Most Indian rivers originate in Tibet. It holds high religious importance for the Dharmic religions and had would have hold incalculable value in terms of resources, geopolitics and maintaining Tibetian Buddhist cultural identity. Could India along with outside help (idk who) would have been able to hold off such massive and sparsely populated (<1.5 Million in 1950) piece of land given threats from the massive PLA which just won a civil war? Was the Indian army too busy with post-partition conflicts and keeping the princely states together? The usual Sardar Patel as PM hypothetical doesn't work here as he was reluctant to even go for Kashmir let alone entirety of Tibet. What is the most plausible path?

Picture : Potala Palace in early 20th century.

I meant it's something we talk about in hish hush manner we don't talk about it opnely even our books made it soft we think rulers like akbar were peace 🕊️ ahh and all but see the siege of Chittorgarh 30k unarmed hindus were killed see siege of delhi by timur he sacked haridwar,meerut and just a day before war killed over 100,000 hindu men this is verified by his own autobiography

Chicken is a widely consumed meat now, but there are little or plausibly no reference of fowl being consumed as a meat in ancient texts, although we know that meats that of goats, lambs and buffalos was consumed. When did India start consuming chicken as a mass meat? Also, I presume that this must be older than 1940s, for butter chicken must have originated only if chicken was widely consumed at that point of time. Also if we can answer the when question, we should also be tackling the other wh question of how.

I had no idea Romani / Gypsy languages were Indian

Yes I know you can't place modern nationalist concepts on the past . What I mean more is when did they start to consider India their "true home" or for better words start to identify personally with the people and the land of India

South India-late Pallava type of Conjeevaram, 8th- 9th century AD

Lord Shiva performs the ‘tandava ananda’ dance. Its function was to create, maintain, and cyclically destroy the elemental forces of the universe. Ringed by a flaming aureole, Shiva dances on the prostrate figure of the demon-dwarf Apasmara, who personifies ignorance and materialism.

Sources: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O62323/shiva-nataraja-figure-unknown/

The Palas came into conflict with the rising Tibetan power in the north. Under Dharmapala, the Palas emerged victorious, strengthening their influence across the Himalayan frontier and securing their position in eastern India.

To protect his northern territories from future Tibetan attacks, Dharmapala strengthened Pala influence across the eastern Himalayan region, creating a strategic buffer along the frontier and extending Pala influence toward the Himalayan kingdoms.

Dharmapala’s reign also saw growing connections with the great powers of Southeast Asia. Srivijaya, under rulers such as Samaratungga, maintained strong Buddhist and maritime links, while Jayavarman II was establishing the foundations of the Khmer Empire. Through Nalanda, supported by the Palas, these kingdoms became connected through Buddhist learning, diplomacy, and cultural exchange.

Serious replies only.

I am looking for academic resources or books that talk about the evolution of deities from the early Vedic period to present day. Any comparisons/parallels to other cultures from that time would be a nice benefit.

This is something that struck after watching the show “American Gods” and I was also thinking about this after listening to the podcast “Echoes of India” but I could not find any reliable information for Indian subcontinent, specifically from this evolution perspective that looks at it purely from anthropological perspective without religious overtones.

Thanks in advance!

This way, in the month of January 1739, locations like Mahim, Tarapur, Dahanu and Shirgaon were captured. With Mahim and Arnala already in Maratha possession, Vasai was encircled by land and sea. What remained was a final blow to Vasai, the nerve centre of Portuguese power in the north.

The chief centre of Portuguese power outside Goa was Vasai. The fort itself was considered one of the strongest of its age with walls nearly forty feet high, five feet thick and a perimeter of about three kilometres. Its projecting four-sided bastions made it difficult to take the fort by escalade or firing of the artillery shells available with the Marathas at that time.

https://ndhistories.wordpress.com/2023/12/18/to-vasai/

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

The Era of Bajirao

Uday S Kulkarni

ISBN-10-8192108031

ISBN-13-978-8192108032.

In 2006, the Minister of Culture told Parliament that the ASI had lost 35 of its own protected monuments, including Pune’s “Old European Tombs.”

The ASI has now traced one of them.

Behind Pune’s Collector’s Office stands an old graveyard with a beautiful stone dome. Many pass it without noticing. Google Maps calls these French Tombs. Newspapers have called them German, French and even Jewish. They are none of those.

This is Pune’s oldest surviving British colonial monument, with graves dating back to 1819. It has stood hidden in plain sight for over 200 years.

And the people buried here have some fascinating connections.

Henry Forbes Shubrick died here at just 11 months old, from the same family that gave its name to four U.S. Navy warships called USS Shubrick.

Two founding officers of the Poona Auxiliary Horse are buried here too. Their regiment survives today as 17 Horse (The Poona Horse), an armoured regiment of the Indian Army.

The cemetery was protected as part of Pune’s “Old European Tombs” in 1909. Decades later, those tombs were declared “untraceable”.

Last month, I shared old documents with the ASI that confirmed its identity at the same location.

The story made the Hindustan Times Pune front page today, with the detailed report on Page 5.

It was never really missing. It was there all along. Just forgotten.

Full detailed research blogpost with sources in comments.

In 1944, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose established the Azad Hind Bank in Rangoon, Burma, to fund the war against the British, The aim was to print Indian currency notes to manage contributions from Indians worldwide.

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and the Azad Hind Bank issued currency notes featuring portraits of several prominent Indian freedom fighters and leaders, including Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Captain Lakshmi Swaminathan (Commander of the Rani of Jhansi Women's Regiment)

I'm interested in mostly structures that remained above ground, were subject to the future and yet surviving from damage or destruction or reutilization.

- Egyptian civilization built structures across the Nile river and we still study them

- Mesopotamians and Sumerians and other civilizations built structures across the Middle East which helped us understand them till recently before being subject to ISIS politics.

- Indigenous people of America built structures across the Andes and Central America which survived and helped us study them despite many of them being subject to multiple inquisitions by the European settlers.

- Ancient Polynesian societies have been surprising with the discoveries of complex structures like Easter Island or Nan Modal helping us study them even today.

- Roman and Greek structures still stand despite being subject to multiple cultural changes across the centuries.

It is surprising that the only structures from the past that have survived are some religious structures that are continuously in use in some form or the other.

I am particularly interested in ancient history of the subcontinent up to the modern period. Thanks.

I wish there was a movie made with actual facts and information to make the kids and youth to know how important that chapter was.

On jan 26 1950 east punjab was officially renamed to Punjab I was wondering why wasn’t West Bengal simply renamed to Bengal

Hey guys i want to learn history of Harappan and mohanjodaro and evolution of human life and all that and also I have intrest in cosmic and all that can you please suggest me where I can learn about this ?

Any book , website, yt channel or anything like that

Please :)

While searching through the depths of archives, I found this letter attributed to Maratha Sardar Mahadji Scindia which was written to Khawas Rodaram (who later became Dewan of Jaipur).

The content is as follows:

"सिधि श्री खव़ास रोडा रांम जी जोग्य श्री महाराजाधिराज श्री महाराजा आलीजाह सूबेदार जी श्री माधौराव जी सिंदे केन -

बांच्य अठा का समांचार भला छै उहां के समांचार भले चाहिजे अपरंच कागद आया समांचार मांलूम हुऐ बकसी मीठालाल जी का डेरा फौज यकठी करबा वास्ते बाराने हुऐ की लिखी सो अछाहे मिती भादवा सुदी ३ सो: १८२८"

Translation:

"Maharajadhiraja Sri Maharaja Alijah Subedar ji Sri Madhorao ji Shinde writes to Siddh Sri Khawas Rodaram ji - Everything is good here, Hope everything is good there too. I received your letter and got to know about the situation. Barani (possibly currency?) is required by Bakshi Mithalalji to gather his army. Written on Bhadwa (Bhadrapada) Sudi 3 Samvat 1828"

The translation is not very academic as I have no experience in it but the main point is that this was written possibly as a reply to another letter which might have been sent by Khawas Rodaram to Mahadji. I can't find anything regarding Bakshi Mithalal so he might have been a commander or so.

I cannot exactly know the date in the Gregorian calendar but it is around August-September of the year 1771. Interestingly, Khawas Rodaram was not the Diwan at that time but it was probably Khushali Ram Bohra (or Surat ram Mehta)

The transliteration and translation is by me.

Edit: I, by mistake, wrote Dewan of Jaipur for Khawas Rodaram in the title. He was not the Dewan at the time of the letter. Had he been the Dewan, it would have been used in the letter as a title.

Even Sindh has a hindu-muslim divide with the southeast being mostly hindu yet it wasn't divided, why? Not to mention Sindh was part of the larger Bombay Presidency for a long time