Reiterating as much for myself as for others that for the next several months I shall be working on three articles, Mandell Creighton, Company rule in India, and History of English grammars. They have been on my backburner far too long. My time for all other activities on Wikipedia will be severely restricted.
This user is aware of the designation of the following topics as contentious topics:
Indian vultures, (Gyps indicus), in a nest on the tower of the Chaturbhuj Temple, Orchha, Madhya Pradesh. The vulture became nearly extinct in India in the 1990s from having ingested the carrion of diclofenac-laced cattle.
The bank myna is indigenous to the Indian subcontinent.
The vulnerable Malabar frog is endemic to the Western Ghats.
The endangered Nilgiri tahr is endemic to the Western Ghats. Shown here is a female in a national park in Kerala.
The brahminy kite (Haliastur indus) hunts for fish and other prey near the coasts and around inland wetlands.
The lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) is the Indian national flower. Hindus and Buddhists regard it as a sacred symbol of enlightenment.
The Indian peafowl (Pavo cristatus) is the Indian national bird. It roosts in moist and dry-deciduous forests, cultivated areas, and village precincts.
Large Gautama Buddha statue in Buddha Park of Ravangla, Sikkim
A Jain woman washes the feet of Bahubali Gomateswara at Shravanabelagola, Karnataka. The Bahubali idol is 18 metres (58 ft) high and is carved out of a single rock on top of a hill.
A Chola bronze depicting Nataraja, who is seen as a cosmic "Lord of the Dance" and representative of Shiva
A sixteenth century rendering of a scene from the Ramayana, an ancient Sanskrit epic.
A beach off the Arabian Sea in Puvar, Kerala. The Arabian Sea is the northwestern region of the Indian Ocean, bounded by the Arabian and Indian peninsulas.
Flowing through its rocky terrain near Hampi is the Tungabhadra river, the major right bank tributary of the Krishna river, a peninsular river, which empties into the Bay of Bengal. The coracles, made of wicker, are traditionally covered with hide, their circular shape preventing them from overturning in rivers with rocky outcrops.
The recycling industry in India, a Varanasi paper bag seller
An example of the Chinese fishing nets of Cochin. Fisheries in India is a major industry in its coastal states, employing over 14 million people. The annual catch doubled between 1990 and 2010.
A tea garden in Sikkim. India, the world's second largest-producer of tea, is a nation of one billion tea drinkers, who consume 70% of India's tea output.
A daily wage worker in a salt field. The average minimum wage of daily labourers is around Rs.100 per day
A farmer in Rajasthan milks his cow. Milk is India's largest crop by economic value. Worldwide, as of 2011, India had the largest herds of buffalo and cattle, and was the largest producer of milk.
Indian agriculture dates from the period 7,000–6,000 BCE, employs two thirds of the national workforce, and is second in farm output worldwide. Above, a farmer works an ox-drawn plow in Kadmati, West Bengal.
Battered religious figures stand watch on a hill above a tattered valley. Nagasaki, Japan. September 24, 1945
17th century Painting on cloth of of Buddha Shakyamuni as Lord of the Munis with Bodhisatvas in background.
The Gathering of Four Buddhas. 1562 CE, National Museum of Art, Korea.
Two women walk past the huge cavity where one of the ancient Buddhas of Bamiyan used to stand, June 17, 2012. The monumental statues were built in A.D. 507 and 554
Start something on the Ethnic fermented foods and beverages of the Darjeeling Hills, using
Thapa, Namrata; Tamang, Jyoti Prakash (2020), "Ethnic Fermented Foods and Beverages of Sikkim and Darjeeling Hills (Gorkhaland Territorial Administration)", in Tamang, Jyoti Prakash (ed.), Ethnic Fermented Foods and Beverages of India: Science History and Culture, Singapore: Springer Nature, ISBN978-981-15-1485-2 and
Tamang, Jyoti P.; Sarkar, Prabir K; Hesseltine, Clifford W (1988). "Traditional Fermented Foods and Beverages of Darjeeling". Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. 44 (4): 375–385. doi:10.1002/jsfa.2740440410.
Latest comment: 10 days ago11 comments2 people in discussion
Hi F&f. I'm going through the references & notes you added. When you copied back the sentence on the sources for the Mauryan Empire to the lead, you also duplicated the extensive references. Since they are named, the name of the reference suffices; I have removed the quotes from the lead, but don't worry, they show up, because they are also in the History#Sources-subsection. Regards, Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk!11:38, 21 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Also working on Seleucid–Mauryan War; the interpretation of the ancient sources on the ceded territories is quite ambiguous; it seems to me, reading several sources, that Gedrosia refers only to a part of Gedrosia; and probably only the South Asian part just west of the Indus. I'm fine-tuning and expanding the info on that, including a note; when it's finished, I'll also copy it to the Mauryan Empire, as it nuances the 'Iranian territories' considerably. Regards, Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk!12:02, 21 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Tarn (1922), The Greeks In Bactria And India, p.100, refering to Eratosthenes, who states (in Tarn words) that :
Alexander [...] took away from Iran the parts of these three satrapies which lay along the Indus and made of them separate [...] governments or province; it was these which Seleucus ceded, being districts predominantly Indian in blood. In Gedrosia the boundary is known: the country ceded was that between the Median Hydaspes (probably the Purali) and the Indus.
Smith (1914): "The satrapy of Gedrosia (or Gadrosia) extended far to the west, and probably only the eastern part of it was annexed by Chandragupta. The Malin range of mountains,[c] which Alexander experienced such difficulty in crossing, would have furnished a natural boundary."
Malin mountain range is Malan mountain range, next to the Hingol river, mentioned in sevarl books describing Alexander's retreat from India. Tarn's Purali is the Porali river, a tributary of the Hingol. That's two sources who provide an explanation, and agree on the Malan mountain range/Porali river, just west of Karachi. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk!11:00, 23 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. I tend to agree with you. There is corroboration for your thesis in Joppen's very first map, which I'm attaching here:
Alexander's empire (from Charles Joppen SJ, Historical Atlas of India: For the use of High Schools, Colleges, and Private Students, London: Longman, Green & Co., 1907 As you know, both the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush ranges were uplifted by the Indian tectonic plate underthrusting Eurasia. Two river, the Indus and the Brahmaputra, which are old Eurasian rivers, had to change their respective courses, to accommodate the rising Himalayas (we are talking tens of millions YBP), the Indus to the west and the Brahmaputra to the east. You can locate the western end of the Himalayas by examining where the where the course of the Indus changes from northwest to southwest, approx 36N, 75E. This is the region of the western anchor of the Himalayas, the Nanga Parbat in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Although the peak itself is not marked in Joppen's map, to its west lie the Hindu Kush, the parallel ranges running northeast to southwest until 70E. Some sources we looked at said, "below the Hindu Kush" Well, the 70E longitude line is more or less the western extent of the Mauryan empire, jibing I think with what you are saying. Fowler&fowler«Talk»12:13, 23 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Though this is not entirely relevant to the matter at hand, late this past winter, i.e. Feb 2024, I was flying from HK to Paris, sitting in a right window seat. I fell asleep at first, but when I woke up, I saw a wide but completely dry river bed below. I asked the stewardess, and she said, "We normally fly over southern Iran, but because of the war, the flight's course has changed. Soon the Nanga Parbat appeared, a distant but spectacular peak, rising far above its neighbors, and thereafter the Hindu Kush, beautiful but lower. I took pictures. Later I learned from the news that the dry river bed was the Ravi river's, or Hydraotes of Joppen's map. There were rumors that the Indians had stopped the water in the river by diverting it via a new dam in Indian-administered Kashmir.
I don't know if it is true, but if so, it would be a spectacular example of national arrogance—i.e., forget the humans, you destroyed a riverine ecosystem, that had survived millennia of South Asian history, not least of which was Alexander or before him the type site of the Indus Valley Civilisation. The Indians claimed they had the water rights, ... but even so, (as Isa's famous haiku written at the death of his toddler son, said.) Fowler&fowler«Talk»13:07, 23 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 9 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion
And here are two videos from late February 2024 from our flight (from Hong Kong to Paris) diverted because of the Middle East war, and instead flying due NW in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The first is of the Indus River and way behind it, towering above the cloud layer, Nanga Parbat, the western anchor of the Himalayas. The plane from my iphone data seemed to have been above the historic village of Sawal Dher, which is a 2-hour drive due NW from the Maurya stronghold of Taxila. The second is of the eastern Hindu Kush mountain range taken from approximately above the Lowari Pass, connecting Chitral and Upper Dir District in the border area of Pakistan with Afghanistan.
Eastern Hindu Kush range from approximately above Lowari Pass. As the plane was flying due NW, you can see that the Hindu Kush run NE to SW, as in Joppen's map. It was through passes in the Hindu Kush that the Indo-Aryans, their horses, and Vedic Sanskrit arrived in South Asia ca. 1500–1200 BCE. I'll eventually add the videos to the appropriate WP galleries. Unfortunately, when we were flying above the dried up Ravi river (see section above) I was only half awake and didn't think of taking out my phone, but that sight is seared in memory. Fowler&fowler«Talk»00:01, 24 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 7 days ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Hi Fowler. You reverted my edit in Indus river. The source I provided is a Hindi Shabdsagar dictionary entry for “Sindh”, with Indus river as one of the meanings. It seems you misinterpreted the entry as “Sindhu”. Foreverknowledge (talk) 19:24, 25 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
But Sindh is not a meaning in any of the languages that are relevant to the river. Indus does not flow through India for India's official language (Hindi) to apply. It flows through China, Kashmir (a disputed territory in Wikipedia's articles) and Pakistan. The Urdu name Darya-e-Sindh is already acknowledged as are the Tibetan and Sanskrit names ("Sindhu"). Fowler&fowler«Talk»20:37, 25 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 5 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Sorry about that—I get defensive when I shouldn't, naturally. The images are more than fine, and I realized that the longer I looked at it. Remsense ‥ 论13:29, 28 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
No worries. I do too, and after calming down wonder "What came over me." You on the other hand did it with grace.
I've been meaning to revise the article, but the sources have grown exponentially since 2007; they especially did during COVID-19 when many people, who were all sitting at home, had nothing else to do. Fowler&fowler«Talk»13:55, 28 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 4 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Afganistan
Where exactly (or likely) at the Hindu kush did the Indo-Aryans enter India? Did they follow the Balkh-river upstream, through what is now Bamiyan, Charikar, Jalalabad, Kabul, and then the Khyber pass? With other words, wasn't the Kabul-Kandahar line the most likely western border of the Maurya empire, effectively guarding the entrance to India? Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk!17:52, 28 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Indian vultures, (Gyps indicus), in a nest on the tower of the Chaturbhuj Temple, Orchha, Madhya Pradesh. The vulture became nearly extinct in India in the 1990s from having ingested the carrion of diclofenac-laced cattle.
The bank myna is indigenous to the Indian subcontinent.
The vulnerable Malabar frog is endemic to the Western Ghats.
The endangered Nilgiri tahr is endemic to the Western Ghats. Shown here is a female in a national park in Kerala.
The brahminy kite (Haliastur indus) hunts for fish and other prey near the coasts and around inland wetlands.
The lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) is the Indian national flower. Hindus and Buddhists regard it as a sacred symbol of enlightenment.
The Indian peafowl (Pavo cristatus) is the Indian national bird. It roosts in moist and dry-deciduous forests, cultivated areas, and village precincts.
Bangles on display in Bangalore India
A Sadhu and a picture of Siva in Kayasth Tola, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh in Northern India
The pushkarani, or tank, located on the eastern side of Krishna temple in Hampi, Karnataka, the seat of the Vijayanagara Empire
Large Gautama Buddha statue in Buddha Park of Ravangla, Sikkim
A Jain woman washes the feet of Bahubali Gomateswara at Shravanabelagola, Karnataka. The Bahubali idol is 18 metres (58 ft) high and is carved out of a single rock on top of a hill.
A sixteenth century rendering of a scene from the Ramayana, an ancient Sanskrit epic.
The Agasthiyamalai range, constituting the southern end of the Western Ghats, as seen from the rainshadow region of the southwest monsoon in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu.
A beach off the Arabian Sea in Puvar, Kerala. The Arabian Sea is the northwestern region of the Indian Ocean, bounded by the Arabian and Indian peninsulas.
Flowing through its rocky terrain near Hampi is the Tungabhadra river, the major right bank tributary of the Krishna river, a peninsular river, which empties into the Bay of Bengal. The coracles, made of wicker, are traditionally covered with hide, their circular shape preventing them from overturning in rivers with rocky outcrops.
The recycling industry in India, a Varanasi paper bag seller
An example of the Chinese fishing nets of Cochin. Fisheries in India is a major industry in its coastal states, employing over 14 million people. The annual catch doubled between 1990 and 2010.
A tea garden in Sikkim. India, the world's second largest-producer of tea, is a nation of one billion tea drinkers, who consume 70% of India's tea output.
A daily wage worker in a salt field. The average minimum wage of daily labourers is around Rs.100 per day
A bharatnatyam concert in 2014
A Bondo woman walks to a weekly market in Chhattisgarh.
A woman in Bundi, Rajasthan
An ascetic in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
The tomb of Itmad Ud Daulah, Agra,
A Hindu bride
The interior of San Thome Basilica, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Christianity is believed to have been introduced to India by the late 2nd century by Syriac-speaking Christians.
A farmer in Rajasthan milks his cow. Milk is India's largest crop by economic value. Worldwide, as of 2011, India had the largest herds of buffalo and cattle, and was the largest producer of milk.
Indian agriculture dates from the period 7,000–6,000 BCE, employs two thirds of the national workforce, and is second in farm output worldwide. Above, a farmer works an ox-drawn plow in Kadmati, West Bengal.
Schoolchildren in Chambal, Madhya Pradesh eating a mid-day meal. The Mid-Day Meal Scheme attempts to lower rates of childhood malnutrition in India.
Cricket is the most popular game among India's masses. Shown here is an instance of street cricket.
Asfi Masjid at the Bara Imambara complex, Lukcnow, India
Chhota Imambara, Lucknow, India
Taj Mahal mosque, Agra, India
Bangalore panorama
Red Weaver ant, Oecophylla smaragdina in Bangalore, India
Female Telamonia dimidiata in the Lalbagh Botanical gardens, Bangalore, India
Mysore Palace in the morning
Indian Olympic athlete, Irfan Kolothum Thodi
Grammodes geometrica, Bangalore, India
Al-Ameen College of Pharmacy, Bangalore, India
Kumar Anish, Indian yoga specialist
Bara Imambara, Lucknow, India
Indian palm squirrel, Bangalore, India
Karnataka High Court, Bangalore
Battered religious figures stand watch on a hill above a tattered valley. Nagasaki, Japan. September 24, 1945
17th century Painting on cloth of of Buddha Shakyamuni as Lord of the Munis with Bodhisatvas in background.
The Gathering of Four Buddhas. 1562 CE, National Museum of Art, Korea.
Two women walk past the huge cavity where one of the ancient Buddhas of Bamiyan used to stand, June 17, 2012. The monumental statues were built in A.D. 507 and 554
Monk walks in the morning after the rain in front of the Temple of the Emerald Buddha (Wat Phra Kaew), part of the Grand Palace, Bangkok, Thailand.
Buddha Amitabha in His Pure Land of Suvakti, Central Tibet. 18th century; Ground mineral pigment on cotton
English: Shakyamuni Buddha with Avadana Legend Scenes. Tibet. Date 19th century
Chiang Mai, Thailand: Buddhist Manuscript Library and Museum
