Didda, princess of Lohara, is beautiful, intelligent--and lame. Despised by her father and bullied by his heir, Didda's childhood is miserable and her future, bleak. When she is married off to the dissolute ruler of Kashmira, she must learn to hold her own in a court ridden with factions and conspiracies. But Didda is no ordinary queen. Ruthless and ambitious, she wants to rewrite history. Will she succeed? Queen of Ice is a compulsive read that brings alive the turbulent history of tenth-...

The Kaveri is eternal; it will never let us down—and we Cholas live by this adage.’Kundavai is the daughter of the mighty Sundara Chola. She glories in the history of her dynasty and their victories in their perpetual battles for supremacy against the Cheras and Pandyas, and tries to understand the nature of power. She also constantly challenges herself—in ways discouraged by her mother, who wants her to embrace traditional feminine pursuits.When an assassi...

The true story of the fearsome Rani of Jhansi, the Indian Queen who took on the East India Trading Company in the Indian Uprising of 1857Queen Lakshmibai of Jhansi was an unconventional queen. She could read and write; she rode a horse and wielded a sword; she trained other women to ride and fight alongside her. When the East India Trading Company, who ruled India in the 19th century, demanded that she hand over control of Jhansi, she refused.And when an upr...

From c. 324 BCE to c. 185 BCE, the Mauryas controlled almost the entire Indian subcontinent with efficiency and administrative finesse. Beginning with the origins of Magadha in the sixth century BCE, this definitive book on the Mauryas captures the drama, the colourful betrayals and the intrigues of the Mauryan dynasty in Magadha, starting with its enigmatic founder, Chandragupta Maurya, and his even more enigmatic mentor, Chanakya/ Kautilya, who helped him to get the thr...

Tanjore, 1942 There are few excitements in Thambi's quiet life. There is the new hotel, disapproved of by elders, which lures him with the aroma of sambar with onions. There are visits to the library to read the newspaper, and once in a while, a new movie at the Rajaram Electric Theatre. More disagreeably, there are fortnightly visits from his uncle to lay down the law. When Gandhiji announces the Quit India movement, Tanjore is torn apart by protests. The train station-the lifeline of the...

This book attempts to reintegrate women into the socio-political milieu of early medieval Orissa. Its sources are inscriptions, mostly Sanskrit, that date from the seventh century to the end of the reign of the Imperial Ganga ruler, Anantavarman Codagangadeva (CE 1078-1147). The evidence indicates that royal and non-royal women had varying but undeniably important roles to play in the socio-political fabric of this prominent regional entity. The Bhauma-Kara dynasty (c. mid-eighth/ninth-lat...

This book tells the stories of ten Indian monarchs who find, at best, passing mention in the history textbooks we read, though their lives were exciting and their achievements considerable: Ajatashatru | Bindusara | Rudradaman | Pulakeshin II | Jayapida | Didda | Ramapala | Abbakka | Chand Bibi | Ahilyabai Holkar Historian and award-winning novelist, Devika Rangachari writes absorbing tales of the men and women who shaped lives and kingdoms in their times.

Antagonistic Tolerance examines patterns of coexistence and conflict amongst members of different religious communities, using multidisciplinary research to analyze groups who have peacefully intermingled for generations, and who may have developed aspects of syncretism in their religious practices, and yet have turned violently on each other. Such communities define themselves as separate peoples, with different and often competing interests, yet their interaction is usually peac...

In the third century BCE, Ashoka ruled an empire encompassing much of modern-day India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. During his reign, Buddhism proliferated across the South Asian subcontinent, and future generations of Asians came to see him as the ideal Buddhist king. Disentangling the threads of Ashoka’s life from the knot of legend that surrounds it, Nayanjot Lahiri presents a vivid biography of this extraordinary Indian emperor and deepens our understanding of a legacy that ...

When Rajaraja Chola ascended the throne, the land of Tamils entered upon centuries of grandeur. He left behind a stupendous legacy, which has not lost its sheen even after a thousand years. During his regime, we see powerful productive forces at work, newly liberated by the advances made in manufacturing and trade.Through interesting facts and riveting analyses, the reader can vividly experience the tumultuous developments of this perioud. It bring to life the social, political and...

India: The Ancient Past provides a clear and systematic introduction to the cultural, political, economic, social and geographical history of ancient India from the time of the pre-Harappan culture nine thousand years ago up until the beginning of the second millennium of the Common Era. The book engages with methodological and controversial issues by examining key themes such as the Indus-Sarasvati civilization, the Aryan controversy, the development of Vedic and heterodox religi...

Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru helped create the myth of a nonviolent ancient India while building a modern independence movement on the principle of nonviolence (ahimsa). But this myth obscures a troubled and complex heritage: a long struggle to reconcile the ethics of nonviolence with the need to use violence to rule. Upinder Singh documents the dynamic tension between violence and nonviolence in ancient Indian political thought and practice over twelve hundred years.