diya chowdhury

Almost a nobody

[diya chowdhury @diya131]

@PMOIndia @narendramodi

The bitter truth of #sugarmills of #Maharashtra and its "byproduct" #ethanol.

https://t.co/eRnKEYSJPg

[diya chowdhury @diya131]

@Beno10_MFC 8

[William Dalrymple @DalrympleWill]

Just finished a proof of Munis Faruqui's astonishing new biography, Aurangzeb 'Alamgir and the Mughal Empire, forthcoming from @juggernautbooks. It is a landmark of patient archival scholarship and an utterly remarkable book, the product of thirty years hard labour in far-flung archives, dredging up a massive cache of previously unread and neglected primary sources. Munis Faruqui has written a calm, considered and beautifully nuanced reassessment of the most controversial and polarising figure in South Asian history, and he has succeeded in bringing a much-caricatured prince to life in a way no previous study has ever managed to do.

It is ultimately a study in profound failure: by the end of his life, Aurangzeb had undermined the military reputation of the Mughal Empire and brought the whole edifice to the point of political collapse. He regarded himself on his deathbed as abandoned by God. How a prince once known as a talented administrator, a pragmatic politician and remarkable general brought himself to this pass is made wonderfully clear by Faruqui's patient scholarship and the pellucid clarity of his writing. The result is rich, learned and complex book, full of fresh insights. It unquestionably one of the most important works on Indian history produced this century.

[diya chowdhury @diya131]

@PMOIndia Saare jahaan se accha Hindustan humara! Jai Hind!

[diya chowdhury @diya131]

@rapiduplift Ah! So the photocopies are only on you!

[Yaashaa Golovanov @Golovanov_ammoc]

The more I study the Upanishads, the more convinced I become that what Immanuel Kant and his ilk have written is merely a small subset of the Upanishads. The first image is from “Critique of Pure Reason,” and for a glimpse into re laity check, read attached “Roots of Vedanta”.

[diya chowdhury @diya131]

@champakchampion @TrumpUpdateHQ Please respond in Marathi script and language.

[diya chowdhury @diya131]

@rapiduplift Does the book undertake the various theoretical schools of International Relations? More pointedly are his views distilled through the prism of neo-realism or post-modern neoliberal sensibilities?

[diya chowdhury @diya131]

@scroll_in just as you reported it!!

[yajnadevam @yajnadevam]

ॐ नमो भगवते रुद्राय । ॐ सरस्वत्यै नमः ॥

Indus corpus is 100% translated.

Some observations:
1. Grammatically correct Sanskrit throughout.
2. Consistent themes. A huge percentage (approx 90% relate to Rudra. Other gods like Indra and Vishnu are mentioned by their other names).
3. Rare missing anusvara, visarga as in later Brahmi inscriptions
4. Almost all inscriptions are R>L. Very few are L>R, most of L>R have the directional marker.
5. There is only one word रल in only one inscription M-1701 that is not officially in the dictionary. Related words do exist in the dictionary.

All in all, the translation effort has been a spectacular success and validates the decipherment.

I'd like to give a shoutout to all who have helped with the website, Sanskrit grammar, many suggestions. Especially thanks to the early critics, who tried to falsify my work. Your work improved the decipherment because my direction was generally right. The list of people to acknowledge is very long and impractical to list here.

Now enjoy!
indusscript. net (remove the space before net)

[Tapesh Yadav @tapeshyadav_usa]

How far did the ancient Harappan-Indians travel and explore?

At least 3000 km by sea, suggests recent archaeological evidence.

This 🧵 summarizes discoveries between 1956 and 1998 linking the Indian subcontinent to Middle East's Dilmun & Sumer sites between 2800–1500 BC. Evidence includes ancient linga, yoni, etc.

This is widely known: Harappa civilization was more widespread than the sites of the Indus river valley. Less known are the ancient Indian-origin items found at sites in ancient Bahrain and Mesopotamia.

1⃣Over 1950s–60s, during the rush to find petro-riches in the Middle East, Bahrain welcomed Danish archaeologists to its enigmatic mounds along the Persian Gulf. They unearthed the Barbar temple site and a stratigraphic marvel: three ancient temples, each layered atop its predecessor like a palimpsest of devotion, dated by carbon-14 to 2500–1900 BC—a timeline overlapping with the Harappan civilization.

2⃣What did they find? Mostly Dilmun and Sumerian relics, but amid the debris, linga, yoni, and other items of materials unmistakably sourced from the Indian subcontinent. These echo John Marshall’s meticulous ASI reports from the 1920s on Mohanjo-daro and Harappa where he identifies a haul of items as linga and links them to the seated proto-Shiva yogi on many Indus seals.

3⃣Beyond Barbar temple, other Bahrain’s Dilmun sites—Saar, excavated in the ’90s—tells a maritime saga. Among the finds are Harappan-crafted cube weights. Similarly, discoveries at Sumerian sites include Indus valley steatite seals.

4⃣Sumerian cuneiform inscriptions brag of ships from Meluhha (Harappa) and Magan (Oman) tying up at Gulf ports. The archaeological items found at the port of Lothal in India include Sumerian seals and Dilmun figurines. The evidence thus points to a trade network, with Harappan sailors threading the Gulf’s waters before 2400 BC.

Significance:
1⃣Harappans weren’t insular; they were explorers, navigators and traders. They stitched Gujarat’s Lothal, Bharuch, and Dholavira to Bahrain’s shores. Those linga and yoni aren’t trinkets—they signal a temple-going, offering-making ethos, a spiritual pulse.

2⃣Marshall’s proto-Shiva-Rudra thesis, questioned by some Indologists, finds support in Bahrain, midst the Dilmun’s relics. Perhaps, before Sanskrit was perfected by Panini, Harappans were pondering on Shiva and sharing his legends.

3⃣The traveling Harappans thus knew of temples, of written script. To trade, they must have discovered and communicated with Dilmuns and Sumers.

4⃣Though the Indus script stays silent, these Dilmun and Sumerian artifacts whisper—of ancient people who sailed, worshipped, and perhaps seeded the spirituals still revered.

[Suvrat Kher @rapiduplift]

I'm on a roll, reading about the life and work of accomplished Indian scientists. First read Dr. Deshpande's Oil Hunter about his career in ONGC.

Then, biography of anthropologist Dr. Irawati Karve.

Now, this memoir of Himalaya geology expert Dr. Om Bhargava.

[diya chowdhury @diya131]

@Arunkum23081861 @aparanjape What a revelation!👏

[diya chowdhury @diya131]

The first off-the-shelf installment of "Sampathkar" books!
It's never too late after all, for I'm almost on the heels of Tipu...
@vikramsampath

#bharatskanda

[Sukhada @appadappajappa]

I don’t think I can explain how excited I am to read this new book by Peggy Mohan and how lucky we are that someone like her writes so beautifully about languages ❤️✨

@PenguinIndia

[Epic Maps 🗺️ @theepicmap]

A thread of 23 Survival Tips And Tricks You Might Not Have Known Before.

1. How to break a door

[Daniel Jeffries @Dan_Jeffries1]

Here's a rundown of my favorite books of 2024. Links at the end of the thread.

I start with my favorite book of the year by far:

A Brief History of Intelligence.

It's an exquisite masterclass in writing and research. At one point I realized I'd highlighted nearly every page. By the end I'd made a big list from the bibliography to follow up on dozens of threads from its pages.

I love books by authors who become positively obsessed with an idea and follow it with the single minded focus of a maniac. That's what happened with author Max Bennett who traces the evolution of our minds from simple clusters of neurons to complex thinking wetware, all while tying it into our all-out quest to create artificial thinking machines.

The result is a hauntingly beautiful masterpiece filled with deep insights into how our brains came to be.

[Dhaval Kulkarni (धवल कुलकर्णी) 🇮🇳 @dhavalkulkarni]

Generations of #Maharashtrian parents and grandparents have lovingly called their naughty children and grandchildren ‘dambis’ or ‘dambrat.’ But do you know that these were originally cuss words used by British officers and overseers for Indian labourers in the #Mumbai docks?

This is how the docks have had a deep cultural impact on Mumbai and #Maharashtra. Of course, these docks also catalysed industrial and economic development, and helped export goods like salt, opium, and cotton from India.

This is a thread on Bhau Laxman Ajinkya aka Bhau Rasul, who laid the foundations of #Mumbai’s port-led maritime growth by building the city’s first wet dock—the Ferry Wharf or Bhau cha Dhakka in 1841. Read on to know how the words ‘dambis’ and ‘dambrat’ entered the popular lexicon.

#history #Mumbai #MumbaiHistory #heritage #MumbaiHeritage #BritishIndia #thread #Bombay #BombayHistory #MumbaiPort #BhauChaDhakka #FerryWharf #BhauAjinkya #MakersofMumbai #BhauLaxmanAjinkya