General History Thread - India : News , Updates & Discussions .

[Roshan]

View: https://x.com/CultChron/status/1881711243918262677

 

[shade2]

It was a Tamil merchant guild that helped Rajendra Chola become a global conqueror

As much as kings, Tamil merchants are the unsung heroes of medieval India’s global footprint. Sometimes, cultural diasporas can achieve as much, if not more, than an armed force.

theprint.in

It was a Tamil merchant guild that helped Rajendra Chola become a global conqueror​

Interesting read and it is free of the Author's usual commie/librandu slant.

@GaudaNaresh you were indeed right about the Dhandhos being the cause of wars everywhere
"Saar, pls invade Malaysia saar, glory and honor for u, and good margins for us saar!"

 

[Azaad]

It was a Tamil merchant guild that helped Rajendra Chola become a global conqueror

As much as kings, Tamil merchants are the unsung heroes of medieval India’s global footprint. Sometimes, cultural diasporas can achieve as much, if not more, than an armed force.

theprint.in

It was a Tamil merchant guild that helped Rajendra Chola become a global conqueror​

Interesting read and it is free of the Author's usual commie/librandu slant.

@GaudaNaresh you were indeed right about the Dhandhos being the cause of wars everywhere
"Saar, pls invade Malaysia saar, glory and honor for u, and good margins for us saar!"

Kani - the squint eyed pop historian is in a class of his own. In the tradition of his spiritual ancestors still practising their craft in this field where everything good & progressive is either of foreign or non Sanatan origin & everything bad & regressive is from the latter , he did a program on the Mahakumbh Mela for The Print recently & all but declared the Kumbh was first staged during Mughal times & got into the 12 year cycle during British times.

A dog's tail can yet be straightened but not this scum. They require the Mao Cultural Revolution & street justice treatment.

 

[shade2]

Kani - the squint eyed pop historian is in a class of his own. In the tradition of his spiritual ancestors still practising their craft in this field where everything good & progressive is either of foreign or non Sanatan origin & everything bad & regressive is from the latter , he did a program on the Mahakumbh Mela for The Print recently & all but declared the Kumbh was first staged during Mughal times & got into the 12 year cycle during British times.

A dog's tail can yet be straightened but not this scum. They require the Mao Cultural Revolution & street justice treatment.

Most of his articles on ThePrint are ((( gems ))) of the type shat out decades ago by the likes of Romila Thapar, Irrfan Habib, but with a tinge of Devdutt Khalnaik thrown in.

 

[GaudaNaresh]

It was a Tamil merchant guild that helped Rajendra Chola become a global conqueror

As much as kings, Tamil merchants are the unsung heroes of medieval India’s global footprint. Sometimes, cultural diasporas can achieve as much, if not more, than an armed force.

theprint.in

It was a Tamil merchant guild that helped Rajendra Chola become a global conqueror​

Interesting read and it is free of the Author's usual commie/librandu slant.

@GaudaNaresh you were indeed right about the Dhandhos being the cause of wars everywhere
"Saar, pls invade Malaysia saar, glory and honor for u, and good margins for us saar!"

I dont think the war was for Dhandomaxx exclusively, but more like dhandomaxx facilitated the war by allowing their ships to be part of the armada. I think there is more than meets the eye, because Rajendra Chola was allied with Suryavarman the 1st of Khmer empire vs the coalition of Srivijaya and Tamralinga - a coastal kingdom of malaysian mainland.
Its interesting to note that Chola empire at this point was hindu, Khmer empire was even more archaic hindu, with devarajas ruling over them, while Srivijaya was Buddhist and Tambralinga was a hindu majority entity who'd just recently become buddhist at monarchy level.

So i am sure there is some alliance-politics at play with dhandomaxx being the facilitators and finding a good opportunity to make a quick buck.

 

[Azaad]

View: https://twitter.com/Devasakha/status/1882527424795361287?s=19


View: https://twitter.com/Devasakha/status/1882528078255227039?s=19

@ezsasa

 

[ezsasa]

View: https://twitter.com/Devasakha/status/1882527424795361287?s=19


View: https://twitter.com/Devasakha/status/1882528078255227039?s=19

@ezsasa

i'd say, without arriving at a consensus on baseline on decipherment, it would not be wise to pursue a theory of multiple languages even if it might end up being true at a later stage.

baseline preferably a single language decipherment.

this is for academia, enthusiasts can pursue any path.

 

[Azaad]

View: https://twitter.com/vazhakandy/status/1884606900357959779?s=19


View: https://twitter.com/sacredrain/status/1884675270877081885?s=19

Sramanas expressing love for each other

 

[Azaad]

A poignant love story of Ullaskar Dutt

https://swarajyamag.com/heritage/love-in-the-time-of-revolution-the-incredible-life-of-ullaskar-dutt-2

HERITAGE

Love In The Time Of Revolution: The Incredible Life of Ullaskar Dutt​

SANJEEV SANYAL
Jan 24, 2025, 11:37 PM | Updated 11:37 PM IST

(Ullaskar Dutt)
As we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the Indian Republic, it is worth remembering one of our lesser-known freedom-fighters – Ullaskar Dutt. His remarkable story highlights the extra-ordinary personal sacrifices that made it possible to establish an independent republic.

Ullaskar Dutt was born in 1885 into an educated family in the village of Kaliakachha, Brahmanbaria, in the Tipperah district of undivided Bengal (now in Bangladesh). His father was an agricultural expert and would later become a Professor in Civil Engineering College in Shibpur.

Dutt first became interested in the freedom struggle as a result of a fiery speech delivered in Star Theatre Hall by nationalist leader Bipin Chandra Pal (of the famous Lal-Bal-Pal trio). The speech mocked the meek loyalists who then dominated the Indian National Congress. In his book “Twelve Years of Prison Life”, Dutt recounts how it had a profound impact on him. He was then finishing high school at City College, Calcutta (now Kolkata).

A few months later, he took the entrance examination and joined Presidency College – then considered the most prestigious academic institution in the country – to study chemistry. It was here that he would meet Leela, the vivacious daughter of Bipin Chandra Pal, and they would fall in love. It was also around this time that the British colonial government announced its plan to partition Bengal (1905). This led to widespread protests and the launching of the Swadeshi movement. Ullaskar Dutt was an enthusiastic participant. Given that Bipin Pal was one of the main leaders of the protests, one can presume that his daughter Leela too was a participant.

Dutt recounts how he went to listen to Rabindra Nath Tagore, then a young nationalist poet, speak at a Swadeshi Samaj gathering at Minerva Theatre Hall. The event attracted large crowds, scuffles broke out and it ended in a lathi-charge by the mounted police. Dutt was arrested but later released on bail.

Political temperatures remained high. A few months later, a Presidency College professor called Russel stirred a controversy by making derogatory public statements against Indians. Not surprisingly, the students protested. Dutt personally confronted Russel, possibly pushed him around, and ended up being rusticated. It is worth mentioning that Subhas Bose would also go through a similar experience at the same institution fifteen years later.

Give his growing reputation as a troublesome political activist in Calcutta, Dutt was forced to move to Bombay (now Mumbai) where he joined the Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute. Alone in the city, Ullaskar Dutt began to read revolutionary writers like Mazzini and Bankim Chandra. He also read nationalist periodicals like Bande Mataram and Jugantar being published by Aurobindo Ghosh (now remembered as Sri Aurobindo) and his brother Barin Ghosh. This allowed him to hone his personal philosophy about the freedom movement. Thus, during a vacation back in Bengal, he joined the emerging revolutionary network of the Anushilan Samiti. Back in Bombay, given the easy access to his college laboratory, Ullaskar began to teach himself the art of making explosives.

Meanwhile, his relationship with Leela continued to grow and they decided that they would get married. We do not know if Bipin Pal knew of this development but there is no reason to believe that he would have disapproved; Ullaskar was after all one of his most ardent followers.

In 1907, Barin created a “headquarters” for the Anushilan Samiti at a garden-house in the suburb of Maniktola. A group of young men began to gather here to plan some form of armed resistance to the British occupation. It appears that Aurobindo was not directly involved as he considered it premature, but the group was certainly inspired by his fiery writings. Given his knowledge of chemistry, Ullaskar Dutt became the group’s bomb-maker. This was followed by a couple of attacks on British officials. Unfortunately for the group, the police quickly traced the source to 36 Muraripukur Road, Maniktola, and many Anushilan Samiti members including the Ghosh brothers and Ullaskar Dutt was arrested.

The arrested young men would be lodged in Alipore Central Jail and tried at the Alipore Sessions Court. Thus, the case came to be known as the Alipore Bomb Case 1908. The twists-and-turns of the case, including a plot to escape, the smuggling-in of revolvers, and a gun-fight inside the jail, caused quite a sensation. Those interested in the details of these incidents can read about them in my book Revolutionaries (Harper Collins 2023).

Following a widely reported trail, Aurobindo Ghosh was reluctantly released for lack of direct evidence and he would soon escape to French-controlled Pondicherry. However, several Anushilan Samiti members would receive the death sentence including Barin and Ullaskar. Some of them like Kanilal Dutta and Satyendra Bose would be subsequently hanged, but the mercy petitions by Barin and Ullaskar were accepted and their punishment was converted to a life sentence at the newly built Cellular Jail in Port Blair, Andamans. As we shall see, this was not quite an act of clemency because the Cellular Jail had been deliberately designed to be a fate worse than death.

Ullaskar Dutt was taken to Port Blair by the ship SS Maharaja. The Cellular Jail had been designed so that each prisoner was kept isolated in a tiny, bare cell. They were then subject to all manner of torture and humiliation. For example, the prisoners would be made to turn an oil mill by hand to extract coconut oil – something that is normally done by oxen. They had to do this all day in the blazing tropical sun, with little food or water. Those who slowed down were beaten with a heavy bludgeon. Not surprisingly, some convicts collapsed from exhaustion. They would then be shackled to the mill while others would be made to turn it. Ullaskar describes in his book how the bleeding body would be dragged round-and-round the mill. Meanwhile, the outside world had no idea about their plight as the authorities allowed almost no contact with relatives or friends in the mainland (even letters were rarely allowed).

After suffering two-and-a-half years inside the Cellular Jail, Ullaskar’s luck turned and he was assigned to a work-gang breaking stones and building a road on another island. This was much better as he had human company and provided adequate food. At this time, he also received a letter from Leela although it contained the sad news that his sister and her niece had passed away recently. Still, it was a rare moment of contact with the rest of the world. Unfortunately, it did not last and a few months later he was sent to work in another site where he had to carry bricks and mud at a building site. At some point, he was assigned the job of supplying water to the British overseer’s bungalow. The bungalow was on a hill and Ullaskar had to carry up water, two tin cannisters at a time, from a pond in the bottom. Ullaskar did this lonely and exhausting job for some time till he reached a mental and physical breaking point. One day he simply refused to do it any more. No amount of threats would work, and Ullaskar was sent back to Cellular Jail to be punished for his conduct.

Back in the Cellular Jail, Ullaskar was subjected to inhuman treatment that is best described in his own voice: “There were several pair of handcuffs, suspended from as many hooks on the wall, as high as a man’s head and we had to stand a whole day, facing the wall, with our hands locked in one of those beautiful looking iron bangles, given to us by our benevolent master entirely free of cost”. The shackles were taken off only for the mid-day meal.

By the second day, Dutt began to run a fever but the jail authorities did not initially take it seriously and kept him shackled to the wall. It was only when the fever hit 107 degree F that a delirious and semi-conscious Ullaskar was finally taken down. By this time he was suffering spasms and lockjaw. The jail doctors removed him to the hospital within the facility. However, they had no intention of treating him.

At that time, the Andamans did not yet have power supply but the government had sent a set of batteries to Port Blair to familiarize people with electric lights. The jail authorities decided it would be fun to see what happened if they subjected a human to repeated electric shocks. They decided to try this on a barely conscious Ullaskar: “The currents of electricity , that passed through my body, seemed to cut asunder all nerves and sinews, most mercilessly”.

These electric shocks were administered to Ullaskar Dutt for three-four days. His screams could be heard across the jail by other inmates while he would drift in-and-out of consciousness. Sometimes it was like an out-of-body experience. At other times he saw floating visions of Leela drifting in front of him. In a sense, this somehow kept up his wavering will to live.

After several days, Ullaskar was sent back to his cell. He still continued to suffer bouts of high fever and spasms His body and spirit finally crushed, he contemplated suicide. He began pulling out fiber from the jute mat in his cell to make a rope to hang himself. However, this was discovered and the rope and mat were taken away. The reason for the sudden concern for his survival was driven by another turn of events.

A 22-year old revolutionary called Indubhushan Roy had recently committed suicide in his cell by hanging. The Cellular Jail authorities had so far managed to control the flow of information but the news of this suicide somehow leaked out. It caused a quite political storm on the mainland. Thus, the authorities did not want yet another suicide on their hands. Instead, they decided to ship Ullaskar Dutt to a mental institution on the mainland.

Dutt had assumed that he would be sent back to Calcutta but was surprised to find himself in the Government Lunatic Asylum in Madras (now Chennai). This was 1912 and he would spend the next eight years in the institution. The authorities, meanwhile, would not bother to inform his family about his whereabouts for many years. So, neither his parents nor Leela knew what had happened to him.

In his book, Ullaskar tells us that he spent many years at an isolated building in the facility drifting in-and-out of hallucinations. Some of the visions are genuinely strange and involved the king and queen of England! At other times he would have visions of Leela. He would even have conversations with her apparition. Interestingly, Dutt never mentions her by name in his book but merely as “she”. This was probably done to hide her identity for reasons that the reader will soon realize.

The environment was hardly conducive to recovery. He was not allowed any contact with the outside world, and the people around him were either nursing staff or people with serious mental issues. For example, Dutt tells us about a Scotsman called Adam Richardson who refused to wear clothes and would urinate everywhere. It often needed four people to control him.

Nevertheless, Ullaskar slowly recovered over the years. He was eventually able to spend his time working in the weaving shed and leaning Tamil from another inmate. During these years, the world witnessed the Great War and the Jalianwalla massacre. As a peace gesture after the massacre, the British released several revolutionaries from Cellular Jail including Barin Ghosh and Sachindra Nath Sanyal in 1920. A few months later, they also decided to release Ullaskar Dutt.

He was sent back to Calcutta and lodged in the Alipore jail before his release. The night before his release he was given a good meal, his first since 1908! The next day his parents came to pick him up. In the typical Bengali way, he touched their feet and then embraced them. It would not be long before he enquired about Leela. The answer was devastating – she had married someone else and moved to Bombay! In his moment of liberation, his illusion was also broken.

It is said that some months later, Ullaskar would make his way to Bombay and confront Leela. She was genuinely surprised to meet him. She told him that she had waited for years for him and written letters to him (the jailors had only ever passed on one letter to him). However, when she did not receive a single reply, she came to believe that he was dead. Besides, released convicts from Cellular Jail had confirmed that he was no longer there (no one knew he was in Madras). Eventually, with a heavy heart, Leela had decided to carry on with her life and married someone else. The meeting between the two must have been quite an emotional roller-coaster for both.

With a heavy heart, Ullaskar retuned to Bengal. He would write Twelve Years of Prison Life but, given that Leela was some else’s wife, she is never mentioned by name. Despite all that he had suffered, he would then go back to the revolutionary movement and again be sent back to jail for eighteen months in 1931. When he came out, he drifted back to his ancestral village of Kaliakaccha. He was living there when India was partitioned in August 1947. The man who had dedicated his life to India’s struggle for independence became a foreigner in his home at the moment that the country became independent.

Some time later, as life became untenable for Hindus in East Pakistan, Ullaskar moved to Calcutta where he heard that Leela was now a widow and an invalid paralyzed from her waist down. So, he again went to Bombay and traced her. This time he brought her back with him to Calcutta. He then married her! So yes, Ullaskar Dutt did eventually marry his college sweetheart!

Life in Calcutta was difficult, however, as Ullaskar could not find a suitable job and Leela needed a lot of care. So, the couple moved to Silchar in Assam where many Bengali Hindus from east Bengal had settled. Ullaskar found a job as a teacher in a school for refugee children. He would look after Leela till she passed away a few years later. After her death, Ullaskar would move back to spend time at his old Anushilan Samiti akhada where he died, almost forgotten, in May 1965.

This is an incredible story of bravery, patriotism, determination, suffering and love. It would not have been believable but for the fact that it is true!
(The author is an economist and bestselling writer. All opinions are personal).

 

[Anants]

But Mahavira ji predates Gautam Buddha ji. And it could be latter followers in order to out their respective new faiths ahead of each other.

Any Dharmic Tall Figure of history are very careful not to characterize people on faith color, varna or anything but they always categorize on bases on Guna and Karma. That holds true for even Later Sikh Gurujis, Sai Babaji, Mahavatar Babaji, Gurumataji Chaitanya Mahaprabhu ji , Ma AnandMayi ji, Rishi Aurobindoji, Maharishi Ramana, Ramkrishna Paramhansa ji, Sharda Mataji, Devarya Babaji, Neem Karoli Babaji, Siddhi mataji, Srila Prabhu pad ji and in current era Swami Premanand Govind Sharan Maharaj Ji have a very respectful attitude towards all seers/saints irrespective of beliefs. Because thats the essence of our religion - everything and everyone is due to play of Supreme