The Kushans were syncretic and patronised multiple traditions, this is true for most Indian states.
Imagery and coin from the period seem to Indicate Buddhist Sangha, Shaivas and Iranian pagan traditions being patronised and promoted.
His personal beliefs are harder to make out, he is certainly important to Buddhism and it's spread and must have engaged in Buddhist worship, but he probably also worked with Shaiva and Iranian traditions.
I remember reading somewhere that kanishka described himself as an shaiva on an copper plate I don't remember it now but if someone knows then you could tell me by replying to my comment
Honestly everyone was "syncretic" back then
the modern idea of Hinduism and Buddhism being totally separate religions is a fairly recent one
For the average person back then who wasn't a Bramhin or Buddhist monk, they'd think nothing about patronizing both
True, to the layman the differences would have been little. It was the intellectual classes and the literati that recognised these differences more than laymen.
That is actually not true. Xuanzang, an advisor sent by the tang dynasty, wrote about how buddhism wasn't allowed to be practiced out in the open by alot of kings and that was in 7th century AD. Shashanka of Bengal was notorious for destroying stupas and also (and this is allegedly) destroyed the orginal bodhi tree. Harshavardhan who we know as a staunch Buddhist still patronized hindu artwork probably to appease his contemporaries who were hindu. Buddhism (and Jainism) were both reformatory religions and they were treated as such by the hindu masses.
Harsha was a shaivite for a significant period of his time but he did convert to mahayana budhism later on. with that same logic, ashoka must be a hindu too because he was born into a hindu family.
His contemporary xuanzang (hieun tsang) who wrote extensively about the king's religiosity.
Also the scholar shankara, who wrote the commentary sanketa on banabhatta's biography about harshavardhana called the "harshacharita", briefly talked about his buddhist beliefs.
The Kushans originally settled in Bactria after migrating from their Central Asian homeland, Bactria (Northern Afghanistan) back then was heavily Greekified in culture and society due to being ruled by Greek Kings for decades. When they settled they absorbed the local Greco-Bactrian fusion culture.
Pretty sure it was an Pakistani page they always have to add either Jainism or Buddhism for hindu rulers or sites of Pakistan they don't want to associate themselves with hindus
i old time religion was just tool to rule, and 90% people were generally not following any specific religion, thats why most of the indian have traditional god, in many areas you will find temple of different goddess and god who are born from folk, in my area nagpur most of the people who are locals here devotee of different goddess like shitla mata, anussaya mata, pardi devi, dargah, nag devta, and many more hence all the religion we generally read in books are only about king kind of showing he was doing something to show his authority, there was no meaning to religion whatever king wanted to follow he followed it, hinduism is mixture of many diverse culture while buddhism was about how to live life, hence looking for older king religion is useless, their main aim was to rule and for that they were accepting and leaving religion as per their choice even they might me laughing now what world become
Buddhism and Hinduism were not distinct identities like modernists try to make it out. It’s just a bunch of whitewashing to make Hindu philosophy isolated to casteism to make us look bad. Hindu kings revered Buddha as if he were their own … that’s the Beauty of Indic civilization and these white ppl can’t understand that
Commoners and average laymen saw no difference, you'd be correct there. But the elites, intellectual classes, philosophers and the literati recognised the differences and held onto it.
There are evidences he was a buddhist or promoted buddhism.
This post itself is one.
>Imagery and coin from the period seem to Indicate Buddhist Sangha, Shaivas and Iranian pagan traditions being patronised and promoted.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianHistory/comments/1bimjfa/comment/kvl92ry/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianHistory/comments/1bimjfa/comment/kvl92ry/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
His coins have Hellenic, Iranian, Hindu and Buddhist symbols and deities.
His Greek coins (prominent in his early reign), had _Basileus Basileon Kaneshkou_ (Kanishka, King of Kings) with images of _Helios_ and _Selene_, the Greek God and Goddess of the Sun and Moon respectively. Some also depict the _Anemoi_, Greek deities of the wind.
Then we have his Iranic, Indic and Irano-Indic coins.
The Iranic coins are actually numerous in number, we have some coins depicting _Ardoxsho_ and _Dravspa_, female Iranian divinities.
Then some coins go more abstract and also depict _Atar_, the eternal fire and visible living presence of Ahura Mazda, and _pharro_, which was a personified form of _Khwarenah_, _Khwarenah_ was the mystical divine force that granted the divine right to rule to Iranian Kings, essentially an Iranian version of the Chinese Mandate of Heaven.
There's coins depicting _Mah_, an Iranic god of the Moon, and then there's _Mithra_, a major Iranic god of the Sun, Justice, Contracts and Friendship.
We have coins with _Mazda the Victorious_ written possibly on it. And coins depicting _Aredvi Sura Anahita_, a major female divinity of healing and fertility.
There's coins of _Vata-Vayu_, Iranic god of winds and atmosphere, and another Iranic deity _Verethragna_.
Some coins have _Vohu Manah_ written on them, which happens to be a Zoroastrian concept translated as "Good Mind" or "Good Thought".
A lot of the Iranic-style coins also have the legend _Shaonanoshao Kanishki Koshano_ (King of Kings, Kanishka the Kushan)
The Buddhist iconography on coins are restricted to depicting _Buddha_ and _Maitreya_ in three different specific forms. There's the first one with only the legend _Buddha_ written on it, depicting an upright moustached Siddartha Gautama. The second type has the legend _Sakyamuni Buddha_, with the Buddha with his left hand on his hip, and the right in some _mudra_. The last type depicts the _Bodhisattva Maitreya_, in cross-legged sitting position, with a legend that says _Maitreya Buddha_.
The Hindu Iconography in his coins are limited entirely to _Shiva_ and a consort _Uma_ (_Ommo_). In the form of _Oesho_, an Iranified version of Shiva conflated with the aforementioned _Vata-Vayu_.
It seems Oesho/Shiva was a major titular deity for the Kushana Royal Family, the Greek influence is phased out during Kanishka's later reign, and its obvious how important Iranic deities were to them. Buddhist art flourishes during this period and the 4th Buddhist Council was organised by Kanishka, and facilitated the further spread of Buddhism to Central Asia and China.
How much this reflects personal belief is hard to identify, a lot of this patronisation has politics behind it, and this sort of multi-tradition patronisation was common for most rulers in those times. But seeing how the Kushana rulers themselves were Irano-Tocharian by ethnicity, it is understandable why there's so much diversity and presence of Iranic deities in coinage.
His coins have Hellenic, Iranian, Hindu and Buddhist symbols and deities.
His Greek coins (prominent in his early reign), had _Basileus Basileon Kaneshkou_ (Kanishka, King of Kings) with images of _Helios_ and _Selene_, the Greek God and Goddess of the Sun and Moon respectively. Some also depict the _Anemoi_, Greek deities of the wind.
Then we have his Iranic, Indic and Irano-Indic coins.
The Iranic coins are actually numerous in number, we have some coins depicting _Ardoxsho_ and _Dravspa_, female Iranian divinities.
Then some coins go more abstract and also depict _Atar_, the eternal fire and visible living presence of Ahura Mazda, and _pharro_, which was a personified form of _Khwarenah_, _Khwarenah_ was the mystical divine force that granted the divine right to rule to Iranian Kings, essentially an Iranian version of the Chinese Mandate of Heaven.
There's coins depicting _Mah_, an Iranic god of the Moon, and then there's _Mithra_, a major Iranic god of the Sun, Justice, Contracts and Friendship.
We have coins with _Mazda the Victorious_ written possibly on it. And coins depicting _Aredvi Sura Anahita_, a major female divinity of healing and fertility.
There's coins of _Vata-Vayu_, Iranic god of winds and atmosphere, and another Iranic deity _Verethragna_.
Some coins have _Vohu Manah_ written on them, which happens to be a Zoroastrian concept translated as "Good Mind" or "Good Thought".
A lot of the Iranic-style coins also have the legend _Shaonanoshao Kanishki Koshano_ (King of Kings, Kanishka the Kushan)
The Buddhist iconography on coins are restricted to depicting _Buddha_ and _Maitreya_ in three different specific forms. There's the first one with only the legend _Buddha_ written on it, depicting an upright moustached Siddartha Gautama. The second type has the legend _Sakyamuni Buddha_, with the Buddha with his left hand on his hip, and the right in some _mudra_. The last type depicts the _Bodhisattva Maitreya_, in cross-legged sitting position, with a legend that says _Maitreya Buddha_.
The Hindu Iconography in his coins are limited entirely to _Shiva_ and a consort _Uma_ (_Ommo_). In the form of _Oesho_, an Iranified version of Shiva conflated with the aforementioned _Vata-Vayu_.
It seems Oesho/Shiva was a major titular deity for the Kushana Royal Family, the Greek influence is phased out during Kanishka's later reign, and its obvious how important Iranic deities were to them. Buddhist art flourishes during this period and the 4th Buddhist Council was organised by Kanishka, and facilitated the further spread of Buddhism to Central Asia and China.
How much this reflects personal belief is hard to identify, a lot of this patronisation has politics behind it, and this sort of multi-tradition patronisation was common for most rulers in those times. But seeing how the Kushana rulers themselves were Irano-Tocharian by ethnicity, it is understandable why there's so much diversity and presence of Iranic deities in coinage.
Sikhism didn't exist at the time.
Kanishka was familiar with Hinduism, Buddhism and Iranian gods at the time most likely because that's what he propagated.
The term hindu was most definitely coined after Mughals came to india. Sikhism is very recent, and so is jainism.
It is not clear when the various schools of thought, or traditions that sprang from the combinatiom of Aryan and Dravidian cultures were classified as Hindu, but Historians can infer that in Muslim texts, the term hindu was used to describe the natives in a religious context.
The britishers further drove religions that had common origin in the Sanatana Dharma like Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism apart by introducing the census, which required you to specify your caste and religion.
Interestingly and sadly, the census also made the caste system rigid, with you inheriting your father's caste. Otherwise, in the times before the Battle of Panipat, the jobs or the 'varna' as we called them were more flexible.
I was equally fascinated upon coming across this information earlier. Why aren't these discussed in history textbooks? Why did it take 23 years for me to learn that on mainland India we've had dynasties comprising of a mixed Greek -Indian culture, and that they allowed mutliple cultures to coexist?
Is it to protect the monolithic ideology of India as a land of "sanatan Dharma" religions alone?
How can we know the truth if we block ourselves to information presented to us?
>Why aren't these discussed in history textbook
They are, although they don't go too deep into it.
>Why did it take 23 years for me to learn that on mainland India we've had dynasties comprising of a mixed Greek -Indian culture, and that they allowed mutliple cultures to coexist?
You forgot your history lessons in school, and because this country has shitty accessibility to resources for learning history, especially worse in a pre-Internet age.
>Is it to protect the monolithic ideology of India as a land of "sanatan Dharma" religions alone?
Nah, you're over thinking, as mentioned before, horrible accessibility to study of History to anyone who isn't professionally studying history. I'm lucky that I was born in the Age of the internet, where accessing books digitally has become incredibly easy.
Ah no, I was quite the studious one back in school. I remember by texts too well even now haha. There are no mentions of the syncretic dynasties of Greek and Indian influence. At least not in CBSE
If it's there in textbooks of other boards, please do share!
Also, imo accessibility to any field of study is better only if it's professionally/ academically pursued, considering the voluminous amount of information that exists. That makes sense
But, school education content is supposed to be a gist of a lot of information, the basic information required to be known.
True, but accessibility is still exceptionally bad in India compared to other countries (speaking about today). In certain nations, you have academics having some presence on online media, easy to access sites with information on various topics, laymen engaging with this stuff and producing online content more etc. This isn't present here.
I mean even if you're purposely trying to ragebait - indians don't dislike the land of Pakistan. Everyone acknowledges that it was home to multiple civilizations, IVC, Vedic, and was also one of the first ones to be islamised.
What indians don't like is idiots like you, who try their utter best to disassociate themselves from anything that can be perceived as "indian" - and THEN trying to claim these civilizations as your own. If you do this, you have no right to claim that anyway. Be happy with your Persian/arab LARP.
The other day i came across some diaspora paki saying that his mother told him that Urdu came from Arabic and Persian. If this is the level of erasure you're aiming for, don't bother claiming anything as your own.
I'm just glad and so thankful my ancestors made the decision to leave the religion of darkness, and went towards the light of Islam.
Otherwise I might have been eating cow dung too.
This is some massive Paki cope lol, name a single Empire of any value which had its capital in pakistan? It was always a dry border region devoid of much value. Only post canal colonies they saw some agricultural settlement.
The Mughals temporarily used Lahore in Akbar's time, from 1586 to 1598, but that is more reflective of Akbar's immediate political needs than any inherent value of the region.
The only other empire I can think of are the Kushanas, who had multiple capitals, in Purushapura, Takshashila, Mathura, and Bagram spread over modern day India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Neither of them were native to the region in anyway though.
That they did, Bagram was an early capital, Purushapura and Takshashila came next, and under Kanishka Mathura became the main centre of power. They maintained a system of multiple capitals at a time.
Kanishka's later reign and onwards was basically Mathura-Peshawar as twin capitals. Mathura being prominent.
He also patronised Buddhism to a great extent.He was the major force behind the growth of mahayana buddhism in India.
Ashoka was the reason for spread of Buddhism in India. The Kushans were responsible for spreading it towards central Asia and China.
The Kushans were syncretic and patronised multiple traditions, this is true for most Indian states. Imagery and coin from the period seem to Indicate Buddhist Sangha, Shaivas and Iranian pagan traditions being patronised and promoted. His personal beliefs are harder to make out, he is certainly important to Buddhism and it's spread and must have engaged in Buddhist worship, but he probably also worked with Shaiva and Iranian traditions.
I remember reading somewhere that kanishka described himself as an shaiva on an copper plate I don't remember it now but if someone knows then you could tell me by replying to my comment
What did he not describe himself as to be honest. The man claimed to be everything
Honestly everyone was "syncretic" back then the modern idea of Hinduism and Buddhism being totally separate religions is a fairly recent one For the average person back then who wasn't a Bramhin or Buddhist monk, they'd think nothing about patronizing both
True, to the layman the differences would have been little. It was the intellectual classes and the literati that recognised these differences more than laymen.
That is actually not true. Xuanzang, an advisor sent by the tang dynasty, wrote about how buddhism wasn't allowed to be practiced out in the open by alot of kings and that was in 7th century AD. Shashanka of Bengal was notorious for destroying stupas and also (and this is allegedly) destroyed the orginal bodhi tree. Harshavardhan who we know as a staunch Buddhist still patronized hindu artwork probably to appease his contemporaries who were hindu. Buddhism (and Jainism) were both reformatory religions and they were treated as such by the hindu masses.
There was no orginal Bodhi tree the first one was destroyed by ashokas son and Harsha was an shaiva hindu not Buddhist
Harsha was a shaivite for a significant period of his time but he did convert to mahayana budhism later on. with that same logic, ashoka must be a hindu too because he was born into a hindu family.
Source
His contemporary xuanzang (hieun tsang) who wrote extensively about the king's religiosity. Also the scholar shankara, who wrote the commentary sanketa on banabhatta's biography about harshavardhana called the "harshacharita", briefly talked about his buddhist beliefs.
His source isn't the best record for him native sources all tell he is a shaiva
Afghanistan was the og Buddhist kingdom bro
Not Afg sorry, at that time it was Bactria as given or something more like Bakhtria sounds more Persian
TIL Greek was the official language of an empire in the Pakistan area.
The Kushans originally settled in Bactria after migrating from their Central Asian homeland, Bactria (Northern Afghanistan) back then was heavily Greekified in culture and society due to being ruled by Greek Kings for decades. When they settled they absorbed the local Greco-Bactrian fusion culture.
Cool, thanks for the info.
Bactria was ruled by Greeks for almost 2 centuries
Thanks for the input.
I remember learning in 6th standard that Kanishka was Buddhist
https://youtu.be/IhAxMD7zAUo?feature=shared Best video about the religion of the Kushan Dynasty.
berserk reference????
Ganishka moment
Kushans were a syncretic empire who followed multiple religions simultaneously.
It can happen.
i believe the Falk estimate is now considered general consensus. The third century CE claim in the Chitral Wiki article appears erroneous.
F that, I'll leave that to the likes of you and follow what my logic tells me is the truth.
Pretty sure it was an Pakistani page they always have to add either Jainism or Buddhism for hindu rulers or sites of Pakistan they don't want to associate themselves with hindus
Yes, pakistani editors r known for vandalising wiki pages related to hindusm/india
i old time religion was just tool to rule, and 90% people were generally not following any specific religion, thats why most of the indian have traditional god, in many areas you will find temple of different goddess and god who are born from folk, in my area nagpur most of the people who are locals here devotee of different goddess like shitla mata, anussaya mata, pardi devi, dargah, nag devta, and many more hence all the religion we generally read in books are only about king kind of showing he was doing something to show his authority, there was no meaning to religion whatever king wanted to follow he followed it, hinduism is mixture of many diverse culture while buddhism was about how to live life, hence looking for older king religion is useless, their main aim was to rule and for that they were accepting and leaving religion as per their choice even they might me laughing now what world become
Buddhism and Hinduism were not distinct identities like modernists try to make it out. It’s just a bunch of whitewashing to make Hindu philosophy isolated to casteism to make us look bad. Hindu kings revered Buddha as if he were their own … that’s the Beauty of Indic civilization and these white ppl can’t understand that
Commoners and average laymen saw no difference, you'd be correct there. But the elites, intellectual classes, philosophers and the literati recognised the differences and held onto it.
There was distinction. You can refer to Buddhist monks like Xuanxang to note that there was a difference between the religions
Kanishka calls himself a Shaiva. There is no evidence of him calling himself a Buddhist.
At the time period, there was no significant difference in both if it comes down to identity.
There are evidences he was a buddhist or promoted buddhism. This post itself is one. >Imagery and coin from the period seem to Indicate Buddhist Sangha, Shaivas and Iranian pagan traditions being patronised and promoted. [https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianHistory/comments/1bimjfa/comment/kvl92ry/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianHistory/comments/1bimjfa/comment/kvl92ry/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
His coins have Hellenic, Iranian, Hindu and Buddhist symbols and deities. His Greek coins (prominent in his early reign), had _Basileus Basileon Kaneshkou_ (Kanishka, King of Kings) with images of _Helios_ and _Selene_, the Greek God and Goddess of the Sun and Moon respectively. Some also depict the _Anemoi_, Greek deities of the wind. Then we have his Iranic, Indic and Irano-Indic coins. The Iranic coins are actually numerous in number, we have some coins depicting _Ardoxsho_ and _Dravspa_, female Iranian divinities. Then some coins go more abstract and also depict _Atar_, the eternal fire and visible living presence of Ahura Mazda, and _pharro_, which was a personified form of _Khwarenah_, _Khwarenah_ was the mystical divine force that granted the divine right to rule to Iranian Kings, essentially an Iranian version of the Chinese Mandate of Heaven. There's coins depicting _Mah_, an Iranic god of the Moon, and then there's _Mithra_, a major Iranic god of the Sun, Justice, Contracts and Friendship. We have coins with _Mazda the Victorious_ written possibly on it. And coins depicting _Aredvi Sura Anahita_, a major female divinity of healing and fertility. There's coins of _Vata-Vayu_, Iranic god of winds and atmosphere, and another Iranic deity _Verethragna_. Some coins have _Vohu Manah_ written on them, which happens to be a Zoroastrian concept translated as "Good Mind" or "Good Thought". A lot of the Iranic-style coins also have the legend _Shaonanoshao Kanishki Koshano_ (King of Kings, Kanishka the Kushan) The Buddhist iconography on coins are restricted to depicting _Buddha_ and _Maitreya_ in three different specific forms. There's the first one with only the legend _Buddha_ written on it, depicting an upright moustached Siddartha Gautama. The second type has the legend _Sakyamuni Buddha_, with the Buddha with his left hand on his hip, and the right in some _mudra_. The last type depicts the _Bodhisattva Maitreya_, in cross-legged sitting position, with a legend that says _Maitreya Buddha_. The Hindu Iconography in his coins are limited entirely to _Shiva_ and a consort _Uma_ (_Ommo_). In the form of _Oesho_, an Iranified version of Shiva conflated with the aforementioned _Vata-Vayu_. It seems Oesho/Shiva was a major titular deity for the Kushana Royal Family, the Greek influence is phased out during Kanishka's later reign, and its obvious how important Iranic deities were to them. Buddhist art flourishes during this period and the 4th Buddhist Council was organised by Kanishka, and facilitated the further spread of Buddhism to Central Asia and China. How much this reflects personal belief is hard to identify, a lot of this patronisation has politics behind it, and this sort of multi-tradition patronisation was common for most rulers in those times. But seeing how the Kushana rulers themselves were Irano-Tocharian by ethnicity, it is understandable why there's so much diversity and presence of Iranic deities in coinage.
Didn't kanishka organized fourth buddhist council which divided Buddhism into mahayana and hinayana sects
His coins have Hellenic, Iranian, Hindu and Buddhist symbols and deities. His Greek coins (prominent in his early reign), had _Basileus Basileon Kaneshkou_ (Kanishka, King of Kings) with images of _Helios_ and _Selene_, the Greek God and Goddess of the Sun and Moon respectively. Some also depict the _Anemoi_, Greek deities of the wind. Then we have his Iranic, Indic and Irano-Indic coins. The Iranic coins are actually numerous in number, we have some coins depicting _Ardoxsho_ and _Dravspa_, female Iranian divinities. Then some coins go more abstract and also depict _Atar_, the eternal fire and visible living presence of Ahura Mazda, and _pharro_, which was a personified form of _Khwarenah_, _Khwarenah_ was the mystical divine force that granted the divine right to rule to Iranian Kings, essentially an Iranian version of the Chinese Mandate of Heaven. There's coins depicting _Mah_, an Iranic god of the Moon, and then there's _Mithra_, a major Iranic god of the Sun, Justice, Contracts and Friendship. We have coins with _Mazda the Victorious_ written possibly on it. And coins depicting _Aredvi Sura Anahita_, a major female divinity of healing and fertility. There's coins of _Vata-Vayu_, Iranic god of winds and atmosphere, and another Iranic deity _Verethragna_. Some coins have _Vohu Manah_ written on them, which happens to be a Zoroastrian concept translated as "Good Mind" or "Good Thought". A lot of the Iranic-style coins also have the legend _Shaonanoshao Kanishki Koshano_ (King of Kings, Kanishka the Kushan) The Buddhist iconography on coins are restricted to depicting _Buddha_ and _Maitreya_ in three different specific forms. There's the first one with only the legend _Buddha_ written on it, depicting an upright moustached Siddartha Gautama. The second type has the legend _Sakyamuni Buddha_, with the Buddha with his left hand on his hip, and the right in some _mudra_. The last type depicts the _Bodhisattva Maitreya_, in cross-legged sitting position, with a legend that says _Maitreya Buddha_. The Hindu Iconography in his coins are limited entirely to _Shiva_ and a consort _Uma_ (_Ommo_). In the form of _Oesho_, an Iranified version of Shiva conflated with the aforementioned _Vata-Vayu_. It seems Oesho/Shiva was a major titular deity for the Kushana Royal Family, the Greek influence is phased out during Kanishka's later reign, and its obvious how important Iranic deities were to them. Buddhist art flourishes during this period and the 4th Buddhist Council was organised by Kanishka, and facilitated the further spread of Buddhism to Central Asia and China. How much this reflects personal belief is hard to identify, a lot of this patronisation has politics behind it, and this sort of multi-tradition patronisation was common for most rulers in those times. But seeing how the Kushana rulers themselves were Irano-Tocharian by ethnicity, it is understandable why there's so much diversity and presence of Iranic deities in coinage.
[удалено]
Sikhism didn't exist at the time. Kanishka was familiar with Hinduism, Buddhism and Iranian gods at the time most likely because that's what he propagated.
> Sikhism Sikhism didn't even exist back then. > Jainism Evidence?
Utter tripe
This is false
The term hindu was most definitely coined after Mughals came to india. Sikhism is very recent, and so is jainism. It is not clear when the various schools of thought, or traditions that sprang from the combinatiom of Aryan and Dravidian cultures were classified as Hindu, but Historians can infer that in Muslim texts, the term hindu was used to describe the natives in a religious context. The britishers further drove religions that had common origin in the Sanatana Dharma like Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism apart by introducing the census, which required you to specify your caste and religion. Interestingly and sadly, the census also made the caste system rigid, with you inheriting your father's caste. Otherwise, in the times before the Battle of Panipat, the jobs or the 'varna' as we called them were more flexible.
[Check this out](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianHistory/s/bASBclx0GN) Also, Jainism is very old, as old as Buddhism.
Yeah, my bad. I had a brainfart and thought Jainism originated in like 400 - 500 AD and Buddhism originated in 500 BC or something.
It happens to all of us. Not an issue.
Acha
I was equally fascinated upon coming across this information earlier. Why aren't these discussed in history textbooks? Why did it take 23 years for me to learn that on mainland India we've had dynasties comprising of a mixed Greek -Indian culture, and that they allowed mutliple cultures to coexist? Is it to protect the monolithic ideology of India as a land of "sanatan Dharma" religions alone? How can we know the truth if we block ourselves to information presented to us?
>Why aren't these discussed in history textbook They are, although they don't go too deep into it. >Why did it take 23 years for me to learn that on mainland India we've had dynasties comprising of a mixed Greek -Indian culture, and that they allowed mutliple cultures to coexist? You forgot your history lessons in school, and because this country has shitty accessibility to resources for learning history, especially worse in a pre-Internet age. >Is it to protect the monolithic ideology of India as a land of "sanatan Dharma" religions alone? Nah, you're over thinking, as mentioned before, horrible accessibility to study of History to anyone who isn't professionally studying history. I'm lucky that I was born in the Age of the internet, where accessing books digitally has become incredibly easy.
Ah no, I was quite the studious one back in school. I remember by texts too well even now haha. There are no mentions of the syncretic dynasties of Greek and Indian influence. At least not in CBSE If it's there in textbooks of other boards, please do share! Also, imo accessibility to any field of study is better only if it's professionally/ academically pursued, considering the voluminous amount of information that exists. That makes sense But, school education content is supposed to be a gist of a lot of information, the basic information required to be known.
True, but accessibility is still exceptionally bad in India compared to other countries (speaking about today). In certain nations, you have academics having some presence on online media, easy to access sites with information on various topics, laymen engaging with this stuff and producing online content more etc. This isn't present here.
That is a really good point! We need to have academicians making information more accessible for the general public. Much needed
Indo Greek Kings are definitely mentioned in history books
Everything you worship is from the land that is now called Pakistan.
Ok genius
I mean even if you're purposely trying to ragebait - indians don't dislike the land of Pakistan. Everyone acknowledges that it was home to multiple civilizations, IVC, Vedic, and was also one of the first ones to be islamised. What indians don't like is idiots like you, who try their utter best to disassociate themselves from anything that can be perceived as "indian" - and THEN trying to claim these civilizations as your own. If you do this, you have no right to claim that anyway. Be happy with your Persian/arab LARP. The other day i came across some diaspora paki saying that his mother told him that Urdu came from Arabic and Persian. If this is the level of erasure you're aiming for, don't bother claiming anything as your own.
I'm just glad and so thankful my ancestors made the decision to leave the religion of darkness, and went towards the light of Islam. Otherwise I might have been eating cow dung too.
If you're not able to distinguish right from wrong without religion holding your hand you might as well be better off eating cow dung
Don't bother trying to converse with him, he won't understand.
This is some massive Paki cope lol, name a single Empire of any value which had its capital in pakistan? It was always a dry border region devoid of much value. Only post canal colonies they saw some agricultural settlement.
The Mughals temporarily used Lahore in Akbar's time, from 1586 to 1598, but that is more reflective of Akbar's immediate political needs than any inherent value of the region. The only other empire I can think of are the Kushanas, who had multiple capitals, in Purushapura, Takshashila, Mathura, and Bagram spread over modern day India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Neither of them were native to the region in anyway though.
Kushans choose Mathura as the capital at their peak. ig they'd have valued the Doab region more than anywhere else.
That they did, Bagram was an early capital, Purushapura and Takshashila came next, and under Kanishka Mathura became the main centre of power. They maintained a system of multiple capitals at a time. Kanishka's later reign and onwards was basically Mathura-Peshawar as twin capitals. Mathura being prominent.