The Dharma Dispatch

The Psychotic Congress Hatred of Veer Savarkar Explained https://t.co/7Q1EkBLQ3r

The Military Geography of Ancient and Medieval India: An Introduction — This is the first part of an expository series on the military history of India set in the backdrop of the geography of ancient and medieval India. Geography is also war because terrain dictates both strategy and tactics. Intertwined with terrain is climate. Together, they author and alter history, and nowhere is this more pronounced than in India. The sacred geography of Bharatavarsha is broadly divided into two parts: Uttarapatha and Dakshinapatha. A geography unified by a shared spiritual culture where political boundaries were secondary at best. This overall picture of Bharatavarsha’s geography comes alive in a brilliant and often brutal fashion when we regard it as a Great Military Theatre placed on the canvas of Time. In a limited sense, in some of its particulars, it has all the dimensions of a Cosmic Play that Bharatavarsha was both fortunate and ill-fated to participate in. — Read the full story! 🔖✍️🛕 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/the-military-geography-of-ancient-and-medieval-india-an-introduction

Announcement of Two Courses: Upanishads and Shilpa Sastra -- VIBHU ACADEMY offers two online courses: 1. Upanishads: A Comprehensive Study 2. Shilpa Sastra: Training in Basic Drawing Designs of Traditional Hindu Sculptures   Full details are enclosed in the attached announcement. Both courses are led by stalwarts and are highly recommended. ---   Click the link to enrol. Last date for enrolment is June 2, 2022. 🛕🔖✍️🛕🛕 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/dispatches/announcement-of-two-courses-upanishads-and-shilpa-sastra

Why Sita Ram Goel’s Letter to Romila Thapar is a Superb Model for Combating Left Historians Sita Ram Goel's letter to Romila Thapar is an exemplary work that combines solid historical scholarship and fearlessness in confronting a powerful opponent. https://thedharmadispatch.substack.com/p/why-sita-ram-goels-letter-to-romila?sd=fs

Here it is: A Ready Reckoner of Aurangzeb’s Industrial-Scale Temple Destructions -- The Dharma Dispatch has compiled a partial list of Hindu Temples destroyed by the Mughal king Aurangzeb using primary sources written by Aurangzeb and his officials. And this list is just the tip of the iceberg. This list is by no means exhaustive and is meant to be a ready reckoner of sorts given the manner in which Aurangzeb has been elevated almost to sainthood by the secular mafia masquerading as historians. -- Do read and share widely! ✍️🛕🔖🛕 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/here-it-is-a-ready-reckoner-of-aurangzebs-industrial-scale-temple-destructions

Hindu Performing Arts as Vehicles for Transmitting Sanatana Education to the Masses -- How dance, drama, and music were used as the most effective modes for transmitting essential education throughout the sacred geography of Bharatavarsha. For countless centuries, tradition was popular across space and time because the Hindus of those eras regarded tradition as a value. Tradition was the root. People were merely occupying a temporal branch which was naturally destined to break and fall down and merge with the cosmos. Tradition was the flowing river, its followers were streams of bubbles. The disfiguring of the colonised Hindu mind is responsible for regarding tradition and popularity as opposites, which is why the intrinsic and lasting value of such an education in essential knowledge has escaped us today. -- Read the whole elevating essay! ✍️🛕🔖🕉🛕 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/culture/hindu-performing-arts-as-vehicles-for-transmitting-sanatana-education-to-the-masses

If, without flame and sword, Hinduism spread over the whole of the Far East, it was possible because the Ramayana and Mahabharata, through the oral expounder, the sculptor, and the dancer went forth in advance, clearing the way and conquering the peoples’ imagination. The cultural expansion of India into greater India was mainly due to the fact that India always tried sincerely to get into the spirit of the cosmic reality and that she was never content with the surface value of life. 🛕🛕⚔📖 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/culture/bharatavarshas-cultural-conquest-of-south-east-asia-through-its-sacred-education

The Sanskrit term for knowledge is *Shruta* — that which is heard. Its direct translation in Tamil is befittingly, *Kelvi*. In Kannada, the word *Kelu* means “hear or listen.” That our religious history has thrown up saints from among weavers, cobblers, potters, shepherds and Harijans shows how widely the soil has been irrigated and fertilised by the country’s spiritual engineers. https://www.dharmadispatch.in/culture/the-fabulous-tradition-of-adaptive-direct-transmission-of-sacred-knowledge-through-itihasa-and-purana?utm_source=one-signal&utm_medium=push-notification

10 PM IST | The glories of Vijayanagar Empire alone are sufficient to increase the self-esteem of Indians all over the world to such an extent that every little complex the invaders sought ot instil among Hindus would be washed away. Sandeep Balakrishna joins Vibhuti Jha and Sanjay Dixit to a treat of grand history of India. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2qYyfgzpj8

The Transmission of Sacred Education to Hindus: A Brief Journey Through the Eons We begin a new essay series tracing the extraordinary educational tradition of spreading sacred knowledge throughout the length and breadth of Bharatavarsha for a period of at least three millennia. -- FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES, our sacred civilisation recognised two types of knowledge broadly speaking: (1) The Essential (2) The Professional. Our genius lay in the sublime and invisible manner in which it fused the two and achieved an unbeatable harmony both in theory and practice. Unlike the West which considers essential knowledge and professional knowledge as opposing poles or as distinct from each other, the Santana mantra was synthesis. In the Santana conception, philosophical, spiritual, or Dharmic knowledge is essential knowledge. Professional knowledge is rather self-explanatory. The former encompasses the Manōmaya and Vijñānamaya Kōśas leading ultimately to the ānandamaya Kōśa. The latter covers the Annamaya and prāṇamaya Kōśas or the bare and base existential planes. -- Read the full thing! ✍️🛕🕉🔖 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/culture/the-transmission-of-sacred-education-to-hindus-a-brief-journey-through-the-eons

The Buddhist Tomb Tells the Story of Bakhtiyar Khalji's Devastation of Bihar and Bengal. Copious Buddhist primary sources narrate the story of Bakhtiyar Khalji's annihilation of Bihar and Bengal. They make for agonising reading. -- The great Tibetan Buddhist monk, Dharmasvamin got his first taste of Bakhtiyar Khalji's devastation at Uddandapura or Odantapura. The battered remains of that once-fabled university was now the residence of a Turushka military commander. Likewise, nothing remained of Vikramashila, the other pearl in the necklace of Buddhist learning. All the eighty Viharas at Nalanda, now a mass of desolate wreckage, had long been abandoned. A little-known fact of the MuZlim history of India is that Islam gained the maximum number of converts during Bakhtiyar Khalji's reign. -- It's painful to read, but do read. ✍️🛕🕌✍️🕉🔖 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/the-buddhist-tomb-tells-the-story-of-bakhtiyar-khaljis-devastation-of-bihar-and-bengal

[SUNDAY READING] There is the largely-forgotten "original contribution” of Izlamic "culture" to India: the debauched institution of the Kotha or brothel. Wherever Muslim power was supreme, the Kotha was its ubiquitous accomplice because its chief patrons included the Muslim aristocracy. Indeed, the historical Kotha system is something that the Muslim aristocracy has perfected to an art form. It has withstood the ravages of time and has today transformed itself as Bollywood. -- This is not culture, it is the depraved celebration of its absence. https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/the-appalling-lifestyle-of-the-muslim-aristocracy

A Portrait of Desolation: Bihar and Bengal in the Aftermath of the Barbarian Bakhtiyar Khalji’s Devastation. -- AMONG THE SEVERAL MEANINGS of the word Nalanda, the one which truly epitomises it is its Sanskrit root-derivation, na alam dadaati: ”that which does not give less.” BUT IN BAKHTIYAR KHALJI’S EYES, NALANDA was only a Kaffir fort, which like others earlier, offered yet another tantalising opportunity for plunder, another virgin field to plant the victorious flag of Izlam in Hindustan. This is what happened next: "The greater number of the inhabitants of that place were Brahmans, and the whole of those Brahmans had their heads shaven; and they were all slain. There were a great number of books there; and, when all these books came under the observation of the Musalmans, they summoned a number of Hindus that they might give them information respecting the import of those books; but the whole of the Hindus had been killed." However, the destruction was not restricted merely to some universities. Large chunks of two vast states—Bengal and Bihar—became Islamic wastelands overnight where only banditry, plunder, rapacity and lawlessness ruled. Peace evaporated. The accumulated prosperity of generations fell into the hands of primal savages who used it for drink, debauchery and depravity. Social stability, the hallmark of Hindu civilisation, was replaced by a continuous struggle for survival. 🛕✍️🥲🔖 -- https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/a-portrait-of-desolation-bihar-and-bengal-in-the-aftermath-of-the-barbarian-bakhtiyar-khaljis-jihad

When the Sevuna Empire Detonated a Big Bang of Sanatana Cultural Glory in Dakshinapatha -- In an astonishingly short span of just a century, the Sevuna Empire erected a Himalayan superstructure of Sanatana cultural glory in the realm of culture and economics. The feat remains unsurpassed till date. The most noteworthy contribution to the Indian knowledge system occurred in the realm of astronomy. The output was encyclopaedic, learned and prodigious, and most of it emanated from the members of a scholarly family founded by Kavichakravarti Trivikrama, author of the Damayantikatha. Here's a partial list of works on astronomy produced in that era: Sekhara, Laghutika, Lilavati, Siddhantasiromani, Karanakutuhala. It is the Sevuna cultural climate that gifted to the world the pioneering and genius-level work on music, Sangitaratnakara authored by Sarangradeva. This treatise is the most comprehensive and definitive synthesis of ancient and medieval musical knowledge of India. It has been an inevitable source-book for every single musicology text produced in India. -- Go on, do read the story of the full brilliance of the Sevuna Cultural Complex! 🛕🛕✍️🎵🎻🛕🕉 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/when-the-sevuna-empire-detonated-a-big-bang-of-sanatana-cultural-glory-in-dakshinapatha

The Sevuna Empire of Embracive Abundance: A Forgotten Brilliance of Hindu History -- This is the first part of a new series tracing the brief history of the Sevuna or Yadava Empire of Devagiri whose stellar contributions to Hindu civilisation and culture have largely been forgotten. The origin and phenomenal success of the Yadava Empire is the proverbial story not of rags to riches, but rags to an empire. It was a magnificent Hindu Empire that had soared to an impressive summit during a vital pivot in Indian history. Indeed, few Hindu dynasties in the post-Gupta era can boast of cultural accomplishments rivalling that of the Sevunas both in quality and prolificacy. At least, the Guptas had nearly three centuries at their disposal to build and bequeath a grand and enduring Sanatana Cultural Complex. The Yadavas achieved a comparable feat in less than half that time. A pronounced socio-cultural feature that strikes us instantly is how the Yadavas sustained the intimate and seamless social and cultural bonds between what is known as Karnataka and Maharashtra. -- Read the whole inspiring story! ✍️🔖🛕🕉🛕🛕 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/the-sevuna-empire-of-embracive-abundance-a-forgotten-brilliance-of-hindu-history

The Story of an Unknown Vijayanagara Hero: The Barber Kondoja who Obtained Tax Exemption for his Entire Community. -- Kondoja, an expert barber in Karnataka impressed Aliya Rama Raya with his beard-shaving skills and used the opportunity to get a tax exemption for his community throughout the Vijayanagara Empire. CLEARLY, THE WHOLE EPISODE opens a wealth of insights into the Hindu social life of the period, and should hopefully help us dispel several myths and toxic narratives about Hindu society that were seeded by the British and continued with greater vigour by the Congress ecosystem. Although the notion of low status was accorded to barbers during the Vijayanagara period, it is striking to notice that no obstacle “built into” the so-called “caste system” prevented the community from generating powerful leaders like Kondoja. In fact, Kondoja makes for an eminent case study for the flexibility and mobility of the Hindu society in Vijayanagara. -- No history textbook or movie tells these stories. Please do read and circulate widely. 🛕✍️✍️🔖 https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/the-story-of-an-unknown-vijayanagara-hero-the-barber-kondoja-who-obtained-tax-exemption-for-his-entire-community

The Brief and Delightful History of the Dramma in India -- The Kannada and Telugu words, “Dammadi” over time, generally meant only a coin. The term was in vogue even in Kannada cinema of the early 1970s. https://t.co/BN5rjKyO0I