Indian History

                          Clive meeting Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey, (By Francis Hayman) Ghaseti Begum, originally named Mehar un-Nisa, was the eldest daughter of Alivardi Khan, the Nawab of Bengal. She was married to Nawazish Muhammad Khan. Ghaseti Begum went all out to conspire against her nephew Siraj-ud-Daula who was the last independent Nawab of Bengal. Siraj-ud-Daula was defeated by the British under Lord Clive in the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and was killed on the orders of Miran, the son of Mir Jafar who was now made the Nawab of Bengal by the British.   Ghaseti  Begum was called the Begum of Motijheel  due to her residence at the bend of this reservoir in Murshidabad. Motijheel or Pearl Lake is an oxbow lake in Murshidabad. The lake was created by her husband Nawazish Muhammad Khan. Nawazish Muhammad Khan died of grief when his adopted son Ekram-ud-Daulah succumbed to smallpox at a yo...

1846 - The Battle of Aliwal was fought on 28 January 1846 between the British led by Sir Harry Smith and Sikh forces during the First Anglo-Sikh War. The battle resulted in a decisive British victory. 1865: Birth of Lala Lajpat Rai, great Indian freedom fighter.

An awesome feat of engineering, the Kailash Temple or the Kailashnath Temple , dedicated to Hindu God Shiva, is the most impressive remainder of the Rashtrakuta dynasty of Deccan that held sway for more than two centuries. Under the Rashtrakutas, the rock-cut architecture in India reached its zenith. Carved out of the single rock (monolithic) hewn out of Charanandri hills at Ellora (in Maharashtra) under the instructions Rashtrakuta king Krishna I (756-775), the Kailashnath Temple has been described in glowing terms by Percy Brown , the noted writer on Indian architecture. He says, "The temple of Kailash at Ellora is not only the most stupendous single work of art executed in India, but as an example of rock architecture it is unrivalled…. The Kailash is an illustration of one of those occasions when men's minds, hearts and heads work in unison towards the consummation of a supreme ideal. It was under such conditions of religious and cultural stability that this grand monoli...

1556 - Death of Humayun, the second Mughal ruler, on January 27 in 1556. He died in Delhi from falling down the stairs of his library, known as the "Sher Mandal," within the Purana Qila (Old Fort) in Delhi. After Humayun,  Akbar ascended the Mughal throne on February 14, 1556. The  brick coronation platform of  Akbar , the known as Takht-i-Akbari, is located at  Kalanaur in  the Gurdaspur district in  Punjab. The brick platform is the place where Akbar’s coronation took place in 1556. 

Bharhut Stupa Jataka Tales Jataka is a collection of stories about the Buddha’s previous births as a Bodhisttva . In Hinayana form of Buddhism, Bodhisattva is a previous incarnation of a Buddha. For an orthodox Buddhist Jataka tales are the autographical accounts of Gautama Buddha and hence a part of the Buddhist religious scriptures. One of the earliest and most significant collections of folk tales extant, the Jataka (written in the Prakrit language of Pali) comprises 547 stories. The stories are written in full in a prose commentary which has been credited to Buddhaghosa . The collection contains fables, moral tales, fairy tales, maxims and legends. Incorporated in the Pali canon, the Jataka stories are included in the Sutta Pitaka's Khuddaka Nikaya (“Short Collection”). Tripitaka or Three Baskets (Sutta Pitaka, Vinaya Pitaka and Abhidhamma Pitaka), a traditional term used for various Buddhist scriptures, is known as Pali Canon in English. In Sanskrit Jatakas are known as Jataka...

1620 - Death of Amar Singh, the ruler of Mewar Kingdom and eldest son of Maharana Pratap, on 26th January 1620.  1915 –  Birth of Gaidinliu Pamei (26 January 1915 – 17 February 1993), popularly known as Rani Gaidinliu, who was a Naga woman revolutionary leader and successor to the political movement launched by the Naga leader Haipou Jadonang (1905-31) to drive away the British from Manipur. Born in the present day Tamenglong district of Manipur Rani Gaidinliu led a popular rebellion against the British rule at the young age of sixteen after Jadonang was executed by the British.  In 1932, she was arrested by the British government who sentenced her to life imprisonment. This tribal freedom fighter spent fourteen years in different jails of Guwahati, Shillong, Aizawl, Tura and others between 1932 and 1947 making her one of India’s longest incarcerated political prisoners by the British. Rani Gaidinliu was finally released from the prison after India’s independence in 1947....