GemsOfINDOLOGY Profile picture
Oct 27, 2022 17 tweets 9 min read Read on X
1/
Kangra fort Is the oldest surviving fort of India. It has unsunug stories from Mahabharata to Alexander to British Raj to tell.

#Thread Image
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As per legends, Maharaja named Susharma Chandra, fighting for the Kauravas, was engaged to distract Krishna and Arjun by luring them away, to the other side of the chakravyuh. This maharaja belonged to Katoch Dynasty Image
3/
As per another legend, Katoch was born out of the first Sweat Drop fallen from Devi Ambika's brow which helped Devi fighting 'Raktbeej'
In return, the Goddess gifted him the kingdom of Trigarta, of which Kangra was a part. Image
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Once the Kauravas were defeated, the Maharaja is said to have left his seat in Multan and retreated to Kangra, where he took control of the kingdom of Trigarta and built the Kangra Fort to ward off his enemies. Image
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Porus aka Purushottam lived here to make Alexander tooth sour

Src Harvinder Chandigarh • CC BY-SA 4.0
hpkangra.nic.in/gallery/kangra… Image
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On the 23rd of the month of Kartik, Samvat 1839 (1782 AD), Raja Sansar Chand attacked Kangra Fort and defeated #Mughal (converted Mongolians) Governor, Saif Ali Khan as per Inscriptions in Takri and Persian.
clevelandart.org/art/2018.120
Image
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Inside fort devotees donation was stored in 21 4 meter deep wells.
As per Tarikh-i-Firishta, the fort’s wealth is described as “7,00,000 golden dinars; 700 maunds of gold and silver; 200 maunds gold in ingots; 2000 maunds of silver bullion and 20 maunds of various jewels”.
8/
It was Kangra's wealth that the invaders eyed for including Alexander, Ghazni
9/
Some intricate details on the walls of Kangra Fort testimoning it's richness

Photo: Rafal Cichawa / Alamy Stock Photo Image
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Some beautiful insights from Kangra fort ImageImageImage
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Deities in Kangra Fort ImageImageImageImage
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More Deities and Gods at Kangra Fort ImageImageImage
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Ruins of Kangra Fort ImageImageImageImage
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More pics for curious tweeples ImageImageImageImage
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Architecture
Kangra fort ImageImageImageImage
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When you go Kangra Mata Mandir next time do visit this least talked about most important Fort.
Please do share pictures, aI will retweet
17/
Sources
Google maps, wiki
cntraveller.in/story/mahabhar…

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More from @GemsOfINDOLOGY

Feb 7
1️⃣ Every art history course starts in Greece.

But here's what they don't mention: almost every Greek painting from the Classical period is gone. Lost.

Meanwhile, in India, 700 years of continuous wall paintings still exist.

Let's talk about what survives vs what we worship. Image
2️⃣ Ajanta Caves.

Painting phases dated 2nd century BCE – 5th century CE.

That means: Ajanta begins before Alexander. And continues after Rome adopts Christianity.

This isn't parallel art. This is a continuous painting tradition spanning 700 years. Image
3️⃣ Where are Greek paintings from 480–323 BCE?

Answer from classical scholarship: almost entirely lost.

What survives:
• Roman wall paintings (1st c. BCE–1st c. CE)
• Literary praise by Pliny the Elder
• Copies, not originals

An origin remembered by texts vs one preserved in pigment.Image
Read 7 tweets
Feb 5
1️⃣ The first diamond ever touched by human hands came from Indian soil. Golconda mines, 4th century BCE. We didn't dig for profit. We picked them from riverbeds like pebbles. 💎

Then someone realized they could own what the earth gave freely. Image
2️⃣ 1600s: Golconda diamonds weighed 23 million carats annually. The world's entire supply. Tavernier documented it. Shah Jahan embedded them in the Peacock Throne.

We controlled brilliance itself. Image
3️⃣ 1739: Nadir Shah walks into Delhi. Walks out with the Kohinoor and the Peacock Throne. Combined worth? Impossible to calculate. The throne alone held 26,733 gems.

First lesson: What glitters gets taken. Image
Read 8 tweets
Jan 30
1/ ASI admits stone jars occur across Assam, Laos, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

That admission changes everything. Once you acknowledge geographic spread, local narratives collapse. Interpretation must go regional. 🧵 Image
@himantabiswa @ASIGoI @MinOfCultureGoI @tourismgoi @gssjodhpur @UNESCO 2/ ASI records no present-day tribe claims authorship.

That's not ambiguity. That's normal. Mortuary traditions outlast populations, languages, identities by millennia.

Continuity ≠ authorship. Image
3/ ASI calls them ancestral bone repositories — already placing them in secondary burial systems.

The same function archaeologically proven at the Plain of Jars.

Function aligns across regions. Not coincidence. Image
Read 7 tweets
Jan 22
1/10
Meet Bhagirathi — the river that dragged Ganga from Shiva's hair to earth.

Rigveda calls her "the one who flows with the speed of thought."

Today? A trickle dying before Gangotri even starts.

From cosmic torrent to seasonal sewer. Thread 🧵 Image
2/10
Bhagirathi begins at Gaumukh — "cow's mouth" glacier.

1935: 300-meter ice wall, roaring.
2025: Snout retreated 3+ km uphill. Glacier lost 25% volume since the 1960s.

Your Himalayan trek selfie is on her corpse. 📸❄️ Image
3/10
Vedic seers saw her as divine:
नदीं न संनादतीं दमूनसम् (RV 10.75.4)
"The river that roars like a bull in rut."

Now? Summer discharge down 40% since 1990.
Sometimes she doesn't reach Devprayag to become "Ganga."

Literal identity crisis. 🏔️💧 Image
Read 10 tweets
Jan 22
You already know that for over 2,000 years, Indian smiths forged steel so sharp it cut European swords in half. So resilient it became legend across continents.

By 1900, those same smiths were classified as backward. Primitive. Incapable of innovation.

What happened between? 🧠⚔️ You don't know!!

A 5-step manual for erasure. READ On 👇

#decolonisation #UncropTheTruth

1/7Image
Step 1: Extract the technique

Indian wootz steel arrived in British laboratories in 1795. Samples were analysed, chemical compositions documented, papers published in the Royal Society. The steel was credited to "Eastern origin." The smiths who forged it? Unnamed. Untraced. Irrelevant.

The technique was extracted. The technician was erased.

2/7Image
Step 2: Disrupt the ecosystem

Wootz steel required specific forests for charcoal, particular ores, seasonal smelting cycles. Colonial forest laws between 1855–1878 criminalized wood collection, turned smelting zones into "reserved land," cut access to raw materials.

The furnaces went cold. Not because knowledge disappeared, but because resources were locked behind permits the smiths couldn't obtain.

3/7Image
Read 7 tweets
Jan 9
#GemsOfASI #14
Theft, loss, and inventory failure

1/
When artefacts disappear from protected monuments, the response is usually administrative.
Files are opened, reports are written, and records are updated.
By the time this happens, the loss has already occurred much earlier. Image
2/
Many antiquities under protection are still incompletely catalogued, irregularly verified, or stored without consistent physical security.
In such cases, legal custody exists on paper, but effective control on the ground is weak or absent. Image
3/
Once local community presence was removed from many sites, informal and continuous surveillance disappeared with it.
As a result, losses are often discovered only years later, during audits or inspections, when recovery is no longer realistic.
(3/5) Image
Read 5 tweets

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