The Dharma Dispatch

When the Unclean Turushka Ala-ud-din Khalji Ravished Vidisha -- AS A COMMERCIAL POWERHOUSE, Vidisha and its surroundings were renowned for centuries for a stunning variety of industries, trades and businesses. It was a thriving cotton hub and manufactured and exported various grades of cotton that reached all the way to Rome. Vidisha was also famed for its exquisite ivory work, sculptural and architectural marvels. It produced some of the finest swords, which were in huge demand throughout Bharatavarsha and central Asia. The deadliest blow to this Vidisha came in the form of the Turushka monster Ala-ud-din Khalji. Ala-ud-din Khalji had a feast of rapacity. His plunder-hungry army recklessly wasted the city with abandon, wrecking its teeming temples and stupas and smashed the ”filthy infidel idols“ on an epic scale. Needless, the Bhayillaswamin Temple was pounded to the ground never to rise again. -- Read the full tragic tale. 🛕✍️🥲🥲 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/when-the-unclean-turushka-ala-ud-din-khalji-ravished-vidisha

Announcement of a New Course on Sanatana Dharma by Vibhu Academy. It covers all the major aspects of Hindu Dharma including fundamental concepts such as Veda,-Agama-Darshana, Dharma, Varna and Ashrama, social, cultural and environmental dimensions, folk traditions and contemporary challenges. The course is offered in both English spread over 20 sessions. It is open to anyone aged 14+ years. Details of the course are as follows: Start Date: May 13, 2022 Total Sessions: 20 Days: Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Time: 7 P.M - 8:30 P.M. India Time. -- For full details, see: https://www.dharmadispatch.in/dispatches/announcement-of-a-new-course-on-sanatana-dharma

How Acharya Jadunath Sarkar Wrote the Majestic Volumes of the History of Aurangzeb -- WITHOUT DOUBT, ACHARYA JADUNATH SARKAR’s five-volume History of Aurangzeb is not only his magnum opus but remains an enduring masterpiece dissecting that Islamic monster to the last cell of his bigoted entrails. It is also a fine specimen of history-writing being elevated to art. These majestic volumes are akin to forces of nature. And like it, no one can really understand the sheer ardour, dedication and penance he put into it. Or the pain and suffering he had to endure in the process. He never required the services of a stenographer or a typist. His own drafts were always better than printed matter, accurate to a comma. Nor did he disclose his troubles and hard work. On the contrary, he considered it vulgar, a breach of decency and taste to speak about his own work. The actual preparation and final execution of these brilliant volumes consumed a quarter century of his highly productive and fruitful life. -- Read the highly inspirational essay! ✍️✍️🔖🛕😀 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/culture/how-acharya-jadunath-sarkar-wrote-the-majestic-volumes-of-the-history-of-aurangzeb

[SUNDAY READING] In Bharatavarsha, politics was constrained by the tenets of Dharma, and it is Dharma which guarantees spiritual freedom to the individual. All other freedoms are meaningless without spiritual freedom. 🛕🛕📓 https://t.co/DxDpk3M9D5

The Colonial Origins of the Contemporary Western Media Discourse on India. -- A majority of the anti-India and anti-Hindu discourse streaming from the West has its origins in pre-colonial and colonial narratives, which remain unchanged. That is the root cause that Hindus must identify and fight against. The substance of this history of European narrative-building about India is clear to us today: Indology has wildly succeeded in its foundational purpose of giving the Hindu civilisation and culture a rotten name. It is also not a coincidence that Indology departments in the West began to die a slow death after the British left. By 1947, there was not much left to loot, plus the cultural destruction and societal emasculation of the Hindus had been pretty much thorough. Colonised and self-loathing Hindus would continue the unfinished business of finishing India off. -- Read the in-depth, powerful essay.🔖✍️🔖🔖 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/commentary/the-colonial-origins-of-the-contemporary-western-media-discourse-on-india

The Magnificent Mangalana Step-Well: A Sanatana Oasis Amid Turushka Chaos. -- Do read this essay narrating the ennobling history of the forgotten Mangalana step-well in Rajasthan. The tradition and practice of constructing step-wells is another great marker of the cultural unity and civilisational continuity of Bharatavarsha. Like Sanskrit. Like temples. Like our Deities. Indeed, step-wells are a beautiful confluence of functionality, mathematics, art and Sanatana piety. The story of the Mangalna step-well opens in the reign of Vallanadeva, the ruler of the Rantambhor branch of the Chahamana dynasty. Its hero is his Mahāmaṇḍaḷēśvara or chief feudatory named Jaitra Simha, a Kshatriya descended from the Dadicha gotra. Jaitra Simha was pained to observe the plight of his citizens suffering from water scarcity in this Daumāra bhūmi or the Marwad region. Accordingly, Jaitra Simha ordered the construction of a large step-well in the Maṅgaḷānaka region so that its inhabitants would never fall short of water again. Today, Maṅgaḷānaka is the nondescript Manglana village, lying eighty kilometres north of Ajmer, in the Parbatsar district. The remarkable feature of this episode is the fact that Jaitra Simha did not levy any tax to meet the capital expenditure to fund the step-well construction. -- Read the whole brilliant piece! 🛕🛕🔖✍️ https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/the-magnificent-mangalana-step-well-a-sanatana-oasis-amid-turushka-chaos

The Cosmic Sweep Of Hindu Statecraft -- An introductory essay exploring some facets of Hindu statecraft and polity. -- THE LUMINOUS HALLMARK that reveals itself even in a preliminary study is the remarkable antiquity, unrivalled continuity, sturdy endurance and intrepid resilience of Sanatana statecraft and polity. With a recorded history of over two thousand years—dating back to at least the 4th century BCE—this tradition endured and retained the core elements of its original glory till the downfall of the Maratha Empire. ✍️✍️🔖 https://thedharmadispatch.substack.com/p/the-cosmic-sweep-of-hindu-statecraft?s=w

Rana Ayyub as a Dividend of Sustained Western Interference in India's Sovereignty. The recent burst of Rana Ayyub's hate-filled rants against PM Narendra Modi and India on foreign soil must be contextualised in the historical backdrop of the West's continual meddling in India's internal affairs. Read a shocking excerpt. -- The legal legend Nani Palkhivala wrote a letter to Prime Minister Morarji Desai dated January 22, 1979: "Last week a source from the [U.S.] State Department here called on me and told me in strict confidence that according to American Intelligence, the Govern🔖ment of the Soviet Union had decided that they should work to see that you cease to be the Prime Minister and he added that some chosen persons in the Communist Party of India who are pro-Soviet had already received the message." Morarji Desai says George Fernandes, like the others, was an ambitious fellow and fancied himself as the first Christian Prime Minister of India. And that George and Madhu Limaye worked closely is a known fact. -- Read the whole explosive piece! 🔖✍️✍️💣 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/commentary/rana-ayyub-as-a-dividend-of-sustained-western-interference-in-indias-sovereignty

The ongoing #RamNavami j!had against Hindus is reminder #632217864335 of a permanent behaviour pattern. Read what happened to the Hindus of Kohat exactly a century ago. BTW, they were just 6%. 🙏🙏🙏 https://t.co/nQEeL2XzzG

Nawab Nehru as the Curse on Prayaga. This is the third episode of our series on Prayaga. -- PERHAPS THE MOST UNFORTUNATE facet of Nawab Nehru’s blighted life is the fact that he was born in Prayaga but imbibed the worst elements of the culture of Allahabad. He had every opportunity to become a sort of contemporary Rajarshi but chose to become a Nawab. Every honest student who studies Nawab Nehru’s ignorant and rancid “expositions” on Hindu civilisation, culture, customs and traditions will reach this inescapable conclusion: that Nawab Nehru remains a curse on Prayaga. -- Read the whole thing! ✍️🔖🛕 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/nawab-nehru-as-the-curse-of-prayaga

Rama Rajya is a kingdom where there are no fetters in the relationship between the ruler and the ruled, where Dharma doesn’t depend on others for its functioning and is akin to breathing: effortless. -- Read this today on #SriRamaNavami🕉️ 🛕🛕 https://t.co/0iRE8vGynU

Did you Know about the "Lal Ishtahaar" that Led to a Hindu Bloodbath in Bengal? The hidden history of Nawab Salimullah who caused mass killings of Hindus in Bengal in 1904-5. https://thedharmadispatch.substack.com/p/did-you-know-about-the-lal-ishtahaar?s=w

Remember Dhanga’s Pious Service to Sanatana Dharma the Next Time you Visit Khajuraho. -- Nothing pains the Hindu more than witnessing the ugly bazaar in Khajuraho hawking a vast array of expensively produced coffee table books and DVDs reducing divinity to pornography. In its original avatar, Kharjūravāhaka had done signal service to the cause of the protection and propagation of Sanatana Dharma helmed by the intrepid Candrātrēya (Chandela) dynasty for nearly half a millennium (831 — 1315). Its most glorious expression that has survived till this day is undoubtedly the fabled Khajuraho Cluster of Temples. DHANGADEVA OR DHANGA WAS the seventh monarch in the Candrātrēya lineage. An extraordinary Bhakta of Shiva, he built the grand Visvanatha temple in the Khajuraho temple complex. His final years were exceptional in a profound sense. He stationed himself in Prayaga living like a Sanyasi. As his renunciation matured and ripened, he entered the sacred waters at the Trivēṇi-saṅgama and closing his eyes, fixing his thoughts on Rudra, Dhanga abandoned his mortal body. 🛕🛕🛕✍️🔖🕉 -- Read the whole profound essay! https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/remember-dhangas-pious-service-to-sanatana-dharma-the-next-time-you-visit-khajuraho

Annotations from Prayaga. -- Prayaga, known as the Tīrtha-cakravarti (Emperor of Pilgrimages) is one of the cradles of the Sanatana civilisation. Even the briefest journey into its profound annals helps us grasp the accurate perspective from which to understand Hindu history. This is the first part of a new series. -- The very name Prayaga is itself a reason for its venerated eminence: prakṛṣṭa-tama yāgaḥ meaning, an ”exceptional or magnificent yāga.“ Prayaga is one of the unerring ways to “understand” the genius of the Sanatana civilisation through the prism and the lived experience of a sacred geography. No amount of theoretical knowledge will give you this understanding just as no amount of reading about Aurangzeb’s destruction of the Kashi Visveshwara Temple will prepare you for the violent sight of Nandikeshwara still facing the Gyanavapi mosque. The full and accurate knowledge of Hindu history and culture will dawn when you have a feel for the physical spaces where the history has occurred and where the culture has flourished. Prayaga is and undoubtedly remains one of the greatest cradles of the spiritual civilisation of Bharatavarsha. -- Read the whole brilliant piece! 🔖✍️🛕🕉🛕🛕 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/annotations-from-prayaga-an-introduction

A Tale of Two Picchais: “Śivapiccai” Mudaliar and Sundar Picchai -- The Hindu cultural sensibility must exercise immense caution before celebrating the material successes of Americanised or Westernised Indians who have lost touch with their roots. The astounding material opulence of the Satya Nadellas and the Sundar Picchais of the world dazzle and blind the vision of Hindus in India who see them as emulatory models. “Material” is derived from “matter,” whose other synonym is “gross.” Matter as opposed to spirit. Rather, matter which should be subsumed by spirit. That was the exalted life of Śivapiccai Mudaliar. He should be our ideal. Unshakeable, unswerving faith in a lofty precept. Regarding work as Karma Yoga. Unobtrusive. Frugal. Content. Therefore fulfilled. -- Read the whole brilliant piece! ✍️🔖🛕🕉🛕🛕 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/culture/a-tale-of-two-picchais-%C5%9Bivapiccai-mudaliar-and-sundar-picchai

How Macaulay and William Bentinck Heartlessly Destroyed the Glorious Golisri Sanskrit College -- The tragic story of the Golisri Sanskrit School of Calcutta which was obliterated forever by the educational policy of William Bentinck and Macaulay https://thedharmadispatch.substack.com/p/how-macaulay-and-william-bentinck

The Kashmir Chronicles: A Deep Dive with Sushil Pandit. The long-buried, horrific and painful saga of the genocide of Kashmiri Hindus in the 1990s has finally been mainstreamed. This time, the trigger was the release and the enormous success of the Hindi film, The Kashmir Files. It has awakened not only India but the whole world to that dark chronicle of perhaps the worst Hindu genocide and exodus in recent memory. – My in-depth discussion on the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits with Sri Sushil Pandit. Please watch and share widely. 🛕 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w9Xg2qp1Zs

How Macaulayite Hindus Destroyed the Pandit System of Scholarship -- This essay reveals a forgotten meeting held at the Bombay University Senate in 1913. Among other things, it set a blueprint of sorts to destroy the time-honoured system of scholarly education that produced Pandits of the highest order. Here is an excerpt. -- The pandit is the embodiment of a high cultural ideal which actuates but few of us. He is but little influenced by commercial considerations. He not only imparts education without any fee but also feeds his pupils. Though Brahmacharya has undergone considerable relaxation of late, the physical and mental discipline they are still subjected to is far more wholesome than what is enforced in our English schools. -- Read the whole brilliant piece! ✍️🔖🛕🔖🔖 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/culture/how-macaulayite-hindus-destroyed-the-pandit-system-of-scholarship