Man adopted the art of drawing and painting and the famous Bhimbetka Cave near Bhopal stands as an indication of the artiste in them. The Mesolithic Age lasted from 8000B.C – 4000B.C. It was an age, which saw an upsurge in the development of human technology.<br />
<br />
<b>Neolithic Age:</b> The Neolithic Age is the last stage of the Stone Age Era. Weapons were improvised all the more in this age, as men adopted new techniques. The age saw the wide domestication of cattle, horses and other animals. They were used to produce meat and milk products. It was in the Neolithic Age that the great utility of the wheel came to the awareness of the human beings. At a later stage of this age, bronze and copper were used to make weapons and tools were specialized all the more. In short, it was a period of technological and social development.<br />
<br />
<b>Bronze Age:</b> Tools and weapons were given a new look. The Bronze period commenced immediately after the Neolithic Age. Although, the exact date of its origin is not known, it is said to have begun around 3300B.C. Men began to adopt the most advanced means of livelihood.<br />
<br />
<b>Iron Age:</b> As the name itself connotes, it is an age when iron became the primary material for making tools and weapons. </div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-68228154939216256782010-09-30T08:46:00.000-07:002010-09-30T08:46:20.214-07:00+ Ancient History of India<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> <strong><span class="content_heading">Dates of the Ancient period of Indian History</span></strong><br />
It is safe to assume the advent of Aryans on Indian soil as the date of the ancient period in India. The prior civilizations of India have been categorized under Prehistoric Indian civilizations. The arrival of the Aryans to India is believed to have taken place sometime around the 2nd millennium BC. This is also the beginning of a period when we receive the earliest forms of literary sources for the study of history.<br />
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<h2 style="text-align: justify;">Phases of Ancient Indian history</h2><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
]The history of ancient India can be best described if it is detailed in phases. <br />
<br />
<strong><span class="content_heading">The Vedic Age</span></strong><br />
This is the earliest period of ancient Indian history. The name has been derived from the Vedas or the sacred texts of the Aryans who had arrived in India. In the beginning this civilization centered in the north and north western parts of India. The Vedic Age can be ideally divided as the early Vedic age and the later Vedic age.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><ul><li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Early Vedic Age</b> – the early period of Aryan settlement in the Indian subcontinent as well as the establishment of the civilization can be termed as the early Vedic Age. This period is marked by some important developments. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Rigveda</b> – this ancient text was developed during this age. It is a collection Sanskrit hymns that touch almost every aspect of human life. It forms the basic religious text of Hinduism and the sacred chants are in practice even today.<br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Political System</b> – it is difficult to assume whether the unique political system that developed during this period was a left over of the Indus valley civilization or entirely devised by the Indo Aryans themselves. However this system was unique in the developments of various political units of administration like that of a Grama (village), Vish and Jana all of which formed the Rashtra. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Administrative System </b>– this was probably the earliest reflection of a republic where the popular opinion of the majority was considered. There were two sections called the Sabha that consisted of elderly people and the Samiti that consisted of younger opinions. It was the joint opinion that was taken in view before implementation by the king. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Caste System </b>– though there was a caste system called Varna it was purely a segregation of the people in the basis of their professional pursuits. There were no discriminations in practice on account of that.<br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Religious Practices – there were religious ceremonies and all such practices were followed on the lines of the methods laid down in the Vedas. These ceremonies were seen of a communication between man and the Creator. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Later Vedic Age</b> – the Later Vedic Age is defined from a period around 500 BC. This is the period that marks a change in every aspect of life from that of the Early Vedic Age. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Mahajanapadas</b> – in the political arena the earlier units disappeared with the rise of the 16 Mahajanapadas. This rise also reflects the power of kingship that developed in the period with strong domination of the Kshatriyas over political and military affairs of the states.<br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Caste System</b> – a strict caste system developed over the years with the two top castes of Brahmins and Kshatriyas were considered superior than the others and enjoyed all social privileges. This was the period when severe caste discrimination was in vogue especially against those who were considered to belong to the lower castes.<br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Religious System</b> – the sanctified religious practices were later replaced by elaborate rituals and expensive ceremonies that were usually out of the reach of ordinary people. The performing of such rituals also made the Brahmins important in society and was considered to be the representatives of God on earth. <br />
<br />
<strong>Dynasties of Ancient India</strong></div></li>
</ul><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
There were several dynasties of ancient India that are remembered even today for the number of worthy and efficient kings that each have produced. All of these great men have effectively worked for the welfare of the people as well as the glory of the nation. Some of the important dynasties were as follows <br />
</div><ul><li><div style="text-align: justify;">Sisunaga Dynasty – Bimbisara </div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Mauryan Dynasty – Chandragupta Maurya, Asoka the Great </div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Satavahana Dynasty – Gautamiputra Satakarni</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;">Gupta Dynasty – Chandra Gupta I, Samudra Gupta, Chandragupta II, Kumaragupta I, Skandagupta </div></li>
</ul><h4 style="text-align: justify;">Important Kings of Ancient India </h4><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
The different phases of ancient Indian history have seen Kings who are remembered even today for their political and military accomplishments. </div><ul><li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Bimbisara</b> – he was the king of the Magadhan Empire from 543 BC. He was the famous king of Magadha under whose rule the kingdom was not only increased in its political expanses but also flourished in several activities like arts and culture.<br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Chandragupta Maurya</b> – the founder of the Mauryan Dynasty he can be given credence for bringing the territories of the Indian subcontinent under one rule. He is also considered to be the true Emperor of India who could have consolidated a huge kingdom with good administrative and military capability. </div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Asoka the Great</b> – son of Chandragupta Maurya he was one of India’s greatest emperors whose reign extended from 304 BC to 232 BC. He is remembered even today for his political achievements as well as his embrace of Buddhism after the Kalinga War. He was responsible for spreading the religion to several countries of the world. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Gautamiputra Satakarni</b> – he is known as the greatest of the Satavahana kings after his father Satakarni. The Satavahana Empire was integrated into a strong kingdom under his rule when he defeated several detractors to increase the power of the Satavahana Kingdom. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Chandra Gupta I</b> – it was under his rule that the Gupta dynasty saw a rise in its power and glory. He is often described as a Maharajadhiraja which is symbolic of an increase of the power and resources of the kingdom. <br />
</div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Samudra Gupta</b> – he is considered to be the greatest of the Gupta kings. There was a great deal of socio-political and cultural activities that took place during his time. It is understood from the sources that he was a keen patron of music and art besides being a good king to his subjects. The period of his rule between 335 AD and 380 AD is also referred to as the Golden Age in Indian history.<br />
<br />
</div></li>
</ul>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-3679024647201001422010-05-24T12:50:00.001-07:002010-06-26T00:46:59.443-07:00THE WARS OF MARATHA SUCCESSION<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">King Shahu’s long reign ended in 1749. A confusion of succession struggles among factions of the royal family promptly ensued, until the peshwa Balaji Bajirao intervened to restore order. The leaders of the various contending factions were convened and forced to accept the conditions he set down, for by this time the peshwa was the true ruler in all but name. He decided that the capital of the kingdom would henceforward be Pune, not Satara, where Shahu had held court; certain offices, such as that of nominal head of the armies, which had been royal appointments, were abolished and along with them many royal rights. All power as well as authority was now concentrated in the peshwa’s office, and he insisted that he would control the king in all things.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The usurpation of royal power by a Brahman minister merely ratified a situation long in development. With a more centralized government structure had comes other accretions of ministerial power. Balaji Bajirao now commanded an army of paid soldiers; no longer did Maratha soldiers retire from campaigns each year in order to cultivate their fields. The day of the Maratha peasant warrior band was over; most fighting men now served as paid soldiers, garrisoned in forts and towns far from home, and trained as infantrymen as well as horsemen. Artillery, however, remained marginally incorporated. The large guns were nominally under the command of Maratha officers; those who fi red and maintained them were often foreigners – Portuguese, French and British – but the guns themselves were not up to the state of artillery art already known to Europeans and to a new, menacing force destined to extinguish the imperial moment of the Marathas at Panipat, near Delhi, in 1761.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Panipat brought the Marathas into fatal contact with the king of the Afghans, Ahmad Shah Abdali of the Durrani clan, who had already proved himself capable of halting the Maratha advance into the Punjab, which he invaded eight times before finally pressing on towards Delhi. The Marathas were now divided among several commanders who approached battle with widely differing tactics; some followed the old system utilizing light horse, others adopted the ponderous Mughal tactics and one Muslim commander modeled his force on the European lines of trained and coordinated infantry and artillery.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Artillery decided the battle in January, 1761: the light, mobile artillery of the Afghans proved lethal against both Maratha cavalry and infantry. Six months were to elapse before the shattered remnants of the Maratha armies that had gathered at Panipat found their way back to Maharashtra, and by then Maratha supremacy over the subcontinent had passed.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">During the next forty years, the polity briefly centralized by the peshwas dissolved into a set of states united in one objective: they would no longer brook the arrogant rule of Chitpavan ministers. Otherwise the major Maratha houses, all founded by members of the new military elite that had emerged under the peshwas, concentrated on making kingdoms of their own. The new kingdoms were at Baroda in Gujarat under the Gaikwad family, at Indore in Malwa and in the central Deccan tracts north of the Narmada under the Holkars. South of Delhi at Gwalior was the Shinde (or Sindhia) family; at Nagpur in western Maharashtra the Bhonsles endured; and, finally, in the Pune region, descendants of the peshwas retained a territorial sway made fragile by competing smaller houses in the heartland of the former state. It was this set of fissiparous Maratha states, fragments of the great expansion of the middle decades of the eighteenth century that confronted a British power then in the process of territorial entrenchment in Bengal and the Carnatic, and poised to open the colonial era of Indian history.</span><o:p></o:p></div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-83169073811780903782010-05-24T12:49:00.003-07:002010-06-26T00:47:14.960-07:00PESHWA BUREAUCRACY<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Malwa and Gujarat, closer to the Maratha heartland, had greater wealth than Rajasthan and were treated in a different way. A system of revenue farming was introduced to provide a reliable stream of income to the peshwa without any costly reforms of the socio - economic and political structure of local society. The key Maratha official in this system was called the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">kamavisdar</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">; he was appointed by the peshwa and empowered to maintain a small body of soldiers to police the administrative tract for which he had purchased the right to collect revenue. A small staff of clerks and minor servants, usually Brahmans, were employed to maintain the accurate revenue records demanded by the peshwa. Tax - farming contracts were auctioned annually after the revenue for a particular place was first estimated by the peshwa ’ s civil servants, usually on the basis of previous years ’ yields. An aspiring tax farmer who won the kamavisdar contract was expected to have a reputation for wealth and probity; he was required to pay a portion of the whole of the anticipated revenue – one - third to one - half – either out of his own wealth or from what he could borrow from bankers. Conscientious kamavisdars prepared detailed records of the localities they had bid for so that they might repeat the process in subsequent years. Most of them also invested in the cultivation and commerce of their allotted territories, expecting to add profits to the commissions they took from the revenue contract.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Record - keeping under the peshwas exceeded any previously known in India, judging from their </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">daftars</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">, which were ledgers of correspondence and account books. These have provided a rich resource for modern historians as well as a model for local administration, imitated by the British India in the next century. The Maratha regime at its zenith was headed by literate Brahmans who made policies as well as account books. Other regimes of the time also employed scribes and some kinds of records were maintained, often by Brahmans whose caste practices were not priestly, but secular, working in the world of politics and commerce just as the Chitpavans did. Hence, while the Chitpavans may have devised the most elaborate system of documentary control India had known up to that point, they were not the only ones to attempt it, in part at least because the problems of governance had become more complicated for all by the eighteenth century. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">By then, if not before, bureaucratic management began to be as important to states as military and charismatic lordship. Accurate record - keeping had been introduced in numerous local settings and institutions, but not until the eighteenth century did the principle find expression at the apex of a political order, thanks to Brahman managers who constructed a state form that matched the challenges of the age, yet accorded well with their traditional caste occupation.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Regimes like the peshwas’ look distinctly modern in comparison with the Mughals’, to whose fall they contributed militarily. But the seeds of the Mughal demise were not merely military, or administrative. Peasant restiveness and rebellions had stretched them beyond their already desperate condition in the Deccan. At the same time, gentry nurtured within Mughal society saw its interests better served in opposition to the Timurid regime. The Maratha kingdom of the eighteenth century faced some of the same pressures of change, but devised ways of surmounting them, at least for a time.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The peshwas had to dominate a complex world of negotiation with the diverse local institutions that the Marathas encountered in such far - flung places as Malwa, Gujarat, Khandesh and their territories in the Kaveri basin and elsewhere in the south. Zamindars, or big landlords, village headmen representing powerful peasant castes, and deshmukhs, or regional chiefs, had to be either suppressed or integrated into increasingly centralized structures.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">That meant bending these historically autonomous magnates to the will and the ordinances of the rulers. As never before, resources had to be assessed accurately and in detail so that central demands could be accepted as legitimate by the traditional heads of communities who were still capable of effective and costly resistance.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Gradually, during the eighteenth century the proto - gentry of the sixteenth century emerged as a class. Its members were privileged in their political relations with states like the Maratha and the British who succeeded them, and they were involved in rural commodity production and in market towns. These elite also assumed roles as arbiters of local culture, as trustees of religious organizations, which had previously belonged to kings; from that sponsorship they acquired yet another increment of prestige in their social worlds.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Mirroring the processes of social mobility and class formation were new forms of production. The early eighteenth century was once more an epoch of building, most notably of mansions of wealthy families, whose imposing exterior walls enclosed sumptuous interiors with accessibility limited in accordance with the principles of purdah. A new market for luxury consumption of metal work, ornamental ivory, wood and silver work developed, and support for musicians and poets was made part of the quasi - court life of the elite. A new class of wealthy, powerful households had emerged which was to constitute the basis for a modern middle class during the twentieth century.</span></span></div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-66282892656138483762010-05-24T12:49:00.001-07:002010-06-26T00:47:52.294-07:00MARATHA MONETARY MASTERY<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">The Maratha over lordship in the Deccan was based less upon its superior military might than upon the qualities of the Maratha elite that grew up under the peshwas and Shahu in the years before 1740. (At the same time, the former imperial Mughal ruling class was being scattered among provincial and minor courts.) Talented and ambitious peasant Marathas found openings to fortune even as those of the older elite of deshmukh families fell, and Brahmans rose with the same tide. Their scribal abilities were at a premium as conquests were followed by the establishment of civil rule. The peshwa’s Chitpavans kinsmen were the special recipients of honours and office, not merely as bureaucrats, but as soldiers in the manner of Bajirao himself. Other Brahmans became bankers, joining those from traditional banking groups who were being drawn into state service. Financial knowledge and institutions were mobilized to realize the prompt transmission of tribute from an increasingly extensive empire, and Bajirao adopted the policy of centralizing all fiscal functions in Pune by 1740.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">The northern frontiers of the Maratha state were rapidly pushed into Rajasthan, Delhi and the Punjab; to the east, the Marathas launched raids from Nagpur against Bihar, Bengal and Orissa; and the older area of Maratha influence to the south – Karnataka and the Tamil and Telugu areas eastwards – experienced a Maratha over lordship now invigorated by its sub-continental dominance. Between 1745 and 1751 plundering expeditions were launched yearly by the Maratha chieftain Raghuji Bhonsle and vigorously opposed by Alivardi Khan in Bengal, now more or less independent of Delhi. Raghuji nevertheless forced a settlement which placed Orissa under a governor chosen by the Marathas, making it a Maratha province in effect, and in addition a very large tribute was forthcoming from Bengal. The conflict between Marathas and the Nizam continued over Karnataka, on the southeastern frontier of the Marathas, becoming a stalemate in which Karnataka was shared between both.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">Periodic raiding gave way to more permanent administrative milking by the 1750s, which saw a new element added to the complex politics of the Deccan when a French - led army of mercenaries acting for the Nizam fought against Maratha soldiers and provided impressive evidence of a newer European military technology. This was based upon well drilled infantry formations backed by rapid - fi ring, precision - cast artillery pieces, both of which diminished the advantages previously enjoyed by Maratha light cavalry. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">Further to the north, in Rajasthan, Maratha influence took another form; there territorial aggrandizement was eschewed in favor of the enforcement of a tribute system over numerous large and small lordships. A lucrative sideline of the Rajasthan policy was the hiring out of Maratha squadrons to minor chiefs who were engaged in fighting each other for some territorial advantage. In time, the Maratha tributary regime extended itself to within fifty miles of Delhi, where, in a narrow tract, the remnant of the great Mughal Empire gasped its last.</span></span></div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-53871580937533114652010-05-24T12:48:00.000-07:002010-06-26T00:48:04.832-07:00THE NEW ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL OPPORTUNITIES UNDER THE MARATHAS<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">Warfare opened opportunities for talented commanders among deshmukh families, but there were also increased opportunities for Brahmans, and they too contributed to the vigorous expansion of Maratha power early in the eighteenth century. Notable among them was the ministerial lineage of Chitpavans, who held the office of peshwa under King Shahu and his successors.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">Originating modestly as that of keeper of records, under the peshwa Balaji Viswanath, the office was transformed into that of prime minister of the kingdom, and hereditary to boot. Viswanath’s son Bajirao held the post from 1720 to 1740 and Bajirao’s son Balaji Bajirao from then to 1761. Under the peshwas a new elite formed consisting partly of old deshmukh families to which were added other, self - made, men, leaders of military bands who might have held pedigrees no greater than that of village headman. New men and households displaced older families that failed to meet the standards of rapine and cunning of the new era politics in an emergent Maratha state.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">Given the persistent independence and fickle affiliation of the chiefly deshmukhs and warrior leaders among the Marathas, such solidity as the Maratha state possessed must be attributed to the personalities of Shahu and his ministers, the peshwas. Consolidation of royal power during the first half of the eighteenth century was tenuously achieved, or bought, through the conferral of royal entitlements upon those who served Shahu or the peshwa. These were non - hereditary grants of privilege and property, supposedly conditional on state service. However, the fighting elite who were the usual recipients of such honours assiduously converted the conditionality of the grants into community - backed, hereditary privileges called </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">watan</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">, a term signifying the ‘home’ and the core rights of a family upon which wealth and status depended. Nevertheless, during Shahu ’ s forty - year reign, even while a large set of landed households profited from state employment, a stronger, more centralized, state structure began to take form, thanks to the ageing king and his succession of ministers.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">During most of Shahu’s reign, there was a steady increase in the territory under Maratha sway, from which tribute was extracted; after his death in 1749, and until 1761, these conquests were at first continued under the peshwa Balaji Bajirao. Shahu’s perspicacious choice of the twenty-year–old Bajirao to follow his father into the office of peshwa in 1720 had defied advice, but misgivings were stilled when Bajirao outlined his plans. He had decided to launch the major Maratha thrust against the Mughals, leaving for the future the possibility of advancing the Maratha hegemony into the south and against the realm of the Nizam of Hyderabad. He also decided that he himself should assume command of this northern expedition on behalf of Shahu, so as to assure that the king alone accrued the glory and wealth of humbling the Mughals that he was sure would follow. To finance this military campaign, he judged that the treasure it would yield would pay for both the war and the subsequent administration of Gujarat and Malwa. Even Delhi itself was not ruled out as an object of conquest and source of treasure.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">Bajirao was astute in his choice of commanders for these undertakings. Passing over the established elite of the deshmukhs, commands were given to new men of the Gaikwad, Holkar and Shinde families, who had been loyal to Shahu and to his father and now to himself. Enhanced armies were formed, and when they were not deployed on the peshwa’s conquests they served his interests by being hired out to lesser lords in some remote conflict.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">The northern adventure proceeded. Malwa and Gujarat were freed of Mughal domination by the mid - 1720s, after the dispirited Mughal commanders were defeated along with troops of the Nizam who intervened on behalf of the Mughals. Now it became necessary to deal with the Nizam, and this Bajirao did; in 1728 the main force of the Nizam was trapped by Maratha horsemen in the favorable guerrilla terrain around Aurangabad and forced to agree to terms. Bajirao demanded the recognition of Shahu as the king of Maharashtra and overlord of the rest of the Deccan, from which the tribute of chauth and sardeshmukhi could be legitimately collected by Maratha officials.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">The way to a resumption of the northern conquests was open and during the 1730s Maratha forces – larger than ever – ranged northward to the Gangetic valley and finally raided Delhi in 1737. A ransom was collected from the humiliated Mughal emperor and a year later the Marathas inflicted a crushing defeat on another Mughal army. A treaty agreed at Bhopal in 1739 formally ceded Malwa – from the Narmada to the Chambal River – to the Marathas. This placed their authority some fifty miles south of Agra, and the victorious Bajirao added a large tribute of treasure for presentation to Shahu.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">Having conquered this vast territory, the peshwa lost no time in consolidating Maratha rule by appointing Maratha collectors of tribute in the courts of the larger zamindars. The conquest of Malwa became a model for other conquests. Maratha rule was first established in the countryside rather than cities, and at the outset no effort was made to displace local, rural magnates, merely to collect tribute from them.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">The confidence with which Bajirao extended the power of the Marathas grew not so much from their military supremacy as from the weakness of their enemies, especially the Mughals. True, the Marathas mounted ever – larger forces. In the early eighteenth century, their armies consisted of no more than 5000 horsemen and no artillery; after 1720, the operating units doubled in size but even then they were not able to match the Mughals and their other enemies in artillery, which proved a serious limitation in wars against the Nizam in the middle 1730s. Eventually, however, the Mughal failure to maintain the efficiency of their gunnery after Aurangzeb ’ s time became evident to all during the cataclysmic invasion of India by the Iranian king Nadir Shah.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">Having driven the Mughals from Afghanistan with surprising ease, Nadir Shah was emboldened to press on into the Punjab and continue on to Delhi, where he defeated a demoralized Mughal army in </span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">1739</span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">. As a final humiliation of the once great Mughals, the city was sacked and over </span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">20</span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">,</span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">000 </span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times,'Times New Roman',serif;">of its inhabitants were killed during the pillage. A vast treasure was looted, including the Peacock Throne itself. And one element in Nadir Shah’s success was his improved artillery, especially horse - mounted guns for use against the Mughal cavalry.</span></span></div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-26437804684053970202010-05-24T12:13:00.000-07:002010-06-26T00:48:17.745-07:00THE MARATHA MOMENT<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Plantin","serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The Marathas had emerged from among the dominant peasant clans living in the western Indian Territory where the Marathi language was spoken. During the sixteenth century the sultans of Bijapur and Ahmadnagar had recruited them to serve as light cavalry and balance the political ambitions of the Muslim soldiers in their employ. Other Maharashtrians to benefit t from the equal opportunity policies of the Muslim overlords were Brahmans, who were divided into those who lived on the dry plateau above the sea and called Deshastas, and those from the lowlands along the Arabian Sea, the Konkan region, who were called Chitpavans. Though all were Marathi - speakers, they distinguished their statuses carefully from the peasant Marathas. The Brahmans derived their high standing from administrative service to Muslim regimes and also from their participation in the bhakti or devotional cults of Maharashtra.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Plantin","serif"; font-size: 10pt;">In addition to supplying soldiers and administrators to neighboring states, Maharashtra attracted economic interest. Cotton was spun, cultivated and woven, contributing a valuable commodity to the trade of the port of Surat. A thriving inter-regional commerce connected the high plateau and the littoral. From the littoral came a variety of useful coconut products, fish, salt, timber and fruit, which were exchanged for upland products, sugar cane, cotton, tobacco and pulses, which complemented the rice diet of the coast.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Plantin","serif"; font-size: 10pt;">A final feature of sixteenth - and seventeenth - century Maharashtra which helps to explain some of the synergistic expansionism of the eighteenth century was the structure of local authority. A few towns and cities showed influences from and maintained contact with the wider Deccan region and the Arabian Sea coast outside of Maharashtra – Ahmadnagar, Aurangabad, Nagpur, Nasik and Burhanpur – but the politics of the region were those of rural chiefs called </span><i><span style="font-family: "Plantin-Italic","serif"; font-size: 10pt;">deshmukh </span></i><span style="font-family: "Plantin","serif"; font-size: 10pt;">(literally, ‘ head of the land or place’).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Plantin","serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The territorial sway of the deshmukhs extended over between twenty and a hundred villages, each of which had a powerful headman (P</span><i><span style="font-family: "Plantin-Italic","serif"; font-size: 10pt;">atel</span></i><span style="font-family: "Plantin","serif"; font-size: 10pt;">), assisted by a keeper of records (</span><i><span style="font-family: "Plantin-Italic","serif"; font-size: 10pt;">kulkarni</span></i><span style="font-family: "Plantin","serif"; font-size: 10pt;">). Headmen were inevitably drawn from the Maratha peasant castes, while village accountants were almost always Brahmans. In the absence of a powerful state apparatus within the country, this local community - level officials were the government. The role of external authorities such as the Deccan sultans, or, later, occasionally the Mughals, was minimal; all of them took an irregular share of the taxes collected from agriculture and trade and conferred legitimating documents of investiture, or revenue collection contracts, upon deshmukhs, patils and kulkarni. A more elevated deshmukh office was that of </span><i><span style="font-family: "Plantin-Italic","serif"; font-size: 10pt;">sardeshmukhi</span></i><span style="font-family: "Plantin","serif"; font-size: 10pt;">, head of deshmukhs, recognized by the Mughals, as was that of chief accountant (</span><i><span style="font-family: "Plantin-Italic","serif"; font-size: 10pt;">deshkulkarni</span></i><span style="font-family: "Plantin","serif"; font-size: 10pt;">). The ambiguity of such offices was revealed in a seventeenth - century Marathi political treatise, the </span><i><span style="font-family: "Plantin-Italic","serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Ajnapatra</span></i><span style="font-family: "Plantin","serif"; font-size: 10pt;">:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 1in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Plantin","serif"; font-size: 9pt;">The deshmukhs and deshkulkarni, the patils et cetera, they may be called ‘office - holders’, but this is only a term of convention. They are in fact small but self – sufficient chiefs. They are not strong on their own, but they succeed in keeping up their power by allying themselves with the ‘lord of all land’ [i.e. the king]. Yet it must not be thought that their interests coincide with that of the latter. These people are in reality the </span><i><span style="font-family: "Plantin-Italic","serif"; font-size: 9pt;">co - sharers </span></i><span style="font-family: "Plantin","serif"; font-size: 9pt;">(</span><i><span style="font-family: "Plantin-Italic","serif"; font-size: 9pt;">dayada</span></i><span style="font-family: "Plantin","serif"; font-size: 9pt;">) of the kingdom. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Plantin","serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The writer was a minister of the Maratha king Shivaji, who, like other rulers of the seventeenth century, sought greater control over the autonomous countryside. The word ‘ dayada ’ aptly characterizes the lightness with which the state bore down upon Marathi - speakers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but the heavily localized socio - political system could be galvanized from within under vigorous leadership, which happened in Maharashtra in the early eighteenth century as Mughal power waned. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Plantin","serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Aurangzeb’s determination to stifle the political and military challenge of the Marathas had begun with the intention of punishing Shivaji’s successor Shambuji for offering shelter to the rebel prince Akbar. Subsequently the emperor found other reasons to try to rid the Deccan of Maratha predations, and he dedicated the Mughal house to this ultimately vain pursuit. Shambuji faced the onslaught with skill and cunning, though in the end he was captured and executed. At the same time he found himself threatened by the deshmukhs who resented his royal pretensions; some of them even approached Aurangzeb, offering to join with Mughals against Shambuji providing they were adequately rewarded. In return for serving the Mughals, they wanted confirmation that all the special rights their families had accumulated would remain hereditary, and some of them were granted valuable jagirs by the wily emperor. Shambuji dealt with their treason by burning their villages, not sparing some who were close to his own family by marriage.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Plantin","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> Shambuji’s successors faced the same wavering loyalty from deshmukh families. Switching between Mughal and Maratha service regularly occurred, each change of employment an occasion for a deshmukh to add to his family property and entitlements. In return, when a deshmukh defected he took with him the militia he commanded. By the time of Shambuji’s grandson King Shahu – a name meaning ‘honest’, and originally a soubriquet accorded by Aurangzeb to contrast his character with that of Shivaji – who ruled from </span><span style="font-family: PlantinExp; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">1708 </span><span style="font-family: "Plantin","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">to </span><span style="font-family: PlantinExp; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">1749</span><span style="font-family: "Plantin","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">, Maratha fighting bands could combine in formidable armies which regularly raided and pillaged Mughal tracts along the northern frontier. Soon they were reaching towards Delhi itself, as well as continuing to prey upon parts of Karnataka and the Tamil country.</span></div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-75593431922286614832010-04-04T02:34:00.000-07:002010-04-04T02:34:50.122-07:00+- Magadha Empire<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S7hcUQr4yyI/AAAAAAAAAek/xYqAS5KxN54/s1600/standing-buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" nt="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S7hcUQr4yyI/AAAAAAAAAek/xYqAS5KxN54/s320/standing-buddha.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Magadha Empire lasted from 684 B.C - 320 B.C in India. The two great epics Ramayana and Mahabharata mention the Magadha Empire. It is said that the Shishunaga dynasty founded the Magadha Empire. Some of the greatest empires and religions of India originated here. The Gupta Empire and Mauryan Empire started here. The great religions, Buddhism and Jainism were founded in Magadha Empire. Read on to know about the history of Magadh Empire. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Magadha Empire gained much power and importance during the rule of King Bimbisara and his son and successor Ajatshatru. Bimbisara is said to have been murdered by his son Ajatshatru. The Magadha Empire in India extended in the modern day Bihar and Patna and some parts of Bengal. Magadha Empire was a part of the 16 Mahajanapadas. The empire extended up to River Ganges and the kingdoms of Kosala and Kashi were annexed. The places that came under the Magadha Empire were mostly republican in nature and the administration was divided into judicial, executive and military functions</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Magadha Empire fought gruesome battles with most of its neighbors. They had advanced forms of weaponry andthe opposed forces did not stand a chance against them. Ajatshatru even built a huge fort at his capital Pataliputra. This was the place that Buddha prophesized would become a popular place of trade and commerce. With an unmatched military force, the Magadha Empire naturally had an upper hand over conquering neighborhood places and spreading the territory. This is what made it a major part of the 16 Mahajanapadas. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, after the death of King Udayan, the Magadha Empire started to decline very rapidly. Internal disturbances and corruption within the kingdom led to its decline. The Magadha Empire was finally taken over by the powerful Nanda dynasty who then ruled here for a good amount of time before being taken over by the Mauryas.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-6895859605371723372010-04-04T02:25:00.000-07:002010-04-04T02:25:48.311-07:00+- Gupta Empire<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S7hZueAbgFI/AAAAAAAAAeU/A6XVXDr3TBk/s1600/ElephantaIslandbyChristianHaugenFlickr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" nt="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S7hZueAbgFI/AAAAAAAAAeU/A6XVXDr3TBk/s320/ElephantaIslandbyChristianHaugenFlickr.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: large;">T</span>he Gupta period marks an important phase in the history of ancient India. The long and efficient rule of the Guptas made a huge impact on the political, social and cultural spheres. Though the Gupta Empire was not as widespread as the Mauryan Empire was in India, yet the Gupta dynasty was successful in creating an empire that is significant in the history of India. The Gupta Period is also popularly known as the Golden Age of India and for the right reasons. The lifestyle and culture of the Gupta dynasty is known through the availability of various ancient coins, scriptures, inscriptions, texts, etc. belonging to that era. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The rulers of the Gupta Empire were efficient administrators who knew how to govern with a firm hand without being despotic. During this age, art and education flourished and many great discoveries were made in these fields. Aryabhatta and Varahamihira, the two great mathematicians contributed much during this period in the field of Vedic Mathematics. Aryabhatta estimated the value of "Pi" to the fourth decimal place. Algebra was developed to a great extent and the concepts of zero and infinity were found. The symbols of numbers 1 to 9 were devised which was a great contribution in mathematics. These symbols came to be known as Hindu Arabic numerals later when the Arabs too adopted them. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S7haHvFxdbI/AAAAAAAAAec/fm6jePFDJwU/s1600/429px-Gupta_Empire_320_-_600_ad.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" nt="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S7haHvFxdbI/AAAAAAAAAec/fm6jePFDJwU/s400/429px-Gupta_Empire_320_-_600_ad.png" width="286" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Gupta Age is also known for its advances in astronomy. During the reign of the Gupta rulers, astronomers and philosophers proposed the theory that the earth was not flat but round. The theory of gravity was also propounded during this time. The astronomers made a breakthrough when they found out the different planets and started to make horoscopes based on the planetary positions. The field of medicine also advanced a lot during this time and doctors used to perform operations even during that era. Since so many discoveries and advances were made in arts, medicine, literature and science during Gupta period, it has been called the Golden Age of India. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Main Rulers of Gupta Age</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">* Chandragupta (319 - 335 A.D): Chandragupta was a very powerful Gupta ruler who waged many battles to attain his title. He married Kumaradevi after which the Gupta dynasty came into eminence. He assumed the title of Maharajadiraja, which means king of kings.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">* Samudragupta (335 - 375 A.D): Samudragupta was the son and successor of Chandragupta. Samudragupta was popularly known as the "Indian Napoleon" as he conquered many territories without making much of an effort. It is said that after Emperor Ashoka, the empire of Samudragupta was the supreme. The coins found in excavation reveal much information about his empire. He performed the Asvamedha Yagna and gained much fame and power. During his reign, many great discoveries and advancements were made in different fields like astronomy, mathematics, medicine, etc.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">* Chandragupta II (375 - 414 A.D): Also known by the name of Vikramaditya, Chandragupta II was chosen by his father as the successor and the future ruler. Chandragupta II was an able ruler and a great conqueror. His conquest of the peninsula of Saurashtra via the Arabian Sea is considered to be one of his greatest military successes. With the annexation of Saurashtra and Malwa, he opened up sea ports to facilitate trade and commerce. His capital city was Pataliputra.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">* Kumaragupta I (415 - 455 AD): Kumaragupta ruled for forty years and he was considered to be one of the most powerful rulers of the Gupta Period. He was known by different names such as, Shri Mahendra, Ajita Mahendra, Simha Mahendra, Asvamedha Mahendra, Mahendra Karma, etc. During his reign, the whole of India was united as one single entity. Though it was secular and people had their own thoughts and beliefs, yet they remained united and intact in any adversity. This was proved when the subjects drove out the Hunas from the kingdom after the death of Kumaragupta. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">* Skandagupta (455 - 467 A.D): Most historic scripts propound that Skandagupta was the ruler after Kumaragupta, though there are some theories that also mention Purugupta, Kumaragupta - II, etc. Skandagupta was a very powerful conqueror and is considered to be at par with God Indra. His empire included the whole of North India from west to east and the peninsular regions of Gujarat. </div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-90060318411585556022010-04-02T11:12:00.001-07:002010-04-02T11:12:57.180-07:00+- Southern Kingdoms<div style="text-align: justify;">ORIGINS</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The decline of the Gupta Empire led to a period of confusion and political flux in the northern part of India. With the exception of the reign of Harshavardhan, the entire north India witnessed a continuous struggle, as there were a number of small states, each one of them fighting with the others to gain the upper hand. However, the situation in the Deccan and south India was different from that in the north. Unlike the kingdoms that emerged in the north during this period, the kingdoms of South India were large and powerful. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">A number of kingdoms emerged in the Deccan and peninsular part of India after the decline of the Satvahana dynasty, which ruled a large part of central India, including the Deccan region and Andhra Pradesh. The important kingdoms of south India between AD 500 and AD 750 were that of the Chalukyas, Pallavas, and the Pandyas. The relationship between most of the kingdoms of the south was not amicable and they constantly fought with each other. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">CHALUKYAS</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Chalukyas built their kingdom on the ruins of the Vakataka dynasty who themselves had built up their state on the remains of the Satvahana kingdom. Vatapi (modern Badami) became the capital of the Chalukyan state. The famous Chalukyan ruler Pulakeshin II (AD 609-642) was a contemporary of Harshavardhan. While Harsha wanted to expand his empire to the south, Pulakeshin II wanted to move to the northern parts of the country. As the ambitions of both the rulers collided, they met in a battle on the banks of River Narmada, where Harsha was defeated. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The defeat ended the dreams of Harsha of expanding his empire southwards. On the other hand, the problems of the Chalukyas were far from over, as they had to constantly deal with two adversaries, the Rashtrakutas (from the north) and the Pallavas (from the south). The Rashtrakutas, who ruled a small stretch of area in the north Deccan region, were originally subordinate to the Chalukyas, but in the course of time they began to challenge the power of the Chalukyas. In the 8th century AD, the Rashtrakutas finally defeated the Chalukyas. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">During the reign of Pulakeshin II, the Pallavas began to emerge as a powerful force to the south of the Chalukyan kingdom. The struggle between Pallavas and the Chalukyas spanned three hundred years, beginning from the 6th century AD. Pulakeshin II fought a battle against the Pallava ruler Mahendravarman and defeated him in 610 AD. However, after a few years in 642 AD, the Pallava king Narasimhavarman attacked the Chalukyan kingdom, defeated Pulakeshin II and captured Vatapi, the capital of the Chalukyas. After surviving many upheavals, the Chalukyas continued to survive until the 12th century AD, when their rule finally ended. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Vatapi, the capital of the Chalukyan kingdom, was a flourishing city. It had trade with a number of places like Persia (Iran), Arabia, and the ports on the Red Sea, along with a number of kingdoms in Southeast Asia. Pulakeshin II had diplomatic links with the rulers of Persia. The Chalukyan rulers were great patrons of art and provided financial aid for constructing temples and cave shrines through different parts of the Deccan hills. The magnificently carved sculptures in the temples and temple complex built by them are splendid examples of their artistic skills. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">PALLAVAS</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">On the ruins of the eastern part of the kingdom of the Satvahanas, the Pallava rulers established their kingdom. The Pallava rulers originally worked as officials under the Satvahana rulers and, in the course of time, they established themselves as local rulers. Soon their kingdom spanned parts of southern Andhra Pradesh and northern Tamil Nadu. They established their capital at Kanchi (modern Kanchipuram near Chennai), which gradually became popular and famous for its temples and as center of Vedic learning.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Pallavas fought many wars with the Chalukyas (to the northwest) and the Pandyas (to the south). Both of these states tried their best to stop the Pallavas from rising, but failed. King Mahendravarman was a contemporary of Pulakeshin II, the Chalukyan ruler. Like other rulers in south India, he was a poet and musician apart from being a good warrior. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Pallava Empire continued to live on until the 13th century AD. However, after 9th century AD onwards, they succumbed to the combined armies of the Pandyas and the Cholas and from then on remained as a minor feudal state under the Cholas. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">PANDYAS</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The kingdom of the Pandyas was south to that of the Pallavas and emerged during the 6th century AD. They set up their capital at Madurai. Their kingdom was confined to the southernmost and southeastern parts of the Indian peninsula. The kingdom of the Pandyas prospered from the trade with the Romans. Their kingdom continued to exist until the 11th century AD, when the mighty Chola rulers subdued them. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">SOCIETY AND CULTURE</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The society of south India was also caste ridden, like that in north India. The Brahmins (priestly class) and Kshatriyas (warrior class) dominated the people belonging to the lower castes. The position of the Brahmins was on the rise as the rulers began to grant land to temples and important priests. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The peasants either tilled land belonging to the ruler or the temples and little remained with them. Religion played an important part in the life of the people in south India. Buddhism was not popular there, and followers of Jain faith were few. Hinduism held sway in these kingdoms and Vedic sacrificial rights were common. The cult of Lord Vishnu and Lord Shiva became important during this time and Kanchipuram became an important pilgrim center for the Hindu devotees. Kanchipuram, which was the capital of the Pallavas, also became an important center of Tamil and Sanskrit studies. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The temples were not the only places of worship, but they became important cultural and administrative centers where festivals were held. People also gathered in the temples to solve local problems, as the temples governed large areas of land and the people thereof. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">ART</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The rulers of these southern kingdoms were not only great warriors, but also were great patrons of art and architecture. The Pallava kings built a number of important temples in the seventh and the eighth centuries AD. The large rock-cut temples at Mahabalipuram are magnificent examples of the architectural prowess of the artisans of that time. Temple architecture reached its zenith in ancient India when the Kailashnath temple at Ellora was built in the 8th century. Like the Pallavas, the Chalukyas were also great builders. They built a number of temples in Aihole in the 7th century AD. The rock-cut cave temples of Badami and the Virupaksha temple at Pattadakal are good examples of Chalukyan architectural skills. It is even said that the caves of Ajanta, the rock-cut temples of Ellora, and Elephanta have been built by the Chalukyas. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">AFTERMATH</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">As trade with Rome declined after 6th century AD, towns became redundant and decayed. The beginning of the medieval period (after AD 750) saw the emergence of the great Chola Empire. The Indian subcontinent also began to witness an emergence of cultural units, having their own distinct language, culture, cuisine, etc, which later on laid the foundation of different "states". The early 8th century also saw the migration of large number of people of Iranian origin on the west coast of India, who were later on known as the Parsis. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The period between AD 500 to 750 in south India was not only a time of intense struggle, but also saw the rise in activities pertaining to art, architecture, and religion.</div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-24693142159556130222010-04-02T11:08:00.000-07:002010-04-02T11:09:32.255-07:00+- Rise of Kingdoms (600-400 Bc)<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">ORIGIN</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>T</strong></span>he end of the Vedic Age (1500 BC-600 BC) was followed by the rise of small kingdoms and republics in the northern parts of India and especially in the Gangetic plains of Bihar. These small states later paved the way for large empires. The entrenchment of the caste system, which divided the society be-tween the rulers and the ruled, also facilitated the rise of these states. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">CAUSES</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></strong>he earlier Aryan societies in India were tribal in context. Tribal chiefs, whose office was not hereditary, ruled these tribes. The criterion of selection was the number of cattle (cows in particular) a person owned. Clans often fought with each other over the control of herds of cattle. As the population of the tribes grew, their needs and aspirations also began to rise. In the course of time, the erstwhile small settlements grew into large settlements and managing large tracts of land became a problem. Soon these societies saw the rise of a ruling class, which belonged to the Kshatriya (warrior class) caste. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The strength of the early Aryan tribes was derived from the Jana (people) and not the Janapada (land). During the latter part of the Later Vedic Age (1000 BC-600 BC), all this changed with the rising influence of the Kshatriya (warrior class) caste and the Brahmin caste (priestly class), which took the reigns of the society in their hands and marginalized the other castes. The Kshatriyas and Brahmins worked in tandem and began to exploit the people belonging to the lower castes. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, there was also a rift between the Kshatriyas on one hand and the Brahmins on the other hand. The rising influence of the Brahmins began to collide with the rule of the Kshatriyas, who formed the ruling class of each kingdom or republic. The Kshatriyas were alarmed by the rising power of the Brahmins, but they could not do much as they required the services of the Brahmins in all religious rituals and state occasions. The rise of Buddhism and Jainism during this period was a natural outcome to counter the threat of the Brahmanical Hindu order, as the founders of these religions were themselves Kshatriyas or warriors.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">THE FIRST KINGDOMS</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">I</span></strong>n the course of time, small settlements grew into small kingdoms and republics. A republic is that form of government where the power is held by the people or a group of elected people or elected chief. The concept of hereditary kingship is not present in republics. The main ruling class, which held the power of these republics, was the Kshatriya. Non-Kshatriyas were not a part of the ruling class in these republics. In the 6th century BC, 16 small territorial states or Mahajanapadas were formed. Of these 16 states, Magadh, Kosala, Vatsa, and Avanti were powerful. These various states constantly fought with each other for over a century to prove their supremacy. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">THE KINGDOM OF MAGADH</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></strong>he state of Magadh gained the upper hand over all other territorial kingdoms under the able leadership of Bimbisara (542 BC-493 BC) and his son Ajatshatru (493 BC-461 BC). The victory of Magadh over other states was predominantly a victory of the monarchical system. The rise of Magadh and the decline of the states with republican form of governance laid the foundation for hereditary system of governance. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The kingdom of Magadh was spread throughout a large area of the Gangetic plains. As this region had large deposits of iron ore, Magadh made ample use of it for making weapons and agricultural implements. Iron weapons strengthened the Magadh kingdom, while agricultural tools were used to extensively clear forests and bring more and more land under the plough. All this added to the material wealth of Magadh. It also took control of large stretches of river Ganga, which was used as a trade route. Ajatshatru was succeeded by his son Udayan (460 BC-444 BC), who established his capital in Pataliputra (present-day Patna). The first archeological evidence about large-scale architectural activities comes from this city. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">CONTRIBUTION</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></strong>he position of the king became important during this time. He not only protected the people but also upheld the sacred Law or Dharma. In the Republics, the people elected the ruler. However, in the kingdoms, the Brahmins (priests) sanctified the rule of the king (who was a Kshatriya) and promoted him not as an ordinary human, but God. The Brahmins endowed the king with God-like powers by performing certain religious ceremonies. Thus the people of the upper caste, the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas, usurped the power in the Kingdoms and did not allow the people of the lower caste to have their say in the affairs of the state. The king was surrounded by a group of ministers who help him govern the state. The king maintained an army and was responsible for collecting taxes. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">With the rise of kingdoms and republics, more and more villages and towns emerged. The economy of the state depended on the taxes collected from the people. Towns like Ujjayini (Malwa), Bhrigukachchha (Gujarat), Tamralipti (Ganga Delta), Shravasti, Kaushambi, Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh), Champa, Vaishali, Pataliputra, Rajagriha (Bihar), and Pratisthana (Deccan) came up during this time. Towns became craft centers and capitals of the early kingdoms and republics. Trade and commerce also helped in the rise of towns and barter system was common. River Ganga became an important trade route. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The society was strictly divided on caste lines: the Kshatriyas (warriors) were rulers, the Brahmins (priests) upheld education and religious activities, the Vaishyas (traders) carried out trade, while the Shudras were laborers and farm workers. A fifth caste-that of the untouchables-also grew, who were looked down upon as they had to perform menial jobs. The people of the upper caste asserted their authority on the others and did not allow them to rise. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">AFTERMATH</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">A</span></strong>fter the death of Udayan, the kingdom of Magadh declined rapidly and was replaced by the Shishunaga dynasty, which took over in 413 BC. However, the Shishunaga dynasty did not last for more than 50 years and the Nanda dynasty took over. The Nandas kept a huge army and are described as the first empire builders of India. Chandragupta Maurya, who was the founder of the great Mauryan dynasty, overthrew the Nanda dynasty. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-48650095707109723112010-03-16T08:07:00.000-07:002010-03-16T08:11:00.246-07:00+- Rise of Jainism<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S5-eXpQWSiI/AAAAAAAAAeM/TaERhZ6AR74/s1600-h/PC200131.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S5-eXpQWSiI/AAAAAAAAAeM/TaERhZ6AR74/s320/PC200131.jpg" vt="true" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong> REGIONAL KINGDOMS</strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><br />
</strong><strong><span style="color: #e06666;">SOCIAL BACKGROUND</span></strong><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="color: #e06666;">L</span></strong>ike Buddhism, Jainism also originated at a time when the Later Vedic period (1000 BC-600 BC) had come to an end and there was a rise of republics and small kingdoms. The rise of the first kingdoms was marked by the emergence of the ruling class in each kingdom, which belonged to the Kshatriya or the warrior caste. While the Kshatriyas ruled these kingdoms and protected the rest of the masses, the Brahmin or the priestly caste catered to the religious and educational needs of the people, as well as sanctified the rule of the Kshatriyas. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Kshatriyas and Brahmins in tandem asserted their authority over the people in general and the masses belonging to the lower caste in particular. The lowermost strata of the society could not question the authority of the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas. Apart from the struggle with the people belonging to the lower caste, there was a rift between the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas to take control of the reigns of the society. The Kshatriyas were alarmed by the rising power of the priests, who in turn wanted to usurp the power of the Kshatriyas. The rise of Buddhism and Jainism during this period was a natural outcome to the counter the threat of the Brahmanical Hindu order, as the founders of these religions were themselves Kshatriyas or warriors. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="color: #e06666;">JAINISM</span></strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="color: #e06666;">M</span></strong>ahavira (540 BC-467 BC) was the founder of Jainism. He founded this religion after attaining Enlightenment. The teachings of Mahavira revolve around leading a pious life, to shun all violence, and to be austere. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="color: #e06666;">MAHAVIRA</span></strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="color: #e06666;">M</span></strong>ahavira was born in 540 BC in a Kshatriya royal family in Vaishali (present-day Bihar). His father was a local ruler of a small kingdom. Mahavira left his home at the age of thirty in search of knowledge. He performed severe and rigorous penances and attained Nirvana or Enlightenment after a period of twelve years. Mahavira came to be known as the 24th Tirthankara or the great Jain spiritual leader. However, there is not much literary evidence of the previous Tirthankaras except Parsvanath, who was the 23rd Tirthankara. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #e06666;">PRINCIPLES OF JAINISM</span></strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #e06666;"><strong>M</strong></span>ahavira denounced the Vedas and the Brahmanical order. Jainism was opposed to the caste system and conducting of sacrifices. It preached that all its followers should refrain from hurting animal life. It also preached vegetarianism, austerity, purity of body and soul to attain liberation from the sufferings of the materialistic world. Shedding all material possessions and actions, which hurt other beings, can only attain purity. Jainism is based on three broad principles or the three jewels (Ratnas): Right Faith, Right Knowledge, and Right Action. The followers of Jain faith have to take the Five Vows: </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">* Non-injury to living beings </div><div style="text-align: justify;">* Truth </div><div style="text-align: justify;">* Non-stealing </div><div style="text-align: justify;">* Non-ownership of property </div><div style="text-align: justify;">* Practice of chastity</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Parsvanath, who was the 23rd Tirthankara, established the first four vows, while Mahavira added the fifth vow. Mahavira had asked his followers to shed all clothes and go about naked. This meant that the Jain monks had to observe absolute chastity and abandon all the pleasures of material life. They also had to perform rigorous asceticism along with long periods of fasting, self-mortification, meditation and study of Jain scriptures. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: #e06666;">AFTERMATH</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="color: #e06666;">T</span></strong>he early teaching of Jainism passed from generation to generation through the oral tradition. A religious council was held in Pataliputra (present-day Patna) in third century BC, where all Jain teachings were recorded and compiled. This collection was later on edited in fifth century AD. The followers of Jainism slowly began to move to the southern parts of the country. The differences that rose subsequent to the migration of the monks to the south led to the division of Jainism into two sects-the Digambars or the sky-clad and the Svetambars or the white-clad. The monks belonging to the sky-clad sect are naked, while the monks belonging to the white-clad sect wear white garments. There is hardly any major difference between the two sects. Jain monks practice non-violence to the extent that they put a white cloth over their mouths to prevent them from accidentally inhaling insects. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jainism became popular amongst the royal dynasties like the Ganga, Kadamba, Chalukya and the Rashtrakuta. The rich merchants of Gujarat have patronized this religion. </div></div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-28494941688504853362010-03-16T07:43:00.000-07:002010-03-16T08:12:01.880-07:00+- Rise of Buddhism<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S5-bHevNisI/AAAAAAAAAeE/W7-JsQXM4TA/s1600-h/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S5-bHevNisI/AAAAAAAAAeE/W7-JsQXM4TA/s320/5.jpg" vt="true" width="320" /></a></div><strong><span style="color: blue;">SOCIAL TURMOIL</span></strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="color: blue;">T</span></strong>he period after the Epic Age or the Later Vedic Age (1000 BC-600 BC) was marked by the rise of numerous small republics and kingdoms. This period also saw the rise of tyranny of the upper castes and exploitation of the people belonging to the lower castes. Brahmins (priests) and Kshatriyas (rulers and warriors) did not allow the people belonging to lower castes or the Shudras and untouchables to have their say in the society. This period also saw a rift developing between the Brahmins on one hand and the Kshatriyas on the other. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The rising popularity and aspirations of the Brahmin priests began to collide with the authority of the Kshatriyas, who formed the ruling class of each kingdom or republic. The Kshatriyas were alarmed by the rising power of the Brahmins, but they could not do much as they required the services of the Brahmins in all religious rituals and state occasions. The rise of Buddhism and Jainism during this period was a natural outcome to counter the threat of the Brahmanical Hindu order, as the founders of these religions were themselves Kshatriyas or warriors. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="color: blue;">BUDDHISM</span></strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="color: blue;">B</span></strong>uddhism is one of the oldest religions in the world. Gautam Buddha (563 BC-483 BC) laid its foundation after he gained Enlightenment under a Bodhi tree at Bodhgaya. The preaching of Lord Buddha revolves around attaining salvation from worldly sufferings, universal brotherhood, peace and non-violence. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="color: blue;">GAUTAMA BUDDHA</span></strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="color: blue;">G</span></strong>autama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, was born in 563 BC in the ruling Kshatriya family of the Lichhavi tribe in Lumbini, in the foothills of Nepal. His father was the chief of this tribe. It was prophesized that Gautama (who was named Siddharth) would become a saint and renounce the world. Therefore, his father took all possible care to keep Gautama in a palace full of luxuries and comfort. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, Gautama was not satisfied with his materialistic surroundings, and one day, the young prince sneaked out of the palace in his chariot to see the outside world that was still unknown to him. He was shocked to see an old person, a sick man, and a funeral procession. His charioteer told him that all this was a part of life. Then Gautam saw a saint and was perplexed by the calmness on his face. The charioteer told him that the saint had renounced all materialistic things and therefore he was content and happy. This incident left an indelible mark on the mind of the young prince, and one night he left his beautiful wife and infant son and began his journey to attain the truth of life. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">When Gautama left his palace, he was twenty-nine. He wandered from place to place and did heavy penances. He even went to the stage of putting his body to rigorous punishment. Gautama attained Enlightenment while meditating under a Bodhi tree in a place called Bodhgaya (in the state of Bihar), at the age of thirty-five. After attaining Enlightenment, he came to be known as the Buddha (the Enlightened One). He preached his first sermon in a place called Sarnath, which is near Varanasi (Benaras). Gautama Buddha passed away at the age of 80 in Kushinagar near Gorakhpur (in the state of Uttar Pradesh). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="color: blue;">TEACHINGS OF BUDDHA</span></strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="color: blue;">G</span></strong>autama Buddha discarded the Vedic Brahmanical system, which divided the society into various castes and further alienated the people from one another on the basis of their birth. He strongly opposed lengthy rituals, animal sacrifices and ceremonial worship. According to his doctrine, the existence of God is irrelevant. He laid emphasis on self-effort to attain salvation. He believed that the soul was immortal and attainment of Nirvana (salvation from materialistic life) was the chief object of each human being. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="color: blue;">Gautam Buddha preached Four Noble Truths that form the basis of Buddhism:</span></strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;">* Life is full of suffering (dukkha); </div><div style="text-align: justify;">* Suffering is caused by desire and craving; </div><div style="text-align: justify;">* One can be free from this suffering by removing desire and craving; </div><div style="text-align: justify;">* The way to eliminate desire and to get free from the cycle of birth and death is by following the Eight-Fold Path.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Eight-Fold Path consists of: right understanding, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right awareness, and right concentration. By following the above path, one can attain Nirvana or salvation, which would free the soul from suffering and the cycle of birth and death. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="color: blue;">AFTERMATH</span></strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="color: blue;">D</span></strong>uring the lifetime of Gautama Buddha, a large number of people became his followers and Buddhism became the state religion of a number of states like Magadh, Kosala and Kaushambi. Great kings like Ashoka (of the Mauryan dynasty) and Kanishka (Kushan dynasty) became Buddhist and they helped spread the sermon of Buddha far and wide through their kingdoms. King Ashoka is said to have built 84,000 stupas and a large number of rock edicts and pillars throughout his empire to preach the message of Buddhism. As Buddha preached his ideas through word of mouth, there were no Buddhist religious scriptures. Later on, his preachings were compiled into Buddhist canon in Pali language, which are also known as Tripitikas. By the second century AD, Buddhism was divided into two main branches-the Mahayana (greater vehicle) and the Hinayana (lesser vehicle). In the course of time, Buddhism became a major religion and spread through most parts of East Asia. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-15529429159831191982010-02-26T08:11:00.000-08:002010-02-26T08:11:59.372-08:00+- The Kushan Empire<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S4fxMqsU4kI/AAAAAAAAAd8/1eGsDpcXAio/s1600-h/bamiyan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" kt="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S4fxMqsU4kI/AAAAAAAAAd8/1eGsDpcXAio/s320/bamiyan.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #e06666; font-size: large;"><em>ORIGIN</em></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #e06666; font-size: large;">T</span>he age of the Mauryans (322-185 BC) in ancient India is remembered for the greatness of the empire. However, weak rulers and the subsequent weakening of the highly centralized administrative structure caused the decline of the Mauryan Empire. The post-Mauryan period from 185 BC to AD 300 saw the emergence of a number of kingdoms all over the Indian subcontinent. Some of these states were small, while others like that of the Kushans were large. This period witnessed a spurt in migrations into India, rise in foreign trade, and development of art. In short, the time scale between 1st century BC and 3rd century AD was a period of flux. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #e06666; font-size: large;"><em>MIGRATIONS</em></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #e06666; font-size: large;">A</span> number of foreigners came to India in successive waves of migrations between 200 BC and AD 100. These people settled down in different parts of India. They brought with them their own distinct cultural flavor, which, after mixing with the local cultures, enriched the cultural ethos of India. The foreigners who came into India were the Bactrian Greeks (also called the 'Indo-Greeks'), the Parthians, the Sakas, and the Kushans. With the exception of the Greeks, all others came from Central Asia. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #e06666; font-size: large;"><em>INDO-GREEKS</em></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #e06666; font-size: large;">T</span>he Bactrian Greeks or the Indo-Greeks were the generals of Alexander, who had stayed back in Persia and parts of Central Asia. With the disintegration of the Mauryan Empire, the Indo-Greeks moved towards India and captured parts of Punjab, Kabul valley, and the province of Gandhara. They ruled their state from Gandhara or Bactria. We get to know more about the Indo-Greeks from the coins issued by them. They were the first ones in India to issue gold coins. Some of these rulers became Buddhist, while the others became Hindu, a pointer to the fact that their culture was assimilated into Indian traditions. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #e06666; font-size: large;"><em>THE SAKAS</em></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #e06666; font-size: large;">T</span>he Saka people settled down in the western part of India, including Gujarat and Malwa. The Saka rulers were constantly at war with the Satvahanas, who ruled central and parts of Deccan India. On the other hand, the Sakas could not expand their rule to the north, as the Kushans held them back. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #e06666; font-size: large;"><em>THE KUSHAN EMPIRE</em></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #e06666; font-size: large;">T</span>he Kushans originated from the Turkistan region of China. They moved towards Afghanistan in the 1st century AD and after displacing the Indo-Greeks, the Parthians and the Sakas, they established themselves in Taxila and Peshawar. In the course of time, they occupied entire Punjab and took parts of the western Gangetic plains beyond Mathura. Mathura was an important city at the time of the Kushans. Soon the Kushan Empire spread from Central Asia in the north to the plains near Mathura. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Two successive Kushan dynasties ruled the Kushan Empire. Kanishka was an important king, who belonged to the second Kushan dynasty. He extended the Kushan Empire to the north to such an extent that he came into open conflict with the Chinese armies of the Hun Empire, in Central Asia. Kanishka was a great patron of Mahayana Buddhism and during his reign, a large number of Buddhist monasteries, sculptures, and stupas were built in the Gandhara region. He also took active part in religious debates, which went on at that time. The fourth Buddhist Council was held during his reign, where many important decisions pertaining to the future of Buddhism were taken. In the fourth Buddhist Council, the division of Buddhist faith into two branches, namely Mahayana (the greater vehicle) and Hinayana (the lesser vehicle), was recognized and accepted. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #e06666; font-size: large;"><em>KUSHAN ART</em></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #e06666; font-size: large;">T</span>he Kushans were great patrons of art. It was under the rule of the Kushans that principles were formed for making sculptural images, which continued to influence making of sculptures ever after. During this time, Buddha was first shown in human form (earlier he was represented by symbols like lotus and footsteps). Other Hindu and Jain deities also began to be shown in human form. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mathura and Gandhara were the two main centers of art during the time of the Kushans. The Gandhara School of Art and the Mathura School of Art developed their own distinct styles. The Gandhara School was highly influenced by Greco-Roman philosophies and mainly concentrated on depicting the image of the Buddha and the legends associated with his life, while the Mathura School drew inspiration from local folk deities and themes from day?to?day life. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #e06666; font-size: large;"><em>GANDHARA SCHOOL</em></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #e06666; font-size: large;">T</span>he artists and sculptors belonging to this school were highly influenced by Greek ideals of beauty and sculpture making. The Greco-Roman influence, generally known as Hellenistic, is evident in the Kushan sculptures from Gandhara. The most striking feature of this influence is the Apollo-like representation of Buddha: He is often depicted as having a youthful, almond-shaped face, with full lips, long straight nose, a masculine body (Greek influence in the study of human anatomy), etc. The spiral or curly hair and the well-defined delicate drapery covering the body are other important Hellenistic influences. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The artists from this school also made carved stone panels depicting scenes from the life of Buddha and Buddhist stories from the Jataka tales. Apart from images relating to Buddha, the sculptors also made studies of heads and icons depicting young men, women, and children. The sculptors from Gandhara generally used grayish schist stone and stucco (a mixture of lime and clay) in the later part of the period. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #e06666; font-size: large;"><em>MATHURA SCHOOL</em></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #e06666; font-size: large;">T</span>he artists associated with this school drew their inspiration from images and legends of folk deities, called Yakshas and Yakshis and other local gods and goddesses. The Mathura school is famous for its representation of the beauty of the female form. The style perpetuated by this school is marked by female figures, which are sensuous and voluptuous, while the men are represented as being sophisticated and urbane. The artists at Mathura succeeded in creating the ideal Indian beauty: oval faced, with ample breasts, slender waist, and broad hips. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Apart from depiction of beautiful damsels in different poses and scenes from day-to-day life, the sculptors also depicted different Hindu deities, along with stories and myths associated with them. The artists also depicted various Jain deities. Of the Jain images, the important ones are Ayagapattas or homage stone tablets, which are carved with auspicious symbols like fish, flag, jewel box, etc. The sculptors from Mathura used mottled red sandstone, which was quarried close to Agra. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #e06666; font-size: large;"><em>IMPACT OF MIGRATIONS</em></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #e06666; font-size: large;">T</span>he Kushan belonged to a time when India experienced new arrivals, which led to exchange of ideas between the east and the west. This period also saw the rise of trade between Indian kingdoms and the west and exchange of ideas in the field of art and culture.</div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-76837516618415722162010-02-18T08:08:00.000-08:002010-02-18T08:08:22.541-08:00+- Indus Valley Civilization<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S31ki5Bkx5I/AAAAAAAAAdk/BNDZj8eXzdM/s1600-h/mohenjo-daro-pakistan-sw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ct="true" height="266" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S31ki5Bkx5I/AAAAAAAAAdk/BNDZj8eXzdM/s400/mohenjo-daro-pakistan-sw.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>CRADLE OF INDIAN CULTURE</strong> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">India has made a major contribution to world history in the form of the Indus valley Civilization. This civilization originated in the fertile plains of the Indus River (also Sindhu), in the third and fourth millennium BC. The Indus Valley Civilization, or the Harappan Culture, was the contemporary of the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and is acknowledged the third major civilization in the history of humankind. Archaeological excavations have revealed that the people of this culture enjoyed a life of luxury and refinement, with a highly evolved civic system and prosperous trade links. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>CITIES</strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Harappa and Mohenjodaro (present-day Pakistan), the two cities excavated first, appear to have functioned as twin capitals of this civilization. Later excavations revealed smaller cities such as Kot Diji in Sindh, Kalibangan in Rajasthan, Ropar in Punjab, and Lothal in Gujarat. Harappa and Mohenjodaro show a surprising similarity despite being 350 miles apart. Both cities consist of an acropolis and a lower city, each fortified separately. The acropolis contains large assembly halls, granaries, and edifices for religious purposes. It was thus the administrative and religious nerve center of the cities of the Indus Valley Civilization. Some of the cities had large public baths built on highly scientific lines. These baths were generally used for religious bathing. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The lower cities are divided into rectangles by broad streets. All the houses were connected directly to the well-planned drainage system of covered drains and soak pits. The grid layout of the cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, along with their advanced drainage system, has made them the first truly planned cities in the world. Each house had a courtyard, private wells, and bathrooms and was built with well-baked standardized bricks. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT</strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;">People of the Harappan Culture appear to have known the use of the potter's wheel. Archaeological excavations in the various cities have revealed a hoard of pottery and potshards, which are decorated with geometric patterns. These items reflect the aesthetic sense of this ancient culture. These people were fond of ornamentation as proved by a large number of necklaces, anklets, rings, earrings, amulets, beads, and nose studs that have been recovered from various sites. The artisans of the Indus Valley Civilization made exquisite jewelry, using a variety of material like gold, silver, copper, stone, and bone. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The most mystifying find from the Harappan Culture sites is the large number of well-carved seals made of steatite. The seals bear representation of animals, figures, and symbols of the religious life of the people accompanied by a pictorial script that has yet to be deciphered. One particular seal bears an image of a male god who has been identified as the prototype of God Shiva, as shown seated in a yogic posture surrounded by animals. The seals may have been used for trade as some seals have been found in numerous Mesopotamian sites. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The people of the Harappan culture appear to have used both cotton and woolen textiles. A number of small figurines excavated from various sites show that they are clad in some sort of garment. Skeletal remains from the different sites prove that animals like the buffalo, sheep, elephant, bull, and camel were domesticated. People had the time and leisure to pursue fine arts-the excellent carvings on the seals and some exquisite stone sculptures from Harappa show the high degree of development. Of great importance is the copper figurine of the Dancing Girl. This figurine not only shows the expertise in metalworking of the Harappan people but also reflects the repertoire of the ornaments bedecking this figurine. Small toys like carts harnessed with oxen are testimony to the expertise of the artisans. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S31lELih7CI/AAAAAAAAAds/QV-c7LsLjiQ/s1600-h/intro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ct="true" height="150" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S31lELih7CI/AAAAAAAAAds/QV-c7LsLjiQ/s200/intro.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>DECLINE</strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Harappan culture declined suddenly between 1800-1700 BC and its end is as puzzling as its beginning. How and why did this first great empire of South Asia decay into oblivion? One cannot say with certainty whether massacres by marauders or the inbuilt decay that had set in caused the decline of this powerful civilization. Another school of thought relates the demise of the Indus valley civilization to have been brought about by a major tectonic shift that caused continuous floods of this area. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Research has proved that the decline of the glorious Harappan culture was due to a variety of factors, both manmade and natural. In the beginning of the second millennium BC, there were great changes in the environmental conditions-the climate changed and large parts of the plains were flooded when tectonic changes threw up a dam in the lower Indus Valley. There were also other socio-economic factors that contributed to the decline. Agricultural production declined with the changes in the climate and the big cities could no longer sustain themselves. People from the major centers perhaps left for the smaller outposts and slowly riveted back to village life when they could no longer maintain the prerequisites of an urban existence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>IMPORTANCE</strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Even today, excavations at Harappa throw up new facts, not just about the great civilization but also about mankind's evolution. The people of the Indus Valley Civilization are a link to the past, a window into the life and history of our ancestors. Without doubt, the people of the Harappan Culture led a life of sophistication. "The land where the first civilized man trod on earth"-this is how the great poet laureate Rabindra Nath Tagore has described the fertile plains of Punjab, the breeding grounds of this great civilization. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-45681938487359713972010-02-13T07:55:00.000-08:002010-02-13T07:55:01.974-08:00+- Mauryan Kings Bindusara<div align="justify"></div><div align="justify" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S3bEng-cTHI/AAAAAAAAAc4/T7SLgk4bXcs/s1600-h/chandra.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ct="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S3bEng-cTHI/AAAAAAAAAc4/T7SLgk4bXcs/s320/chandra.gif" /></a></div><div align="justify"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;"><strong>B</strong>indusara </span>was the second Mauryan emperor (Born c. 320 BC, ruled: 298 - c.272 BC) after Chandragupta MauryaChandragupta Maurya</div><div align="justify">Chandragupta Maurya , sometimes known simply as Chandragupta , was the founder of the Maurya Empire. Chandragupta succeeded in bringing together most of the Indian subcontinent. As a result, Chandragupta is considered the first unifier of India and its first genuine emperor...</div><div align="justify">. During his reign, the empire expanded southwards. He had two sons, Sumana and AshokaAshoka</div><div align="justify">Ashoka , popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was an Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent from 269 BC to 232 BC. One of India's greatest emperors, Ashoka reigned over most of present-day India after a number of military conquests...</div><div align="justify">, who were the viceroys of Taxila and Ujjain. The Greeks Ancient Greece</div><div align="justify">Ancient Greece is the civilisation belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the...</div><div align="justify">called him Amitrochates or Allitrochades - the Greek transliteration for the Sanskrit</div><div align="justify">Sanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India. It is also declared as a classical language by the government of India....</div><div align="justify">word 'Amitraghata' (Slayer of enemies). He was also called 'Ajathasetru' (Man having no enemies) in Sanskrit.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;"><strong>Life</strong></span></div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">The son of Chandragupta, by a woman named Durdhara, Bindusara inherited a large empire that consisted of what is now, Northern, Central and Eastern parts of India</div><div align="justify">India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...</div><div align="justify">along with parts of Afghanistan</div><div align="justify">The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a landlocked country in south central Asia. It is variously described as being located within Central Asia, South Asia, or the Middle East...</div><div align="justify">and BaluchistanBalochistan (region)</div><div align="justify">Balochistan or Baluchistan is an arid region located in the Iranian Plateau in Southwest Asia and South Asia, between Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. The area is named after the numerous Baloch tribes, an Iranian people, who moved into the area from the west around A.D. 1000...</div><div align="justify">. Bindusara extended this empire to the southern part of India, as far as what is now known as Karnataka</div><div align="justify">Karnataka is a state in the southern part of India. It was created on November 1, 1956, with the passing of the States Reorganisation Act...</div><div align="justify">. He brought sixteen states under the Mauryan Empire and thus conquered almost all of the Indian peninsula (he is said to have conquered the 'land between the two seas' - the peninsular region between the Bay of BengalBay of Bengal</div><div align="justify">The Bay of Bengal IPA:ˈbɒŋɡopoʃɑːˈgoɽ), the largest bay of the world, forms the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. It resembles a triangle in shape, and is bordered by Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal to the north , India and Sri Lanka to the west and Myanmar and the Andaman and...</div><div align="justify">and the Arabian SeaArabian Sea</div><div align="justify">The Arabian Sea is a region of the Indian Ocean bounded on the east by India, on the north by Pakistan and Iran, on the west by Arabian Peninsula, on the south, approximately, by a line between Cape Guardafui, the north-east point of Somalia, Socotra, Kanyakumari in India, and the western coast...</div><div align="justify">). Bindusara didn't conquer the friendly Dravidian kingdoms of the Cholas, Pandyas, and Cheras. Apart from these southern states, Kalinga (India)</div><div align="justify">Kalinga was an early kingdom in central-eastern India, which comprised most of the modern state of Odissa / Utkal, as well as some northern areas of the bordering state of Andhra Pradesh...</div><div align="justify">(the modern Orissa) was the only kingdom in India that didn't form the part of Bindusara's empire. It was later conquered by his son Ashoka</div><div align="justify">Ashoka , popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was an Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent from 269 BC to 232 BC. One of India's greatest emperors, Ashoka reigned over most of present-day India after a number of military conquests...</div><div align="justify">, who served as the viceroy of Ujjaini during his father's reign.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;"><strong>B</strong></span>indusara's life has not been documented as well as his father Chandragupta or his son Ashoka. The philosopher Chanakya</div><div align="justify">Chanakya was an adviser and a prime minister to the first Maurya Emperor Chandragupta , and was the chief architect of his rise to power. Kautilya and Vishnugupta, the names by which the ancient Indian political treatise called the Arthaśāstra identifies its author, are traditionally identified...</div><div align="justify">served as prime minister during his reign. During his rule, the citizens of Taxila</div><div align="justify">Taxila is an important archaeological site in the Punjab province of Pakistan.It dates back to the Ancient Indian period and contains the ruins of the Gandhāran city of Takshashila an important Vedic/Hindu and Buddhist centre of learning from the 6th century BCEto the 5th century CE...</div><div align="justify">revolted twice. The reason for the first revolt was the maladministrationMaladministration</div><div align="justify">Maladministration is a political term which describes the actions of a government body which can be seen as causing an injustice.The law in the United Kingdom says Ombudsman must investigate ‘maladministration’...</div><div align="justify">of Suseema, his eldest son. The reason for the second revolt is unknown, but it could not be suppressed by Bindusara due to his untimely death, but was later crushed by Ashoka.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;"><strong>A</strong></span>mbassadors from Seleucid Empire</div><div align="justify">The Seleucid Empire was a Hellenistic empire, i.e. a successor state of Alexander the Great's empire. The Seleucid Empire was centered in the near East and at the height of its power included central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, today's Turkmenistan, Pamir and parts of Pakistan...</div><div align="justify">(such as Deimachus) and Egypt</div><div align="justify">Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...</div><div align="justify">visited his courts. He maintained good relations with the Hellenic World. Unlike his father Chandragupta (who was a Jain), he believed in the Ajivika</div><div align="justify">Ājīvika was an ancient philosophical and ascetic movement of the Indian subcontinent. The Ajivikas were contemporaries of the early Buddhists and historical Jains; the Ajivika movement may have preceded both of these groups. The Ajivikas may have been a more loosely organized group of wandering...</div><div align="justify">(a Hindu sect that preached equality for all people).</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;"><strong>B</strong></span>indusara died in 272 BC (some records say 268 BC) and was succeeded by his son Ashoka the Great. Bindusara is known as "The Son of a Father and the Father of a Son" because he was the son of a great father Chandragupta MauryaChandragupta Maurya</div><div align="justify">Chandragupta Maurya , sometimes known simply as Chandragupta , was the founder of the Maurya Empire. Chandragupta succeeded in bringing together most of the Indian subcontinent. As a result, Chandragupta is considered the first unifier of India and its first genuine emperor...</div><div align="justify">and father of a great son Ashoka</div><div align="justify">Ashoka , popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was an Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent from 269 BC to 232 BC. One of India's greatest emperors, Ashoka reigned over most of present-day India after a number of military conquests...</div><div align="justify">, the Great.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;"><strong>Bindusara's Empire</strong></span></div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;"><strong>B</strong></span>indusara extended his empire further as far as south Mysore</div><div align="justify">Mysore is the second-largest city in the state of Karnataka, India. It is the headquarters of the Mysore district and the Mysore division and lies about southwest of Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka. The name Mysore is an anglicised version of Mahishūru, which means the abode of Mahisha...</div><div align="justify">. He conquered sixteen states and extended the empire from sea to sea. The empire included the whole of India</div><div align="justify">India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...</div><div align="justify">except the region of Kalinga (India)</div><div align="justify">Kalinga was an early kingdom in central-eastern India, which comprised most of the modern state of Odissa / Utkal, as well as some northern areas of the bordering state of Andhra Pradesh...</div><div align="justify">(modern Orissa) and the Dravidian kingdoms of the south. The Dravidians kingdoms of the Cholas, Pandyas and Cheras were very friendly with the Mauryan empire and so the king felt no need to conquer them. However, Kalinga was not friendly with the Mauryans and so a war was fought between the people of Kalinga and Mauryans led by Bindusara's son Ashoka.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;"><strong>E</strong></span>arly Tamil poetSangam literature</div><div align="justify">Sangam literature refers to a body of classical Tamil literature created between the years c. 600 BCE to 300 CE. This collection contains 2381 poems composed by 473 poets, some 102 of whom remain anonymous The period during which these poems were composed is commonly referred to as the Sangam...</div><div align="justify">s speak of Mauryan chariotChariot</div><div align="justify">The chariot is the earliest and simplest type of carriage, used in both peace and war as the chief vehicle of many ancient peoples. Chariots were built in Mesopotamia by the Mesopotamians as early as 3000 BC and in China during the 2nd millennium BC. The original chariot was a fast, light, open,...</div><div align="justify">s thundering across the land, their white pennants brilliant in the sunshine. At the time of Bindusara's death in 272 BC, practically the entire sub-continent had come under Mauryan suzerainty. One area alone remained hostile and unconquered, Kalinga, on the east coast (modern Orissa). This was left to Bindusara's son Ashok, who campaigned successfully against Kalinga. Bindusara campaigned in the Deccan, extending the Mauryan empire in the peninsula to as far as Mysore. He is said to have conquered 'the land between the two seas', presumably the Arabian sea and the Bay of Bengal.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;"><strong>Administration during Bindusara's Reign</strong></span></div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;"><strong>B</strong></span>indusara maintained good relations with Seleucus Nicator and the emperors regularly exchanged ambassadors and presents. He also maintained the friendly relations with the Hellenic West established by his father. Ambassadors from Syria and Egypt lived at Bindusara's court. He preferred the AjivikaAjivika</div><div align="justify">Ājīvika was an ancient philosophical and ascetic movement of the Indian subcontinent. The Ajivikas were contemporaries of the early Buddhists and historical Jains; the Ajivika movement may have preceded both of these groups. The Ajivikas may have been a more loosely organized group of wandering...</div><div align="justify">philosophy rather than Jainism</div><div align="justify">Jainism is an ancient dharmic religion from India that prescribes a path of non-violence for all forms of living beings in this world. Its philosophy and practice relies mainly on self-effort in progressing the soul on the spiritual ladder to divine consciousness...</div><div align="justify">.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;"><strong>A</strong></span>pparently he was a man of wide interest and taste, since tradition had it that he asked Antiochus I to send him some sweet wineWine</div><div align="justify">Wine is an alcoholic beverage typically made of fermented grape juice. The natural chemical balance of grapes is such that they can ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes or other nutrients. Wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast consumes...</div><div align="justify">, dried figs</div><div align="justify">FIGS is an acronym for French, Italian, German, Spanish. These are usually the first four languages chosen to localize products into when a company enters the European market....</div><div align="justify">and a sophist</div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-19590168902741660412010-02-13T06:54:00.000-08:002010-02-13T06:54:49.470-08:00+- Mughal Emperor Humayun (1530-1556)<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S3a63QI5p2I/AAAAAAAAAco/vDW79zEzmQ4/s1600-h/humayun-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ct="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S3a63QI5p2I/AAAAAAAAAco/vDW79zEzmQ4/s320/humayun-1.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">B</span>abur's eldest son and successor, Humayun, was 22 years old when his father passed away. Humayun lacked the experience and the tough fiber necessary to consolidate a new dynasty. Thus, the first decade of his rule brought a steady erosion of Mughal authority in northern India. In particular, Humayun had to deal with the determined hostility of the Afghans who were still allied with the dispossessed Lodi regime. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Humayun was defeated and dislodged by insurrections of nobles from the old Lodi regime. In 1540, the Mughal domain came under the control of one of those nobles, Farid Khan Sur, who assumed the regional name of Shir Shah Sur. Humayun would spend the next 15 years in exile in Sind, Iran, and then Afghanistan. During this exile, Humayun's Persian wife, Hamida Begum, a native of Turbat-I Shaykh Jam in Khurasan, gave birth to the future emperor Akbar.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to Blair and Bloom, Shir Shah Sur was one of the finest rulers India had ever known. He introduced important fiscal and monetary reforms which were incorporated into the Mughal system of administration.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hambly writes that Shir Shah's Delhi, once again the capital of a great empire, was bounded on the east by the Jumna and extended northwards as far as Kotla Firuz Shah. Its southern limit, Hambly continues, must have been the enormous citadel known as the Purana Qala beyond which gardens stretched as far as the Nizamuddin area, the traditional burial-ground of Muslim nobility. Shir Shah Sur, with his imperial vision and ability to translate that vision into constructive action, rates a place in the front ranks of India's statesmen.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">After Shir Shah's death, the kingdom survived for about nine years in the hands of his son, Islam Shah. But Islam Shah's unconciliatory nature alienated many Afghan chieftains. Eventually, the squabbling for succession among Shir Shah's followers allowed Humayun and the Mughals to return to power in 1555.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Iran's Shah Tahmasb (1524-76) had provided Humayun with the necessary troops to recapture Kandahar and then Kabul. But less than a year after regaining power, Humayun died unexpectedly at the age of 48 when he fell down the steps of his library in his haste to obey the muezzin's call to prayer.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Humayun's most noted achievement was in the sphere of painting. His devotion to the early Safavid School, developed during his stay in Iran, led him to recruit Persian painters of merit to accompany him back to India. These artists, wrties Hambly, laid the foundation of the Mughal style which emerged from its Persian chrysalis as an indigenous achievement in which Indian elements blended harmoniously with the traditions of Iran and Central Asia.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Humayun constructed a citadel at Delhi. Named Din-Panah (Refuge of Religion), this structure is thought to have been destroyed during the reign of Shir Shah Sur. The most celebrated building associated with Humayun is his tomb at Delhi, write Blair and Bloom. Humayun's mausoleum is a devotion of Hamida Begum, his widow, who supervised its construction during the reign of their son Akbar.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to Blair and Bloom, Humayun's tomb marked the beginnings of a major development in the history of Indo-Islamic architecture. The tomb is set to the east of the shrine of Nizam al-Din Awliya (one of India's most revered Sufi saints) and in the center of a large garden that is 348 meters square. The garden is divided into 36 squares by cross-axially arranged water channels and pathways. Blair and Bloom write that the flat surfaces, the restrained combination of red stone and white marble in the flat panels, and the massive size of the tomb create an impression of sobriety. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">On the interior of the tomb, continue Blair and Bloom, the central space contains Humayun's cenotaph; two stories of octagonal chambers containing cenotaphs for various members of Humayun's family fill the corners. Blair and Bloom add that this type of plan, often called hasht bihisht (Eight Paradise), is known to have been used in Timurid Iran. Contemporary historians believe the tomb was designed by Mirak Mirza Ghiyath, an architect of Iranian descent who had worked in Heart, Bukhara, and India before undertaking this project, note Blair and Bloom.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Humayun's tomb fits into the Iranian tradition of imperial mausoleums -- a tradition that can be seen, for example, in Uljayatu's tomb at Sultaniyya and Timur's at Samarqand. Brend writes that it is obvious that the taste for Timurid architecture in the mid-16th century shows the Mughals attempt to connect their line in India with their forebears in Iran through the use of forms identified with the Timurid.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>Humayun's tomb :</strong></span> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S3a7v1ecc-I/AAAAAAAAAcw/_PIQWeSw-_Y/s1600-h/13551_Tombe%2520dHumayun.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ct="true" height="267" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S3a7v1ecc-I/AAAAAAAAAcw/_PIQWeSw-_Y/s400/13551_Tombe%2520dHumayun.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">H</span>umayun inherited the Mughal dynasty when his father Babur died in 1530. His reign got off to a good start, but his addiction to luxury at the palaces at Agra left the door open for ambitious men to plot behind his back. Ten years into his reign, Humayun was overthrown by the opportunist Sher Shah, who took advantage of Afghan tribesmen to force Humayun into exile in Iran, which was then ruled by the Safavid dynasty. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sher Shah died in 1545 and his sucessor was never able to assert the authority over the Afghani tribes that Sher Shah had enjoyed. As the remnants of the Shah's regime unraveled, Humayun mounted a restoration army and marched into Delhi in 1555. The aged Humayun had little time to celebrate, however, for barely six months later he died from a fall in his library at Sher Mandai. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Humayun's tomb is believed to have been designed by his widow. Its plan, based on the description of Islamic paradise gardens, is known to have inspired the Taj Mahal and many later Mughal tombs. This type of garden is known as a charbagh and is based on a grid (see below). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 1857, the tomb was used as shelter by Bahadur Shah Zafar and his three princes during the first war of Independence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-57268770198719494472010-02-05T08:54:00.000-08:002010-02-05T08:54:48.243-08:00+- Mughal Emperor Jahangir (1569-1627)<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S2xLzp7lf0I/AAAAAAAAAZ4/g6EAeq-kwS0/s1600-h/shah-jahan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" kt="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S2xLzp7lf0I/AAAAAAAAAZ4/g6EAeq-kwS0/s320/shah-jahan.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;">D</span></strong>uring his 50-year reign, Akbar accumulated much wealth from the political and commercial centers in northern India. His immediate successors, Jahangir and Shah Jahan, were able to surround themselves with a splendor and opulence unequaled by any other Muslim dynasty. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;"><strong>F</strong></span>rom the beginning, Jahangir's life was overshadowed by the achievements of his father Akbar. Jahangir grew up resentful of his masterful parents and bitterly jealous of his father's long-established coterie of advisers who must have interfered between father and son. Hambly writes that despite Jahangir's acute intelligence, the Mughal ruler was generally indifferent to the larger interests of the empire. Moreover, he lacked any obvious inclination for warfare and was bored by the humdrum details of day-to-day administration. Jahangir was self-indulgent and sensual with a streak of cruelty that emanated from a weak personality. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;"><strong>D</strong></span>espite Jahangir's disinterest in expansion, the imperial frontiers continued to move forward -- in Bengal, Mewar and Ahamadnagar. The only major reversal to the expansion came in 1622 when Shah Abbas, the Safavid ruler of Iran, captured Kandahar with impunity. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;"><strong>J</strong></span>ahangir lived under the spell of personalities that were more colorful than his own; the most influential of these personalities was the beautiful Nur Jahan whom he married in 1611. Nur Jahan then became the real ruler of the empire until the death of her husband Jahangir. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;">N</span></strong>ur Jahan's Persian grandfather was in the service of Shah Tahmasb; the grandfather died in Yazd laden with honors. His heirs, however, soon fell upon hard times, and his son, Mirza Ghiyas al-Din Muhammad, was forced to set out for India with his family. In 1577, during the trip to India, his wife gave birth at Kandahar to a eautiful daughter, Mihr al-Nisa (Sun of Women). Later, Jahangir would give Mihr al-Nisa the name of Nur Mahal (Light of the Palace) which he later expanded to Nur Jahan (Light of the World). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;"><strong>M</strong></span>ihr al-Nisa's father, Mirza Ghiyas al-Din Muhammad, made his way to Akbar's court at Fatehpur Sikri and rose rapidly in the imperial hierarchy. He held many important positions including that of diwan of Kabul; he ended his days with the rank of commander and the proud title of Itimad al-Dawleh (Pillar of the State). His son, Asaf Khan, was an urbane and affable courtier and a sharp fiscal administrator who secured the favor of both Jahangir and Shah Jahan, writes Hambly. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;"><strong>T</strong></span>he son attained the highest provincial governorships and finally the rank of commander-in-chief. Hambly notes that in 1612, a year after Mihr al-Nisa's marriage to Jahangir, Asaf Khan arranged for his daughter, Arjumand Banu Begum, to marry Prince Khurram, one of Jahangir's younger sons. Fifteen years later, Khurram would ascend to the throne as the emperor Shah Jahan. Nur Jahan's niece would win immortality as Mumtaz Mahal, the woman in whose honor the Taj Mahal was built.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;"><strong>J</strong></span>ahangir's wife, Nur Jahan, was an excellent conversationalist, a fine judge of Persian poetry and a poet herself. Her accomplishments made her an irresistible companion for the emperor. Nur Jahan was a patron of painting and architecture whose interests also extended to the decoration of rooms as well as the designing of ornaments, brocades, rugs and dresses. The fashions in women's clothing that she adopted were still in vogue at the end of the 16th century. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;"><strong>N</strong></span>ur Jahan was Jahangir's favorite companion. She shared his interests in fine artistic objects and precious stones. Nur Jahan also assisted Jahangir in the layout and design of Persian gardens like the beautiful Shalimar-Bagh on the Dal Lake in Kashmir. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;"><strong>J</strong></span>ahangir's love of flowers and animals is reflected in the numerous miniatures painted by artists who shared their master's keen eye for the beauties of wild nature. Sir Thomas Roe, the ambassador of James I of England, was amazed at Jahangir's knowledge and discriminating taste where pictures were concerned.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;"><strong>J</strong></span>ahangir was not particularly interested in architecture, but one of the buildings that dates from his reign ranks among the finest achievements of the Mughal spirit. This is the tomb of Mirza Ghiyath Beg, usually known by his title I'timad ad-Dawlah (Pillar of the State), built at Agra by Nur Jahan (Light of the World) for her father who died in 1622. The tomb stands in a quadripartite garden. The enclosure walls, a guest-house on the river Yamuna and the podium are made of traditional red sandstone inlaid with colored marble. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;"><strong>T</strong></span>he tomb of I'timad ad-Dawlah is the first structure in India in which white marble replaces red sandstone as the ground for polychrome pietra dura inlay. The tomb, measuring about 22 yards on a side, contains a central tomb chamber surrounded by square and rectangular rooms decorated with carved painted plaster in the Persianate style. The broad octagonal towers, like minarets, mark the corners, and a small pavilion or upper story rises above the roof. Three arched openings on each side provide shadows which contrast with the gleaming surface, while the cornice and eaves mark strong horizontal lines. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;"><strong>T</strong></span>he modest, jewel-like building is remarkable for its delicate but exuberant decoration and warm tonality. The traditional technique of inlay has changed; opus sectile, marble intarsia of various colors, has been replaced by pietra dura, in which hard and rare stones such as lapis, onyx, jasper, topaz, carnelian and agate were embedded in the marble. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: cyan; font-size: large;"><strong>T</strong></span>raditional geometric designs and arabesques are combined with representational motifs of drinking cups, vases with flowers, cypress trees and visual descriptions of Paradise from the Holy Qur'an. The intricate inlay in yellow, brown, gray and black, contrasting with the smooth white marble, prefigures the later phase of white marble garnished with gold and precious stones that marks the most sumptuous buildings constructed under later Mughal patronage.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-12617570029826454902010-02-05T08:37:00.000-08:002010-02-05T08:38:27.816-08:00+- Mughal Emperor Babar (1483-1530)<div align="justify"></div><div align="justify" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S2xHdk2NGpI/AAAAAAAAAZw/B_wnx5tc7Nc/s1600-h/humayun_ve_babur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="352" kt="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S2xHdk2NGpI/AAAAAAAAAZw/B_wnx5tc7Nc/s400/humayun_ve_babur.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div align="justify"><br />
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</div><div align="justify"><b><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">B</span></b>abar was soldier of fortune, founder of the Mughal dynasty in India, diarist and poet, descending in the fifth generation from Timur, was born on 14 February 1483. In June 1494, he succeeded his father, 'Umar Shaik , as ruler of Farghana, whose revenues supported no more than a few hundred cavalry. With this force of helmeted, mailclad warriors, Babar began his career of conquest. He joined in the family struggle for power, thrice winning and thrice losing Samarkand, alternately master of a kingdom or a wanderer through the hills. In 1504, he made himself master of Kabul and so came in touch with India whose wealth was a standing temptation. In 1517 and again in 1519, he swept down the Afghan plateau into the plains of India. He entered the Punjab in 1523 on the invitation of Daulat Khan Lodhi, the governor of the province, and 'Alam Khan, an uncle of Ibrahim Lodhi, the Delhi Sultan. But, wars in his home country however, compelled Babar to return so that his final invasion was not begun until November 1525.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><strong><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">B</span></strong>abar's army of 12,000 men was mostly undisciplined group of men who wanted to loot the riches of India. These 12,000 men, a tiny army with which to attempt the conquest of Ibrahim Lodhi's realm, first devasted Punjab. Guru Nanak in his famous epic named "Babarvani" describes the atrocities of Babar and his men in Punjab. </div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><strong>B</strong></span>abarvani (Babar's command or sway) is how the four hymns by Guru Nanak alluding to the invasions by Babar (1483-1530), are collectively known in Sikh literature. The name is derived from the use of the term in one of these hymns "Babarvani phiri gal kuiru na rot khai -Babar's command or sway has spread; even the princes go without food" (GG, 417). Three of these hymns are in Asa measure at pages 360 and 417-18 of the standard recension of Guru Granth Sahib and the fourth is in Tilang measure on pages 722-23.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><strong><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">I</span></strong>n his first invasion, Babar came as far as Peshawar. The following year he crossed the Indus and, conquering Sialkot without resistance, marched on Saidpur (now Eminabad, 15 km southeast of Gujranwala in Pakistan) which suffered the worst fury of the invading host. The town was taken by assault, the garrison put to the sword and the inhabitants carried into captivity. During his next invasion in 1524, Babar ransacked Lahore. His final invasion was launched during the winter of 1525-26 and he became master of Delhi after his Victory at Panipat on 21 April 1526.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><strong>G</strong></span>uru Nanak was an eye-witness to the havoc created during these invasions. Janam Sakhis mention that he himself was taken captive at Saidpur. A little of his, outside of Babarwani hymns, indicates that he may have been present in Lahore when the city was given up to plunder. In six pithy words this line conveys, "For a pahar and a quarter, i.e. for nearly four hours, the city of Lahore remained subject to death and fury" (GG,1412). The mention in one of the Babalvani hymns of the use of guns by the Mughals against the Afghan defence relying mainly upon their war - elephants may well be a reference to the historic battle of Panipat which sealed the fate of the Afghan king, Ibrahim Lodhi.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><strong>T</strong></span>he Sikh tradition strongly subscribes to a meeting in 1520 between Guru Nanak and Babar during the latter's invasion of Saidpur, now called Eminabad, in Gujranwala district of Pakistan. The town was taken by assault, the garrison put to the sword and the inhabitants carried into captivity. According to the Puratan Janam Sakhi, Guru Nanak and Mardana, also among the captives, were ordered to be taken to prison as slaves. The Guru was given a load to carry and Mardana a horse to lead. But Mir Khan, says the Janam Sakhi, saw that the Guru's bundle was carried without any support and Mardana's horse followed him without the reins. He reported this to Sultan Babar who remarked, "If there was such a holy man here, the town should not have been destroyed." The Janam Sakhi continues, "Babar kissed his (Guru Nanak's) feet. He said, 'On the face of this fair one sees God himself.' Then all the people, Hindus and Musalmans, began to make their salutations. The king spoke again, 'O dervish, accept something'. The Guru answered, 'I take nothing, but you must release all the prisoners of Saidpur and restore their property to them'. King Babar ordered, 'Those who are in detention be released and their property be returned to them'. All the prisoners of Saidpur were set at liberty" </div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><strong><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">B</span></strong>abarvani hymns are not a narrative of historical events like Guru Gobind Singh's Bachitra Natak, nor are they an indictment of Babar as his Zafarnamah was that of Aurangzab. They are the outpourings of a compassionate soul touched by scenes of human misery and by the cruelty perpetrated by the invaders. The sufferings of the people are rendered here in accents of intense power and protest. The events are placed in the larger social and historical perspective decline in moral standards must lead to chaos. A corrupt political system must end in dissolution. Lure of power divides men and violence unresisted tends to flourish It could not be wished away by magic or sorcery Guru Nanak reiterated his faith in the Almighty and in His justice. Yet so acute was his realization of the distress of the people that he could not resist making the complaint: "When there was such suffering, such killing, such shrieking in pain, did not Thou, O God, feel pity? Creator, Thou art the same for all!" </div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><strong>T</strong></span>he people for Guru Nanak were the people as a whole, the Hindus and the Muslims, the high-caste and the low-caste, soldiers and civilians, men and women. These hymns are remarkable for their moral structurs and poetical eloquence. Nowhere else in contemporary literature are the issues in medieval Indian situation comprehended with such clarity or presented in tones of greater urgency. In spite of his destructive role Babar is seen by Guru Nanak to have been an unwitting instrument of the divine Will. Because the Lodhi's had violated God's laws, they had to pay the penalty. Babar descended from Kabul as God's chosen agent, demonstrating the absolute authority of God and the retribution which must follow defiance of His laws. Guru Nanak's commentary on the events which he actually witnessed thus becomes a part of the same universal message. God is absolute and no man may disobey. His commands with impunity. Obey Him and receive freedom. Disobey him and the result must inevitably be retribution, a dire reckoning which brings suffering in this present life and continued transmigration in the hereafter. The hymn rendered in free English verse reads: </div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Lord, Thou takest Khurasan under Thy wing,</div><div align="justify">but yielded India to the invader's wrath.</div><div align="justify">Yet thou takest no blame;</div><div align="justify">And sendest the Mughal as the messenger of death.</div><div align="justify">When there was such suffering, killing,</div><div align="justify">such shrieking in pain,</div><div align="justify">Didst not Thou, O God, feel pity ?</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><strong>T</strong></span>he fourth Babarvani hymn is probably addressed to Bhal Lalo, one of Guru Nanak's devotees living at Saidpur itself. It ends on a prophetic note, alluding perhaps to the rise of Sher Khan, an Afghan of Sur clan, who had already captured Bengal and Bihar, defeated Babar's son and successor, Humayun, at Chausa on the Ganga in June 1539 (during the lifetime of Guru Nanak), and who finally drove the Mughal king out of India in the following year. The hymn in Tilang measure is, like the other three, an expression of Guru Nanak's feeling of distress at the moral degradation of the people at the imposition by the mighty. It is a statement also of his belief in God's justice and in the ultimate victory of good over evil. In an English rendering:</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">"</div><div align="justify">As descendeth the Lord's word to me, so do I deliver</div><div align="justify">it unto you, O Lalo:</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">[Babar] leading a wedding-array of sin</div><div align="justify">hath descended from Kabul and </div><div align="justify">demandeth by force the bride, O Lalo.</div><div align="justify">decency and righteousness have vanished, </div><div align="justify">and falsehood struts abroad, O</div><div align="justify">Lalo.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Gone are the days of Qazis and Brahmans,</div><div align="justify">Satan now conducts the nuptials, O Lalo.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">The Muslim women recite the Qur'an and</div><div align="justify">in distress remember their God, O Lalo.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Similar is the fate of Hindu women of</div><div align="justify">castes high and low, O Lalo.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">They sing paeans of blood, O Nanak, </div><div align="justify">and by blood, not saffron, ointment is made,</div><div align="justify">O Lalo.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">In this city of corpses, Nanak</div><div align="justify">proclaimeth God's praises, and uttereth</div><div align="justify">this true saying:</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">The Lord who created men and put them</div><div align="justify">to their tasks watcheth them from </div><div align="justify">His seclusion.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">True is that Lord, true His verdict, </div><div align="justify">and true is the justice He dealeth.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">As her body's vesture is torn to shreds,</div><div align="justify">India shall remember my words.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">In seventy-eight they come, in ninety </div><div align="justify">seven shall depart; another man of</div><div align="justify">destiny shall arise.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Nanak pronounceth words of truth,</div><div align="justify">Truth he uttereth; truth the time </div><div align="justify">calls for."</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><strong>T</strong></span>he words Seventy-eight and ninetyseven" in the penultimate line are interpreted as 1578 and 1597 of the Indian calendar, corresponding respectively with 1521 and 1540 which are the dates of Babar's invasion and Humayun's dethronement by Sher Khan/Shah. Though Babar's Tuzk, or Memoirs, a work of high literary quality, gives many interesting details of the campaigns and the events he was involved in and also describes the Indian life and customs very minutely there is no mention in these recollections that he met Guru Nanak. Nevertheless, the possibility of such a meeting having taken place cannot be ruled out. There are references in Guru Nanak's bans to Babars's invasions. An open tragedy like the one that struck Saidpur moved him profoundly and he described the sorrows of Indians-Hindus and Muslims alike-in words of intense power and suffering. Babar's army, in the words of Guru Nanak, was "the bridal procession of sin." In fact, Indian literature of that period records no more virile protest against the invading hordes than do Guru Nanak's four hymns of Babarvani in the Guru Granth Sahib. </div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><strong><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">B</span></strong>abar died on 26 December 1530 at Agra. Several years later his body was moved to its present grave in one of the gardens of Kabul.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><strong>B</strong></span>abar's ivasion and occupation of India impacted the life in India in all aspects. His generals forced people to be converted to Islam, his Zamindar's and other influential people bestowed lands and property on the newly converted Muslims. Babar himself became a Ghazi which in Islamic terminology is a positive epitecht and it means "a muslim who has killed a non-muslim", such a person is guaranteed heaven with "beautiful women, wine and rivers of honey." Another thing to note is that Babar destroyed several Hindu temples all over Punjab, and UP. Reason being is because founder of islam, Mohammad had done the same thing when he attacked Meeca and destroyed its temple and idolized Kaba. He made a pathway to kaaba using destroyed debree of the old temple, this tradition was continued by all the Mughal kings who invaded Indian, including Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shahjahan and Aurungzeb, they destroyed temples and converted them to mosques, even though it is not allowed in islam as muslims claim but Mohammad himself had done it so they followed their leader. </div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><strong>T</strong></span>he clash between Sikh and Islamic culture was inevitable and resulted in first small hostilities between Guru's followers starting with the Sixth Guru Guru Hargobind and later into full scale with Tenth Guru Guru Gobind Singh.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-19203062468093715792010-02-02T07:57:00.000-08:002010-02-02T07:58:50.145-08:00+- Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb (1618-1707)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S2hKQ6wkPhI/AAAAAAAAAZo/TlFHGP9un5I/s1600-h/200px-Aurangazeb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" kt="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S2hKQ6wkPhI/AAAAAAAAAZo/TlFHGP9un5I/s320/200px-Aurangazeb.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Prelude to Aurangzeb's Reign</strong></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Shah Jahan was a bigoted Muslim and a confirmed nepotist. He provided for the imperial princes before anyone else in the matter of administrative and judicial postings regardless of age, capability and talent. He also started the practice of conferring the cream of the offices on each prince; like Dara Shikoh was made the governor of Punjab and Multan, Aurangzeb was appointed governor of all the four provinces of the Deccan and so on. This might have been just a clever way to keep them occupied, but that was not how the nobility viewed it. The nobles saw this, and rightfully so, as an obstacle in the path of their promotions. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, the end of Shah Jahan's reign did not live up to the beginning; it saw one of the messiest battles of succession (also see History in Delhi) that Indian history ever witnessed. In September 1657, Shah Jahan fell ill. The prognosis was so unoptimistic that the rumors had it that the emperor was dead. This was enough to spark off intense intrigue in the court. All the four claimants to Shah Jahan's throne were the children of the same mother – although one would never have guessed that from their temperaments and their determination to make it to the throne.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 1657, Dara Shikoh was 43, Shah Shuja 41, Aurangzeb 39 and Murad 33. All of them were governors of various provinces: Dara was the governor of Punjab, Murad of Gujrat, Aurangzeb of the Deccan and Shah Shuja of Bengal. Two of them emerged clear frontrunners in the battle for the throne quite early: Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Aurangzeb was with doubt the ablest of Shah Jahan's sons and a clear favorite for the throne. His credentials both in battle and administration were legendary. He was also an orthodox Muslim of the oldest school possible, which made him a hot favorite with the clergy. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">As stated earlier, the actual events, which unfolded around Shah Jahan’s illness, were confused. Aiding and abetting the confusion with every word and gesture, for his own aims and purposes, was the favorite son Dara Shikoh. Aurangzeb did not waste much time. Acting on Dara Shikoh's behalf, Aurangzeb along with Murad met the Mughal armies twice in battle, and beat them each time while moving on relentlessly towards Agra, where Shah Jahan was convalescing. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">When Shah Jahan heard of Aurangzeb's advance, he expressed a wish to meet Aurangzeb and talk to him. It was the emperor's belief that upon seeing him alive, his son would turn on his heels and go back. Clearly the old king had been ailing only in body and not in mind, for certainly the appearance of Shah Jahan himself would have laid to rest the whole issue of succession. Even the most ardent of Aurangzeb's supporters would have had second thoughts about defying the great Mughal's authority openly. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, Dara Shikoh lacked the potentate's easy confidence in his son. He was not so convinced that Aurangzeb would meekly go back to where he had come from once the king had reassured him. In panic he also gave out that he was the heir-apparent. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So with suspicion and rumours ruling the day and power having the last laugh, Aurangzeb was the most amused of them all. Within a year he had all his brothers out of the way, father permanently in custody in the Agra Fort (where he hung on for eight years before dying in 1666) and was firmly entrenched on the Mughal throne. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">If Shah Jahan has been over-romanticized by scholars, his son and successor Aurangzeb has been unduly denigrated. Aurangzeb, it seems, could do nothing right. Later writers were to contrast his bigotry with Akbar's tolerance, his failure against the Marathas rebels with Akbar's successes against the Rajputs; in fact he has been set up as the polar opposite of everything that earned one the Akbarian medal of genius. One writer has said about him, rather tongue-in-cheek, "His life would have been a blameless one, if he had no father to depose, no brothers to murder and no Hindu subjects to oppress." </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">This picture of him has left such an impact on popular imagination that even today he is regarded as the bad guy of the Mughal regime, the evil king who slayed all Hindus and Sikhs. Hardly anyone remembers that he governed India for nearly as long as Akbar did (over 48 years) and that he left the empire larger than he found it. In fact, Aurangzeb ruled the single largest state ever in Mughal history. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Aurangzeb's rise to the throne has been criticised as being ruthless. However, he was no crueler than others of his family. He succeeded not because he was crueler but because he was more efficient and more skilled in the game of statecraft with its background of dissimulation; and if it's any consolation, he never shed unnecessary blood. Once established, he showed himself a firm and capable administrator who retained his grip of power until his death at the age of 88. True, he lacked the magnetism of his father and great-grandfather, but commanded an awe of his own. In private life he was simple and even austere, in sharp contrast to the rest of the great Mughals. He was an orthodox Sunni Muslim who thought himself a model Muslim ruler.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Aurangzeb's Reign</strong></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Aurangzeb's reign really divides into two almost equal portions.</strong> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The first twenty-three years were largely a continuation of Shah Jahan's administration with an added footnote of austerity. The emperor sat in pomp in Delhi or progressed in state to Kashmir for the summer. From 1681 he virtually transferred his capital to the Deccan where he spent the rest of his life in camp, superintending the overthrow of the two remaining Deccan kingdoms in 1686-7 and trying fruitlessly to crush the Maratha rebellion. The assured administrator of the first period became the embattled, embittered old man of the second. Along with the change of occupation came a dramatic metamorphosis of character. The scheming and subtle politician became an ascetic; spending long hours in prayer, fasting and copying the Quran, and pouring out his soul in tortured letters. It was in the second or the Deccan phase of his career that Aurangzeb began to drift towards complete intolerance of Hindus. Earlier his devotion towards Islam had very rarely taken the form of any religious bigotry. Now all that changed – the very king who had ordered in February 1659 that "It has been decided according to our cannon law that long standing temples should not be demolished… our Royal Command is that you should direct that in future no person shall in unlawful ways interfere with or disturb the Brahmins and other Hindu residents in those places" became a total fanatic. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In this zealousness to promote the cause of Islam, Aurangzeb made many fatal blunders and needless enemies. He alienated the Rajputs, whose valuable and trusted loyalty had been so hard won by his predecessors, so totally that they revolted against him. Eventually he managed to make peace with them, but he could never be easy in his mind about Rajputana again, a fact that hampered his Deccan conquest severely. Then, he made bitter enemies in the Sikhs and the Marathas. Things came to such a head that Guru Teg Bahadur, the 9th Guru of the Sikhs was at first tortured and then executed by Aurangzeb for not accepting Islam; a martyrdom which is mourned to this day by the Sikh community. The 10th Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Govind Singh then raised an open banner of revolt against Aurangzeb. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">No, Great-grandfather Akbar would certainly not have approved or been amused. He would have raised his imperial eyebrows at such a royal mess and sharply rebuked Aurangzeb for squandering away what he had worked so hard to achieve. Deccan or no Deccan. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Aurangzeb ended his lonely embittered life in Aurangabad in 1707. Perhaps with relief, but surely with much grief too for surely he knew that with him set the glorious sun that was the Mughal dynasty. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Many directly blame Aurangzeb and his destructive policies, which eroded the faith of the subjects in the Mughals for this. However, this is by far an overstatement. Whatever might have been Aurangzeb's policies, he remained very much the emperor till his dying breath in 1707. True, his policies did lead to resentment; even at the end of Shah Jahan's reign the rot had set in. Aurangzeb in fact tried to stop it and did a good band-aid job for a little while, but then things just went haywire with his persistent Deccan devil. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Deccan wrung Aurangzeb the man, the king, the father and the believer out of all softer emotions and decorum. He simply lost all sense of balance. He alienated a sizeable portion of his subjects along with allies and employees and made completely unnecessary enemies, which cost his successors dearly. He tried during his lifetime to put down rebellions all over his empire (the Marathas, the Sikhs, the Satnamis and the Rajputs) by one hand while trying to take Deccan with the other. However, it was like trying to put out a wild fire. Ultimately, it was these alternative power blocs, which were cropping up all over the country that sped up the fall of the Mughals. Not to mention the foreign powers who were already among those present: the British stretching their legs in Calcutta, the Portuguese in Goa and the French testing waters in the South. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Of course, it did not help matters that the successors of the great Mughals were weak and unworthy of their forefathers. But that was bound to happen some time or the other, wasn't it? So, from the late-18th century the field was wide open for any new power that wanted to try to set up shop in India. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">This was the time when a certain East India Company suddenly realized that they had stumbled upon a gold mine.</div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-50231382773222847562010-02-02T07:46:00.000-08:002010-02-02T07:46:12.874-08:00+- Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (1592-1666)<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S2hH0jemH5I/AAAAAAAAAZg/dX3naJhlZyA/s1600-h/portrait_of_mughal_emperor_shah_jahan_wh45.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" kt="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S2hH0jemH5I/AAAAAAAAAZg/dX3naJhlZyA/s320/portrait_of_mughal_emperor_shah_jahan_wh45.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Shah Jahan</strong></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>¤ Shah Jahan-The Favorite Grandson of Emperor Akbar</strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The scene of history shifts to Delhi again with Shah Jahan (of the Taj Mahal fame), the son of Jahangir ascending the throne. Shah Jahan was the grand old emperor Akbar’s favorite grandson. In fact, at one time there was a genuine fear that the sovereign would name him, instead of his son, as the successor. This was largely because Akbar regarded Jahangir as a bit of a bounder who whiled away his time with wine and women from a startlingly young age. One of the most famous movies in Indian cinematic history is Mughal-e-Azam (a must-see) which, if you take away the romantic trimmings, is all about Akbar saving Jahangir from his romantic excesses.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>¤ Shah Jahan's Strain Relations With His Father Jahangir</strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jahangir got a taste of his own medicine when he was king and his son Shah Jahan (then Prince Khurram) revolted against him. Jahangir had to eventually resort to the extreme measure of kidnapping his own grandchildren away to Kashmir with him to shut his son up. What drove Shah Jahan further away from his father was the intense court intrigue with the calculating Nur Jahan at the hub. Jahangir, while being every inch an autocrat, was completely dependent on his extremely capable and shrewd wife, Nur Jahan. The queen had a daughter from a previous marriage, and she wanted to see her daughter’s husband safely to the throne. Nur Jahan, who could not have expected to win any popularity contests in Agra, went alone in this choice. A major chunk of the nobility was with Shah Jahan. However it was she who had, as they say, the king’s ear. So despite the fact that Jahangir agreed to forgive and forget Shah Jahan’s misadventures in 1625, the tension could not be defused entirely.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>¤ Shah Jhan Chosen As A Successor of The Throne</strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">When Jahangir died in 1627 in Lahore, the Queen tried all the tricks in the book to put her candidate on the throne. But it was all in vain. Shah Jahan ascended the throne on popular demand, Nur Jahan retired from public life and her son-in-law was imprisoned.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>¤ The Golden Period of The Mughal Dynasty.</strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The reign of Shah Jahan has been widely acclaimed as the golden period of the Mughal dynasty. There are many reasons for this. Thanks to the firm base left by his grandfather and father, Shah Jahan’s reign was relatively peaceful and hence prosperous. Except for a drought in 1630, in the areas of Deccan, Gujarat and Khandesh, the kingdom was secure and free from poverty. The coffers of the state were brimming with the right stuff. So it’s no wonder that Shah Jahan was the greatest and most assiduous builder of the Mughal dynasty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>¤ Shah Jhan- Undoubtedly A Great King</strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 1639, he decided to shift his capital to Delhi and construct a new city on the banks of the Yamuna, near Ferozabad. It was to be called Shahjahanabad. Work on the fort and city commenced in 1639 and it took 10 years to build the Red Fort and palace. The spectacular peacock throne (the one that Nadir Shah took away) was transferred from Agra to the Red Fort, the new seat of the Mughal rulers, on April 8, 1648.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jahangir had built a great reputation for himself as a dispenser of justice and Shah Jahan carried forward the good work and took a personal interest in the judiciary. He demanded a high standard of law and order and even petty thieves were not spared. The age was pretty dynamic in the sense that there was intense interaction with foreign countries and travellers poured into India from Persia, France, Italy, Portugal and England. Which is very interesting for the scholar, for one gets accounts of people from myriad nationalities during the Shah Jahan’s reign.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Shah Jahan was undoubtedly a great king. He had shown evidence of being a great general even under his father’s reign. Military genius apart, his capacity for hard work is also legendary. A good administrator, he saw to it that the government machinery moved on oiled wheels. Within a year of his becoming king, the revenue of the state had shot up meteorically.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>¤ The Breathtaking Constructions of Taj Mahal</strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Shah Jahan was an aesthete and loved building. His greatest achievements of course were the breathtaking Taj Mahal, which he built in the memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal, and the magnificent city of Shahjahanabad, which remained the capital of India till well into the 19th century.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">There was a downside, of course. He was a bigoted Muslim and a confirmed nepotist. He provided for the imperial princes before anyone else in the matter of administrative and judicial postings regardless of age, capability and talent. He also started the practise of bestowing each prince with an important office. For instance, Dara Shikoh was made the governor of Punjab and Multan while Aurangzeb was appointed governor of all the four provinces of the Deccan. This might have just been a clever way to keep them occupied but that was not how the nobility saw it. The nobles viewed the practice as an obstacle in the path of their prosperity and promotions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>¤ Emperor's Devin Love For His Wife Mumtaz Mahal</strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is said that Shah Jahan died in spirit the day his Queen Mumtaz died. Stories are told of how he shut himself up in a room after her death and when he came out next morning his hair had turned white. A nice romantic tale, but the truth is that for all his love, Shah Jahan did not hesitate to expose Mumtaz to the rigours of travel in all states of health so that she died at the young age of 39 after giving birth to their fourteenth child. Also he was quick to seek consolation elsewhere and married several other women after Mumtaz died. However the love for Mumtaz must have been enduring, for when he was old and dying he began missing his queen all over again. By that time however, the power equation had changed once again.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>¤ The Peacock Throne</strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The fantastic Peacock Throne of the Mughals is now only a blurred memory in the collective imagination of Indians. It is now only alluded to illustrate the splendour and riches of India and all our lost glory. Painstakingly created by skilled craftsmen and artisans between 1628 and 1635, it was carried away to Persia by the marauding Nadir Shah in 1739. There are however still some miniature paintings that depict Akbar and Jahangir sitting proud on it. Shaped as a golden bedstead with golden legs and an enamelled canopy supported by 12 pillars, it looks breathtakingly fabulous. Each of the 12 emerald pillars bore two peacocks encrusted with gems and a tree with diamonds, emeralds, rubies and pearls nestled between each pair of birds. Just look at the picture - can you guess how much it cost?</div><div style="text-align: justify;">A whopping 10 million rupees, equivalent then to a million and quarter pound sterling.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7852769001237492481.post-22130048264599243902010-01-29T13:09:00.000-08:002010-02-02T07:31:11.593-08:00+- Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great (1542-1605)<div align="justify" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S2hDlF3HKjI/AAAAAAAAAZY/uc8NW09HktA/s1600-h/akbar__the_great_mughal_emperor_mi43.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" kt="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_UJXtMg5HkFw/S2hDlF3HKjI/AAAAAAAAAZY/uc8NW09HktA/s320/akbar__the_great_mughal_emperor_mi43.jpg" /></a></div><div align="justify">Akbar, the third Mughal emperor, the true founder of the Mughal Empire reigned from Afghanistan to the Bay of Bengal and from the Himalayas to the Godavari River in south. He was the most powerful face on Earth in the 16th century.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Just at the age of 13 an illiterate prince was crowned emperor who proved himself a skilled conqueror and administrator. Not only did he expand his empire’s peripheries but also explored the various fields of art and patronized them. It were those ‘nine jewels’ (nau-ratna) coveting various fields, which pillared his vast empire for almost half a century. His valor definitely played the lead in expanding boundaries but equally true is the fact that no sword can suppress revolt this long however mighty if it had not penetrate the mind and soul of lay-man.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Akbar ruled, when conspiracies were common in every walk of life.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">The span for which an emperor ruled depended on the failure or success of various conspiracies at the time. Above all the reforms he made, like removal of Jizya tax; marital alliance with Hindus; acknowledging good art; reflected his desire to propogate harmony and peace. The solid proof was Din-i-illahi, which was the compilation of the best things from every religion.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>The Reign of Akbar, 1556-1605</strong></span></div><div align="justify">Akbar was only 14 years of age in 1556 when he succeeded his father Humayun. That year, a formidable anti-Mughal coalition, consisting mainly of Afghanis, tried to recapture northern India but lost its battle against the Mughals at Panipat. Mughal control over northern India was finally established.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Akbar pursued a policy of vigorous expansion until his empire reached the greater part of the sub-continent north of the Godavari, writes Hambly. Akbar proved himself as sophisticated a commander and leader as any of his ancestors. Akbar's far-sighted policies also included the employment of talented Hindus in senior administrative positions in a regime that previously had been exclusively Muslim.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">In 1566, an attempt was made on Akbar's life. An assassin, posted on the roof of Khair al-Manzel, a madrasah built by Maham Anka near the Purana Qala, shot an arrow at the emperor as he rode back into Delhi. The arrow wounded Akbar's shoulder. This incident changed Akbar's method of rule, notes Hambly. Akbar now took into his own hands the supervision of the entire administration of the empire.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Akbar was an ambitious and noble commander who built the largest army ever in the history of the Mughal empire. By the end of the 16th century, a Mughal army in the field resembled a city on the move. Not all of Akbar's military expeditions were of an expansionist nature. Akbar also was compelled to quell formidable uprisings among his own subjects, especially the Uzbeks and the Afghans. The Afghans in India were the most turbulent and dangerous of the emperor's subjects, especially those who had been born in the time of the Lodi Sultans and still remembered the great era of Shir Shah Sur and his son Islam Shah.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Akbar annexed Malwa, Gondwana, and Bengal to the empire, and the Mughal troops made their first appearance in the Deccan. Khandesh, Berar and Ahmadnagar became Mughal subahs (provinces). According to Hambly, the annexation of the formerly independent Sultanate of Gujarat provided the empire with: enormous additional revenue from the area's rich commercial centers; access to the Gulf of Cambay, and hence, to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in the Arabian Peninsula; and opportunities for trade with the Portuguese and the Ottoman Empire.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Akbar was well aware of the structure and stratum of the society of his empire. His bold and imaginative approach to the problems of his heterogeneous empire may have reduced some of the long-standing, although generally passive, Hindu antagonism toward an administration which was entirely Muslim in spirit.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Akbar appointed the great Hindu Rajput chiefs to an active partnership in his government. Eventually, it became accepted practice for high-profile Hindus, like Amber or Jodhpur, to be governors of a major province or commander-in-chief of an army composed largely of Muslims. The Hindus were able to practice their own religion without disturbance.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Akbar's policy toward Hindus must be seen in its proper perspective. There was consistent contact between Hindus and Muslims in many areas of social life. Not only Muslim sovereigns but the entire Muslim ruling class recruited Hindus into their services, often in positions of great responsibility such as the case with Todar Mal and his staff. Hindus also served as craftsmen, artisans, entertainers, concubines, soldiers and servants. The two communities acknowledged and respected each other's rights in all aspects of social and religious life, notes Hambly.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Akbar, who was born at Amarkot in Sind in 1542, had spent most of his childhood as an Afghanistan. From his Persian mother, he inherited his princely manners, his love of literature and the arts, and a characteristically Persian delight in philosophical discussion. From his Turkish father, he inherited his fierce energy, his love of war and his ability to command. During the early part of his life, Akbar took the greatest joy in hunting, in elephant fights, and in intellectual games. Akbar reveled in all the varied pleasures of the chase, from facing charging tigers and leopards to pursuing the wild ass in the Rajasthan desert.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Akbar became unhappy with the increasing criticism of his relaxed attitude regarding non-Muslims in his government. Akbar's attitude was undoubtedly related to his vision of an empire with a diversity of faiths and cultures. Akbar's ire also reflected a hardening of his iron will and his fiercely individualistic personality, writes Hambly. The establishment of a new religion, Din-i llahi (Divine Faith), was a result of Akbar's consistent confrontations with his orthodox opponents.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">The court of Akbar fostered a lively literary culture and encouraged translations of all kinds. Massive numbers of classics were rendered into Sanskrit and Hindi. Also, religious literature was translated into Persian from other languages like Chaghatai Turkish, Sanskrit and Arabic. Akbar's school of translation made a valuable contribution to the Indianization of the Mughal ruling class.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Hambly writes that Akbar's vigorous personal influence over the life of his court was paralleled in his patronage of painting. During Akbar's reign, early Safavid style -- which had been introduced into India by Humayun -- began to merge and blend with indigenous Indian elements, and a genuinely original Mughal style evolved. The new style brought a change of emphasis in subject matter. Traditional Persian painting had been concerned mainly with the illustration of literary classics such as the shahnameh, Nizami's Khamseh and Jami's Yusuf va Zulaykha. Mughal painters -- many of whom were Hindus -- shifted their focus from illustrating the great classics of Persian literature to new subjects such as the life of Akbar and his court, as well as the representation of nature, landscape and portraiture.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">The most distinctive work in Akbar's ateliers was the series of illustrations commissioned for Abdul Fazl's Akbarnameh. This series demonstrates the unique and superb qualities of the nascent Mughal School and set it far apart from its Safavid or Timurid precursors. In this series, crowded and bustling scenes of men and animals are full of vigor and movement; the use of color is uninhibited; and detail is finely observed. The languid is rejected.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Unlike Babur or Humayun, Akbar had both the time and the resources to build on a monumental scale. Most of the monuments were constructed in or near Agra rather than in Delhi, Hambly writes. Akbar did not have great affection for Delhi, although most important Mughal structures had been built there. For Akbar, Delhi must have been a city of unhappy memories -- the scene of his father's death and his own narrow escape from an assassination attempt. Moreover, the principal landmarks in Delhi -- the Purana Qala, the city walls and gateways -- commemorated the greatness of Shir Shah whom Akbar considered as the usurper of his father's kingdom. Since Delhi was the capital of both the Lodi Sultanate and the Shir Shah Sur dynasty, the city was always restless and hostile to the Mughals. In light of these circumstances, Akbar must have found Agra a more attractive residence.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Akbar initially ruled from Delhi, but two years later he moved to Agra. The city was renamed Akbarabad in his honor and became the greatest city in the empire. The main part of the city lay on the west bank of the Yamuna and was provided with a drainage system to control the flow of rainwater. A new city wall was erected, and the old mud-brick fortress used by the Lodis was built again in 1565 of sandstone. The building's red color, write Blair and Bloom, gives rise to its modern name, the Red Fort. Blair and Bloom note that the fort follows the irregular, semicircular plan of its predecessor. On the city side, it is enclosed by a moat and a double wall that is broken by the Delhi Gate on the west and the Amar Singh Gate on the south. The two massive gates are distinguished by rows of arched niches and stunning veneer in red and white marble with highlights in blue glazed tile.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">According to the historian Abdul Fazl, construction of the fort was supervised by Muhammad Qasim Khan, who is credited with various feats of civilc engineering and who bore the dual titles, Master of the Land and Sea (mir-I barr wa bahr)and Master of Pyrotechnics (mir-Iatish).</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Two palaces are located to the southeast of the Red Fort, the Akbar Mahal and the Jahangiri Mahal. Like the gates, the outer facade of the Jahangiri Mahal is articulated with an orderly series of blind niches and panels filled with geometric motifs. In contrast to the calm austerity of the exterior, many of the interior surfaces are extravagantly decorated in carved stone, painted and carved stucco, and tile. The geometric patterns on screens and flat panels in the Jahangiri Mahal derive from Timurid designs.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">A similar synthesis of diverse architectural traditions could be seen on a larger scale at Fatehpur Sikri founded in 1571. The city was known as Fathabad (City of Victory), a Persian name which was soon supplanted in popular usage by the Indianized form, Fatehpur Sikri. Most of the major constructions at Fatehpur Sikri date to the 14 years when the city served as Akbar's principal residence.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">The city contained imperial gardens, rest-houses, residences for the nobility, and an experimental school dedicated to the study of language acquisition in childhood. Within the city, the buildings are set in two distinct ways. The service buildings -- such as the caravanseri, the mint or factory, and a long bazaar (chahar-suq) -- are set perpendicular to the southwest/northeast axis of the ridge. The imperial section of the city, which includes one of the largest congregational mosques in India, as well as a residential and administrative area known as the palace (dawlatkhana), is set at an angle to the ridge and aligns with the qibla, write Blair and Bloom.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Akbar's tomb in Sikandara is set in a vast garden (about 760 square yards) enclosed by a high wall and divided by water channels. The red sandstone gateway on the south side, write Blair and Bloom, is crowned by four white marble minarets. It is boldly decorated in white, gray and black marble that is set in panels with geometric designs and large-scale floral arabesques which resemble the patterns on textiles. The numerous Persian verses in the frame around the arch, write Blair and Bloom, compare the tomb and its garden to paradise. They were designed by Abd al-Haqq Shirazi who was awarded the title Amanat Khan (Trustworthy Noble) and who was responsible for many of the inscriptions on the Taj Mahal.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">The tomb is a pyramidal arrangement of three tiers of red sandstone pavilions with domed pavilions (chatris) at the corners. On top is an open court containing the emperor's marble cenotaph surrounded by pierced marble screens, write Blair and Bloom. The white color of the marble, continue Blair and Bloom, contrasts sharply with the red sandstone used elsewhere. The play of light and shadow over the increasingly delicate superstructure contrasts with the powerful massing of the basement.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">With its receding stories of pillared galleries, write Blair and Bloom, Akbar's tomb belongs to the indigenous tradition of trabeate construction used for palaces, while the podium, with its vaulted bays, vestibule decorated with painted plaster, and high portals whose strong intarsia reproduced the effect of tile, maintains the Timurid tradition of vaulted masonry.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Because of his ideal of cultural synthesis and religious diversity, Akbar reserved a unique place for himself in Indian history.</div>Swronyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01207740564974802864noreply@blogger.com0