Latest news with #Harappan
Time of India
10-07-2025
- Time of India
Museum makes entry free for school groups to ignite kids' love for history
Kolkata: The Indian Museum has made entry free for school groups to encourage more students to visit the oldest and largest museum in South Asia. Entry did use to be free for student groups, but in 2019, the museum introduced a fee of Rs 20 for visitors below 18 years. That decision was reversed at a meeting of the Board of Trustees last month following the museum's finance committee's proposal last Dec to waive fees for student groups. "Recognising students as the future custodians of our cultural legacy, Indian Museum is committed to nurturing curiosity and promoting learning from an early age. By removing entry barriers, the museum aims to encourage more educational visits and inspire a lifelong appreciation for history and culture," said Indian Museum director Arijit Dutta Choudhury. By transforming into a living classroom, the museum aspired to empower the younger generations across social backgrounds to ensure every child gets a chance to engage with and take pride in India's cultural legacy, said museum deputy director Sayan Bhattacharya, pointing out Indian Museum was not just a repository of antiquities but also a place of awe. "It's a living heritage site eliciting curiosity, imagination among kids. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 5 Books Warren Buffett Wants You to Read In 2025 Blinkist: Warren Buffett's Reading List Undo " You Can Also Check: Kolkata AQI | Weather in Kolkata | Bank Holidays in Kolkata | Public Holidays in Kolkata Students visiting the museum are usually instantly captivated by the breadth and diversity of the collections: from one of the oldest fossil specimens—Stromatolite (a 3,200 million-year-old earliest specimen of life in South Asia) to Harappan artefacts, relics of Buddha, Ashokan Lion Capital and ancient sculptures—the museum presents a seamless timeline of India's civilisation journey. Among the most popular attractions is the 4,500-year-old Egyptian Mummy, one of the first of its kind ever to be exhibited in any museum. It continues to be a major draw for students, offering a tangible link to ancient global civilisations. Equally fascinating are the dinosaur eggs, the mammoth skeleton, rare botanical specimens and exquisite ivory artefacts.
Time of India
10-07-2025
- Time of India
Indian museum makes entry free for school groups to boost student visits
Students view the skeleton of a mammoth at the Indian Museum KOLKATA: The Indian Museum has made entry free for school groups to encourage more students to visit South Asia's oldest and largest museum. While entry used to be free for student groups, a Rs 20 entry fee was introduced for visitors below 18 years in 2019. That decision was reversed at a meeting of the Board of Trustees last month following the museum's finance committee's proposal last December to waive the entry fee for student groups. "Recognising that students are the future custodians of our cultural legacy, the Indian Museum is committed to nurturing curiosity and promoting learning from an early age. By removing entry barriers, the museum aims to encourage more educational visits and inspire a lifelong appreciation for history and culture," said Indian Museum Director Arijit Dutta Choudhury. You Can Also Check: Kolkata AQI | Weather in Kolkata | Bank Holidays in Kolkata | Public Holidays in Kolkata By transforming into a living classroom, the museum aspires to empower the younger generations across social backgrounds to ensure that every student has the opportunity to engage with and take pride in India's rich cultural legacy, museum Deputy Director Sayan Bhattacharya explained, pointing out that the Indian Museum is not just a repository of antiquities but a place of wonder and awe. "It is a living heritage site that sparks curiosity and imagination among students," said Bhattacharya. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Tại sao CFD tiền mã hóa có thể phù hợp với danh mục đầu tư của bạn IC Markets Tìm hiểu thêm Undo Students who visit the museum are captivated by the breadth and diversity of the collections: from one of the oldest fossil specimens – Stromatolite (a 3200 million-year-old earliest specimen of life in South Asia) to Harappan artefacts, relics of Buddha, Ashokan Lion Capital, and ancient sculptures – the museum presents a seamless timeline of India's civilisational journey. Among the most popular attractions is the 4500-year-old Egyptian Mummy, one of the first of its kind ever to be exhibited in any museum. It continues to be a major draw for students, offering a tangible link to ancient global civilisations. Equally fascinating are the dinosaur eggs from the zoological collections, the mammoth skeleton, rare botanical specimens, and exquisite ivory artefacts, all of which leave a lasting impression on young minds. Over the last three financial years, the Indian Museum has recorded an average annual footfall of approximately 6.5 lakh visitors. The percentage of school students within this overall visitor base increased from 18.11% in 2022–2023 to 19.9% in 2023–2024, and 21.53% in 2024–2025. Workshops, guided tours, interactive learning modules, and hands-on activities are regularly organised for students. The museum prioritises inclusivity through initiatives like 'Soulful Silence', a special programme designed for specially-abled and neurodiverse children, offering sensory-sensitive, calm, and accessible experiences. As part of the museum's inclusivity initiative, braille script labels and 3D replicas of paintings are being installed in the galleries to enhance accessibility for visually impaired visitors.
Scroll.in
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Scroll.in
Kumkum Roy, professor of Ancient History, recollects her days as an MA student at JNU, Delhi
By January 1977, I made what seemed to be a more or less permanent move to Delhi. My parents had shifted into a large, spacious house with a garden in Safdarjung Enclave, very different from our home in Kolkata. There were strong feelings in the air about the Emergency and hopes that the election would bring it to an end. I realised from conversations at home that the Emergency had changed Delhi and people's lives drastically – demolitions and displacement in the name of 'improvement', sterilisations to enforce 'family planning', censorship, and more. Somehow, all this seemed far more immediate and oppressive in Delhi than it had been in Kolkata. Friends and relatives, rather different from those in Kolkata, were part of my parents' social world. These included bureaucrats who were keenly interested in what I should or should not have been doing. So, while there were neighbours and friends who taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University ( JNU) and thought it would be the ideal place for me, there were those who felt I needed to join the bureaucracy, which they thought would be far more exciting than becoming an academic. I duly took the entrance tests for the MA programmes at the Centre for Historical Studies (CHS) and the School of International Studies (SIS), the latter being considered ideal for would-be bureaucrats (I had reluctantly decided to keep my options open). I cleared both the tests and appeared for both the interviews. I do not remember what I did or said at the SIS interview, but the one at CHS seemed to me to have been an unmitigated disaster – I boldly declared that I wanted to study ancient history in order to decipher the Harappan script and that I wanted to study at JNU simply because it was close to where my family lived at the time. It was perhaps out of appreciation for my naivete that the faculty decided to give me a chance. When I joined JNU, the academic sections of the university were located in what was affectionately referred to as the 'down campus' in contrast to the 'up campus', which seemed rather remote and was located in what was then barren, rocky terrain. The more appropriate titles – 'old campus' and 'new campus' – were used sparingly, if at all. Smaller classes were held in the offices of the teachers, and as CHS was on the fifth floor of the southernmost building in the old campus, one could gaze out on a vast expanse of the campus. The view was pristine, or seemed so to me, anyway. However, opportunities to gaze out of the windows during class were fleeting and momentary. The history we were being introduced to was very different from what we had learnt in college. Even dynastic history appeared in a new, almost unrecognisable avatar, as we learnt to evaluate and assess both the Mauryas and Guptas in terms not simply of battles won and lost but also of complex socio-economic and cultural contexts. We learnt the rudiments of Sanskrit, epigraphy, and archaeology. We also got to explore religious histories, histories of the economy and society, political ideas and institutions. Equally challenging and demanding were the 'core courses', which provided insights into broad global developments through lectures and readings that were remarkable for their breadth and depth. Then there were the 'non-Indian' history courses, and we also had the option of taking courses in other centres. These had to be chosen in consultation with the faculty. So, while I chose to do a course on Bronze Age Mesopotamia, which was fascinating, I was advised, rather sternly and firmly, to do one on the Russian Revolution as well. I was petrified, but discovered, once I overcame my initial fear of the massive reading list, that the course had far more to offer than I had imagined. Also, doing a course on anthropological theories was particularly enriching, and, although I was and remain wary of abstruse theory, the course opened windows into new possibilities that perhaps informed my later interests. It seemed as if we were thrown into an immense ocean of books, talks, and more – we could sink, swim, or drift along. I am not sure whether I consciously thought through my choice of specialisation – 'Ancient History' – at this stage. Perhaps it was the pursuit of origins. It may also have had to do with the passion of my teacher in college, which was infectious. But once I exercised the option, I had no regrets. It turned out to be an almost lifelong obsession. Our Ancient History class was small and fairly close-knit but markedly different from what I had been used to in Presidency College. I was the only Bengali, and we were three women in a class of 12. The men were from very diverse backgrounds, as indeed were the women. But what for me was particularly exciting was that virtually the entire faculty, with the notable exception of the quiet, uncompromising scholar Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya, consisted of women, and rather formidable women at that. All of them were doyennes in their fields – R Champakalakshmi for her pioneering work in early Tamil history, K Meenakshi for her remarkable studies on Tamil and Sanskrit grammar, Romila Thapar for challenging the earlier understanding of Mauryan history, Shereen Ratnagar for opening up a fresh perspective on the Harappan civilisation, and Suvira Jaiswal for her revisionist religious history. I am not sure whether they saw themselves as mentors and role models, but for many of us, it was wonderful to have a cluster of women around, women who were very different from one another in terms of their lifestyles and styles of teaching. Passionate about their research, most of them were unsparing towards their students. As a result, almost before I realised it, I began to think that I was meant to become a researcher, as that seemed to be all that mattered. The past beckoned. I do not think any of these women would have explicitly identified themselves as feminists. And yet, their very presence made a difference to the environment both within the classroom and beyond it. In retrospect, it does seem that the decades following 1947 were marked by the creation of spaces through debate and discussion and the building of new institutions. Our teachers were part of a generation that both benefited from these spaces and shaped them creatively and constructively. A fruitful conjuncture. Not surprisingly, the faculty had put in place a demanding tutorial and semester system. We were expected to produce a tutorial of about 2,000 words every fortnight, according to what seemed to be a punishing timetable, and then present our work for discussion in groups of threes and fours. Our tutorial scripts were often returned with copious markings and comments along the margins – no shortcuts! Invariably, we were nervous and stressed out, but soon enough, we began to look forward to these ordeals, learning to hold our own, acknowledging what we had missed out or not understood, and working our way through sharing our ideas with others. The formal discussions would often continue as informal chats over countless cups of tea, sipped either in the canteen or, more commonly, sitting on the floors of corridors around the library. Some of those conversations, fortunately, still continue, even as the venues have shifted over the years. The sense that we were discovering and sharing new ways of thinking was a heady experience, to say the least. And the tutorial system, which accounted for 50 per cent of the evaluation, also meant that the pressure of the end-of-semester examination was considerably reduced.
Time of India
04-07-2025
- General
- Time of India
Sindoor Goddesses of India: From Harappa to Hinglaj and Charani women
Live Events (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel Sindoor in India is linked to auspiciousness, femininity, fertility, and most surprisingly, ancient trade routes frequented by nomadic pastoralists. Worn by married women of India, the earliest reference to the use of sindoor comes from the Harappan civilisation, where clay figurines have been shown with sindoor in the parting of the hair. These figurines have been found in the Baluchistan is this sindoor coming from? In all probability from Darestan in Iran. It is known that during the Bronze Age, 2000 BC, there were wide trading networks. The Harappans procured lapis lazuli, a blue stone, from Afghanistan. So, obtaining cinnabar-mercury sulphide, which is sindoor -from Darestan in Iran is not along the Makran coast, sindoor is known as Hingula and was offered to Hinglaj Mata , whose oldest shrine is located in Balochistan. Even today, people travel from India to Balochistan in Pakistan to make offerings to this goddess. This site is considered a Shakti Peeth, associated with the head of the goddess, which was always covered with vermilion, or red dedicated to such sindoor-smeared goddesses are found in Balochistan, Gujarat, Kutch, Sindh, along the Makran coast, and along the Aravalli mountains -even extending along trade routes into Madhya Pradesh and as far south as Odisha (Talcher), where red sindoor is found in the form of iron oxides. These are major Tantric locations, a network of occult sites visited by ancient shamans and goddesses have a deep connection with women of the Charan community . The Charans are a unique community: poets who narrated ballads, keepers of royal genealogies, warriors who fought alongside Rajputs, and pastoralists closely associated with animal husbandry-particularly the breeding of buffaloes, sheep, goats, camels and narrated stories of Pabuji, the one who brought camels to India, and of Dev Narayanji linked to horse breeding in the Aravalli region. In these tales, the hero's mare is always gifted by a Charan woman or Charani-believed to be a living embodiment of the goddess, spiritually connected to sindoor-smeared goddesses. These were not symbolic abstractions but real women reputed to possess miraculous, magical powers -channels through whom the goddess women are said to have aided Rajput kings, directed kings to dig step wells during droughts, fed armies using only a single piece of bread and a pot of buttermilk, and cheered them into battlefields to protect the herds. There are numerous stories of Charani women with miraculous kings attempted to molest them, only to be met with curses and divine retribution, attacked by swarms of bees and snakes dropping from their umbrellas. In some tales, there is not a single Charan human-goddess but seven sisters, accompanied by a brother or uncle known as Bhairo. This motif of seven sisters and one brother can even be traced back to Harappan Charanis are worshipped even now in temples such as the Karni Mata Temple in Rajasthan, Bahucharaji Mata and Khodyar Mata in Gujarat, and Hinglaj Mata in Balochistan. Traditionally dressed in deep red-the colour of sindoor-to embody auspiciousness, they sometimes wore black to communicate bad news or Khejri tree is sacred to the Charani women. It is said that when there was no wood and one such woman had no staff with which to churn buttermilk, she caused a Khejri tree to appear -from which she produced a limitless supply of buttermilk. In some stories, these women are described as daughters of snake gods; in others, they are nymphs who take the form of tigers. Now, tigers and the Khejri tree appear on Harappan seals-suggesting that the Charans may have been closely linked to, or descended from, the Harappan cities through the cult of sindoor. Women of this region wear bangles similar to the bangles manufactured in Harappan oldest image of Durga, dated to the 1st century BC, was found in Nagar near Chittorgarh, Rajasthan. It shows the goddess with two hands, plucking out the tongue of a buffalo. Intriguingly, in the Hinglaj Mata temple in Balochistan, there is still a site commemorating the tongue of the buffalo demon being flung to the side of the temple. The legend of the region refer to Hinglaj Mata of Balochistan as Lal Chunariya Wali or Nani Devi. The name Nani connects her with Naina Devi of Uttarakhand and the goddess Nana, who was revered as a lion-riding goddess during the Kushan era. The sindoor goddess trail thus spreads over geography and history. Sindoor then becomes a marker of a civilisational network that predates the composition of the Vedas.
Indian Express
04-07-2025
- General
- Indian Express
Elephants as symbol of wealth and power in Indian culture
We cannot imagine India without elephants. Elephants have been a powerful symbol of wealth and power since ancient times. Elephants are found on Harappan seals, but they were probably wild elephants or baby elephants kept in zoos and parks. Some argue that Harappan elephants were used to collect timber, but that remains speculative. In early Vedic texts, the elephant is referred to as hasti-mriga or wild elephant with a hand. It was domesticated in the late Vedic period, as the king of Anga, in the Brahmana texts, gifts elephants to those who perform rituals for him. Images of elephants appear on the gateway of the Barabar caves in Bihar, gifted by Mauryan kings to Ajivika ascetics. On the railings at the Buddhist stupas of Sanchi and Bharhut, we find the earliest images of Lakshmi, flanked by elephants who pour water on her as she sits on a lotus pond. Elephants were popular with merchants as they were sure-footed, large animals who could carry a lot of goods and simultaneously create highways as they made their way through dense jungles, across rivers in spate, and over mountain slopes. In Buddhist mythology, Buddha tames a wild elephant sent to kill him. In Hindu mythology, Krishna kills the royal elephant of Kamsa, who blocked his path. Shiva is called Gajantaka, and is depicted dancing on the head of the elephant-demon, flaying its skin alive. Shiva then drapes the elephant-hide, Gaja-charma, around him. Elephants are linked with wealth, power and sensuality. So, killing an elephant was seen as an act of defiance against royal authority and a rejection of uncontrolled sexual energy, like an elephant in musth (unstoppable sexual arousal). When aroused, elephants secrete a fluid from the temples on their forehead. This is called mada, from which comes words like mada (intoxication, uncontrolled passion) and madira (wine). In the Udayagiri caves of Odisha (dating from 100 BC), we find images of elephant herds, and elephant hunts. This was the land of Gajapatis, kings with elephant armies, who fought Ashvapatis, kings with cavalry. In Chanakya's Arthashastra, kings were encouraged to keep forests where elephants could breed before they were captured. Killing elephants was frowned upon in ancient India, but collecting tusks of dead elephants was rewarded. A great hero of ancient folklore was one Udayana, whose music could ensnare elephants. A king decided to capture the skilled Udayana. So, his soldiers hid themselves inside an artificial elephant made of wood and managed to get close to Udayana. The story reminds us of the Greek myth of the Trojan horse. While in the Greek story, the horse was used to get the army into the city of Troy, in the story of Udayana, an artificial elephant is used to capture the elephant's whisperer. Later in the Hindu tradition, elephants are linked to Indra. In the Vedic scriptures, Indra is described as riding a horse-drawn, spoked wheel chariot. In later literature, he is shown as riding a white colored elephant with multiple trunks and multiple tusks said to have been churned out of the ocean of milk. This Indra, known as Sakra in Buddhist Indian literature, bows to the Buddha and dances when the Jain Tirthankaras are born. This celestial white elephant is called Airavata. There are such elephants in the cardinal and ordinal directions of Hindu cosmogony. They are called Dig-gaja, or elephants of the directions. They hold up the sky. As per one lore, the head of Airavata was cut and used to revive Shiva's son. That is why the elephant headed god Ganesha has a white head, especially in the eastern part of India, but the lower part is red in colour, linking him to his mother Parvati. Elephants are native to India, unlike horses. It is the access to elephants that enabled the kings of Magadha to establish the earliest empire. In the Mahabharata, kings who ride horses typically come from northwest India, particularly from the Punjab side, while the kings who ride elephants come from Magadha side. As early as 500 BC, elephants were exported to Persia from where horses were imported. We know that 500 horses were given by Chandragupta to the Greek king Seleucus. Even when the Mughals came to India, they found the elephants fascinating. Although horses are more disciplined and easier to manage on a battlefield and elephants can run amok, elephants have always been preferred by Indian royalty. They were used as mobile battering rams to break a fort before cannons came to India 500 years ago, after which the elephant's role became ceremonial. What is most interesting is that although elephants did exist in ancient China, especially in the south and southwestern parts, Chinese emperors did not like them too much as they were wild and undisciplined. They were hunted to extinction to make room for farmlands. This shows the cultural differences between China and India. Elephants are native to India, unlike horses. It is the access to elephants that enabled the kings of Magadha to establish the earliest empire. Comment. How did the symbolic meanings of elephants evolve across Vedic, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions? Why were elephants more culturally significant in India than in ancient China and what might this reveal about their respective civilizations? What role did elephants play in warfare before the introduction of cannons in India? In what ways did elephants influence the political power of kingdoms like Magadha? (Devdutt Pattanaik is a renowned mythologist who writes on art, culture and heritage.) Share your thoughts and ideas on UPSC Special articles with Subscribe to our UPSC newsletter and stay updated with the news cues from the past week. Stay updated with the latest UPSC articles by joining our Telegram channel – IndianExpress UPSC Hub, and follow us on Instagram and X.
