Posts by AKanisetti@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #9p2RdZUkGWoQulEnse by AKanisetti@mastodon.social
2019-11-17T02:08:43Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@null0x0 @SuperInventiveName +1
(DIR) Post #9p5pFswVHx2oeeL7hY by AKanisetti@mastodon.social
2019-11-18T13:30:31Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
Hello again, fellow #India #history #nerd s! This week, I want to talk about the often-heard myth that #medieval Indian states didn't have truly acrimonious struggles or anything resembling total war until the arrival of the Turks in the 12th CE. I'll also touch upon the question that gets all Indian guys on Quora horny for some reason: why didn't Indian states conquer territories outside the subcontinent?I will illustrate this through a century of war between the Deccan & the Tamil country. š¤
(DIR) Post #9p5pFw8JQVGyY8t61Y by AKanisetti@mastodon.social
2019-11-18T13:45:49Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
This is the stage where this thread will unfold. I would like to call your attention to two actors in particular: the Chalukyas in the Deccan and the Cholas in the deep South. This is an image from a later stage in the war, when the Cholas had the upper hand. When they started out, they were just one among many Tamil kingdoms - and not even the most powerful one! So how did we get to this stage?
(DIR) Post #9p5pFyuF7Gnj9NKP0i by AKanisetti@mastodon.social
2019-11-18T13:56:12Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
Something big was happening in the early 11th century. It's a pretty crazy series of coincidences, but by this time centuries of investment in agrarian productivity, along with devastating wars and some pretty crazy politics, had led to the emergence of two ravenous markets at either end of the Indian Ocean: Fatimid Egypt and Song China. The Chola ascension over South India is tied directly to these events.
(DIR) Post #9p5pG1GeKvueTRpKDI by AKanisetti@mastodon.social
2019-11-18T14:10:38Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
Meet Rajaraja Chola (no, this isn't an actual portrait but bear with me), the unlikely heir to an unlikely superpower. Rajaraja's line of the family wasn't even supposed to have come to the throne - the original Chola crown prince had been killed in battle with a Deccan emperor. A generation later, Rajaraja's elder brother, the crown prince, was murdered and his uncle succeeded to his throne. How Rajaraja eventually managed to seize power is, given the lack of hard evidence, up to debate.
(DIR) Post #9p5pG3ijDVYs56ymG0 by AKanisetti@mastodon.social
2019-11-18T14:20:38Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
Rajaraja is often appropriated by nationalist and religious causes because of the spectacular military events that characterised his career - and all three go hand-in-hand in our world of manly authoritarian men. I will probably come back to that later in this thread. For now, I want to focus on another side of the medieval Indian king: politics, but also the much more interesting matter of GEOPOLITICS, which isn't something we normally associate with them.
(DIR) Post #9p7jc8xkCERBIm4Pa4 by AKanisetti@mastodon.social
2019-11-19T03:52:10Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
Good people of #mastodon #india - have we set up any new instances in the last few weeks? I recall @h_tejas was talking about it. And @musafir already has the perfect name for it - Tootistan. š@stux and @Gargron have been very kind and gracious hosts, like the rest of the Fediverse. But given we're probably going to have some pretty dark and intense takes on politics and society, I'm wondering if the right thing to do would be to volunteer to build and maintain our own space?
(DIR) Post #9p7zICq7fcX2nk1Jzs by AKanisetti@mastodon.social
2019-11-18T14:39:02Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
So what were the geopolitical pressures that Rajaraja was responding to? First, he absolutely would not have wanted a repeat of the disaster that had killed his grand-uncle, which meant the Deccan had to be kept at bay. Second - and this is crucial - Rajaraja knew that Indian Ocean trade was picking up steam. How? A year before his accession, an embassy from the Song court had visited the Indian Ocean. Presiding over thriving new urban centres, they needed luxury goods. Ditto the Fatimids. A+B=$
(DIR) Post #9p7zIE533c46eK0kts by AKanisetti@mastodon.social
2019-11-18T14:45:04Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
How do we know for sure that this was Rajaraja's intention? Well. His very first military adventure - the one he begins all his inscriptions with - wasn't a battle for control of the Tamil country. It was a raid on one of the largest fleets on India's West Coast - the combined merchant fleet and naval vessels of the Cheras. That territory would have been the primary entrepot for Arab ships blown from the Red Sea across the Indian Ocean by the monsoon - the same route the Romans once used.
(DIR) Post #9p7zIF8d7mWZvih87c by AKanisetti@mastodon.social
2019-11-18T14:57:29Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
Then there's Rajaraja's (in)famous invasion of Sri Lanka. He learned that the Sri Lankan king had failed to pay his mercenaries (who came from South India cos medieval military labour markets didn't care about 20th-century national boundaries). Soon after, Chola forces stormed through the northern part of the island, seized the ancient capital of Anuradhapura and sacked its wealthy monasteries. Opportunistic? Yes. Brutal? Yes. Did it give Rajaraja control of Indian Ocean trade routes? Also yes.
(DIR) Post #9p7zIGfHRsEgfGyieW by AKanisetti@mastodon.social
2019-11-18T15:12:44Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ionhandshaker Agathokakological.. what an interesting word. Yes, sums him up perfectly. Also, the facile inventiveness of the nationalist never ceases to amaze. But then the idea that a little public devotion cleanses one of any and all sins is neither new nor unique to India I suppose.
(DIR) Post #9p7zMQj5ywaR1okPQ0 by AKanisetti@mastodon.social
2019-11-18T18:23:14Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ionhandshaker @Karaboondi listened to it! Not a big fan of the desi NRIs generally esp the whole "AIADMK = Rajaraja Chola generalization" but some very interesting facts here esp the mural of Rajaraja at the Rajarajeshvara temple
(DIR) Post #9p7zMT8L23y0UgZb2e by AKanisetti@mastodon.social
2019-11-18T18:46:46Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@ionhandshaker @Karaboondi absolutely. We've been doing it since before Ashoka, we're just trained to swallow the propaganda whole because of the nationalist elite project.Honestly in hindsight it kinda makes my blood boil that some bureaucrats and politicians and academics in Delhi post-independence decided that this was not an aspect of Indian history that was worth teaching kids about cos realising this totally transformed my understanding of our past and present.
(DIR) Post #9p7zqc4kLmcYumGcQS by AKanisetti@mastodon.social
2019-11-19T03:30:14Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@loke @Karaboondi @ionhandshaker excellent point. You know it never ceases to amaze me that with a history as diverse and multicentric as Europe, Indian nationalists demand that all Indians see every conqueror as a hero. Asking someone from Karnataka to worship Rajaraja Chola as a national icon is exactly like asking a Russian to worship Napoleon as a national icon. Or a French person to worship Julius Caesar, the Roman geezer.
(DIR) Post #9p80wkosqvLxj4L6mG by AKanisetti@mastodon.social
2019-11-19T18:36:11Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@sankarshan As I said, I'm just wondering if it would be the responsible thing for us to do long-term if we want to establish Indian Mastodon as a viable Twitter alternative in the long term. Perhaps with rules and moderators attuned to what we've learned from our experiences with Twitter, so we can create and maintain a safe space on our own terms.If there are easier ways to do this, happy to volunteer for those too.
(DIR) Post #9pAn0pee0EwjzlTpZI by AKanisetti@mastodon.social
2019-11-21T02:41:10Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
Four hundred years of architectural evolution.From the 8th-12th CE, the sthÄpatis - "makers" - of the Deccan oversaw a flourishing of architectural styles second to nowhere in the world.On the left, you can see how it begins: simple projections, austere pillars.On the right, you see how it ends: fractal geometry, elaborately ornamented pillars. Architecture decorated with architecture: the aesthetic principle of alaį¹kÄra perfectly expressed.#india #history #art #architecture
(DIR) Post #9pEWCd8NSSkQ3BGdCi by AKanisetti@mastodon.social
2019-11-22T21:50:48Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@Neeneen some kind soul here told me about realtwitter.com. Redirects you to a custom search that only shows you hot takes from people you follow, if that helps!
(DIR) Post #9pLbQzcMWM23iIgDRo by AKanisetti@mastodon.social
2019-11-26T07:56:10Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@toy_vader exactly, how stupid is it that an intern with a Wired subscription is now the Supreme Court's primary source of info on cyberspace? Pretty sure the judges have even less of a clue than Mehta
(DIR) Post #A2rZQqMwW69FkMqS1I by AKanisetti@mastodon.social
2021-01-03T13:35:40Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
Super excited to announce that my first bit of historical fiction has been published! I wrote a speculative backstory of the first inscription that mentions "Bengaluru", for INTACH Bengaluru's latest. It follows the son of a Deccan chief through the turbulence of the times.
(DIR) Post #A3NsUGH86emfUD0mnI by AKanisetti@mastodon.social
2021-01-19T04:14:52Z
6 likes, 11 repeats
Decolonisation in academia be like(from Reddit)