Indian History

Smṛrti is a class of literature comprising law books. Many medieval Indian jurists wrote lengthy commentaries on the Smriti literature. Of these the most important was Vijnaneshwara who wrote at the court of great Western Chalukya emperor Vikramaditya VI (r. 1076 – 1126 CE). Western Chalukyas are also known as the Chalukyas of Kalyani.   His treatise, Mitakshara played a very important part in forming the civil law of modern India. Mitakshara is a commentary on the law book of Yājñavalkya,

  Nuakhai Juhar Festival  is an agricultural festival chiefly celebrated in  Western Odisha .  Celebrated primarily by tribal people, this festival falls on the day right after  Ganesh Chaturthi . Nuakhai Juhar is a celebration of the harvest, which is being celebrated on  September 20  this year.  The word ‘Nuakhai’ is translated into  ‘Nua’  (i.e., new) and  ‘Khai ’ (i.e., eating). Nuakhai Juhar is the most prominent harvest festival celebrated in Odisha. It is a festival of worship of food grain. As per the ritual,  Nabanna  or the newly harvested rice has been offered to the presiding deity of the presiding deity of western Odisha, the Goddess Samaleswari.. Though celebrated throughout Odisha, the districts of Kalahandi, Sambalpur, Balangir, Bargarh, Sundargarh, Jharsuguda, Sonepur, Boudh, and Nuapada are the places where people celebrate Nuakhai on grand scale. 

'Sacred Ensembles of the Hoysala', the three Hoysala temples in Karnataka, have been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. These temples are the Chennakeshava temple at Belur, Hoysaleshwara temple at Halebidu and The Keshava temple at Somnathapura. While the first two are in Hassan district, the third is in Mysuru district.  All the three temples are protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). Nominations were entered as ‘’The Sacred Ensembles of Hoysalas’’. While the Chennakeshava temple and Hoysaleshwara temple at Halebidu were on the UNESCO’s tentative list since 2014, the Keshava temple at Somanathapur was appended to the other two monuments under the tentative list and all the three were officially nominated by the Centre as India’s entry for 2022-23 in February in 2022. An expert from International Commission on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) concluded the site visits covering all the three temples in September 2022 and the monuments were officially inscri

Credit: Twitter/UNESCO Santiniketan in the Indian state of West Bengal  has been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.  UNESCO is an acronym for  United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization . It is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that works for world peace through global cooperation in the fields of education, culture and the sciences.  India has been striving for long to get a UNESCO tag for this cultural site located in the Birbhum district of West Bengal.  It was at Santiniketan where poet Rabindranath Tagore built Visva-Bharati over a century ago.  About Visva-Bharati University Visva-Bharati is an university located in Shantiniketan in  West Bengal, India. It was founded by Rabindranath Tagore who called it Visva-Bharati, which means the communion of the world with India.  Until independence it was a college. Soon after independence, the institution was given the status of a central university in 1951 by an act of the Parliament.  When f

"Well-regulated streets (were) oriented almost invariably along with the cardinal directions, thus forming a grid-iron pattern. (At Kalibangan) even the widths of these streets were in a set ratio, i.e. if the narrowest lane was one unit in width, the other streets were twice, thrice and so on...Such a town-planning was unknown in contemporary West Asia." - B.B. Lal The Indus Valley Civilization  site of Kalibangan is situated on the southern bank of the Ghaggar (Sarswati) river in Hanumangarh district of Rajasthan. Here we find evidence of the world’s first furrowed field. Traces of pre-Harappan culture have also been found.  The excavations at Kalibangan were conducted by BB Lal and BK Thapar from 1961-69.   Fire worship was prevalent in Kalibangan where rows of distinctive fire alters with the provision of ritual bathing have been found.  Like other Indus Valley towns Kalibangan was divided into two parts, fortified town and a lower town. The lower town at Kalibagnan was

Thyagaraja is considered the greatest saint-composer of Carnatic music.  He was a Telugu who was born and brought up in present-day Tamil Nadu.  He worshipped God in the form of Rama, the incarnation of Vishnu and Hero of Valmiki’s Ramayana. Thyagaraja was born in Thiruvarur in Tanjore District of Tamil Nadu in 1767. 

Built in the 13th century, the Sun Temple at Konark in Odisha is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Known worldwide for its architectural grandeur, the temple was built by Eastern Ganga ruler Narasimha I. Eastern Ganga dynasty was a kingdom in India, ruling over an area corresponding to present day Odisha, the coastal plain between the Ganga and the Godavari. The majestic Sun Temple at Konark is a symbol of India. Formerly called the Black Pagoda, this magnificent temple has been designed as a gigantic chariot of the Sun God.  Eastern Gangas were great temple builders. The temples built by them survive to be awe-inspiring spectacles for the people who throng to them.  Chief among them are Jagannatha temple of Puri and the Sun Temple (also known as Black Pagoda) at Konark. The dynasty is called Eastern Gangas to differentiate them from Western Gangas, a separate dynasty, ruling in Mysore.  x

Dashavatara Temple at Deogarh near Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh is the finest Gupta temple that has come down to us in a relatively good state of preservation.  The temple is known for the carvings depicting Hindu Gods and mythological figures.  It is known as the earliest example of Panchayatana style of temple.  Dashavatara Temple was discovered by Captain Charles Strahan and was named so by Alexander Cunningham. It depicts the 10 avatara of Vishnu. 

The disappearance of the Harrapan Civilisation, also known as Indus Valley Civilisation, is still shrouded in mystery. Leading explanations include warfare with the Aryans, a nomadic, Indo-European tribe.   While some say that frequent regular flood could have contributed to the civilisation’s collapse, another school of thought is of the opinion that an earthquake might be the real culprit. According to one theory by British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler, the Indus River Valley civilization was overthrown by the Aryans.  An Indo-Aryan Migration theory has found currency amongst various scholars who believe that the Harappan culture was assimilated during a widesperead migratorty movements of the Aryan people into northwest India. Though it is still not known whether it was the Aryan invasion, natural catastrophes, or something else that destroyed the Harrapan culture, but whatever it was, the end of the Harrapan civilisation was the end of a glorious chapter in the Indian History as