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Showing posts from February, 2018

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...

When Jagannatha Comes Calling in Sunder Nagar (Suket)

Pangna Palace Suket was a small princely state, part of the now Mandi district, with its capital at Sundar Nagar. It is one of the oldest surviving lineages of India, going all the way back to 765 AD. Interestingly, Suket, Mandi, Keonthal and Kashtwar (in Chenab valley region of Jammu) all had lineages related to each other. They all descend from a common ancestor of the Sena dynasty of Bengal, of the Chandrabanshi line of Rajputs. Hutchison and Vogel point out that The descendarnts of the common ancestors were three brothers, named Vira or Bir-Sen, who became the Ruler of Suket, Giri-Sen of Keonthal and Hamir Sen of Kashtwar. In 765, it is believed that along with his followers, probably Rajput adventurers like himself, Bir Sen crossed the Sutlej river and advanced into the interior, and defeated the then warring factions of Ranas and Thakurs, thus lording over them. Eventually, Bir Sen selected a site in the Surhi ilaqa, at 5,000 ft. above sea level, called Pangna, where he bu...

Of Lakshana Devi and Chamba's Script History

Chamba is a beautiful quaint district within Himachal with a vibrant history that goes back to references in the MArkandeya PurAna as Brahmapuri, which Vogel in his book Antiquities of Chamba State has postulated to be the now sleepy village of Bharmour. However, this village was once the capital of the ancient Bhramor state that ruled over Chamba. Many references are found to this place in KAlhAna’s RAjatarangini too, where the area is mentioned often as Brahampuri. The place is fortunate to have many inscriptions surviving unlike Kangra, Kashmir and Kullu, which saw the ravages of Islamic invaders, as Vogel too has remarked, that shed much light on the history of the region and the development of culture and language of the hills among other things. One interesting thing that the region houses is the Laksana Devi temple, first commissioned by Meru Varman in 8th century AD. The wonder of this temple lies in the recording of a crucial aspect of the evolution of scripts in India....