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anirbuddha

@anirbuddha

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History isn't over. Humanity will win. I explore medieval India to inform you and challenge propaganda. Column @theprintindia. Winner @sahityakademi.

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The DHF’s latest restoration project - the stunning Nagakunda stepwell and the surrounding temples in Sudi, Karnataka - has been featured in Architectural Digest @archdigestindia. The article, which features Surendra Kumar’s beautiful photographs of the site, details the DHF’s two-phase restoration plan and includes quotes from DHF conservation architects about the current challenges and status of the project site.

Sudi, a historic stronghold of the Kalyani Chalukya dynasty, boasts remarkable 10th and 11th-century temples, and the stepwell represents a unique example of ancient water management systems. This initiative, under the government’s “Adopt a Monument” scheme, will restore this important site to its former grandeur. The project aims not only to preserve the heritage of Sudi, but also to place it on the map as a significant cultural destination, only two hours from Hampi and one hour away from Badami.

Work has already begun on the restoration, and we look forward to sharing a more detailed update with you soon. To read the article, visit Architectural Digest India’s website, or click the link in our story.

@heritagematters.in, @gandipet_welfare_society, @philonhelen, @appotamianos, @ghosemadhuvanti, @elenaliliswerner, @harryshah56, @shranu_r, @r.latha, @anirbuddha

#DeccanHeritageFoundation #Article #Sudi #Karnataka #Stepwell #Chalukya #Restoration #Conservation #Ancient #Architecture #DeccanHistory #DeccanArchitecture

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A long-awaited book signing with Anirudh Kanisetti, whose scholarship continues to illuminate the complexities of South Indian history. Lords of the Deccan was a masterful narrative, and Lords of Earth and Sea further cements his authority on the subject.

After a long and fascinating conversation, he left with a stack of books on medieval India, including The Last Brahmin, The Hindu Past, and Al-Biruni. A mind deeply engaged with history is always in pursuit of more.

Signed copies of Lords of Earth and Sea and Lords of the Deccan are now available at www.midlandbookshop.com

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'Vedas don’t mention Hindu pilgrimages. When did they become mainstream?' — Author & Public Historian Anirudh Kanisetti (@anirbuddha) explains the origins of Indian pilgrimage.

Link in bio to the full video

#pilgrimage #pilgrims #mahakumbh #mahakumbh2025 #hindu #hinduism #buddhism #vedas

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जर्नी ए दख्खन । सीज़न १ । EP ७ । चालुक्यांच मंदिर एक्सपेरिमेंट्स!

सादरीकरण: @unusualpineapple_ आणि @balivanshi
चलचित्रकार: कधी @unusualpineapple_ तर कधी @balivanshi
Editing: @unusualpineapple_ (स्वतः)
Moral पाठिंबा: @akshay_bhosale_0607 (स्वतः)

**चूक दुरुस्ती: गुप्त जिथ जिथ असल तिथ पुष्यभूती सम्राट समजावे!**

आपल्याला मंदिर आणि त्याचा भोवतीच पॉलिटिक्स, इकोनॉमिक्स सगळं म्हायती असतय, आपण मंदिरांचा मधे जातो, काही-काही गाभाऱ्यात डायरेक्ट प्रवेश करून तर कधी बाहेरूनच दर्शन घेतो पण आपल्याला प्रश्न पडत न्हाईत. ही मंदिर आली कुठन दक्षिण भारतात?

दक्षिण भारतात मंदिरांचं जनक कोण हायत? मंदिरांचा आधी काय करायची लोक आपली?
ही अशीच का बांधली गेलीत? काय सुरुवातीपासूनच ही अशी हुती? चालुक्यांनी उत्तरेतून आणल्याल कारागीर त्यांचा मदतीन ऐहोळे ते पट्टडकलू मधे, मलप्रभा नदीच्या काठी पुराणकालीन हिंदू देवदेवता ह्यांची मंदिर बांधायला जैन अन बौद्ध धर्मीय राजदरबाऱ्यांनी पैसा लावला?

चालुक्यांनी मंदिर बांधून काय साध्य केल? नेमका विषय सगळा विस्तारान सांगितलोय या एपिसोड मधे!

ह्यो एपिसोड दख्खनच्या “रिलीजियस फ्लेक्सिबिलिटी”ला अर्पण केलाय!

संदर्भ:
१.लॉर्ड्स ऑफ द डेक्कन: अनिरुद्ध कनिशेट्टी (@anirbuddha )(@madhushreepublication @sharad_ashtekar )
२.विकिपीडिया
३.कर्नाटक state गॅझेटियर

ठिकाण: वातापी शहर, वातापी दुर्ग (दक्षिण अन उत्तर), ऐहोळे, पट्टडकलू, इत्यादी.

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'After Amish Tripathi & Bhavish Aggarwal questioned the reality of sati, liberals are claiming that the ritual was endemic to Hindu society'—Anirudh Kanisetti (@anirbuddha) explains how medieval memorial stones hold the truth about sati, in ThePrint #ThinkingMedieval

Link in bio to the full video

#british #india #madieval #sati

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'Today we think of Hinduism as an eternal religion, somehow unchanged since the days of the Vedas in the 2nd millennium BCE. Indeed, much of the marketing around the 2025 Maha Kumbh Mela has presented it as a 5,000-year-old practice; but the fact is that the Vedas do not mention pilgrimage at all. How did this remarkable tradition evolve? The answer lies in unexpected places: in Buddhism, in popular practice, and in both medieval and modern advertising.
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As historian Knut A. Jacobsen notes in Pilgrimage in the Hindu Tradition, the Vedas are barely interested in specific sacred sites. In fact, they are overwhelmingly focused on personal names—of gods, sages and teachers—rather than on places. And this makes sense, because Vedic ritual was interested in inviting gods to temporary sacrificial halls: there was no conception, in early Hinduism, of the gods permanently residing in one place.

In fact, it is Buddhist texts that first mention the concept of pilgrimage in India...In the centuries after, as the Buddha’s relics were distributed into more and more stupas, pilgrimage sites sprung up all over the subcontinent—such as Mathura in the Gangetic Plains, and Amaravati in the Krishna-Godavari delta.'

Link in bio to complete column by Anirudh Kanisetti (@anirbuddha), author and historian

#pilgrimage #pilgrims #mahakumbh #mahakumbh2025 #hindu #hinduism #buddhism #vedas

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Could a minor trade dispute at the Chinese royal court have triggered the Chola invasion of Kedah (present-day Malaysia)? In Lords of the Earth and Sea, Anirudh Kanisetti explores the entangled worlds of rulers and traders, ambition and power, that shaped the Chola Empire.

Kedah was the Cholas’ closest overseas trade partner, supplying exotic woods and camphor. Both relied on merchant guilds as their emissaries. Among them, the Five Hundred held immense influence, their fortunes tied to imperial expansion. As the Chola state unlocked new markets, these merchants thrived, funding further conquests in return.

In 1012 CE, a fleet left Nagapattinam for China, carrying fifty-two senior traders from the Five Hundred and Jewel-Village merchant corporations, along with Chola state officials. On reaching the Chinese court, they discovered that Kedah had falsely claimed the Cholas as their vassals, securing preferential trade privileges. By monopolizing the camphor trade, Kedah threatened the Five Hundred’s dominance in the Indian Ocean networks.

For Rajendra Chola, heir to Rajaraja’s empire, this was an insult that could not be ignored. Conquest was essential to sustain the empire. War spoils kept his elite, generals, and financiers invested. No South Asian ruler had ever subdued a power across the sea, but Rajendra was ready to.

In 1025, under his command, the Five Hundred prepared their annual trading fleet for war at the Nagapattinam port. Inscriptions do not mention Chola naval officers in Nagapattinam. It was the merchant ships—long -experienced in transporting Chola troops for their naval military campaigns—that now carried 3,000 troops across the sea.

At Kedah’s shores, Chola warriors, seasick and furious, stormed the land, taking the king by surprise. The city fell swiftly. When the monsoons returned, Tamil ships carried home vast plunder having secured key markets for powerful traders. Rajendra Chola emerged as an unmatched force. His victory sent a clear message to allies, rivals, and merchants alike—the Cholas and their partners were never to be undermined.

Read the full story in Lords of the Earth and Sea. Get your copy now via the link in bio.

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'Scattered across a huge swathe of the Indian subcontinent—from Gujarat through Maharashtra and Karnataka, and all the way to Tamil Nadu—are stones carved with human figures, meant to memorialise the valiant dead... The majority of these stones speak of the deaths of men: in squabbles between villages, cattle-raids, while fighting off bandits or wild animals. But a significant proportion are sati stones. Often in contemporary India, we are so caught up in mythology that we forget to look at the very real evidence left by medieval people.

Some sati stones are inscribed, telling us the name of the deceased woman and her motivations—at least, as regarded by her male contemporaries. We know, for example, of Dekabbe, who perished in October 1057, in a sati ritual in the highlands west of Mysuru.

Dekabbe’s husband had been executed by a Chola king for the crime of kinslaying. Hearing the news, she is said to have declared: “Can I have any mind to live, and disgrace the good name of this house which gave me [in marriage] and of he who took me [in marriage?]”'

Link in bio to the full article by Anirudh Kanisetti (@anirbuddha)

#british #india #madieval #sati

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Landmarks and Legends: How Maps Led the Way

Throughout history, Humans have crossed forests and the sea using their navigation skills. Europeans leveraged maps for conquering foreign lands and improving their administration. As we rely so much on technology for our movements in the present, how did people of the past navigate unfamiliar lands? What kind of maps did they create? What relevance do maps hold today? Join @sowmyanandan and Swathi Kalyani as they sit down with @anirbuddha, historian and author of Lords of Earth and Sea, to answer these questions.

Link in bio.

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A thousand years ago, the Cholas would have painted the walls of the colossal Brihadishvara temple at Thanjavur in bright shades of yellow, red and blue. Over the centuries, the temple lost its vivid colour palette, but we set out to reimagine what it might once have looked like — here’s how.

To hear more about piety, patronage and power under the Cholas, join us in a conversation with author and historian Anirudh Kanisetti in our upcoming MAP Academy Live, ‘Lords of Earth and Sea: Revisiting the Chola Empire’, on 27th February 2025, Thursday, at 7:00 pm IST via Zoom.

Click on the link in our bio to register for the talk!

Get your copy of the book now, available on @juggernaut.in

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💔 32 Souls Silenced, 1 Mother Fights On.. 🧿

32 innocent dogs were tortured, their mouths and legs tied up with binding wires and thrown off a 45-foot bridge in Sangareddy.

21 died and 11 were critical at the time of rescue. The rest struggled, but one by one, they lost their battle…

Now, only ONE survivor remains —a mother dog who was pregnant when she was thrown. Despite her pain and injuries, she gave birth to 5 puppies🥺

She and her babies are now safe under @citizens_for_animals care, but the scars of this cruelty remain.

How can humans be this cruel? How can justice still be pending? We demand answers. We demand action.

Please pray for this mother and her babies as she's still battling for life 🙏🏽
💔 Raise your voice for the voiceless
💔 Justice must be served

📢 Tag authorities, share this post, and help us make noise!🚨

#JusticeFor32Dogs #StopAnimalCruelty #PrayForSurvivors #AnimalsMatter #VoicelessNoMore #CitizensForAnimals 🐾💔

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