As the Governor of Portuguese territories of India, Martim Afonso de Sousa launched a military campaign to loot and destroy the sacred temple of Tirumala in 1543. This is the first part of a series narrating this episode of the Christian history of India.
The concluding part of this series narrates the reasons why the Arthasastra became a pan-Indian work, and the lessons we can learn from his all-encompassing legacy.
The fifth part of this series examines some aspects of the philosophy of Kautilya's Taxation system and his dictum of amassing huge wealth as a source of protection.
The fourth part of this series traces Kautilya's extraordinarily enduring blueprint for village administration and how it revealed itself throughout Hindu history.
In the third part, we discuss how Kautilya's Arthasastra was a manual of empire-building and how its influence played a big role in the great Hindu Empires of India, spread over many centuries.
A short history of the 1500-year-long use of the Dramma as a unit of currency in India. Derived from the Greek Drachma, Dramma was widely adopted by almost all major Hindu empires.
The era of Hindu monarchies was one where the rulers genuinely feared and respected public opinion and conducted themselves in tune with it. In democracy, public opinion has degenerated into the sham of perception-management. We trace this downfall with concrete examples from history.
Public opinion was always a great force in politics throughout the history of India dating back to the Vedic period. We present a brief history of how public opinion was gathered, and the impact it had on kings and empires. This is a largely overlooked chapter of Indian history.
We dug into our archives and found a rather delightful and highly revealing picture of the status of women in the British Parliament at the turn of the 20th century.
