As #Delhi roasts at 49.9°c (a record) Maharaja Sur Singh of #Jodhpur#Marwar#Rajasthan sits smoking a #Huqqa without his shirt on!
And, so does his attendant, fanning him in this c1760 CE #IndianMiniaturePainting from the Toby Falk collection sold by Christie's Inc on 27th October 2023 for £5040.
An illustration to the 'Mirigavati' of Qutban Suhravardi manuscript (1603-04 CE) which tells the #Story of Prince Raj who falls in love with Mirigavati, a woman who can magically transform into a 'Doe'
Ikhlas was from #Ethiopia#Africa who came to #India in c1600 CE
Many of the immigrants who came from there rose to important positions in the courts of various courts of the #Indian Kingdoms.
A girl flees to her house during the storm & is received by an older woman in this c1760 CE #Mughal#IndianMiniaturePainting of Madhu Madhavi #Ragini from a #Ragamala (Garland of Melodies) now at Victoria and Albert #Museum London
Here's wishing #EidMubarak to all those celebrating today.
As the month of #Ramadan (#Islamic fasting month) comes to an end, #Muslims worldwide thank the Almighty by offering prayers at Mosques & #Eid celebrations.
Riding a Blue Ram, he is looking out for the Sun or the Moon which he will devour to replace his head which was cut off by the #Hindu God #Vishnu for eating His food and thus causing #SolarEclipse2024 & Lunar eclipse some other time.
A remarkably well preserved 2nd century CE Stucco head of #Buddha from the ancient region of #Gandhara#Afghanistan which has defied exposure to the elements of nature (hence very rare) from the Richard C Blum & Senator Dianne Feinstein Collection of #Himalayan#Art will be on Bonhams auction on 20th March estimate $30,000 - $50,000
Karnataka revises school textbooks, reintroduces chapters by progressive writers
However, the committee decided not to include chapters on Tipu Sultan and Hyder Ali, which were dropped when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was in power.
c1800 CE #CompanyPainting from #Kolkata#Bengal likely to have been made by an #Artist commissioned by William Roxburgh, who became the 1st Superintendent of the #Calcutta Botanic Garden in 1793
Over the next 20 years, he assembled over 2500 #Paintings & copies were made for his #EastIndiaCompany friends like Lord Wellesley
From the collection of Toby Falk sold by Christies on 27th Oct 2023 for £60,500
Scholars routinely critique the Mughal Empire’s record on many fronts, but the Mughals have lately also attracted much cultural vilification, especially from Hindu nationalists. They allege that the Mughals persecuted and forcibly converted Hindus to Islam on a large scale, and indiscriminately desecrated tens of thousands of temples. Is that true?
In this episode, Namit Arora describes what’s known about Vijayanagar's trade, governance, and policing. He also looks at its religious landscape and courtly norms, its eager embrace of Persianate culture, and its war machine and shifting military alliances in which religion mattered little. Hindu nationalists today fondly imagine Vijayanagar as a self-conscious bastion of Hinduism bravely resisting the ‘onslaught of Islam’. Is that true?
Vigilantism and surveillance in Modi’s Gujarat (An excerpt from 'Gujarat Under Modi: Laboratory of Today’s India' by Christophe Jaffrelot (Hurst Publishers, February 2024).
How was this carnage reduced to an event that seems to hold little significance in the public memory today? The answer may lie at the nexus of questionable political decisions, an ineffective legal system, an indifferent media and the lack of political representation for Bengali Muslims in Assam.
VHP Moves Calcutta High Court Over Lioness Named 'Sita' Being Housed With Lion Named 'Akbar' At Siliguri Safari Park
The Bengal wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has moved the Calcutta High Court's Circuit Bench at Jalpaiguri, challenging the forest department's move to allegedly keep a lion named 'Akbar' with a lioness named 'Sita' in the same enclosure at Siliguri's Safari park.
The formula for the Indian prime minister’s brand of populism was developed in Gujarat, a “laboratory for Hindu nationalism”. (An excerpt from 'Gujarat Under Modi: Laboratory of Today’s India' by Christophe Jaffrelot (Hurst Publishers, February 2024).