Historical Battles in Ancient & Medieval Bharat

[ashish raval]

Sorry but I could not find a suitable place to post this interesting article on the history of human arrival in USA. After all watch out the word "north asian descent" being replaced by "south asian descent".

Oldest Skeletons in North America Found

Edited Ramana

[sivab]

Sorry but I could not find a suitable place to post this interesting article on the history of human arrival in USA. After all watch out the word "north asian descent" being replaced by "south asian descent".

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... etons.html

Thanks for posting that.

[Bharati]

Sorry for being off topic.
Can the gurus direct where to look for information on the saraswati civilization?
There seems to be a consensus on the dating of the civilization - 3 millennium BC to 1900 BC
Rigveda mentions Saraswati, and studies show the river dried up at around 1900BC, approximately the time when the civilization has supposedly ended.
Though there is no definite proof, the time periods of ramayana and mahabharata and the saraswati civilization overlap, according to some studies.
I am particularly interested in what studies say so far about:
1. Are the saraswati people same as the people in the ramayana and mahabharata? Is there proof to establish this or completely disprove it?
2. How old is Sanskrit and Brahmi script?
3. For how long has Ramayan/Mahabharat been a oral tradition? Do the stories in these epics talk about the writing being known to them? (I do believe it was known then but I am not sure)
4. Nobody has been able to decipher the script on the seals so far. If the civilization existed at the time of Rigveda, shouldn't there be a similarity between Sanskrit and the script on the seals?
Thanks in advance.

[ramana]

You really should visit India forum and they have a whole thread on Saraswati Civilization by the perosn who coined the term.

India Forum- History section

[Ankit Desai]

Malik Ambar: Military guru of the Marathas

Born in Ethiopia and traded many times over as a slave, Malik Ambar rose through the ranks to finally command an army and become the Regent of one of the South Indian Sultanates.

Ankit

[ramana]

The post is incorrect. he was teh adviser or wazir for the Ahmednagar dynasty and not Marathas who came later.

[Ankit Desai]

I am not defending it but

Malik Ambar was born in Ethiopia, began his adult life as a slave, rose to be a powerful military commander and Regent in one of the South Indian Sultanates, proved to be an unbeatable nemesis for the mighty Mughals and finally laid the foundation of Maratha power which would rise to its zenith with Chatrapathi Shivaji.

above bold text might cause to give such title.

Ankit

[Airavat]

The Chindu article's claim that Maratha guerrilla tactics were "devised" by Malik Ambar, and passed on to Shivaji via his grandfather Maloji Bhonsle, is funny. But the assertion that these tactics were then adopted by all Marathas is hilarious:

After his death, the Marathas, fostered and trained by him, would soon be a force to reckon with. Skilfully adopting the guerrilla tactic, they would bring about the downfall of Aurangzeb.

The reality is that Maratha guerrilla warfare stemmed from their reliance on light cavalry:

The principal military force of the Maratha mercenaries was light cavalry for two reasons. Firstly the best foreign horses, used as heavy cavalry, embarked into the ports of Western India and were appropriated by the Sultanates and the Vijaynagar Empire. Secondly a breed of indigenous horses was found in the Maratha homeland---from lack of a credible study it is not known whether this breed was descended from a pure ancient stock or had been infused with the blood of imported horses. This question may never be answered since the once famous Dakhini breed is now practically extinct (see http://nrce.nic.in/eqindia.htm).

Whatever their origins these horses were said to have a short stature and light build, which made it impossible to cover them in armor unlike the foreign horses. It also meant that their riders had to be lightly armed and could carry little baggage. The advantages of these horses were their stamina and speed and the Maratha military tactics evolved from their reliance on these dwarfish horses. Thus while their Deccani masters faced the enemy with the regular army, the Maratha cavaliers would hover around the invaders and cut down stragglers or make a wide detour to attack their camp and baggage. They were also experts in making quick raids into enemy lands and plundering their villages and towns.

The other important fact is that the Maratha mercenaries were not in the service of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate alone. They were also found in Bijapur, Golconda, and even Vijaynagar. The light cavalry guerrilla tactics came about naturally among all Marathas in these different areas; they were not "adopted" by only those who served under Malik Ambar.

Shivaji's power stemmed from not just light cavalry but also the Mavle infantry, with which he captured many a hill-fort in the Western Ghats. The Mughal-Bijapur struggle gave him the opportunity to build up his state to a position of near indepence and become a threat to both those Muslim states.

[R Balasubramaniam]

Dear Ramana

I did not know that you attended my classes. It would be nice to know when.

There is so much in Indian heritage in cannon technology. It is a wonderful story whose imporatance has not been dealt with in detail so far.

With warm regards
R Balasubramaniam
20 oct 08

[ramana]

Dear Ramana

I did not know that you attended my classes. It would be nice to know when.

There is so much in Indian heritage in cannon technology. It is a wonderful story whose imporatance has not been dealt with in detail so far.

With warm regards
R Balasubramaniam
20 oct 08

Welcome to the forum sir. I wish I was young again to listen to your lectures! It was nkumar who was your student.

BTW, in my days I had quite a bit of interest in metallurgy and was attentive to have retained a lot of it. We had "Physical Metallurgy" by Sidney Avener and "Mech Metallurgy" by Deiter in addition to all the mfg metallurgy from the Mech Dept. And did a lot of metal crossections which still hold me in good stead. All this was at RECW.

Can you tell us more of the metals and the technique used for casting those cannons? Did you get to look at the cannon at Golconda Fort in the garden area near the Qutb Shahi tombs?

[R Balasubramaniam]

Dear Ramana

Nice to receive this reply from you and good to know your interests in metallurgy still persists. In fact, it is with infinite pride I state that Indians were masters of metals. No doubts about that, especially if one views the archaeological samples of the Indian subcontinent and compares them with what was there elsewhere in the world. It is only from about 1600s that we start losing out to the Europeans, because they had started serious scientific inquiries while ours was ebbing. Well that is not the subject of discussion today.

It may surprise readers that the Golconda fort has a wonderful collection of cannons, some of them buried in junk and weeks in the remote bastions. We were able to visit each and every bastion and we have catalogued ALL the cannons in the Fort. Some of the cannons in the fort are really marvellous. We have reported about four of these in Indian Journal of History of Science and in addition, we recently discovered some really massive ones. Mention must be made of a really massive bronze cannon in Majnu Burj in Naya Qila area. There was a really wonderful forge welded cannon of very unique design, which I noticed in one of the Mughal miniature painting and there is ONLY ONE other sample of this type in all the other locations we surveyed. Unfortunately, it was in a really bad condition, half buried in the ground and rotting away! Such is our interest in heritage.

I think that if you and your friends in this posting, who must be seriously interested in Indian military heritage, can help out, we can start a campaign to save and preseve these wonderful cannons.

We have catalogued almost all the cannons in the states of AP, western Maharashtra and Karnataka, mainly in the remote forts and one just cannot believe what we have. India was a real firepower centric civilization and the Europeans were no where near us. They learnt very fast and surprisingly used our saltpetre to blast the rest of the world including ourselves. Do we have a lesson to learn, especially with our software skills nowadays? Well, there are several interesting stories and information I can share.

It all depends on how many are interested. Plus will the readers of this forum help send information on vintage cannons that they see and just pass by without thinking?

Look forward to posts on this topic.

With warm regards
R Balasubramaniam
http://home.iitk.ac.in/~bala

[ramana]

It was the nineteenth century quest to replicate wootz steel in Europe that led to the advances in metallography and the crucible method of steel making - Huntsman process. From braudel. India made more and better steel at the begining of the 19th century. It was the Bessemer process that jump started the British industrial revolution.

I believe you can start and guide a thread on ancient gunnery in India. I would like to know more about the mfg process used.

The salt petere story is quite shocking. BTW there is another forum called India-Forum where we have a thread on ancient weaponry. Here is a link to that thread.

Pre-modern Warfare in India

It was started in 2003.


Wow So you are an archeometallurgist! We thought those were only on Discovery channel! How about giving a Youtube lecture on some of your findings? Do you get students excited about the ancient methods and how to use modern technology to decipher the past? They can become forensic metallurgists too to study failure mechanisms. I was quite enthralled by the various methods you used to study the rust in the iron pillar.

[R Balasubramaniam]

Dear Ramana

I am surprised that you did not know the story of saltpetre. Almost the entire world supply of saltpetre, the main ingredient in gunpowder, came from India! It was foolish for us to be trading this to Europeans and it is similary foolish for us to send our brilliant minds outside the country. They are very much like saltpetre, because using them "goods" and "services" are being sold back to us! What an irony! We still have several lessons to learn from history.

I am wary of starting new threads as I do not have much time for my academic work. My main work is in the area of modern science and technology and I do archaeometallurgy only as a past-time hobby, but one that is quite passionate.

Well, you can get my published papers and books to learn more about the subject. I always feel that reading is the best way to learn things and not the modern method of TV-like picture stories.

With warm regards
R Balasubramaniam

[ramana]

Edited....

[Rahul M]

India and its armies -- Stephen Peter Rosen

[Hari Sud]

Gentelmen

I ran into a reference a few years back that a Turkish prince ran away from Turkey some time in the medieval times (to escape a sure death at the hands of his big brother, who became the king) and re-appeared in India in the south. He was welcomed and installed as a king by one of the offshoots of the Bahamani kingdoms.

Can any of you historians illuminate me on this subject.

[ramana]

Yes he was the brother of Suleiman the magnificient according to Ferishta, the son of Murad II. He was to be massacred per Ottomon tradition except his mother had him spirited away and he was sold in slavery. He showed up at the Bahmani kngdom and went on to found the Bijapur sultanate. His title was Yusuf Adil Shah. Many of the founders of the split kingdoms of Bahmani sultantate were migrants from Middle East . One of them Qasim Barid was supposed to be a Hungarian.

[svinayak]

Yes he was the brother of Suleiman the magnificient according to Ferishta, the son of Murad II. He was to be massacred per Ottomon tradition except his mother had him spirited away and he was sold in slavery. He showed up at the Bahmani kngdom and went on to found the Bijapur sultanate. His title was Yusuf Adil Shah. Many of the founders of the split kingdoms of Bahmani sultantate were migrants from Middle East . One of them Qasim Barid was supposed to be a Hungarian.

India was center for muslim immigration between 1200-1700 AD from all over the Muslim world. India was considered freindly and wealthy and Muslims with arab and Turkish heritage could get favours from the Muslim rulers of the sub continent during that period. The class system among the muslims got created with pure Arab, Irani and Turkish heritage considered Ashraf and ruling class.

[Santosh]

He was to be massacred per Ottomon tradition

Ramanaji, can you please elaborate? TIA.

[Singha]

when a contest arose for the throne, the winner usually arranged
for the losing parties and all their sons down to infants to be killed
by strangulation.

the winner ofcourse as per the noble traditions of islam inherited
the harem of the prior monarch and probablu engulfed the wives,
daughters and sisters of the dead losers into the harem as well.
so there he would climb every night, a cut of veal and a pot of
wine, smoke hasish laced hookah and select a couple of mares
to take his seed that night.

for all his 'simplicity', Suleiman inherited a harem of 300 women
all less than 25 yrs in age carefully stocked by his dad from all
over the place - blond europeans, to plump mongols to leaner
mideast red haired types.

the only similarity I see to islam is the succession methods in
lion prides. if a new lion takes over, all hell breaks loose on the
land as the cubs of the deposed king are hunted down and
killed one by one. the entire DNA is wiped out.the females
are resentful but powerless against the new firman and can
only hope to produce fresh offspring from their new lord's seed.

islam never fuses with any alien DNA, it always try to destroy
the old and inject its own DNA.

[ramana]

He was to be massacred per Ottomon tradition

Ramanaji, can you please elaborate? TIA.

GD has described it quite well. Aurangazeb did the same just as Jehangir and Shahjehan did too. But it was called war.
The only escape clause is if there is a physical deformity like lameness but Timur overcame that. There was an Ottomon Sultan called Bayezid whose brother was lame but made his Army chief and survived.

[CalvinH]

What if the person is a 'Khusra' (or may be made khusra) means cant produce any offspring. I think Mahmud Ghauri was one and he acted as a general for his elder brother's army. He used to treat his slaves as his sons and finally gave birth to slave dynasty in India.

[ArmenT]

Speaking of saltpetre, it is true that a lot of gunpowder produced in England were based off saltpetre produced in India. I think the Spanish had their own supply though, mostly from Spain and Chile and other countries had sources of their own as well.

Excerpting this from my copy of W.W. Greener's "The Gun" 9th Edition, published in 1910 (page 554)

Saltpetre: Potassium Nitrate (KNO3), the chief ingredient of gunpowers, is a chemical compound of potassium, nitrogen and oxygen. In some parts of the world -- in India and Andalusia especially -- it is formed as a natural efflorescence upon the surface of the earth, and is indeed the only source from which we derive it. In Prussia, France, Sweden etc., the old mortar used in building the farm walls was, and perhaps still is, so treated as to produce saltpetre. Nitrate of soda (cubical nitre) is also largely imported into England for the manufacture of artifical saltpetre. The Royal Waltham mills derive their supply entirely from Bengal and Oude. The salt is collected, boiled with water, and the solution, after being concentrated by the heat of the sun and evaporated, yields impure crystals, which are packed in coarse bags and shipped to England; in this state the salt is known as "grough" saltpetre. Upon arriving at the powder-mills, the saltpetre is refined using the following process:--
In a large vat, capable of holding about 500 gallons of water, is placed two tons of grough saltpetre, and the fire lighted underneath, after adding about 275 gallons of pure water to it. In about two hours' time the saltpetre is in solution and boiling; the specific gravity being 1.49 and the temperature approaching 230 F. The scum, containing the greater part of organic impurities, is removed from the surface, until no more scum rises; the copper is then filled up with cold water and boiled briskly for a few minutes, and allowed to cool down to 220 F, when it is pumped into filters and the hot solution run off into shallow vats to crystallise. As the temperature falls the excess of saltpetre crystallises out, leaving a considerable quantity still in solution, which also retains the chlorides, sulphates, and other chemical impurities. Whilst in the vats the solution is continually agitated to prevent it from forming large crystals; the salt by this means is deposited in the form of flour. The flour is then washed three times, and, if pure, is ready for use.

Of the other two components of gunpowder, the author goes on to mention that Sulphur is available in most volcanic countries, and that England derived its Sulphur supply mostly from Sicily.

Finally for the charcoal:

The third and last ingredient of gunpowder, charcoal, is manufactured from either of the following woods:-- Willow (Salix alba), Alder (Alnus glutinosa), or what is known in England as Black Dogwood (Rhamnus Frangula), although any light, soft wood may be used. In India the Grambush plant (Cynthus cajan), Parkinsonia and Millk-edge (Euphorbia tiraculli), have been found very suitable.

[ramana]

What if the person is a 'Khusra' (or may be made khusra) means cant produce any offspring. I think Mahmud Ghauri was one and he acted as a general for his elder brother's army. He used to treat his slaves as his sons and finally gave birth to slave dynasty in India.

Thats mixing apples and oranges though both are fruit. Ghauri was of the tail end of the period where mamelukes/slaves were the norm of the day in the Islamic World. The Ottomon Turks brought in their own version of emancipation of Islamic rulership by ensuring that there was dynastic succession. Earlier Turks prior to Seljuk etc were also mameluke. you see them all over the Middle East. Around 850 AD the Caliph started fielding mameluke armies as they were more loyal to him then the Arabised Persians etc. In a couple of generations these mamelukes started seizing power for themselves all over Middle East.

The Slave dynasty on India was the early model for the sultanate and was replaced by Khilji Afghans in a century.

[Lalmohan]

the internecine warfare is an unintended consequence of a law of Genghiz Khan. he didn't think that command should automatically pass to his eldest son, therefore instituted a 'democratic' system where the most able of his sons would be chosen by the nobles. This law worked for about the first 3 Great Khans. Then on, as each of the sons became powerful in their own right, the system began to break down.

This 'law' spread amongst all of the Turko-Mongolic tribes. Each of the Mongol command theatres, gradually absorbed the culture and traditions of the lands they ruled, the Western horde/Turks being the most susceptible to Islam and the others chosing Christianity, Buddhism, Confuscianism, etc. So, by the time that islamic (mongol derivative) kingdoms become established 200 years later, the old law is nowhere, and its each son for himself. the bitterness caused led to them killing each other off. the story of the mughals also is riven by this deadly rivalry

[Neela]

Rajaram, See page 99 of this book

History of South India PN Chopra, Ravindran and Subramanian

Rajaram, Ramana,Airavat,

I am reading a book by Nilakanta Sastri on 'The History of South india'.

According to the book , what is mysterious in the Tamil heartland is that from the period of 4th Century AD , for about 300 years, nothing is known. The author covers the periods before in quite detail and then after the period, starts with the rise of the Chola empire.

The book mentions that the Kalabrahas ruled during this time and this was a dark period of anarchy in the South.

Can someone throw light on this ?

[Hari Sud]

In our high school and thru to toady, India's history as what we know is what British told us. Their version is supreme.

British were alien rulers as were Moghuls, or Tughlaks or Khilijis or Slaves etc. They wrote history of India to glorify themselves.

What remained stuck with us the British version. They like Moghuls and Akbar specially and heaped infinite amount of praise on them.

Yes there is only one truth i.e. India lost every battle with the invaders starting with Muslim invasion and it was all because art of war and development of war effort as policy of state was ignored. Being terribly peace loving never pays.

My point here is that is anybody revising the British version of India's history and substituting it with Indian version. He should start from Mohenjodaro and dump Max Mueller's version of Indian culture and its evolution.

[ramana]

hari Sudji, THats what the seminar on Distortion on Indian history is all about. Its in New Delhi in Jan 09 and is co-charied by Kaushal. Sanjay Chaudhry is supporting him in organising it.

When I read the many histories of South India(most linked in the e-books thread) what struck me was the change and continuity in the history and the dynasties. In school it was taught as if dynasty after dynasty rose and fell in different places and never was the connectivity ever commented about. Also the same regions and peoples were the foundation for historical change. This was also not emphasised. And enduring empires/kingdoms built co-operation by co-opting them into the ruling regime. So they did know game theroy quite well. the dissent started with the dissident factions of Sanathan Dharma and got increased by the One God Faiths/heresies which obtained political power instead of other way round.

[Vikram_S]

Yes there is only one truth i.e. India lost every battle with the invaders starting with Muslim invasion and it was all because art of war and development of war effort as policy of state was ignored. Being terribly peace loving never pays.

if india had lost evry battle there would be no hindu or sikh in india today
we lost some battles we won many also

[Lalmohan]

almost all invaders had to 'take India' on the nth attempt, I don't think anyone really succeeded the first time and often Hindu kings fighting invaders had to keep an eye out for other Kings attacking their 'rear'; since they didn't usually appreciate the strategic threat of the outsider

[Prem]

Folks,
As far as reality is concerned , war is still unfinished . just the nature of warfare is bit changed . The goal/s remain same . We are under debt and we should pay back with interest . Libor x1000 years.

[Hari Sud]

Thanks Ramana

Should I attend this seminar.

I plan to be in India in Dec-Feb time frame.

What do you suggest

[ramana]

If you can I would recommend it highly. besides you get to meet a lot of stalwarts.
Check the distortion thread.

LINK

[Raja Ram]

The link below gives details about Chola Navy - its fleet, organisation , purpose etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Everd ... Chola_navy

Interesting stuff on how the fleet command was structured and the parallel to the modern Indian Navy's role today in providing Sea Lane secutiry is amazing. History repeats itself surely! There are some good pictures of a model of chola hull taken from a naval musuem in Tirunelveli.

Some of the ports of that era are still ideal naval facilities and ports that are used.

It also gives an idea of the blue water capability achieved then! Names like Amarabhujangan, bheemseenan are now forgotten - but these were our great admirals of yore!

Present day tamils do not know that they have a great Naval heritage like the marathas and the kalingas of yore.

An appeal to the BR navy webmasters, please provide these links to ancient Indian naval traditions somewhere in the site, let it not be said that ancient Indians were never great sea farers.

[Raja Ram]

Neela,

This link provides some sketchy information on kalabhras - conflicting info on whether they were agnostic or atheist buddhist, jainas or hindu, origin of these seem to be from northern tamil country near tirupati.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalabhras

[Keshav]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Everd ... Chola_navy

Absolutely amazing. It has quite a few resources, but many claims also need to be verified. Pardon my ignorance, but does the Tamil tale of Kannigi come from the war between the Pandyas and Cholas?

An appeal to the BR navy webmasters, please provide these links to ancient Indian naval traditions somewhere in the site, let it not be said that ancient Indians were never great sea farers.

One could quite easily argue that this exceeds the Marathas in scope. The Marathas did not have that much time to properly build a navy since the fight on land was dire, but the Cholas and Pandyas had ample time and resources to build a navy befitting an empire.

During Independence, were there any Tamil nationalists like Lokmanya Tilak who drew on Tamil heroes and if so which ones? My newest foray into Indian history has been Vijaynagara, but it seems the exciting stuff is further south!

[ramana]

There were many stalwart freedom fighters from Tamilnadu. Rt. Hon. V. Srinivasa Chari was a famous speaker whose command over English was better than most Englishmen. Subramaniam Bharati is another great freedom fighter. Then there is C Rajagopalachari, who came up with the Indian Navy's motto.

[SwamyG]

Keshav:
Check out Veerapandiya Kattabomman, V.O.Chidambaram Pillai in addition to folks suggested by Ramana.

Also you might find the "Vellore Mutiny" in 1806 fascinating. It was long before 1857 revolution.

[Keshav]

Ramana and SwamyG:
Thanks, will look into books and people presented.

Was looking more for medieval and ancient fighters along the lines of Chandragupta Maurya and Shivaji for Tamil Nadu. I'm sure there are many considering the wealth of literature and the Chola and Pandya empires.

Look forward to the answers.

[SwamyG]

Keshav: Rajaraja Chola I and Rajendra Chola I are good candidates.