To define the plague that devastates the world in her novel The Last Man, Mary Shelley (also the author of Frankenstein) writes: Like Juggernaut, it proceeds crushing the being of all who stand in the high road of life. The term Juggernaut is also used by Robert Louis Stevenson in The Strange Case of Dr. […]
India
Posted inBronze Age Archaeology
Researchers confirm that there really was a dockyard at Lothal, the commercial center of the Harappan civilization and the world’s oldest port
Lothal, located about 30 kilometers inland from the coast of the Gulf of Khambhat in Gujarat, India, was a prosperous port during the Harappan period of the Bronze Age (2600 BCE to 1900 BCE). This settlement is a key piece in the Harappan production and distribution network, connecting various centers along the Gulf and the […]
Posted inModern Era
Charles Masson, the traveler, spy, and archaeologist who was the first European to see the ruins of Harappa
Today we’ll take a brief look at the life and work of another one of those characters we can define as unclassifiable, a mix of soldiers, travelers, adventurers, scientists, and scholars, who often fly free. The one we’ll see next was English, named Charles Masson, and both the British Museum and the British Library owe […]
Posted inScience
A Major Earthquake Changed the Course of the Ganges 2,500 Years Ago: Could It Happen Again?
A groundbreaking study has revealed that a major earthquake 2,500 years ago dramatically altered the course of one of the world’s largest rivers, the Ganges. This previously undocumented earthquake diverted the main channel of the Ganges in what is now Bangladesh, a region still susceptible to significant seismic activity. The study, recently published in the […]
Posted inModern Era
Khalsa, the Sikh warriors who had the duty to protect the innocent from any form of religious persecution
Globalization has allowed the Hindu festival of Holi to spread almost everywhere—at least where there is an Indian community—with its irresistible springtime joy and colors. However, another lesser-known festival often takes place around the same time, typically on March 21: a Sikh event called Vaisakhi, which has a strong agrarian aspect and also commemorates the […]
Posted inAncient Greece, Geography
Megasthenes, the 3rd Century BC Greek Geographer who Described Himalayas and Calculated the Longitude and Latitude of India
Like many lost works of antiquity, their content can be partially reconstructed through the citations of later authors. This is what happened, for example, with the Phoenician history of Sanchuniaton. And also with the work of Megasthenes titled Indica, where he recounts his journey to India in the 3rd century BC. Megasthenes was born in […]
Posted inAntiquity
The Edicts of Ashoka, the Maurya Emperor who Renounced Violence in Horror at his Military Campaigns
Ashoka Vardhana, the third Mauryan emperor (the first great unified empire of India), has gone down in history for converting to Buddhism after witnessing the massacres resulting from the campaign he initiated to conquer the neighboring kingdom of Kalinga. His story is told in thirty-three edicts that he himself promulgated, ordering them to be spread […]
Posted inModern Era
Saragarhi, the Battle in which 21 Sikhs Faced Thousands of Afghans
Every September 12th, the Indian armed forces celebrate a festival called Regimental Battle Honours Day. The regiment referred to in the name is the Sikh regiment, the protagonist of a heroic episode in 1897 during the Second Anglo-Afghan War. During that time, 21 men from a small detachment defended their position against thousands of enemies, […]
Posted inAncient Greece
Onesicritus, the historian whom Alexander the Great sent to learn the secrets of the yogis
Astypalaia is a small island in the Greek Dodecanese, possibly a colony of Megara, where around 360 B.C. Onesicritus, a historian and cynic philosopher who followed Diogenes of Sinope ( the one who lived like a beggar in a jar), was born. In 334 BC, when he was 26 years old, he crossed the Hellespont […]
Posted inSecond World War
Kohima, the fiery battle that prevented the Japanese from invading India
“Walker, go and tell Sparta that their children lie here for obeying their laws.” That splendid phrase of Simonides, which, in its multiple translations, constitutes the epigraph of the monument to Leonidas in the Thermopylae, is too juicy not to take advantage of it in other war memorials with the corresponding changes. It is what […]