Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most written-about people in history. Yet most of what we know about him comes from a handful of repeated stories — the Salt March, the spinning wheel, and the famous warning that “an eye for an eye” would leave the whole world blind. These are familiar, but they are … Read more
Are Aryans foreign invaders? Is Vedic culture, including Sanskrit, an imported thing? Was India a barbarian land populated by natives which prospered only after intellectual people called Aryans from the west came here? We have been taught in our history books for ages that Aryans came from outside of India (near the Caucasus mountain region), … Read more
I’ve been down a strange rabbit hole lately — not battles or treaties, but the songs that came out of them. Because long before newsreels or TV cameras, music was doing the emotional heavy lifting of war. It rallied troops, comforted people back home, mourned the dead, and eventually, started asking uncomfortable questions about why … Read more
The ancient world was home to some of the most brutal tyrants, sadists, and murderers, despite the fact that we frequently romanticise it through imposing monuments and fabled conflicts. Unchecked cruelty plagued the ancient past, from insane tyrants who created horrifying execution devices to bloodthirsty Roman emperors who set fire to their own cities. In … Read more
In the wake of the recent US-Iran conflict, most people know the two nations as bitter adversaries. But what if I tell you that they used to be great friends? What started with cooperation and hope slowly fell apart into mistrust, coups, revolutions and hostage crises. Then, how the US and Iran relations soured? how … Read more
Recently, a controversy erupted over the bronze figurine known as the Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-daro where an obscured image of the Dancing Girl appeared in the NCERT Class 9 textbook Madhurima and later reverted to the original picture after a backlash. This article explores this controversy and other facts surrounding the whole issue. What is … Read more
Which religion Ashoka followed before conversion to Buddhism? Before we discuss on why Ashoka adopted Buddhism, it is important to know what Ashoka followed prior to conversion. Before embracing Buddhism, Samrat Ashoka was a devoted follower of Brahmanism (early Vedic traditions). Influenced by his family background, he was also closely tied to the Ajivika sect—an … Read more
Introduction The Indus Valley Civilization was one of the civilizations of the ancient world. It was as big as The Indus Valley Civilisation was alongside Egypt and Mesopotamia. It is also known as Harappan civilization mainly because first discovered site was found in Harappa (a place in present Pakistan). The Indus Valley Civilisation existed from … Read more