There is an Ashokan Rock Edict in the heart of South Delhi.

Read on the interesting story of how the edict was discovered and what it says.
The Prakrt edict, written in Bhrahmi, was accidentally discovered in 1966 when a building work was going on. The ASI quickly put it in a cage, and it stayed that way until recently. Kids were playing cricket here.

A fascinating display of gold jewellery from Sirkap and Bhir mounds, Takshashila 4 C BCE - 1 C CE at the National Museum.

These beautiful gold jewels were excavated by John Marshall from the Bhir and Sirkap mounds in Takshashila. Made in different elegant styles, the ornaments are perfect reflection of meticulous design and amazing craftsmanship.

The period straddles the Mauryan & Indo-Greek period.

I came across an 'opinion' piece by Dr Savita Jha Khan on the apparently disturbing trend of Hindus assembling in large numbers. What is put across as a concern looks more like fear when one reads the piece.

Here is what I found.

#Thread At the outset, Mrs Khan wonders whether going to Kumbh means Hindus have started following a codified, performative & mandatory form of Hinduism.
This assumption is shocking because Hinduism is not a bunch of random beliefs. It has its codes, its rituals & mandates.

I arrived back home last night after a 3 day teertha trip covering Kashi, Prayagraj & Ayodhya. What was supposed to be a simple trip turned out to be one of the most memorable trips of my life so far. Full of hope, exhilaration & utter despair, the trip was a roller coaster ride. Day 01

My mother & I started our trip on 4th Feb. We took the Vande Bharat to Kashi & arrived almost 20 min before our scheduled arrival time. It was my first time in Kashi & the city was full of people from all over India.

One must have read how the police in many areas has to restrict the Hindu religious processions to a fixed route. One might also think that this is a recent phenomenon.

Today I will tell you about a restriction that was put in place in 1910, in the city of Peshawar & what happened next. Holi was to be celebrated between 22 - 25 March (yes, Holi was celebrated over four days). The Mu sl !m mourning event of Bara Wafat (also celebrated as Eid i Milad al Nabi now) coincided with Holi.

Being Muslim majority, the Muslim leaders of the city were upset with the Holi plans of the Hindus.

The Navasari plate inscription of the year 490 of the Kalachuri Era or 739 CE, memorialises the grand victory of the Chalukyas over the Arab Army, led by Hakam.

The labours of Pulakeshiraja resulted in a wholesome defeat of the Arabs and subsequent recapture of territories in modern Gujarat and Rajasthan.

The inscription gives us a lot more information than that. The inscription starts with salutation to the Varaha avatar or Vishnu. It is interesting to note that the inscription begins with invoking the Varaharoopam and praises a Shaivite Pulakesiraja and the Chalukyas themselves were known to patronize both Buddhism and Jainism. This is yet another counter to the Marxist narrative of wars and bloodshed against the Jainism and Buddhism by the Hindu kings or of the battles between the Shavites and Vaishnavites.

The Marxist historians make clever use of language to discredit Indic history. Take for instance the word 'cult'.

Let us see what does the word mean and how it has been used to demean Hindu practices.

#Thread
#WordsMatter Many Indian historians have used the word, cult, when they describe Hindu religious practices. Phrases like, 'the cult of Shiva', 'the cult of Vasudeva', 'cult of Kali', etc. are fairly common.

These phrases were first used by the Christian historians of the west to separate Christianity & Abrahamic religions from Hinduism.

How did the Islamic invaders/Turks managed to defeat the Indian kingdoms & establish Islamic rule in early 13th century?

#Thread

The image shows the extent of raids & control of the Mamluk dynasty 1206 - 1290 CE. To put things in context, it is important to note that the establishment of Delhi Sultanate/Mamluk dynasty was a result of more than 500 years of Islamic invasion of India. It was not an over night project where the invaders defeated the Hindu kings & established a Sultanate.

The closer we get to 22 Jan, more stupid the detractors get. The latest is Patrick Olivelle, Professor Emeritus of Asian Studies, The University of Texas at Austin. He suggests temples & Vedic rituals are incompatible.

Let's examine.

#Thread Prof Olivelle is what we know as BOWI. Brown Outside White Inside. A Sri Lankan, educated at Oxford, he likely self identifies as a white, liberal, atheist.

The essence of his opinion is that Vedas & temples are incompatible & hence the Ram Mandir is an anti Vedic project.

Mughals, Ganga Jamuni Tehzeeb and all that jazz..

Sam Dalrymple, S/O William Dalrymple attempts yet another whitewash of the erasure of Hindu temples by Mughals. He comes up with same lame excuses.

#Thread

indianexpress.com/article/cities… The excuse this time is the Yogmaya temple at Mehrauli. The story written by Vidheesha Kuntamalla of IE starts with projecting the Yogmaya temple as a 'Mughal sponsored' temple. Before we go ahead, let us understand what this term means.

There is a lot of interest regarding the statement by ASI on its inability to carry out a radio carbon dating of the Lingam at Gyanvapi.

Many people are upset and many are questioning the abilities of ASI to ascertain the age of the Lingam.

So what is the issue?

#Thread One can debate the efficiency of a highly bureaucratic ASI, but that will be a separate debate. What ASI has submitted here is that carbon dating of the Lingam is not possible. And that is a fact.

Carbon dating can only be done on organic matter, i.e things that were alive once.

Why is Delhi airport so congested?

1. Shortage of staff at check-in & security checks
2. Probably messed up slots allocation for airlines
3. A very inefficient verification mechanism at the entry gates
4. Another very inefficient cabin baggage x-ray mechanism Post pandemic the airlines have not managed to bring their staff strength back. This leads to unmanned check-in counters & hence long queues.

The security booths haver perpetually been understaffed. @MoCA_GoI/@HMOIndia has to provide manpower

It amazes me as to how here peers at @rutgersU maintain silence at her lies.

In a long thread she makes some ludicrous points like the one attached below. She might as well say that Herr Fuehrer didn't specifically kill Jews since he also killed gays & differently abled. Now the reason why the series of Muslim invasions are called Islamic conquest is because all the invasions were carried out in the name of Islam & to establish an Islamic State in India. The motive was very well defined & clear.

After common people, politicians, political parties, now archaeology too is Hindutva. Both Biblical & Islamic archaeology are offered as courses in well known universities (I am not counting the many religious unis that offer them) in the West. It is a legitimate field of study & no one demonises them. But 'Hindutva' archaeology is, for some reason a bad thing.

This thread is the reason why none of the foreigners or non Hindus understand what a Dharmic religion is. They always look at Hinduism from an Abrahamic lens. They look for markers like, one God, one book to define religion.

https://twitter.com/AudreyTruschke/status/1578094374814195712

The moment they come across something seamless & perpetual like Hinduism they get confused. They start making atrocious claims, not because they find faults, but because they are unable to fathom what they desperately try to understand.

The most popular manifestation of Shakti is as Mahishasura Mardini. Not just in India, but across Southeast Asia too. But why would a Goddess slaying a buffalo be of any significance? Buffalo is a domestic animal, easily milked & managed. So why Mahishasura Mardini?

#Thread Gods & Goddesses are usually associated with tasks that are beyond the capabilities of humans. Like lifting a mountain or drinking the cosmos destroying poison. To understand why slaying of a domesticated animal would be significant, we need to go back in time.

How political/ideological leaning lead to distortion of history:
Let us put aside the rhetoric of India being a Hindu nation for the time being & focus on the claims/lies of GS. So apparently India is first & foremost an Adivasi nation. Adivasi literally means one who lived since the beginning. The word was coined in early 1900s as a tool of identity politics. But why was there a need for a new word?

Since yesterday's thread on Indian slave labour in Samarkand has generated interest, here is a #thread on slavery in India.

Image: slave market in Yemen, 13th century Slavery was common in Europe since antiquity. At one point in time 25% of the population of ancient Italy was enslaved. Later, slavery was endorsed by Christianity & by Islam too. India OTOH was ignorant of slavery until the Islamic Invasion in 7th century.

Bibi Khanum Mosque, Samarkand, Uzbekistan. 1399 - 1404 CE, was the largest mosque in the Islamic world in the 15th century. The construction was primarily carried out by Indian slave labour. When Timur invaded India in 1398, he sacked many cities & took almost 1 lakh slaves, mostly Hindus. They were slaughtered en masse on fears of revolt. After the sack of Delhi, Timur took more slaves including many artisans.

There are images circulating on Indian Twitter showing pre-revolution Iran where women are at beaches in bikini or in universities in western attire. What people don't realise is that it is not the complete truth. The pre-revolution Iranian society was not particularly westernised as we are often made to think by pushing those images. On the contrary the Iranians were opposed to the westernisation efforts of the Shah.

#HyderabadLiberationDay
#Thread

The Princely State of Hyderabad was ruled by Mir Osman Ali.
The Independence of India Act, 1947 offered the choice to the Princely States, of joining either IN or PK based on geographical contiguity & or the people's wishes. Hyderabad had none. In a reverse of the situation in Kashmir, Hyderabad was a Hindu majority State ruled by a Muslim Nawab. There was no question of a referendum by the Nawab, since it was clear what the outcome would be.