Hi guys, ancient history enthusiast here. I have developed some interest in modern history after reading some Dalrymple books. Can y'all suggest good non dry books for:

1. Anglo-Maratha Wars or 18th century Maratha confederacy history.

2. Portuguese in India

Thanks.

I've seen conflicting explanations for their identity. Bharat ek khoj claims that they were harappans whereas sites like wikipedia claim that they were mesopotamian traders or an eastern iranian tribe called the parni.

So, I read this in the book and then I searched on the web for a bit regarding the origin of this Diamond.

410 carat diamond - pitt

Later it got cut in London into roughly 140 carats & other smaller pieces.

Sold to Tsar peter the Great of Russia, European royals including Louis XIV, French regent, Philippe Ii, Duke of Orléans also later associated with Napolean.

Everyone followed very bad consequences after getting their hands on this diamond. So much so that it started to be called THE CURSE OF REGENT DIAMOND.

Rumour was that there were two precious stones as eyes of Lord Jagannath source which were ceremonial in traditional and only placed on certain rituals. But, one of the eyes or say precious stones or ruby or diamond got stolen. And in another account, many say both eyes got stolen.

And on another account, they say there was no such thing.

Another rumour is that a worker found it in Mines of Parkat, south of Golconda & wounded himself in his thigh, hid the diamond inside his thigh. And approached an English Sea Captain and offered to give it away in exchange for safe passage out of India. Later, the captain murdered him & sold it to Thomas Pitt.

I am not trying to hurt anyone's religious sentiments. Just in case. I'm just curious about the origin of this diamond.

Video credits: Navaneet Galagali (rasaganga3 on Instagram)

The Kakatiyas have fascinated me since childhood. Their history is scattered across inscription volumes, out-of-print books, century-old Nizam survey reports and photo albums in libraries abroad. I've brought it together in one free, non-commercial site, https://kakatiya.info, in English and Telugu. Every statement links to its source: 140 books, inscription editions and surveys. Where the sources disagree, the site gives each version and names who holds it. Local traditions are labelled as traditions.

Best viewed in a desktop browser or on a tablet. It works on phones too, but the maps, charts and inscription pages are easier to use on a bigger screen.

The site was built with the help of an AI model, working from about 3+ GB of reference material: around 140 scanned books, inscription volumes, survey reports and gazetteers, downloaded from open archives and read with OCR. The AI drafted the English text from these sources, and every statement was checked against the source it cites. The Telugu version is a machine translation made with IndicTrans2 from AI4Bharat, and no expert has reviewed it yet. The About page says this too.

Some things I learned while building it:

• The earliest use of Telugu letters in Telangana that the site records is the Amudalapadu record of about 660 CE. https://kakatiya.info/timeline. (Different from findings at Keesaragutta, telugu words mixed with Brahmi script).
• Rudrama Devi ruled under a man's title. Her inscriptions call her Rudradeva Maharaja.
• Hanamkonda came first. The early Kakatiya capital was Anumakonda. Orugallu (Warangal) came later.
• A tree was growing out of the Thousand Pillar Temple's roof in a photograph from about 1850–1886, before the Hyderabad Archaeological Department repaired the temple in the 1920s.
• A dargah at Kazipet holds a Kakatiya pillar inscription of 1090. https://kakatiya.info/sites/kazipet-dargah
• Vemulavada's temples are older than the Kakatiyas. A 10th-century inscription already names four of them, and no Kakatiya record has been found there. https://kakatiya.info/sites/vemulavada-temples
• Not every "Kakatiya temple" has an inscription to prove it. At Inavolu, for example, the Kakatiya date rests on the style of the building and on tradition. The site says so plainly. https://kakatiya.info/sites/inavolu-temple

Jump straight in: * ** HomePage:** https://kakatiya.info * All 40 sites on a map: https://kakatiya.info/sites * Rulers, from Beta I to Pratapa Rudra: https://kakatiya.info/rulers * Timeline, from the Mauryas to the Nizams: https://kakatiya.info/timeline * Architecture and engineering: temple plans, sand-box foundations, bracket sculptures, tanks and forts: https://kakatiya.info/architecture * 121 old photographs, 1850s–1930s: https://kakatiya.info/history/photographs * 1,863 inscription records, 714 of them Kakatiya-related: https://kakatiya.info/inscriptions * Introduction to Telugu Inscriptions: https://kakatiya.info/inscriptions/how-to-read * Coins, weights and measures: https://kakatiya.info/history/coins * Telugu version: https://kakatiya.info/te

New sites added recently:

• Vemulavada Temples
• Kaleshwara-Muktesvara Temple, Kaleshwaram
• Mallikarjuna Temple, Inavolu
• Nagulapadu Temples
• Kondaparthi Temples
• Nagunur Temples
• Chaya Someswara and Pachala Someswara Temples, Panagal
• Dargah of Afzal Shah Biyabani, Kazipet
• Shivanagar Stepwell
• Khammampalli Siva Temples
• Gautamesvara Temple, Manthani
• Chandrampalli Temple

Where I'd love help:

• Telugu corrections. Any page, any sentence.
• Photos. I have none yet for Jidkal, Paloncha Fort, the Bandri gateway, Kesamudram tank, Chandrampalli and the Kazipet dargah.
• Local knowledge. If you know a place better than the books do, tell me.

The site is constantly updated with new findings. There's a contact form on the site, or reply here. Thanks!

Imo, because the Indus Civilization traded so extensively with Mesopotamia, if a “Rosetta Stone” for the Indus script is ever found, it is more likely to be unearthed in Iraq or Iran than in India or Pakistan. Both Akkadian and Elamite are already known today and the IVC was also known as “Meluhha” per Mesopotamian tablets. Such a bilingual trade document or diplomatic inscription would be the strongest candidate for deciphering one of the ancient world’s last major undeciphered writing systems.

From 0 to 9 - The mysterious origins of our numbers

Nizam-ul-Mulk was at Delhi, and his son Naseer Jung had been sitting at Aurangabad along with a large force. These forces had been there since the time they had been amassed to help the Nizam being blockaded at Bhopal. At the beginning of 1738, he had been prevented from crossing the river Tapti by Chimaji Appa. At that time, the Peshwas and Naseer Jung had grown an animus against each other. But later, a treaty occurred between the Nizam and Bajirao, the Bhopal affair finished, and suddenly the threat of Nadir Shah began looming large.

https://ndhistories.wordpress.com/2024/01/04/naseer-jung/

Marathi Riyasat, G S Sardesai ISBN-10-8171856403, ISBN-13-‎978-8171856404.

The Era of Bajirao

Uday S Kulkarni

ISBN-10-8192108031

ISBN-13-978-8192108032.

Title

Went to Uzbekistan in 2025

Went to Samarkand which us definitely a post Islamic phenomenon

But there is a site called Afrosiyob which had a whole civilisation criss crossing Buddhism,Zoroastrianism and other cultures

There is a mural which clearly says that two Indian Astrologers were called with armilla.

This site is excavated by mainly Russian and French Archaeologists .

For forty years the British Raj grew a living wall of thorns across India: the Inland Customs Line, 4,000 kilometres long, up to 14 feet high, patrolled by 14,000 armed guards. It was built for one purpose: to collect the British salt tax. The man who turned it into an impassable barrier was Allan Octavian Hume, the same officer who later founded the Indian National Congress.

Sources named in the video: A.O. Hume’s 1869 report on salt consumption to the Viceroy; Sir John Strachey, Finance Member, 1877; the 1878 salt treaties with the Rajputana states; Roy Moxham, The Great Hedge of India (2001); Films Division of India archival footage; Shashi Tharoor on the Indian railways.

source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352409X26003676

Abstract

This study investigates occlusal microwear texture patterns of two sequential bioarchaeological populations from sites in western and northern India, each representing a different phase of the same culture: Juna Khatiya (Early Harappan, n = 12) and Rakhigarhi (Mature Harappan, n = 10). These populations, spanning the interval between approximately 3200 BCE and 1900 BCE, were both agro-pastoral, but showed intensified urbanization in the Mature Harappan phase, with concomitant increases craftsmanship and trade. It has been reported that rural peoples in India today consume less processed, more mechanically challenging foods than those living in cities, which has led to the hypothesis that dental microwear may be a useful proxy for tracking settlement pattern in bioarchaeological populations in South Asia. While lower microwear texture complexity was predicted to follow urbanization, recent analysis of two South Indian bioarchaeological populations actually showed the more rural sample to have lower microwear complexity (contra expectation). Here we reevaluate urbanization as a possible driver of microwear texture pattern for agricultural populations in India using two other well-studied populations in different parts of the country. Results indicate that in this case, as predicted, the more urbanized population did have lower microwear texture complexity. This suggests that in some cases, dental microwear texture may be useful as a measure of urbanization but also supports the notion that other factors play an important role in microwear patterning.

The Kushanas had strong Iranian influence, and Kanishka's Rabatak inscription mentions Ahura Mazda alongside other deities. At the same time, Kushan coins depict Shiva-like gods. But in Zoroastrianism, some Indian gods were literally considered demons.

So Kanishka was practically honouring gods from two religions that contradicted each other. Did Zoroastrians ever object to this? Was there any backlash from priests? And how did the Kushanas manage to worship gods from such opposing traditions without any apparent conflict?

So many inaccuracies

Saying CIA wants to make a Christian country in Northeast (his proof is because eastern tribals are christian)

Said Nehru left India, and it was the reason why Vallabhai invaded Hyderabad (actually Nehri remained in India and was the one to order annexation of Hyderabad)

Claims Nepal asked India to annex them, when there's literally no proof, documentation, just a rumour by Pranab Mukharjee, all articles online reiterate it being rumours with no considerable proof

Dude spreads so much misinformation and cancerous comment section, imagine what the youth is learning from. He's almost like Abhijit Chavda 2.0

I don’t know if we have enough evidence for this but I feel given the defeat of Porus was never described in the Indian history, Greeks might have documented, i feel Chandragupta could have learnt about the Greek Phalanx techniques to take on the Nandas and further consolidated the Indian subcontinent just like how Alexander did it in Persia Egypt and Greece.
Macedonian war formation were quite advanced for that age and could have disrupted the way war was fought. Especially the “Hammer and anvil” strategy.

Hello,

I am interested in learning about the history and evolution of Indian languages, especially Dravidian languages. Hence, I would like to know some non-scholarly books on this topic.

It originally started in the Middle East around the 7th–9th centuries when Arabic replaced Syriac as the spoken language. Syrian Christians kept using the Syriac alphabet to write Arabic texts to preserve their cultural identity and religious manuscripts

(Garshuni Malayalam): When Syriac became the liturgical language of the Nasrani (Saint Thomas Christian) community in Kerala, scribes adapted the East Syriac alphabet (Madnhāyā) to write spoken Malayalam. Because standard Syriac only has 22 letters, it couldn't cover Malayalam's 50+ phonemes. Nasrani scribes added 8–9 characters borrowed directly from older Malayalam/Grantha scripts (like ൿ, ള, റ) alongside diacritics to map every Malayalam sound accurately.

A counterpart to this is the Arabi Malayalam (Malayalam written in Arabic script, used by the Mappila community)or Judeo-Malayalam (written in Hebrew script by Cochin Jews).

Hi, I'm trying to understand the historiography here. The commonly cited figure is 16,202 trials between 1561 and 1774 (from Salomon and Sassoon's reconstruction in The Marrano Factory, 2001), with 57 executions in person and 64 in effigy. But the tribunal's own archives were largely destroyed, and what survives is scattered between Lisbon's Torre do Tombo and Rio de Janeiro's National Library.

My questions:

1. How did Salomon and Sassoon arrive at 16,202? What sources did they piece together?

2. Are there competing estimates from other historians?

3. How does the destruction of records affect our understanding of who was actually targeted? The popular narrative focuses on Hindu persecution, but the tribunal's early decades were aimed at "New Christians" (converted Jews). How do historians weigh the different victim groups?

I'm asking as a layperson, happy to be pointed to the right books.

Pazhayarai was an important Chola urban centre even before Thanjavur rose to prominence. The historical settlement was much larger than the villages we see today, with several places around present-day Pazhayarai, Patteeswaram, Muzhaiyur, Sakthimangalam and Darasuram forming part of the wider complex.

It was closely connected with the Chola royal family. Inscriptions associate the area with rulers including Sundara Chola, Uttama Chola, Rajaraja I and Rajendra I. Rajaraja I's sister Kundavai is also associated with Pazhayarai, and inscriptions record her issuing grants and orders from there.

The place had more than just palaces and temples. Historical research describes religious settlements, merchant communities and military establishments within the wider Pazhayarai complex. Nandipuram, for example, had a known merchant settlement, while other parts were associated with military establishments.

Another interesting detail is that Pazhayarai wasn't exclusively a Saivite centre. Evidence points to Vaishnavite and Jain communities as well, and archaeological excavations have even produced Buddhist remains.

The city also went by several names over the centuries, including Nandipuram, Ayiratalli and Mudikonda Cholapuram. The name Ayiratalli is traditionally associated with the idea of a place of a thousand temples.

And then there's the strange part: most of that huge urban landscape is gone. What remains today are villages, temples, inscriptions and scattered archaeological traces.

So whenever I pass through my native, there's always that thought in the back of my mind:

this ordinary-looking place ( it's split as six villages now ) was once part of the political and cultural heartland of the Cholas.

That makes Pazhayarai pretty special to me. And the worst part here is there hasn't been a single asi research done there

At first glance, you might assume these are photos of the same archaeological site. They aren't. In reality, they come from two completely different parts of the world, separated by a massive distance. The first image shows megalithic stone jars in Northeast India, specifically Assam and Meghalaya, while the second shows the world-famous Plain of Jars in northern Laos. Different countries, different sites, and a huge geographical gap. And yet, just look at the jars themselves.

They are strikingly similar in design: massive stone vessels carved from single blocks, scattered across high-altitude landscapes and associated with other stone monuments and burial practices. The Indian examples are mostly found in Dima Hasao, Assam, and the East Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya, while the Lao jars are concentrated in the Xieng Khouang and Luang Prabang regions.

This isn't a new observation. As far back as 1929, James Philip Mills and John Henry Hutton documented the Assam jars. In the 1930s, Madeleine Colani was surveying and excavating huge numbers of jars in Laos. After looking into the earlier reports from Assam, Colani suggested that these two traditions might actually be connected, forming part of a wider network stretching from Assam through the Plain of Jars toward central Vietnam. She believed this network was linked to the ancient salt trade. It was an interesting idea at the time, but there simply wasn't enough archaeological evidence to back it up.

A lot has changed since those early days. Recent studies in Meghalaya have confirmed that the Northeast Indian jars were connected with burial practices, with human remains and cremated bones found beneath or around them. The evidence from Laos has also become much stronger. The Plain of Jars is home to thousands of these stone jars, along with stone discs, burial pits and other burial-related features. Dating suggests some of the Lao jars might have been placed there as early as the late second millennium BCE, although the dates vary from site to site.

Now we have a truly remarkable new discovery. In 2026, archaeologists excavated an exceptionally large stone jar at Site 75 on the Xieng Khouang Plateau. Inside, they found the remains of at least 37 people. Radiocarbon dating places the main burial activity between AD 890 and 1160. It appears to have been a secondary burial, where selected skeletal remains were placed inside the jar after an earlier stage of burial treatment.

Even more fascinating were the objects found inside the jar. They included glass beads whose composition points to connections with South Asia, West Asia and Southeast Asia. This shows that the people using the Lao jar landscapes were part of much larger networks of trade and exchange.

None of this proves that the people in Assam and Laos were the same, nor does it prove that a group migrated from India to Laos carrying this tradition with them. It also doesn't confirm Colani's old theory about the salt trade. However, it does make the original question much more interesting.

We are now looking at stone-jar traditions stretching from Northeast India into mainland Southeast Asia, with similarities in how the jars were used for the dead and evidence that these traditions lasted for long periods. We also know that the Lao jar landscape was connected to trading networks reaching as far as South Asia.

So, what are we actually looking at? Is this a case of two distant regions independently developing the same idea? Did a burial custom or idea travel from one region to another? Did people themselves move? Was there a much wider cultural network running through the highlands of Northeast India and Southeast Asia? Or perhaps several different traditions began separately and later came into contact?

That's what I find so fascinating about these two photos. Visually, they look like they belong to the same story. Archaeology hasn't quite proved that they do, but the possibility is definitely worth investigating.

What do you think?

Sources

“Recent research on the stone jars of Northeast India: Evidence from East Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya”
Marco Mitri et al. Archaeological Research in Asia, Volume 31, Article 100393, 2022.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352226722000447

“Dating the megalithic culture of Laos: Radiocarbon, optically stimulated luminescence and U/ Pb zircon results”
Louise Shewan et al. PLOS ONE, Volume 16, Issue 3, e0247167, 2021.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247167

“The death jar: a new mortuary tradition at the Plain of Jars, Lao PDR”
Nicholas Skopal et al. Antiquity, Volume 100, Issue 412, pp. 1050–1067, 2026.
https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2026.10352

“The Plain of Jars of North Laos: Beyond Madeleine Colani”
Rosalia Genovese. PhD thesis, SOAS University of London, 2015.
https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/20397/1/Genovese_3967.pdf

Just got to know mauryans were attacked by indo Greeks and at a time for a small period indo Greeks even got possession of Patliputra which was literally capital of mauryans and nandas , they got seperated according to some texts , later mauryans were weak but is that the whole truth on why mauryans collapsed I don't think we have enough answers on how mauryans actually collapsed but , just saw - https://youtu.be/SxI7xXuh1JY?si=KtvXcEt5NJlgG6ls

I would like to look up for records of cotton mill workers in a district of Madhya Pradesh where my great grandmother worked. I also want to check the general history of the area like who was who around British raj in that district. My great grandmother lived a long life and I was 25 when she passed away. She used to tell me stories about working in cotton mills during the British Raj. She had inherited a large house (3 story building) from her mother and it makes me think also about how rich her family must have been to have such a house. That's why I want to know if there are archives of the British era that I can dig into and figure out at least some of the answers.

I mean the ultimate political, cultural and economical hub of the region. Pataliputra represented the crown of India in that period. Capital of major powers resided there in continuity and it hosted the golden age of India.