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Showing posts from August, 2017

The Ballad of Raja Malhi Prakash and Sirmour's History - Some Scrambled Thoughts

I was just walking through some documents I had saved over the years, when it struck me that there has been very little new research work or relook into the history of the hill states. One particular format has been the examination of oral ballads, very few of which seem to be available in popular culture today. However, that was certainly not the case in the British era, when much field work seems to have been done by scholars of Europe on the subject, as they panned across the state of the Lahore kingdom and their adjunct territories. Sirmour was a Small Princely state along the Yamuna river's course While their purpose may have been malevolent in nature, many interesting insights got captured over the course of their work, and replication or improvement on the same seems to be rather scarce, especially in the context of what the European scholars used to call the "Punjab Hill States". One such case was on Sirmour, where very little information can be found in the publi...

Iconoclasm in the Himalayas - The Case of Sharika Devi

Svayambhu Sri Chakra at Sharika Devi in Srinagar (Temples of India) In my previous blog I had talked about the project of Dr Meenakshi Jain on iconoclasm in India, and how the Hindus of India responded to it by protecting the idol. This was a talk I had attended, and afterwards I had a chance to interact with Dr Jain, and had the chance to tell her more about an interesting story I had nearly forgotten. This is the story of the curious case of Sharika Devi. In the state of Jammu and Kashmir, particularly in Kashmir valley, Sharika Devi is a very important goddess in the Kashmir Tantra traditions, particularly of the Vaishnava Tantra, which is an even rarer school. This Devi, the Aadi Devi or Mother Goddess, is often identified by scholars with Tripurasundari or Lalitha Devi. The city of Srinagar, where Sharika Devi's temple, also known as Pradyumna Peetha , is located on Hari Parbat, has an interesting legend to it. Hari Parbat is a corruption of the name ShAri , the name ...

Iconoclasm in India - Stories from Himachal

Iconoclasm is a known reality of India's violent invasion period. People trying to deny it are lying to themselves, be it out of naivety or malice. Dr. Meenakshi Jain, a highly underrated historian, in a recent public lecture, discussed her new research project on this very important topic, and how she has been collecting evidence to the same from various sources. While there are several well documented evidences across many parts of India, including the Northern plains, what Dr Jain has found so far is a broad lack of accounts of important events being captured in the hill regions, particularly in the North-Western Himalayas. To that end, there seem to be signs, based on my own research, that there seem to be cases that are famous and may be preserved in oral traditions and written records in various ways, but need to be pieced together by proper historians, though of course people will deep interests can certainly help contribute by finding out more and sharing records. Entr...