Maharana Pratap of Mewar

[Simple_Guy]

Udaipur historians take on Mewar India history

 

[Virendra]

@Virendra
Small states tend to have narrow outlook and mainly are concerned with their own rivals of India(in our case) rather than an Islamic marauder. The idea that if small states then less but equally efficient number of spies is flawed in sense that we are not talking about mere presence or absence of spies rather their effectiveness. So it was not that Rajputs could not have thought of spies(Arthasastra was there and so the idea must be there) but how much they fared against Muslim spies of Ghurids.

Kamasutra also has been there always. Yet we Anglicized Indians treat Sex as a taboo even in the 21st century.
The idea of aggressive spying, scouting and studying the foreign enemy wasn't there. Rajputs were largely still fighting by chivalry, against an enemy completely ruthless and cunning. Outdated and outsmarted. Doesn't reflect a society reading and following the likes of Arthashastra.

It just did not require you to send some scouts but rather that a well established spy network is there which can recruit spies, can persuade them to risk their life, can employ them for every season so moves, counter moves, feigned tactical retreats all were noticed by them. My view is that since Muslim empires were larger, they had benefit of economy of scale and principle of specialization.
They had wide networks and trade contacts enabling them to get first hand account of every area and major routes( even now many MNCs are also used as info gathering bodies) and so in this area( as in others) it was not lack of spies rather complexity and speciality of them.

When I look at Israel today, it becomes hard to believe that size of an entity could be such a problem.

Muslim geographers wrote about Japan, I do not think that Indians did same. It was not because Indians were stupid, rather lack of centralized states meant we had less merchants in sea and so less records of far flung areas.

We have very few records( in some cases we do not know even when a certain king died) so it is evident that they would speak less about operational spy network. I agree that inference shows such a thing but again , it was lack of standing army which nullified anything. Even if spy reported arrival of ghazis, it took time for Rajputs to group their feudal levies.
Spies could not have helped in understanding radical Islam( I hope you do not buy that there is even a moderate Islam). This was job of our intellectuals and they failed horribly. These intellectuals were debating on Nava Nyaya but had no time to pick up Quran and see what it had for them.
After somnath was sacked, its head priest was allowing construction of mosque in Veraval with his blessings. Did it need spy to understand Islam?

Whatever be the symptoms, it seems there was a stagnation and inertia in India. Lesser trade and travel, lesser interactions with outer world, prevalence of ideas like "If you cross Aryavarta boundary you'd be an outcaste" etc.

I have already explained it but please note that Sufi literature( authentic not modern day apologistic) mentions that they were there in heartland of Chahman kingdom. Did we have hindu monks acting as fifth coloumn in Ghor? Why Pak has more agents in India than India has in Pak?
Ideology does play important role. US in 1940s was having spies from Soviets, Soviets never suffered anything such as that.

I agree. Wonder if defensive agrarians like India could ever beat others in these instinctively cunning games.

I do not want to be basher of my own ancestors but we performed poorly because of tribal structure of our polity not because we had no insight

I consider that fractured tribal structure as the reason why there was lack of foresight and lack of understanding of the bigger picture.

We did not do as fine as them but because we lacked good states not that we were fools. If Burma loses against Thailand, it will be because of its less efficient state not because Burmese leaders do not have ideas

Having a book is one thing and reading, implementing it is another. We can go into n number of things why the ancestors didn't do an xyz thing. Regardless, they didn't do.
Doesn't make them fools, but only opens a point for introspection. That is what I believe is the biggest opportunity History presents to a society.

They did not. I doubt that alliance of all North Indian kings took place to help Jaipal as this evidence comes from Ferishta and not from other contemporaries of Mahmud. Ferishta has presented entire episode as one between Kufr and Islam and so he invented that all Hindus united but still they were defeated thus showing that one ghazi is equal to 10 Kaffirs.
Numbers were not that big issues when gap is not much but do you really think that Mahmud when he marched against Somnath was outnumbered by Solankis? It is almost impossible as he had 30,000 cavalry as well as freebooters and it is impossible for a tiny kingdom like Gujarat to match him by putting 50,000 men. Muslim authors have exaggerated numbers which are often ridiculous. Ottomans had just 1,50,000 troops in early sixteenth century and we are told that Rana Sanga who was ruling over smaller area( by many times) brought more than one lakh soldiers against Babur.

Yes the numbers are exaggerated but on both sides. In some cases the Math didn't favor natives and in others it did. But an allied army assembled in a reactionary way doesn't have the cohesion, thus the numbers advantage if any, gets nullified.
Fighting at home turf, we can expect the natives to get past minor differences in numbers, not huge ones though.

I am telling you a formula, if you know population of a region, take out 1 percent and you will get number of soldiers( not peasants armed at times of crisis) and by this benchmark, Mewar could not have put 1 lakh against Babur. The reason why we were defeated was because we did not outnumber muslims often. When we did,other factors operated

It is not that simple. Nomadic societies are very different from agrarian ones. The former run their economies by war and plunder. You can gauge the focus on martial aspects.
India was not only agrarian and sedentary but also segregated in castes, where each caste assumed its own Department and didn't have to bother of the other's. Thus only a limited portion was trained and available for organized warfare.

Mahmud was many times better than Babur who was a loser in his own homeland. Babur could not hold his own against Shaibani Khan an Uzbek, who himself was thrashed by Safavids who ruled Persia. Mahmud on other hand ruled from Caspian Sea to Lahore and easily defeated most of Islamic superpowers of that area.
He destroyed Samanids( Tajik dynasty) and also defeated Karakhanids who were noted as fierce warriors. If you ask any MidEastern about Tughril Beg, he would sing great glories( if he is Sunni) and the man captured Baghdad but same Tughril was thrashed by Ghazanavi and in the battle his Seljuk( this tribe changed character of Anatolia) turks were simply smashed. So long as Mahmud was alive, Seljuks did not dare attack Ghazanavids again.

I was highlighting Mahmud's talent, not comparing him with Babur. Although I do assert that Babur was a brilliant strategist too, though with more defeats in his record. From the state in which he had to flee Central Asia, his achievements in India are remarkable and use of gunpowder a master stroke.

Mahmud could defeat Hindu Sahis because Hindu Sahis were most unlucky to get such a great general as him as their deadly rival.

Yes. But infighting should not have harmed us more than it harms any other Kingdoms or empires in rest of the world. It was common everywhere, as I've already mentioned.

I am in no way downplaying resistance only saying that if entire Rajputana was centralized under Kumbha, it could have overcome both Gujarat and Malwa completely and destroyed their existence.

Hypothetically yes. But I don't see how it could've happened really.
Rajputana was clannish to begin with, all the way back in history. That is how it survived the thrashing invasions. The clans were responsible for constant warfare with a resident enemy and new clans kept coming up from the old ones to keep the battle on.

Regards,
Virendra

 

[Pratap]

@Virendra

Kamasutra also has been there always. Yet we Anglicized Indians treat Sex as a taboo even in the 21st century.

So you too have fallen victim to this propaganda! Anyway, modern day scholars use Arthasastra to know about administartive and political systems of pre Islamic India and we have numerous references to it in Skt literature and inscriptions. Comparing Arthasastra which was respected as an authoritative text with Kamasutra which many Hindus( certainly myself) see with disgust today is not at all correct. A society's orientation towards sex may differ but if an idea has been discovered, then only financial and other constraints can stop it from being implemented.

The idea of aggressive spying, scouting and studying the foreign enemy wasn't there. Rajputs were largely still fighting by chivalry, against an enemy completely ruthless and cunning. Outdated and outsmarted. Doesn't reflect a society reading and following the likes of Arthashastra.

The Hindu princes had taken a deep dose of Arthasastra where there is a theory of Mandal. In this sterile statecraft, your kingdom is innermost circle surrounded by enemies and if some invaders appeared, you need to make them friends. So, if Rajputs as well as South Indian kings, fell easily it was not beacuse they were not reading it rather they were following it completely. Kautilya does not give a damn to ideology( now I hope you understand why we failed to understand Islam) and thinks that enemy of your enemy is your friend or atleast someone not to be bothered.
Rulers were quite cunning as that is nature of politics. Murder of Ranamal who was a Rathore chieftain under Kumbha using his lover is just one of many instances. The South Indian dynasties( with exception to Kakatiyas) collapsed as easily as those of Gangetic plains and trust me intrigues, cruelty and assassinations were part and parcel of their systems.
In a Hindi book, I once read that Prithviraj after crushing rebels, beheaded them and made a garland of heads to be displayed at gateway of some city most perhaps Ajaymerunagar(Ajmer). The book was of history so do not dismiss this though right now I can not remember the actual source.

When I look at Israel today, it becomes hard to believe that size of an entity could be such a problem.

In our age, it was a serious problem. You can not expect tribal polities to have ambassadors or maintain bureaucracy to maintain records like modern day Israel. All things remaining constant, size does play important role and my point was also about complexity.

Whatever be the symptoms, it seems there was a stagnation and inertia in India. Lesser trade and travel, lesser interactions with outer world, prevalence of ideas like "If you cross Aryavarta boundary you'd be an outcaste" etc.

There was stagnation because of overreliance on clannish systems. The ideas you mentioned did not prevent Indians ( in our period) to visit Tibet and South East Asia. The problem was that there was no polity central enough which could process information from our travellers and could develop a pan Indian vision or even pan north vision.

Having a book is one thing and reading, implementing it is another. We can go into n number of things why the ancestors didn't do an xyz thing. Regardless, they didn't do.
Doesn't make them fools, but only opens a point for introspection. That is what I believe is the biggest opportunity History presents to a society.

Agreed completely but again history tells us lack of cohesion. Hindus in America are so prosperous but why is that they could not do anything against Wendy Doniger? No cohesion with battle being led by individual warriors like Rajiv Malhotra(whose knowledge of sanskrit is poor). Just imagine we had an all embracing centre which could have appointed genuine scholars in hundreds to crush Doniger, how much better it would have been. We Hindus might be 1 billion people but without being unified under one centre, it means nothing. You are not aware how much our history is trivalized due to this disunity. Islamic, Chinese and Persian communities speak with one mind and run well trained institutes to spread knowledge about their history and ethics.

Yes the numbers are exaggerated but on both sides. In some cases the Math didn't favor natives and in others it did. But an allied army assembled in a reactionary way doesn't have the cohesion, thus the numbers advantage if any, gets nullified.
Fighting at home turf, we can expect the natives to get past minor differences in numbers, not huge ones though.

There we are wrong. I have followed Islamic sources closely particularly outside Indian history. The Muslims like other people exaggerated numbers not because they were essentialy liers but because they genuinely believed that one ghazi was better than 10 kaffirs plus ancient did not have notions of numbers. Muslims considered it bad to credit jehad to those who did not participate and so normally they did not exaggerate their own numbers. We have other sources too that show numbers to be correct. Seljuks had just 20-30 thousand when they defeated Mahmud's son and numbers were evenly matched so I think Ghazanavi coming with 30,000 cavalry is quite correct figure.

Home turf did not mean that King of Baran or Mathura could have faced Mahmud head on? They were too small. The reason why rest of Ghazanavids did not succeed is also because their empire was too small and they could be cheked by likes of Bhoja and Karna the kalachuri.

I was highlighting Mahmud's talent, not comparing him with Babur. Although I do assert that Babur was a brilliant strategist too, though with more defeats in his record. From the state in which he had to flee Central Asia, his achievements in India are remarkable and use of gunpowder a master stroke.

You did say that like Babur, Mahmud was a great general. I disagrre on Babur as one's achievement should be seen in light of his performance against those who could have armory comparable to you. Gunpowder had spread to his area and he was just one of many adopters and since NIndians did not have it, it made all the difference. The people were Babur's tactics were well known, made him flee so he was simply not that great in his home turf.

Yes. But infighting should not have harmed us more than it harms any other Kingdoms or empires in rest of the world. It was common everywhere, as I've already mentioned.

You did not get me. I said that Hindu Sahis collapsed because it was their bad luck to be involved in mortal rivalry with one of greatest generals of Central Asia. If it was Mahmud's son, they would have resisted easily.

It is not that simple. Nomadic societies are very different from agrarian ones. The former run their economies by war and plunder. You can gauge the focus on martial aspects.
India was not only agrarian and sedentary but also segregated in castes, where each caste assumed its own Department and didn't have to bother of the other's. Thus only a limited portion was trained and available for organized warfare.

I talked about sedentary societies so it is really that simple. Also, Ghazanavids were not a nomadic societies at all. If you compare their coins with our own, you will see the difference. The core of army was recruited from nomads but kingdom was run on Persian bureaucracy.
Your point on caste is another excuse. Entire area from Gansu to Spain , collapsed before Muslims in less than a century. Sedentary societies have never put large number of soldiers at any time. Caste has never prevented people from setting up their own kingdoms and moving up in caste ladder ultimately claiming Rajput descent. Even if it did, it is irrelevant. You are comparing modern day nationalism with those days when you talk of second line defense, infact it was caste which produced soldiers who fought for honour rather than money and salary. If you think that ordinary farmers were not trained for war, it was beacuse it is difficult to do that not that caste arrogance prevented it. Rana pRatap did use Bhils who are tribals and Shivaji did use Mavla and mahars. People are practical and use anyone if they can.

 

[Pratap]

@Virendra
Please delete one of posts as I can not and am facing server problems.

 

[Pratap]

@Virendra

Kamasutra also has been there always. Yet we Anglicized Indians treat Sex as a taboo even in the 21st century.

I would like you to explain what you meant by this. Are you saying that Indians are prudes because of Anglicization and were very " liberal" in pre British times?

 

[Simple_Guy]

Mewar was the only state in whole world that fought with largest empires of world for centuries.

What I find amazing is that Maharanas found time and resources to construct temples, forts, baoris, dams, lakes, all the time fighting against invaders.

Jiyan Sagar, 5 km from Udaipur, was constructed by Maharana Raj Singh of Mewar, in 1664 and was named after Jana Devi, his mother. It gives a good idea of the terrain of Mewar. Maharana Raj SIngh fought against Aurangzeb.

 

[Bhadra]

@Virendra



I would like you to explain what you meant by this. Are you saying that Indians are prudes because of Anglicization and were very " liberal" in pre British times?

Anglicisation meant following Victorian morals on sex..... which actually were guilt ridden and restrictive ....

 

[Bhadra]

@Simple guy

very nice photo

 

[Simple_Guy]

It seems Rajput rulers were pioneers in interlinking rivers, lakes:

About 340 years ago Maharana Raj Singhji I made the first ever successful attempt in the world to divert the water of Ubeshwar river to the Janna Sagar Lake (Bari Talav) through the Morvani river in medieval period. Prior to this the Ubeshwar river fell into the Chota Madar reservoir. For this diversion of Ubeshwar river rain water towards the Morvani river he constructed a Check Dam Wall near Dhar village 18 Kms away from west of Udaipur city, which still exists.

The rulers of Mewar are also credited for evolving for the first time the concepts of multipurpose river valley project, river diversion, river linkage and development of man made lakes for the optimum utilization of rain water. The first river multipurpose valley project in the world was evolved with the construction of Jaisamand Lake during the 17th century in this region, likewise Ubeshwar river located 20 kms west of Udaipur was diverted towards Morvani River during 18th century.

Development of Rain Water Harvesting Techniques in the Mewar Region

 

[Virendra]

@Virendra
I would like you to explain what you meant by this. Are you saying that Indians are prudes because of Anglicization and were very " liberal" in pre British times?

I meant that despite of Kamasutra being always available to our society, we still have a stigma, a taboo attached to Sex.
Although at the same time (quite hypocritically) we love to ape west and call ourselves modern.

 

[Virendra]

A society's orientation towards sex may differ but if an idea has been discovered, then only financial and other constraints can stop it from being implemented.

India is an idea that was discovered/invented thousands of years ago. Yet we cannot put it to welfare properly.Is money the only reason why we haven't had the desired success yet?
It is the narrow mindset and stagnation, that manifests time and again. Small statemindedness like I said before.

The Hindu princes had taken a deep dose of Arthasastra where there is a theory of Mandal. In this sterile statecraft, your kingdom is innermost circle surrounded by enemies and if some invaders appeared, you need to make them friends. So, if Rajputs as well as South Indian kings, fell easily it was not beacuse they were not reading it rather they were following it completely. Kautilya does not give a damn to ideology( now I hope you understand why we failed to understand Islam) and thinks that enemy of your enemy is your friend or atleast someone not to be bothered.

Kautilya also doesn't say that one has to be gullible towards a foreigner, when they invite him in to slay their enemies. Besides, there aren't so many instances where natives lost to foreigners because they "made friends" with the latter. The statecraft and foresight wasn't there. Whatever be the reason for it.

Rulers were quite cunning as that is nature of politics. Murder of Ranamal who was a Rathore chieftain under Kumbha using his lover is just one of many instances. The South Indian dynasties( with exception to Kakatiyas) collapsed as easily as those of Gangetic plains and trust me intrigues, cruelty and assassinations were part and parcel of their systems.

There are plenty of examples to the contrary as well. We won't reach any conclusion like this. Further I have said foresight and understanding of bigger picture is needed. If all your intelligence is invested only in looking at your Kingdom, unawareness of unknown elements in the neighborhood exposes one to all kinds of threats. Basically it puts us a step behind the enemy all the time and all we can do then is react to the blows. This defensive strategy gives up sooner or later, as it did in India.
How many Indian rulers have led proper campaigns into enemy heartland to annihilate it permanently?
You can count them on fingers - Lalitaditya Muktapida of Kashmir and Jaypala Shahi. The latter's campaign was aborted mid way due to heavy storm.

In a Hindi book, I once read that Prithviraj after crushing rebels, beheaded them and made a garland of heads to be displayed at gateway of some city most perhaps Ajaymerunagar(Ajmer). The book was of history so do not dismiss this though right now I can not remember the actual source.

Would be good if he had done it in Ghazni and not India.
Anyway, please quote the source if you want to pursure it further.

In our age, it was a serious problem. You can not expect tribal polities to have ambassadors or maintain bureaucracy to maintain records like modern day Israel. All things remaining constant, size does play important role and my point was also about complexity.

How much more complex were the states of these invaders. Which civilization was more complex?
Indian civilization with cities, idelogies, literature, sciences and statecrafts developed over thousands of years, society sophisticatedly structured in castes, or the marauders State where every second person becomes a Ghazi for a living; war and plunder is the means to boost economy; no achievements to show except mounts of heads and looted gold.
Who is supposed to have more complex Statecraft and foresight?

There was stagnation because of overreliance on clannish systems. The ideas you mentioned did not prevent Indians ( in our period) to visit Tibet and South East Asia.

Irrelevant. Those were not tagged as Mlechha lands and that is not where the invasions came from.

The problem was that there was no polity central enough which could process information from our travellers and could develop a pan Indian vision or even pan north vision.

A system not pan India but even pan northwest would have done. After all that is the frontier which bore the brunt of majority of invasions.
If there was a pan India Imperial state, wouldn't the Rajput and other native Kingdoms of NW have had a national (instead of regional) perspective in military and politics. Not liquidating the neighborhood bases of foreign invaders despite facing invasions again and again is a criminal neglect.

Agreed completely but again history tells us lack of cohesion. Hindus in America are so prosperous but why is that they could not do anything against Wendy Doniger? No cohesion with battle being led by individual warriors like Rajiv Malhotra(whose knowledge of sanskrit is poor). Just imagine we had an all embracing centre which could have appointed genuine scholars in hundreds to crush Doniger, how much better it would have been. We Hindus might be 1 billion people but without being unified under one centre, it means nothing.

The way Hinduism talk of dharma to its followers, is a micro mode instruction.
Consequently, people follow "each to his own path of dharma" attitude. There are no prophets here to gather herds and declare Jihads.

There we are wrong. I have followed Islamic sources closely particularly outside Indian history. The Muslims like other people exaggerated numbers not because they were essentialy liers but because they genuinely believed that one ghazi was better than 10 kaffirs plus ancient did not have notions of numbers. Muslims considered it bad to credit jehad to those who did not participate and so normally they did not exaggerate their own numbers. We have other sources too that show numbers to be correct. Seljuks had just 20-30 thousand when they defeated Mahmud's son and numbers were evenly matched so I think Ghazanavi coming with 30,000 cavalry is quite correct figure.

I'm not sure what is the relevance of Seljuks vs. Mahmud when we're discussing India but I know for sure that centuries back Bin Qasim had atleast 50,000 strong army (double against Dahir) and later Mahmud on seeing the army of Vidyadhara Chandela (this is one ruler) repents his coming to India. So numbers were not a putting Indians in a so much a dire state after all.

Home turf did not mean that King of Baran or Mathura could have faced Mahmud head on? They were too small. The reason why rest of Ghazanavids did not succeed is also because their empire was too small and they could be cheked by likes of Bhoja and Karna the kalachuri.

And how did the empire shrink? It was quite healthy when Mahmud died. His successors obviously commanded almost if not exactly the same armies, machinery and other support.
Yet they were beaten back from the Indian territories Mahmud had won by his leadership. Who beat them back?

You did say that like Babur, Mahmud was a great general. I disagrre on Babur as one's achievement should be seen in light of his performance against those who could have armory comparable to you. Gunpowder had spread to his area and he was just one of many adopters and since NIndians did not have it, it made all the difference. The people were Babur's tactics were well known, made him flee so he was simply not that great in his home turf.

Then we should also not compare a stateless King with the Kings who had their own States.

You did not get me. I said that Hindu Sahis collapsed because it was their bad luck to be involved in mortal rivalry with one of greatest generals of Central Asia. If it was Mahmud's son, they would have resisted easily.

Yes and my point was that having good numbers didn't help natives cut through either. Shahis had made alliances and received contingents from multiple native Kingdoms. Yet the result is for all to see. There are two sides to the coin.

I talked about sedentary societies so it is really that simple. Also, Ghazanavids were not a nomadic societies at all. If you compare their coins with our own, you will see the difference. The core of army was recruited from nomads but kingdom was run on Persian bureaucracy.

Deosn't make much difference. They still ran their economies by war and plunder and there is still the focus on martial aspects. As for their persian bureaucracy, they were also in influence of Indian culture. Late Ghaznavaid rulers had issued coins where they called themselves "Shri Samanta Deva", which is a purely Indian title.

Your point on caste is another excuse. Entire area from Gansu to Spain , collapsed before Muslims in less than a century. Sedentary societies have never put large number of soldiers at any time. Caste has never prevented people from setting up their own kingdoms and moving up in caste ladder ultimately claiming Rajput descent. Even if it did, it is irrelevant. You are comparing modern day nationalism with those days when you talk of second line defense, infact it was caste which produced soldiers who fought for honour rather than money and salary. If you think that ordinary farmers were not trained for war, it was beacuse it is difficult to do that not that caste arrogance prevented it. Rana pRatap did use Bhils who are tribals and Shivaji did use Mavla and mahars. People are practical and use anyone if they can.

Yes caste organizes the society but also limits it in fixed brackets. It divides the manpower permanently. There is no denying it.
Against the kind of islamic armies India faced, caste based society could never have provided enough people for standing armies.
Comparing the religious zeal and lure of looted booty with the patriotism one would have in caste based society of a Kingdom is silly.
The kind of psychological ruthlessness was just not there.
Our history has proven sufficiently, how the last minute arrangments of peasents to swell one's numbers fares against organized zealots like the Islamic armies. Such secondary troops are best suited for pocketed, resistance, uprisings, shock attacks, guerilla warfare etc. All that is when enemy has come in. That exactly is the natuire of Indian resistance - reactive and pocketed
Put the same guys in the open fields on frontier, they will just be more meat to cut through.
Further a society divided in castes cannot easily organize mass resistance against a powerful resident enemy, once the organized army of the State and ruling machinery has evaporated.
I don't want to over-emphasize this factor. Despite the caste system, our numbers were healthy in most of the cases. Specially when there were alliances. So caste system has just capped this resource with an upper limit.

There are multiple factors that explain why things happened this way, not just one. Things like military-technological stagnance, lack of cunning maneuvers in battlefield or atleast precautions against them, insulatory outlook etc

Regards,
Virendra

 

[Pratap]

What I find amazing is that Maharanas found time and resources to construct temples, forts, baoris, dams, lakes, all the time fighting against invaders.

Jiyan Sagar, 5 km from Udaipur, was constructed by Maharana Raj Singh of Mewar, in 1664 and was named after Jana Devi, his mother. It gives a good idea of the terrain of Mewar. Maharana Raj SIngh fought against Aurangzeb.

Maharana Raj Singh was last great ruler of Mewar as after him we lose line of illustrious kings.

 

[Pratap]

I meant that despite of Kamasutra being always available to our society, we still have a stigma, a taboo attached to Sex.
Although at the same time (quite hypocritically) we love to ape west and call ourselves modern.

May be I am fool as still I do not get it but leave it here. I will open a separate thread.

 

[Pratap]

Anglicisation meant following Victorian morals on sex..... which actually were guilt ridden and restrictive ....

All morals are restrictive be it Vedic or Victorian.

 

[shinoj]

All morals are restrictive be it Vedic or Victorian.

You want some Morals to be implied on the Population, you dont want Animals running in your City do you ? There should be Morals governing. Just the Degree of rigidity needs to be Debated.

 

[Pratap]

@Virendra

India is an idea that was discovered/invented thousands of years ago. Yet we cannot put it to welfare properly.Is money the only reason why we haven't had the desired success yet?

I did say"financial and other constraints". Idea of India has not been invented thousands of years back( Aryavarta is a completely different concept).

It is the narrow mindset and stagnation, that manifests time and again. Small statemindedness like I said before.

Small statemindedness occurs time and again because we Hindus have not been able to create strong centralized polities and this petty thought is just a legacy of our history. I do not know where we are disagreeing here.

Kautilya also doesn't say that one has to be gullible towards a foreigner, when they invite him in to slay their enemies. Besides, there aren't so many instances where natives lost to foreigners because they "made friends" with the latter. The statecraft and foresight wasn't there. Whatever be the reason for it.

What foreigner? He advises a king to be busy with his own enemies who happen to be of same ethnicity and culture. Nowhere he mentions that if Yavanas invade, a king of Kosala should join hands with his enemy king of Kashi or something like that. You should note that ideology based warfare is gift of Abrahmic societies to world along with Chinese. Indians, Romans and Greeks fought for territory and just territory without any regard for religion or culture. When this whole concept was absent, I do not know how anyone could have thought in terms of "forign turks versus we sons of soil who should join hands".
I did not say that Rajputs joined hands rather that they showed no concern. Prithviraj did not help Chalukyas in 1176 and was not helped by Jayachandra Gaharwad in turn. It was not that Jayachandra sided with Ghori( as alleged in popular narratives) but that he was happy seeing destruction of Chauhans. The same disease was there in Europe but it had a catholic church which could rally christian forces against jehadis.

There are plenty of examples to the contrary as well. We won't reach any conclusion like this. Further I have said foresight and understanding of bigger picture is needed. If all your intelligence is invested only in looking at your Kingdom, unawareness of unknown elements in the neighborhood exposes one to all kinds of threats. Basically it puts us a step behind the enemy all the time and all we can do then is react to the blows. This defensive strategy gives up sooner or later, as it did in India.

Read Rajatarangini of Kalhana( I do possess a hard copy of it) and amount of intrigue, cruelty and licentiousness described by the writer( Kalhana is unanimously regarded as very objective and first hand historian unlike court poets) was initially a mental shock to me. Having grown up, I now see why one hates politics as it is really very dirty animal. The reason we have less accounts of such things from other parts is because we have less records and no historian like Kalhana.
One's view was limited to one's kingdom because of nature of polity. Gaharwala were more threatened by Senas and Chahmans than Ghurids so why would they know about Ghurids as much?

How many Indian rulers have led proper campaigns into enemy heartland to annihilate it permanently?
You can count them on fingers - Lalitaditya Muktapida of Kashmir and Jaypala Shahi. The latter's campaign was aborted mid way due to heavy storm.

The reason why Lalitaditya could do it was because Kashmir under him was more prosperous than many small Rajput kingdoms and so he had means to do it. The great scholar Andre Wink believes that he developed his cavalry on lines of Sassanids of Iran that is heavy catapharact with man resembling like a metallic robot and horse covered with heavy armour. Not surprisingly, he thrashed most of North Indian kings like that illustrious Yashovraman who did not have such great cavalry. Lalitaditya did enter Xinjiang but please note that Kashmir gained nothing from that as he was entrapped and defeated which led him to burn himself. His compaign was not that succesful and if it was, it was due to his army not that he was more aggressive.

Jayapala did show aggressivenes by besieging Kabul in 987 but failed due to snowstorm.

How much more complex were the states of these invaders. Which civilization was more complex?

Islamic civilization has been based on plunder but the fact that Khorasan and Transoxiana were one of most complex cultures on Earth in eleventh century can not be denied. Muslim mathematicians, doctors and astronomers of that age were far more advanced than anyone else. We were third with Europeans being fourth in scheme of things. Muslims had banks and cheques at that time and wrote about Japan and Chinese cities in detail.
They raped Hindu women, slaughtered hundreds of thousands of poor males but the fact that they had better administrative structure, machines and economy can not be denied. If you wish I can prove my point but it would be like showing how inferior we were so I do not want to go into details.

I'm not sure what is the relevance of Seljuks vs. Mahmud when we're discussing India but I know for sure that centuries back Bin Qasim had atleast 50,000 strong army (double against Dahir) and later Mahmud on seeing the army of Vidyadhara Chandela (this is one ruler) repents his coming to India. So numbers were not a putting Indians in a so much a dire state after all.

The relevance is for numbers.
Qasim did not have 50,000 soldiers as the Arab cavalry that was sent with him by Hajjaj was just 7,000 and since Arab armies had larger number of cavalry, I doubt he had more than 20,000. That is why I bring in foreign examples. If Arabs attacked such a rich kingdom like Spain with 10,000 soldiers, Sahansahi Iran with 36,000 soldiers( this was struggle for survival by Arabs) and Tang Chinese with just 10,000 soldiers, how could they have raised such a large number for Sindh which could not have been richer than Spain? Dahir collapsed because he did not put up fight at one place rather garrisons after garrisons fought only to be defeated one after another.

As per Nizamuddin, Mahmud did repent seeing such a vast host of Vidyadhara Chandela but this further proves my point. Vidyadhara also did not have spies, he also waited for him to come, and his reaction also was passive but when Mahmud saw his vast army , he did not gather courage to attack him.
So that is the clue- no spy, no cunningness but vast army could repel Mahmud. Unfortunately,Chandellas broke down after him to much smaller position

And how did the empire shrink? It was quite healthy when Mahmud died. His successors obviously commanded almost if not exactly the same armies, machinery and other support.
Yet they were beaten back from the Indian territories Mahmud had won by his leadership. Who beat them back?

.

Empire shrank because richer areas of Khurasan were snatched by Seljuks and ultimately they had to flee to Indus valley thus being denuded of much of resources in terms of raising horses. So, when Yaminis( ghazanavids) lost areas of Khurasan, they did not command as much army and couple this with fact that warriors like Bhoja and Karna Kalachuri emerged, the fact of them being defeated is explained.

Then we should also not compare a stateless King with the Kings who had their own States.

How did Babur become stateless? Mahmud was in similar position but he overcame his uncles and brothers. Anyway, Babur for time being was a king and had Samarkand. It was after that he was defeated by Uzbeks and he fled to lands south of Hindukush. If you think that Babur was successful in Central Asia, you are quite wrong.

Yes and my point was that having good numbers didn't help natives cut through either. Shahis had made alliances and received contingents from multiple native Kingdoms. Yet the result is for all to see. There are two sides to the coin.

They did not. No contemporary historian mentions this. It is Ferishta who invented this stuff to prove his biased objective of one ghazi equal to 10 kaffirs.
He might have genuinely believed folktales but we have no evidence of such an alliance from contemporary records.

Deosn't make much difference. They still ran their economies by war and plunder and there is still the focus on martial aspects. As for their persian bureaucracy, they were also in influence of Indian culture. Late Ghaznavaid rulers had issued coins where they called themselves "Shri Samanta Deva", which is a purely Indian title

So there was no focus on martial aspects in India? If you read Kanhaerdeo Prabhanda, you will find that Rajputs received great training in horsemanship, archery and adroit in sixty four kinds of arms. Every community in Rajasthan be it Rajputs, Jats , Gujjars ,Meenas and even Brahmins was as much martial as any other people.

Ghazanavids issued coins with Indian titles but they were late and did not score anything great against Indians.

Yes caste organizes the society but also limits it in fixed brackets. It divides the manpower permanently. There is no denying it.

Theoretically yes but practically no. Caste was fluid as Jats who were untouchable Dalits in Sindh and Punjab initially , now they themselves treat chamars as Dalits.

Against the kind of islamic armies India faced, caste based society could never have provided enough people for standing armies.

So numbers are important. right? Sedentary societies could not raise more than 3 percent soldiers who were well trained anywhere and given that kshatriyas were certainly 3 percent, I do not buy caste being responsible for losing battles on part of Hindus.

Comparing the religious zeal and lure of looted booty with the patriotism one would have in caste based society of a Kingdom is silly.

It was not problem of caste but non Abrahmic nature of Hinduism. Why did caste free Rome fall to Christianity?

The kind of psychological ruthlessness was just not there.

Agreed.

Our history has proven sufficiently, how the last minute arrangments of peasents to swell one's numbers fares against organized zealots like the Islamic armies. Such secondary troops are best suited for pocketed, resistance, uprisings, shock attacks, guerilla warfare etc. All that is when enemy has come in. That exactly is the natuire of Indian resistance - reactive and pocketed

This is case with Persia, Byzantines and China as well. The fact is that your core army has to win wars not second line of defense.

Put the same guys in the open fields on frontier, they will just be more meat to cut through.

That is why small states suffered time and again. They did not have numbers of well trained soldiers.

Further a society divided in castes cannot easily organize mass resistance against a powerful resident enemy, once the organized army of the State and ruling machinery has evaporated.

Explain case of entire area from Spain to Gansu in China. Why they did not lead mass resistance against Islamic storm after their core armies were defeated? Spain was ruled for centuries by Muslims and at one time muslims were very numerous( some one half of population) there and I do not see any " second line of defense" there.

I don't want to over-emphasize this factor. Despite the caste system, our numbers were healthy in most of the cases. Specially when there were alliances. So caste system has just capped this resource with an upper limit.

Given our size of states, we had good numbers. Caste system did not capp it as there is no evidence of mass resistance by second line of defense against empires like Slave dynasy or Khiljis anywhere which was fragmented.

There are multiple factors that explain why things happened this way, not just one. Things like military-technological stagnance, lack of cunning maneuvers in battlefield or atleast precautions against them, insulatory outlook etc

All of them can be explained by lack of centralized states and India being backward than Islamic civilization in warfare and many other fields.

Irrelevant. Those were not tagged as Mlechha lands and that is not where the invasions came from.

Who told you that? Anyway, you said that insularity was there reflected in ideas such as one becomes outcaste if one crosses Aryavarta.

Which source includes Tibet and South East Asia as " Aryavarta"? Whether invasions came from there is not point as we are talking about insularity in this case.

 

[Pratap]

You want some Morals to be implied on the Population, you dont want Animals running in your City do you ? There should be Morals governing. Just the Degree of rigidity needs to be Debated.

The fact is that all morals are restrictive , I never said about they being good or bad. The Hindu moral of not displaying one's"affection " in public is also restrictive if seen from western perspective. Is it bad? I do not think so. Restrictive does not mean being bad. All societies have their own culture and morals based on their evolution and level of sophistication.

 

[shinoj]

Regarding coming back on the Topic,Akbar who was the Major Rival of Rana made some important alliances with the other Kings which was crucial in those time..

Akbar was a little diplomatic than the other Mughal thugs realised that in order to Rule over Major part of India needed to strike Alliances with many empires. Nothing like Mughals were strategically very brilliant but the Hindu Kings were certainly short sighted.

And isnt that Short sighted visible in Todays Bharat as well, ignoring Nationalism in favour of petty Regionalism?


Also, a vital piece of Information about the Mughal Attacks on Bharat. What i could infer is, Nothing like Bharat was weak or something but if a well prepared thug and hell bent on creating fury attacks a healthy Man and manages to injure him but the injured man fight backs and thwarts him away. What would you say ? The Healthy Man was weak because he suffered injuries or the Healthy Man was brave because he withstood the attacks and still managed to drove the Mughals away.

Such was the fierocity of Mughals that within a century of so after their Prophet's dictum they managed to control much of North Africa,Central Asia and Parts of Europe like Spain.

Nevertheless i will let you decide over this brilliant Post

THE MYTH OF MUSLIM EMPIRE IN INDIA

 

[Pratap]

Regarding coming back on the Topic,Akbar who was the Major Rival of Rana made some important alliances with the other Kings which was crucial in those time..

Akbar was a little diplomatic than the other Mughal thugs realised that in order to Rule over Major part of India needed to strike Alliances with many empires. Nothing like Mughals were strategically very brilliant but the Hindu Kings were certainly short sighted.

And isnt that Short sighted visible in Todays Bharat as well, ignoring Nationalism in favour of petty Regionalism?


Also, a vital piece of Information about the Mughal Attacks on Bharat. What i could infer is, Nothing like Bharat was weak or something but if a well prepared thug and hell bent on creating fury attacks a healthy Man and manages to injure him but the injured man fight backs and thwarts him away. What would you say ? The Healthy Man was weak because he suffered injuries or the Healthy Man was brave because he withstood the attacks and still managed to drove the Mughals away.

Such was the fierocity of Mughals that within a century of so after their Prophet's dictum they managed to control much of North Africa,Central Asia and Parts of Europe like Spain.

Nevertheless i will let you decide over this brilliant Post

THE MYTH OF MUSLIM EMPIRE IN INDIA

Hahaha. Such ignorance. Mughals did not exist at time of Prophet Muhammad or century after him.

It is true that Muslims did not enjoy undisputed empire In India for even a century. Hindu resistance went on and finally was on verge of destroying them but British came and saved Muslims.

 

[shinoj]

Bin Quasim, the First Muslim Invader into Subcontinent; attacked Sindh at around 710 AD and it was less than a Century before Mohammad died; who died at around 630 AD and by the time Quasim controlled Sindh.For all practical purposes Muslims and Mughals were one and the same.


By the Time Islam conquered Persia,Mesopotamia, North Africa,Spain it still couldnt gain a foothold in the Heart of India. Only they could truly annex Sindh. The Word truly annex is important because it means complete domination. By that what i mean is the Muslim tribes would attack and gain control of the Hindu Teritory but shortly after that the Hindu Rules would hit back and gain control of the Land Back.

By the Time Muslims had complete control of those lands; Persia,Mesopotamia,North Africa,Spain etc it didnt or rather it could not dominate India like them. In India they faced never before resistance. And the time they could dominate truly was the reign of Akbar ; But Akbar had made several alliances with Local Princes so in effect even he could never dominate Indian terrains.

Read that Article; it says Many of the Muslim Saints were all the time crying because they could never capture India like they did for other; they were all the time crying for some help from Other Muslim Rulers to over throw.

I mean who the ---- they thought they ran into.. We were no Ordinary Rivals.. We had More than Thousands and Thousands of Culture; Wars behind Us. Even their Prophet was greatly influenced by the Vedic Religion that he copied many practices like the wearing of White Clothes and so on. Its another Big Topic.





HAR HAR MAHADEVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV...

Hahaha. Such ignorance. Mughals did not exist at time of Prophet Muhammad or century after him.

It is true that Muslims did not enjoy undisputed empire In India for even a century. Hindu resistance went on and finally was on verge of destroying them but British came and saved Muslims.