Kingdom of Kashi
The Kingdom of Kashi was an ancient Indian kingdom located in the region around its capital Varanasi, bounded by the Varuna and Asi rivers in the north and south which gave Varanasi its name. It was one of the sixteen Mahajanapadas, great states that emerged in northern India at the start of the 6th century BCE; the Jataka tales indicate its capital was one of the richest cities in India, speaking of its prosperity and opulence. These stories tell of a prolonged rivalry between the neighboring kingdoms of Kashi and Kosala, with some occasional conflict with Anga and Magadha. Kashi once was one of the most powerful states in north India, although King Brihadratha of Kashi conquered Kosala, Kashi was incorporated into Kosala by King Kansa during Buddha's time; the Kashis along with the Kosalas and Videhans find mention in Vedic texts and appear to have been a allied people. It was in Kashi territory where Siddartha Gautama first started preaching the Buddhism religion
K. A. Nilakanta Sastri
Kallidaikurichi Aiyah Nilakanta Sastri was an Indian historian who wrote on South Indian history. Many of his books form. Sastri was acclaimed for his scholarship and mastery of sources and was a recipient of the third highest Indian civilian honour of Padma Bhushan. Nilakanta Sastri was born in a Telugu Niyogi Brahmin family, in Kallidaikurichi near Tirunelveli, on 12 August 1892, he completed his FA in M. D. T Hindu College and his college education in Madras Christian College. Sastri obtained his MA by coming first in the Madras Presidency, he joined the Hindu College as lecturer in 1913 where he taught till 1918. He served as Professor of History, Banaras Hindu University from 1918 to 1920. After that he became. In 1929, he was employed as Professor of History at Trichy; the same year, he succeeded Sakkottai Krishnaswamy Aiyangar as the Professor of History and Archaeology at the Madras University, a post he held till 1946. He was the Professor of Indology at the University of Mysore from 1952 to 1955.
He was appointed as the ex-officio Director of Archaeology for the Mysore State in 1954. He was the President of the All-India Oriental Conference in the early 1950s. From 1957 to 1972, he served with the UNESCO's Institute of Traditional Cultures of South East Asia, as the Director of the institute. In 1957, he was awarded India's third highest civilian honour. In the summer of 1959, he was a visiting professor at the University of Chicago where he delivered a series of lectures on South Indian History. Nilakanta Sastri died in 1975. Nilakanta Sastri is regarded as the greatest and most prolific among professional historians of South India. Tamil historian A R Venkatachalapathy regards him as "arguably the most distinguished historian of twentieth-century Tamil Nadu". In 1915, a Bengali historian Jadunath Sarkar, wrote an essay Confessions of a History Teacher in the Modern Review regretting the lack of acclaimed historical works in vernacular languages and stressed that efforts should be made to write history books and teach history in vernacular languages.
Nilakanta Sastri, a young teacher in Thirunelveli, wrote a letter to the newspaper opposing Sarkar's suggestion by saying that "English serves me better as a medium of expression than Tamil – I mean in handling historical subjects. The vernacular is not so well off in this part of the country as it should be". Sastri's comments evoked sharp criticism from the nationalist poet Subramanya Bharathi. According to Venkatachalapathy, Sastri's Tamil proficiency was not good and he relied on Tamil scholar S. Vaiyapuri Pillai for understanding Tamil literary works, thus he was not able to analyse the changing meaning of words over time. Venkatachalapathy says, "In the professional historiography in Tamil Nadu practised in the age of K. A. Nilakanta Sastri there was any interrogation of sources."Sastri's A History of South India is a recommended textbook for university students of Indian history. In a preface to the 2013 reprint, historian Sanjay Subrahmanyam describes the book thus... a classic work, which retains its importance and has never quite been replaced.
It shows the author's mastery over a huge set of sources, which placed him head and shoulders above other South Indian historians of his time Historian Noboru Karashima, who edited A Concise History of South India, describes Sastri's A History of South India as an excellent book, praises Sastri's examination of sources of south Indian history as "thoroughgoing and meticulous". However, Karashima states that being a Brahmin, Sastri was inclined to emphasize the role of "north Indian and Sanskrit culture in the development of south Indian society", which resulted in occasional bias. Karashima notes that Sastri's book remained the only authoritative scholarly book on the south Indian history for a number of reasons: nobody could match Sastri in bringing out a similar work. Ganapathy Subbiah of the Indian History Congress describes Sastri as "the greatest" of all South Indian historians. During Sastri's period, strong language-based movements had emerged in various regions of South India. Subbiah notes that Sastri attempted to portray South India as a distinct geocultural unit, was keen to dissolve the growth of regionalism in South Indian historiography.
Subbiah adds that Sastri's macro-level view of the South Indian history "revolved around Aryan-Dravidian syndrome", this view changed with his age: in his 20s, Sastri asserted the existence of "an independent Tamil culture which flourished for centuries before it was touched by extraneous influences". According to Subbiah, Sastri's views should be analyzed in the context of the rise of the anti-Brahmin Dravida Nadu movement in the mid-20th century: his assertions over-emphasizing the importance of Indo-Aryan and Sanskrit influence in south Indian history can be seen as "his angry and desperate response" against the Dravida Nadu secessionists. In all, Nilakanta Sastri authored 25 historical works on the history of South India. Sastri, K. A. Nilakanta; the Pāṇḍyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century. L
Quintus Curtius Rufus
Quintus Curtius Rufus was a Roman historian of the 1st century, author of his only known and only surviving work, Historiae Alexandri Magni, "Histories of Alexander the Great", or more Historiarum Alexandri Magni Macedonis Libri Qui Supersunt, "All the Books That Survive of the Histories of Alexander the Great of Macedon." Much of it is missing. Apart from his name on the manuscripts, nothing else certain is known of him; this fact alone has led philologists to believe that he had another historical identity, to which, due to the accidents of time, the link has been broken. A few theories exist, they are treated with varying degrees of credibility by various authors. Meanwhile, the identity of Quintus Curtius Rufus, historian, is maintained separately. Curtius' work is uniquely isolated. No other ancient work refers to it, or as far as is known, to him. Peter Pratt pointing out that the Senate and emperors proscribed or censored works, suggests that Curtius had not published the manuscript before his death, but left it in care of the emperor.
The emperors did not find a political opportunity. They had adopted the identity of Alexander for themselves; the provinces fashioned from the Macedonian Empire were difficult to govern, always on the point of rebellion. The work of Curtius, Pratt conjectures, was not politically appropriate because it would have encouraged independence; the earliest opportune moment was the year 167, when the campaign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius against the Parthian Empire had failed, the returning troops were in bad morale and infected with the Antonine Plague. The emperor attempted to build national pride among the former Macedonian states. Avidius Cassius, commandant of Legio III Gallica, returning veterans, was promoted to Consul, he claimed descent from the Seleucids of Macedonia. New coins and medals were issued in Macedonia on Alexandrian themes. Pratt conjectures that the manuscript in storage, by this time damaged and destroyed, was published accounting for the previous lack of references to it, it is possible Books I and II along with other loci were censored out.
As the emperors had surmised, it was popular. The dating available relies on internal evidence, not certain, but offers some degree of preponderance. In Book X Curtius digresses to give an encomium on blessings of peace under empire, citing the Roman Empire with the implication of contemporaneity. In essence he reasserts the policy of Augustus, which casts the empire as the restoration of monarchy for the suppression of the civil wars fomented by the contention of powerful noblemen vying for control of the Republic. Curtius' glowing endorsement of the policy dates him to the Roman Empire, he mentions the Parthian Empire. It was formed by the eastern satrapies recusing themselves from Macedonian overlordship and restoring a purely Iranian empire, it defended itself against Rome though Rome absorbed what was left of the Macedonian kingdoms. The dates of the Parthian Empire are 247 BC through 224 AD. Although Curtius may have been writing about an empire vanished in his own day, the most straightforward approach assumes that he wrote in a window, 63 BC through 224 AD.
For further localization, the same imperial purple passage contrasts the civil wars of the Macedonians due to failure to obtain a stable emperor, with an incident of the Roman Empire in which the risk of civil war was avoided by the appointment of a new emperor in a single night. Not many incidents fit the description. Baynham summarizes the argument of Julius Nützell that the crisis might be the night of January 24/25, 41 AD, following the assassination of Caligula on that day; the Senate met on an emergency basis to debate. The Praetorian Guard forced its way in to insist on the appointment of Claudius, his reign concentrated on the restoration of the rule of law. A lawyer, he issued up to 20 imperial edicts per day. If this argument is correct, Curtius' work must be dated to after 41 AD; the upper limit is provided by a passage that mentions the "continued prosperity of Tyre under Roman dominion." The peace of the empire came to an end in 43 AD. None of these dates are certain, but the union of all the ranges presents a credible view of Curtius' date.
Baynham says: "many modern scholars now accept a date in the middle to late part of the first century A. D. as a floruit for Curtius." By his name, Quintus Curtius Rufus was a member of the Curtii Rufi branch of the Curtii family, one of the original nobility of Rome. Due to the used institution of adoption, people of the name Curtius might not be consanguineous. Moreover, the same name tended to be repeated from grandfather to grandson. After centuries of Curtii, a Curtius might turn up in any period; the candidates for the historical identity of the author are but few. Given the time frame of the mid-1st century, there is a credible candidate, he is a certain Curtius Rufus In the List of Roman consuls he served as Consul Suffectus for October through December, 43 AD under the emperor Claudius. He had been a protégé of Tiberius, he must have written the Histories in two before the consulship. Tacitus says that he was on the staff of the Quaestor of Africa during that time, which would have given him the opportunity to use the Library of Alexandria.
Tiberius had died in 37. Curtius’ relations with Caligula are not mentioned, but Caligula was not in his vicinity. On Curtius’
Karshapana
Kārshāpaṇa, according to the Ashtadhyayi of Panini, refers to ancient Indian coins current during the 6th century BCE onwards, which were unstamped and stamped metallic pieces whose validity depended on the integrity of the person authenticating them. It is supposed by scholars that they were first issued by merchants and bankers rather than the state, they contributed to the development of trade since they obviated the need for weighing of metal during exchange. Kārshāpaṇas were silver pieces stamped with one to five or six rūpas only on the obverse side of the coins issued by the Janapadas and Mahajanapadas, carried minute mark or marks to testify their legitimacy. Silver punch-marked coins ceased to be minted sometime in the second century BCE but exerted a wide influence for next five centuries; the English word, "Cash", is derived from kārsha. The punch-marked coins were called "Kārshāpaṇa"; the period of the origin of the punch-marked coins is not yet known, but their origin was indigenous.
The word, Kārshāpaṇa, first appears in the Samvidhān Brāhmana. Coins bearing this name were in circulation during the Sutra and the Brāhmana period and find a mention in the early Buddhist and Persian texts of that period. Patanjali in his commentary on the vārttikas of Kātyāyana on Aṣṭādhyāyī uses the word, "Kārshāpaṇa", to mean a coin – कार्षापणशो ददाति"he gives a Karshapaṇa coin to each" orकार्षापणम् ददाति"he gives a Kārshāpaṇa",while explaining the use of the suffix – शस् taken up by Pāṇini in Sutra V.iv.43, in this case, कार्षापण + शः to indicate a "coin". The Shatapatha Brahmana speaks about Kārshāpaṇas weighing 100 ratis which kind were found buried at Taxila by John Marshall in 1912; the Golakpur find pertains to the period of Ajātaśatru. The Chaman – I – Hazuri find includes two varieties of punch-marked Indian coins along with numerous Greek coins of 600–500 BCE, thereby indicating that those kind of Kārshāpaṇas were contemporaneous to the Greek coins and in circulation as legal tender.
During the Mauryan Period, the punch-marked coin called Rūpyārūpa, same as Kārshāpaṇa or Kahāpana or Prati or Tangka, was made of alloy of silver and any other metal or metals. The early indigenous Indian coins were called Kārshāpaṇa; the Golakpur find is pre-Maurya of the Nanda era, appear to have been re-validated to make them kośa- praveśya. The Maurya Empire was based upon money-economy; the punch-marked copper coins were called paṇa. This type of coins were in circulation much before the occupation of Punjab by the Greeks who carried them away to their own homeland, they were issued by traders as blank silver bent-bars or pieces. During the Harappan Period silver was extracted from argentiferous galena. Silver Kārshāpaṇas show lead impurity but no association with gold; the internal chronology of Kārshāpaṇa and the marks of distinction between the coins issued by the Janapadas and the Magadhan issues is not known, the Arthashastra of Kautilya speaks about the role of the Lakshanadhyaksha who knew about the symbols and the Rupadarshaka, but has remained silent with regard to the construction, order and background of the punched symbols on these coins hence their exact identification and dating has not been possible.
Indian merchants, through land and sea routes, have traded with the east African and middle-east people from the time of King Solomon. The term Kārshāpaṇa referred to gold and copper coins weighing 80 ratis or 146.5 grains. Use of money was known to Vedic people much before 700 BCE; the words and Krishnala, denoted money, Kārshāpaṇas, as standard coins, were stored in the royal treasuries. The Local silver punch-marked coins, included in the Bhabhuā and Golakpur finds, were issued by the Janapadas and were in circulation during the rule of the Brihadratha Dynasty, succeeded by the Magadha empire founded by the Haryanka dynasty in 684 BCE. Ajatashatru issued the first Imperial coins of six punch-marks with the addition of the bull and the lion; the successors of Ajatashatru who ruled between 520 and 440 BCE and the Shishunaga dynasty and the nanda dynasty issued coins of five symbols – the sun-mark, the six-armed symbol and any three of the 450 symbols. The Maurya coins have five symbols – the sun-mark, the six-armed symbol, three-arched hill with crescent at top, a branch of a tree at the corner of a four-squared railing and a bull with a taurine in front.
Punch-marked copper coins were first issued during the rule of Chandragupta Bindusara. The Bhīr find includes Maurya coins and a coin of Diodotus I issued in 248 BCE
Shurasena
Shurasena was an ancient Yadava ruler of Mathura after whom the Surasena Kingdom or mahajanpada and the Yadava sept of Surasenas were named. Shurasena was father of Vasudeva, he is extensively mentioned in both the Mahabharata and the Puranas as the father of Vasudeva and Kunti
Panchala
Panchala was an ancient kingdom of northern India, located in the Ganges-Yamuna Doab of the upper Gangetic plain. During Late Vedic times, it was one of the most powerful states of the Indian subcontinent allied with the Kuru Kingdom. By the c. 5th century BCE, it had become an oligarchic confederacy, considered as one of the solasa mahajanapadas of the Indian subcontinent. After being absorbed into the Mauryan Empire, Panchala regained its independence until it was annexed by the Gupta Empire in the 4th century CE; the Panchalas occupied the country to the east of the Kurus, between the upper Himalayas and the river Ganges. It corresponded to modern Budaun and the adjoining districts of Uttar Pradesh; the country was divided into Dakshina-Panchala. The northern Panchala had its capital at Ahichatra, while southern Panchala had it capital at Kampilya or Kampil in Farrukhabad district; the famous city of Kanyakubja or Kannauj was situated in the kingdom of Panchala. The Panchala janapada is believed to have been formed by multiple janas.
The Shatapatha Brahmana suggests that Panchala was the name of the Krivi tribe. The Vedic literature uses the term Panchala to describe the close associates of the Kurus; the Mahabharata sometimes mentions the Saranjayas as a tribe or a family among the Panchalas, sometimes uses the two terms as synonyms, although it mentions the two separately at some places. The Mahabharata further mentions that the Panchala country was divided into two territories: the northern Panchala with its capital at Ahichchhatra, the southern Panchala with its capital at Kampilya. According to the political scientist Sudama Misra, the name of the Panchala janapada suggests that it was a fusion of five janas. H. C. Ray Chaudhuri theorized that these five clans were the Krivis, the Turvashas, the Keshins, the Srinjayas, the Somakas; each of these clans is known to be associated with one or more princes mentioned in the Vedic texts - the Krivis with Kravya Panchala, the Turvashas with Sona Satrasaha, the Keshins with Keshin Dalavya, the Srinjayas with Sahadeva Sarnjaya, the Somakas with Somaka Sahadevya.
The names of the last two clans, the Somakas and the Srinjayas, are mentioned in the Mahabharata and the Puranas. King Drupada, whose daughter Draupadi was married into the Pandavas, belonged to the Somaka clan. However, the Mahabharata and the Puranas consider the ruling clan of the northern Panchala as an offshoot of the Bharata clan and Divodasa, Srinjaya and Drupada were the most notable rulers of this clan; the Panchala kingdom rose to its highest prominence in the aftermath of the decline and defeat of the Kuru Kingdom by the non-Vedic Salva tribe. The king of Panchala, Keśin Dālbhya, was the nephew of the Kuru king, his dynasty remained in power for many generations. A monarchical clan, the Panchalas appear to have switched to republican corporation around 500 BCE; the Buddhist text Anguttara Nikaya mentions Panchala as one of the sixteen mahajanapadas of the c. 6th century BCE. The 4th century BCE Arthashastra attests the Panchalas as following the Rajashabdopajivin constitution. Panchala was annexed into the Magadha empire during the reign of Mahapadma Nanda in the mid-4th century BCE.
Numismatic evidence reveals the existence of independent rulers of Panchala during the post-Mauryan period. Most of the coins issued by them are found at adjoining areas. All the coins are round, made of a copper alloy and have a set pattern on the obverse-a incised square punch consisting of a row of three symbols and the ruler's name placed in a single line below them; the reverse bears depictions of the deities or sometimes of their attributes, whose names form a component of the issuers' names. The names of the rulers found on these coins are Vangapala, Damagupta, Jayagupta, Phalgunimitra, Bhumimitra, Agnimitra, Vishnumitra, Prajapatimitra, Anamitra and Yugasena. Shaunakayaniputra Vangapala, ruler of Ahichatra, whom Vaidehiputra Ashadhasena mentioned as his grandfather in his Pabhosa inscription, is identified with king Vangapala, known from his coins; the name of Damagupta is found on a clay sealing. The last independent ruler of Ahichatra was Achyuta, defeated by Samudragupta, after which Panchala was annexed into the Gupta Empire.
The coins of Achyuta found from Ahichatra have a wheel of eight spokes on the reverse and the legend Achyu on the obverse. Kuru Kingdom Vedic period Painted Grey Ware culture Mahajanapadas Mahabharata Coins of Panchala janapada Coins of Post-Mauryan Panchala Kingdom Panchal Details from IGNCA
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