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December 17 - December 22, 2021
Interestingly, the Vedic–Mitanni god Mitra would remain a popular
Indian civilization was enriched in many ways by influences from the east. One commonplace example is the custom of chewing paan (betel leaves with areca nuts, usually with a bit of lime and other ingredients). While it is common across the Indian subcontinent, the areca nut, called ‘supari’ in Hindi, is originally from South East Asia and was chewed across the region and as far north as Taiwan.
what are now the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, is about the rivalries between three clans—the Cholas, Cheras and Pandyas. The Cholas had their heartland in the Kaveri delta, the Pandyas were further south near Madurai and the Cheras along the Kerala coast.
The Periplus confirms that Sindh and parts of Gujarat were controlled by the Sakas (Scythians) and Parthians at that time. This fits with Satvahana inscriptions mentioned earlier that tell us of their wars with the Sakas.
6 Arabian Knights
The Rise of Islam
Battle of Karbala in AD 680 where Muhammad’s grandson Husain ibn Ali and his followers were massacred by a much larger army sent by Umayyad Caliph Yazid. Husain is said to have died with his infant son in his arms. This incident created the Shia–Sunni sectarian divide that exists to this day.
Intriguingly, there is an oral tradition in India that Husain’s party included a group of Hindu mercenaries who were also killed in the battle. This is why the Mohyal Brahmins of Punjab still join Shia Muslims in the annual ritual mourning of Muharram.
Umayyad rule came to a bloody end in AD 750 when the dynasty was overthrown by Abu-al-Abbas. It is said that after he defeated and killed his predecessor, he called a banquet of reconciliation for the surviving nobility of the former regime. After they had sat down to eat, they were all slaughtered to a man. A carpet then was laid out over the dead bodies and the new caliph and his followers then sat and ate upon the bed of corpses!15
Meanwhile, the remaining Omanis withdrew once more to the rough Al Hajar mountains around Nizwa. There they developed a distinct branch of Islam called Ibadhi. To this day, the majority of Omanis follow Ibadhi Islam.
Few people realize that India is home to the second oldest mosque in the world—the Cheraman mosque in Kerala. If
matrilineal
The Nairs of Kerala and the Bunt of the Karnataka coast, both warrior clans, developed matrilineal customs.
The Arab merchants also took on local wives and their descendants, the ‘Mappila’ Muslims, are now a quarter of Kerala’s population. It is worth noting that the term ‘Mappila’ m...
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The Conquest of Sindh
The kingdom of Sindh was ruled at that time by Raja Dahir, who even Muslim sources accept was an able and popular ruler.
The Turkic people of the region mostly worshipped the sky god Tengri or were Buddhist. There were also Hindu and Zoroastrian influences.
Qissa-i-Sanjan
The Roaming Roma
Even as Arabs, Parsis and Jews were settling in India, at least one group of Indians migrated to the Middle East. It has long been suspected on cultural and linguistic grounds that the Roma (Gypsies) of Europe were of Indian origin. Genetic studies have confirmed that they are the descendants of medieval migrants from north-western India.
Merchants, Temples and Rice
This includes the Preah Vihear temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, built on a mountaintop on the Thai-Cambodian border which is now the focus of a bitter dispute between the two countries. Despite the International Court of Justice in Hague ruling that it belonged to Cambodia, the conflict spiralled into an armed skirmish in 2011 and nearly escalated into a war.4
order was restored by another powerful leader, Suryavarman II. It is he who built Angkor Wat, still the largest religious building in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its sheer scale must be seen to be believed but, in order to imagine what it looked like in its heyday, one must remember that the towers were originally covered in gold leaf!6
The admiral who helmed these voyages was the unlikeliest person to lead such an expedition—a Muslim eunuch of Mongol origin called Zheng He who began life in landlocked Yunnan! He had been captured as a young boy when the Ming were evicting Mongols from the province and was castrated before being presented as a servant to a prince. A bond of trust must have developed between the two boys because when the prince became Emperor Yongle, he put the young eunuch in charge of the Treasure Fleet.
The second voyage set sail after only a few months. Its purpose was to return various ambassadors to their home countries but also to install a new ruler in Calicut.3 The ruler of Calicut, drawn from the matrilineal Nair warrior clan, was known as the Lord of the Seas or Samudrin (often misspelled as Zamorin). The Chinese records suggest that they succeeded in installing their candidate. Although Indian sources are less clear about Chinese involvement, we know that during this decade the Samudrins of Calicut expanded their power at the expense of rivals like Cochin (Kochi) and it is possible
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The chronicler Ma Huan who accompanied the Treasure Fleet on its voyages has left us some amusing anecdotes about local social attitudes. He tells us that the Chinese envoys really enjoyed their Thai sojourn because the women, including married ones, were quite happy to eat, drink and sleep with them without restraint. In fact, the Chinese found that husbands were pleased when they slept with their wives as they took it as a compliment saying, ‘My wife is beautiful and the man from the Middle Kingdom is delighted with her.’ The mystery is how the ship captains managed to convince the sailors
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Ma Huan also writes that the Chinese were initially puzzled when they heard a gentle tinkling sound whenever upper-class Thai men walked about. They learned that there was a custom of inserting hollow tin and gold beads into their foreskin and scrotum. The hollow beads had tiny grains of sand that made the tinkling sound. Ma Huan wrote that it looked ‘liked a cluster of grapes’ and was ‘a most curious thing’. One can only be grateful that this custom died out and did not survive to become a modern fashion craze.
The Chinese would similarly intervene in a war of succession in the kingdom of Samudra in Sumatra. However, the intervention with the most far-reaching historical implications was the support for the new kingdom of Melaka (also spelled Malacca) as a counterweight to the Majapahit of Java.4
The founder of Melaka was a prince called Parmeswara who claimed descent from the Sri Vijaya. He initially attempted to set up his base in Singapore but later decided to shift further north due to local rivalries and the continued fear of Javan attacks. The Chinese would provide him with systematic support from the very outset and we know that Parmeswara made at least one trip to China in order to personally pay obeisance to the Ming emperor. Interestingly, Melaka was now encouraged to convert to Islam. Although Zheng He and many of his captains were Muslim, this should be seen mainly as a
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charlatans
embellished
palanquins
On his way to the palace, Vasco da Gama even stopped to pray at a Hindu temple under the mistaken belief that the Hindus were heretical Christians!
The Arab merchants of Calicut were understandably unhappy to see their monopoly being broken. They even arranged to kidnap da Gama before he could return to his ship but the Samudrin intervened and had him freed.
Thus began the European domination of the Indian Ocean.
Ferdinand Magellan and Francisco Serrao,
Spanish Inquisition was originally founded.
later, the Portuguese too expelled the Jews. Indeed, Vasco
Gama’s voyage had been partly funded by the wealth expropriated from the expelled Jews.
canonized
When the Inquisition arrived in Goa, the vast majority of the local population practised Hinduism and there were numerous temples dedicated to goddess Shanta-Durga.
been rebuilt by local Hindus. One example is the Mahalasa
Narayani temple in the village of Verna, which was destroyed in 1567 and was rebuilt in 2000–05 (incidentally the site also has a large stone carving of a female figure that may date back to the Neolithic age).17
Syriac
It is a reflection of the vindictiveness of the Inquisition that Orta’s remains were dug out of his grave and burned, and the ashes thrown into the Mandovi River.19
women who wrestle, and others who are astrologers and soothsayers; and women who write all the accounts of expenses that occurred inside the gates, and others whose duty is to write all the affairs of the kingdom and compare their books with the writers outside; women also for music who play instruments and sing. Even the wives of the king are well versed in music.22
A few of them like the Ethiopian-born general Malik Ambar would rise to hold high office. The descendants of these Africans survive today as the tiny Siddi community in Karnataka, Hyderabad and also in Gujarat.
The Warrior Queens of Ullal
warrior queen of the tiny kingdom of Ullal near Mangalore. She belonged to the Chowtha dynasty that were of Gujarati Jain origin but had adopted the matrilineal customs of the region. Tradition decreed that a king’s successor was his sister’s son but Thirumala Raya did not have a nephew. So, he decided instead to train his niece Abbakka to succeed him. Although she married the ruler of nearby Mangalore, she stayed back in Ullal as its ruler.25
worth another shot and Queen Elizabeth I was petitioned for a royal charter. It was granted on New Year’s Eve in 1600 and set up as ‘The Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies’; we know it now as the East India Company. The Dutch merchants similarly banded together to form the United East India Company (also known by its Dutch initials VOC).
