A major city as in a symbol of power.

From what I know:

1)Harsha's Empire: Kingdom of Middle India or One of the Five Indias 2)Mughal Empire: Hendustan (Hindustan)

Note: Readers who are not interested in all the details can simply skim the boldfaced parts.

After my Reddit post critically reviewed Yajnadevam's claim that he had "deciphered the Indus script with a mathematical proof of correctness," he could have simply chosen to ignore my post (or react to it with verbal abuse) if he had absolutely no interest in scientific dialogue. However, despite the polemical nature of some of my comments on his work, he was thick-skinned enough to respond and discuss, although the conversation moved to X after it ended on Reddit. After I posed some specific questions to him on X, he has acknowledged errors in his paper (dated November 13, 2024) and the associated procedures, such as the discrepancies between Table 5 and Table 7 of his paper as well as mistakes in a file that was crucial for his "decipherment." I have also apologized for badgering him with questions, and I have thanked him for allowing even rude questions and being willing to find common ground.

He has said that he will issue corrections and update his paper (if it can be corrected). Whenever he does that, he can directly send it to an internationally credible peer-reviewed journal if he considers his work serious research. Until then, we cannot blindly believe his claims, because any future non-final drafts of his paper may be erroneous like the current version. His work can be easily peer-reviewed at a scientific journal, as detailed at the end of this post. He has said that he doesn't "expect any" significant changes to his "decipherment key," and so I requested him, "If you claim mathematical provability of your decipherment again, please document everything, including your trial-and-error process, and make everything fully replicable so that you can then challenge people to falsify your claims." Any future versions of his paper can be compared and contrasted with the current version of paper (dated November 13, 2024), which he permitted me to archive. I have also archived his current "Sanskrit transliterations/translations" (of the Indus texts) on his website indusscript.net and some crucial files in his GitHub repositories: README.md, .gitignore, aux.txt, testcorpus.txt, prove.pl, and prove.sh of his "ScriptDerivation" repository; decipher.csv, inscriptions.csv, and xlits.csv of his "lipi" repository; and population-script.sql of his "indus-website" repository.

This whole saga, i.e., Yajnadevam's claim of a definitive decipherment of the Indus script "with a mathematical proof of correctness" and his subsequent acknowledgement of errors in his paper/procedures, demonstrates why the serious researchers of Indus script haven't claimed that they "have deciphered the Indus script with a mathematical proof of correctness!" Here is a list of some of those researchers:

• Bryan K. Wells and Andreas Fuls who have built/maintained the Interactive Corpus of Indus Texts, which is a significant extension of Asko Parpola's work and Iravatham Mahadevan's work (digitized at The Indus Script Web Application);
• Rajesh P. N. Rao, Nisha Yadav, Mayank Vahia, Hrishikesh Joglekar, Ronojoy Adhikari, Satish Palaniappan, Bahata Ansumali Mukhopadhyay, Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, Dennys Frenez, Gregg Jamison, Sitabhra Sinha, Pallavee Gokhale, Ayumu Konasukawa, and several others.

If Yajnadevam decides at some point in the future to finalize and submit his paper to a credible scientific journal, the peer review can proceed in two simple stages, especially if he makes no significant changes to his paper. In the first stage, the following questions may be posed:

• The archived "Sanskrit decipherments" of some inscriptions contain some odd segments such as "aaaaa." Some odd-looking "decipherments" of inscriptions (such as those with identifiers 229.1, 284.1, 533.1, 1264.1, 2197.1, 3312.1 related to CSID identifiers H-1312, H-1030, H-2175, H-239, M-1685, M-915, respectively, for example) are "*saaaaan," "*ravaaaaanaa," "*aaaaaanaa," "*aaaaanra," "*dapaaaaanaa," "*aaaaaya." How are any of these purported "decipherments" in the language that is represented in the Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary, i.e., Vedic/Classical Sanskrit? (In answering this question, if any ad hoc liberties are needed to read the aforementioned strange strings as Sanskrit, then the claimed "decipherment" would be invalidated automatically.)
• As Dr. Fuls explains in his talk, "The most frequent sign is Sign 740 (so-called "jar sign"). In patterned texts, ... it occurs mostly in terminal position, and it is therefore [most likely] used as a grammatical marker. ... But the same sign is also used 34 times as a solo text ... In these cases, ... [it is most likely] used as a logogram." As Dr. Fuls and the other researchers listed above have argued (with convincing evidence), some signs are logographic and/or syllabic/phonetic and/or semasiographic, depending on the context. Thus, the unicity distance for the Indus script/Sanskrit is much larger than one claimed by Yajnadevam. How can a "cryptanalytic" method that maps signs (like the "jar sign") only to syllable(s)/phoneme(s) guarantee that the "jar sign" does not have any non-syllabic/non-phonetic interpretation in some contexts?
• As explained on Yajnadevam's repository, his procedure hits "a dead end (no matches)" if "the dictionary is not augmented." This augmentation process is ad hoc and theoretically has no end until one luckily tweaks the augmentation file "aux.txt" in just the right way (to force-fit the language to the Indus script). Where is the full documentation of the trial-and-process used to adjust "aux.txt"? How is each word "aux.txt" a valid Sanskrit word that is not one-off in nature, given that words like "anAna" were previously added to "aux.txt" inappropriately? If "aux.txt" was tweaked continuously (until a match is found luckily) in the case of Sanskrit but not another language, isn't this double standard illogical, especially if any other language is "ruled out" as a candidate for the Indus script?
• What are the "Sanskrit decipherments" of the seals and tablets (with M77 identifiers #1217, #1279, #2364, #4548, #4509, and #4508, i.e., the CISID identifiers M-1797, M-1819, M-810, H-962, H-935, H-1273, respectively) shown in Figure 3 of this paper, and how do the "Sanskrit decipherments" rule out the possibilities suggested in that figure?
• If Yajnadevam claims that the hypothetical "proto-Dravidian" languages can be ruled out as candidates for the Indus script, then what is the basis of such a claim when the those "proto-Dravidian" languages are unknown? Even if we assume that the hypothetical "proto-Dravidian" languages were "agglutinative," how can we be sure that they did not have some other structural features that aligned with patterns in some of the inscriptions that seem to be syllabic/phonetic in nature?

If the above basic questions cannot be answered in a convincing manner, then there is no point in even examining Yajnadevam's procedures or replication materials (such as the code files) further. If he manages to answer these questions in a convincing manner, then a peer reviewer can scrutinize his code and algorithmic procedures further. In the second stage of the refereeing process, a peer reviewer can change the dictionary from Sanskrit to a relatively modern language (e.g., Marathi or Bengali or another one that has some closeness to Sanskrit), tweak "aux.txt" by using some liberties similar to the ones that Yajnadevam takes, and try to force fit the Indus script to the chosen non-ancient language to falsify Yajnadevam's claims.

I would like to end this post by mentioning that Mahesh Kumar Singh absurdly claimed in 2004 that the Rohonc Codex is in Brahmi-Hindi. He even provided a Brahmi-Hindi translation of the first two rows of the first page: "he bhagwan log bahoot garib yahan bimar aur bhookhe hai / inko itni sakti aur himmat do taki ye apne karmo ko pura kar sake," i.e., "Oh, my God! Here the people is very poor, ill and starving, therefore give them sufficient potency and power that they may satisfy their needs." Not surprisingly, the claim got debunked immediately! However, in Singh's case, he was at least serious enough about his hypothesis that he submitted it to a peer-reviewed journal, which did its job by determining the validity of the claim. Now ask yourself, "Which serious researcher shies away from peer review of his work?!"

Mahājanapada Magadha. Wiktionary says it's of unknown origin (or a bull apparently). Are there any believable theories about the name?

We are looking for PhD candidates for our initiative r/SindhuSaraswati, which is aimed at researching ancient Indian history. Encouraging all Indic researchers to participate. The initiative is only on a voluntary basis at present.

Disclaimer: We are centre-rightist.

Like did Guptas know a lot about Mauryas.

Seems like it was first pan-India empire and before that they had mahajanpadas so what was the motivation here?

In TV serial they talk about nationalism and unity but I am asking practical reason. More money?

Thank You.

History is usually discussed in black and white, in terms of heroes and villains. But while reading some material, something struck me and threw me into an unending dilemma. So, I need some thoughts on this.

What do you think is the better option when a kingdom is on the brink of invasion? To fight for sovereignty and protect the nation's honor? Even if the war is lost, it could inspire future generations to fight for freedom. But it also means a lot of bloodshed, even the destruction of generations in the worst-case scenario. The other option is to accept the sovereignty of the invader and make a treaty with them. This helps preserve lives and save resources. But it can be seen as a sign of weakness and bring shame to the nation. Also, there's a chance of the treaty's dissolution, as conflicts may arise in the future.

Namaste everyone!

I recently saw some post asking "what ambedkar thought of Vivekananda" from 2-3 months ago.

I was pretty surprised to see that the comments became a place where they started arguing over castes

Anyway, anyone who is interested to know what ambedkar thought of swami Vivekananda, here you go.

"Reminiscences of the Nehru Age by-M-O-Mathai"

Chapter 4: Obscurantists to the Fore

Page No. 23–25

A Victim of Obscurantism and Barbarous Intolerance—

B. R, Ambedkar

Ambedkar added that the Buddha was the greatest soul India had ever produced. He also said that the greatest man India produced in recent centuries was not Gandhi but Swami Vivekananda.

Hope that helps! The book is available online you can read it. Ambedkar made pretty interesting claims.

I will get you started.

1. Pabhunath Hembrom - Claimed Santhali Origins
2. Asko Parpola
3. Bharath Rao

Please don't comment on them. Add more.

Typo: MORE not MOREA

Seven Jhala Rajput heroes. Father Jhallesvar Raj Ajoji, son, grandson, great-grandson and beyond, sacrifice their lives for their kingdom Mewar. Fell at Khanwa 1527, Chittor 1534, Chittor 1535, Chittor 1568, Haldighati 1576, Ranakpur 1609, Hurda 1622.

(Artist Unknown)

•Raj rana shri ajja Singhji (ajoji) singh - in battle of khanwa

•Raj rana shri siha singh - in battle 1st siege of Chittor

•Raj rana shri Asaji - in battle 2nd siege of Chittor

•Raj rana shri surtanji - in battle 3rd siege of Chittor

•Raj rana shri bidaji (maan singhji) in battle of Haldighati

•Raj rana shri deda singhji in battle of Ranakpur

•Raj rana shri haridas Singhji in battle at hurda

Sources:-

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Seven-Jhala-heroes-Father-Jhallesvar-Raj-Ajoji-son-grandson-great-grandson-and_fig5_316305475

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seven_jhala_heros.png

Here we can see a rigid, birth-based caste system being discussed in an ancient Indian text composed in the 4th century BCE. Kautilya (Chanakya) was an important figure within the Mauryan Empire, and this seems to suggest that caste was already pretty developed.

"That of a Sudra is the serving of twice-born (dvijati), agriculture, cattle-breeding, and trade (varta), the profession of artizans and court-bards (karukusilavakarma)"

"Regarding those persons who, desirous of knowing their future, throng to him, he may, through palmistry, foretell such future events as he can ascertain by the nods and signs of his disciples (angavidyayá sishyasanjnábhischa) concerning the works of highborn people of the country,--viz., small profits, destruction by fire, fear from robbers, the execution of the seditious, rewards for the good, forecast of foreign affairs (videsa pravrittivijnánam), saying, “this will happen to-day, that to-morrow, and that this king will do.” Such assertions of the ascetic his disciples shall corroborate (by adducing facts and figures). "

"In like manner haughty persons may be won over by telling that „just as a reservoir of water belonging to Chándálas is serviceable only to Chándálas, but not to others, so this king of low-birth confers his patronage only on low-born people, but not on Aryas like thee; so the other king who is possessed of power to distinguish between men and men may be courted.‟"

"Persons fallen from caste, persons born of outcaste men, and eunuchs shall have no share; likewise idiots, lunatics, the blind and lepers. If the idiots, etc., have wives with property, their issues who are not equally idiots, etc., shall share inheritance. All these persons excepting those that are fallen from caste (patitavarjah) shall be entitled to only food and clothing. "

"Sons begotten by a Súdra on women of higher castes are Ayogava, Kshatta, and Chandála; by a Vaisya, Mágadha, and Vaidehaka; and by a Kshatriya, Súta. But men of the, names, Súta and Mágadha, celebrated in the Puránas, are quite different and of greater merit than either Bráhmans or Kshatriyas. The above kinds of sons are pratiloma, sons begotten by men of lower on women of higher castes, and originate on account of kings violating all dharmas. "

"GOATS shall be the special shares of the eldest of sons, born of the same mother, among, Bráhmans; horses among Kshatriyas; cows among Vaisyas; and sheep among Súdras."

"An outcast, under the guise of a high-born man, may claim from a seditious person a large amount of money professed to have been placed in the latter's custody by the claimant, or a large debt outstanding against the seditious person, or a share of parental property."

"If among Bráhmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Súdras, and outcastes (antávasáyins), any one of a lower caste abuses the habits of one of a higher caste, the fines imposed shall increase from 3 panas upwards (commencing from the lowest caste). If any one of a higher caste abuses one of a lower caste, fines imposed shall decrease from 2 panas."

"When a person misappropriates the revenue he collects as the agent of a household, violates by force the chastity of a widow of independent living, when an outcast (chandála) person touches an Arya woman, when a person does not run to render help to another in danger, or runs without a cause, and when a person entertains, in dinner dedicated to gods or ancestors Buddhists (sákya,) Ajívakas, Súdras and exiled persons, (pravrajita) a fine of 100 panas shall be imposed."

"Of sons begotten by a Bráhman in the four castes, the son of a Bráhman woman shall take four shares; the son of a Kshatriya woman three shares; the son of a Vaisya woman two shares, and the son of a Súdra woman one share."

Source: Kautila's Arthashastra

https://library.bjp.org/jspui/bitstream/123456789/80/1/R.%20Shamasastry-Kautilya's%20Arthashastra%20%20%20(1915).pdf

The Rig Veda describes a conflict between the Arya and Dasa, with the Arya portrayed as pious, good, pure, and godly, representing light, while the Dasa are portrayed as impious, barbaric, and evil, representing darkness.

This seems to track pretty well with the migration of the Aryans, who encountered Indigenous non-Vedic tribes when they started to settle in Northern India.

The distinction between Arya and Dasa in the Rig Veda is pretty clearly distinction between two different peoples/civilizations/tribes, with a possible racial connotation.

The authors of the Rig Veda clearly saw a distinction between Arya and Dasa, not just in terms of their customs and piousness, but in terms of their way of life, indicating that the Arya and Dasa are people of different tribes (Arya are the migrating Indo-Aryans, while Dasa are the pre-Vedic inhabitants of India).

These verses suggests that the Dasa were already well-established in India, inhabiting forts:

Armed with his bolt and trusting in his prowess he wandered shattering the forts of Dasas.

And:

Indra and Agni, ye cast down the ninety forts which DAsas held, Together, with one mighty deed.

This verse clearly alienates the Dasas as the "other":

These men have come to Indra for assistance: shall he not quickly come upon these pathways? May the Gods quell the fury of the Dasa, and may they lead our folk to happy fortune.

This verse explicitly refers to the Dasa as a separate race:

We who add strength to thine own splendid vigour, laying within thine arms the splendid thunder- With us mayst thou, O Indra, waxen splendid, with Surya overcome the Dasa races.

This verse refers to the Dasa as "abject tribes":

Lower than all besides hast thou, O Indra, cast down the Dasyus, abject tribes of Dasas.

The character Shambara referred to as a Dasa:

Thou, Indra, also smotest down Kulitara's son Sambara, The Dasa, from the lofty hill.

More references to Dasas as enemy tribes:

May we, O Indra, gain by thy new favour: so Parus laud thee, with their sacrifices, That thou hast wrecked seven autumn forts, their shelter, slain Dasa tribes and aided Purukutsa.

And

With these discomfit hosts that fight against us, and check the opponent's wrath, thyself uninjured. With these chase all our foes to every quarter: subdue the tribes of Dasas to the Arya.

There is of course the infamous verse referring to Dasas as having "swarthy skin", and there are lots more verses referring to the Dasa as a separate tribe.

Empires like maurya or gupta or others conqured afghanistan but did any of the Indian kingdoms have territories in present day afghanistan? Any kingdom apart from hindu shahi

Earlier there was a huge muslim presence in states like UP, Hyderabad State, MP etc. Dividing India was bad for everyone but I think the worst hit group was the Muslim community itself (for whom it happened). They literally got divided into two parts and let's be real, complete population transfer was simply not possible as hard as anyone could try, it was not gonna happen.

What resulted was a weakened muslim voter base in India and initially booming Pakistan. Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) with a population of 66.8 Million (in 1970, a year before independence) got separated from the lesser populated Pakistan with a population of 59.2 Million. And then Zia happened.

One argument I hear people giving is that Muslims would be "oppressed by Hindutva leaders" guys if muslims were freaking 1/3 of the population how would a "Hindutva leader" even get elected? It's not like the remaining Hindu population would unanimously vote for them. I doubt a politician would even try to ask votes this way.

TLDR: The one and only way it could have possibly worked out for muslims was that if complete population transfer happened, which was impossible, and as I am looking into it, the proponents of Pakistan Movement didn't nearly do something about it.

It's like shooting yourself in the foot ...to apparently defend yourself.

🌞

A one pice hole coin is a bronze coin minted in British India between 1943 and 1947. It has a hole in the middle to save metal during World War II.

The statement is basically alluding that Ashoka was a hypocrite (like every other king). Not exactly the epitome of Dharma as he'd like to be remembered.

I personally think it is true for the most part but not entirely as the Tamil lands were still left unconquered in the Indian Subcontinent.

Thanks for your thoughts.

We are not going to Include Modi, as he has (as of posting this) four years left, which can completely change his rankings and how he's remembered.

But every other previous Prime Minister is on the table.

We will be judging by overall popularity, quality of life in India during their reign, how they handled wars (if their leadership was under any), and the Human Development index (HDI) and similar statistics.

Also explain why they were so bad.

(edits: Grammar and the rules)