Quote:The Wiki page on Lalitaditya claims that his kingdom extended until the borders of Turkey. I explored a bit on this topic and do not find any source which backs this claim. Can anyone throw light on this?

Quote:What Rajeev has not mentioned in the above superb article are a few facts of history.



RC Majumdar in Ancient India describes how the boundaries of Lalitaditya Karkota of Kashmir included Tibet.



Oft forgotten and ignored fact remains the immensely significant contribution of Lalitaditya in checking the Islamic expansion. For more than five decades in mid 700s, Lalitaditya had effective control over all the western passes of Himalayas - all the way from Afghanistan, Northern Iran, Turkey, baltistan, dardistan, other central Asian procinces in west and with tibet in the east.



His control over these routes is what must have effectively stopped the arabic/islamic expansion towards North, and even china. Rajtarangiri pays tributes to him, and describes in detail how the center of power in India shifted with Lalitaditya gaining control over a vast kingdom - from central asia in west and tibet-bhutan-assam in east and most of aryavarta till Vindhya in south.



But for this great warrior of India, who knows, chinese would be a muslim group of countries today. chinese were very weak and disunited at that very time. All Islam needed was physical access to them.



Imagine how Lalitaditya aborted a Chairman Mao-hammad-ze-dong before he was conceived!

---



Centuries later, Mugals (esp Shahajahan), with claims of Mongol bloodline in them, had sent armies towards Tibet and at least conquered the mountains of Leh/Laddakh from Tibetan control.



http://www.india-forum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/1821-india-china-relations-and-developments-2/page__st__140__p__80106&#entry80106

Quote:Countercase: lalitAditya the great kArkoTaka monarch inducted many central Asian tribes into the army for the defence of the land against Moslems after enmasse converting them to the Hindu fold. The Rajput clans known as agnikula have descended from central Asian converts to the Hindu fold and were some of the greatest defenders of the Dharma against the Moslem violence.



http://www.india-forum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/53-pre-modern-warfareindia-and-elsewhere/page__st__40__p__5312&#entry5312

Quote:Yes, as Shri GSub/Kaushal stated Maharaja LalitAditya of the KarkoTaka

dynasty defeated the turushkas and wrested the regions of central

Asian that were under their control (not Turkey for heaven's sake). My

brother and I attempted a fairly detailed analysis based on the

original text of KalhANa's, reconstructing the actual extant of LAs

empire and feel that it was genuinely large and at least larger than

what Stein makes of it. I think the translation of the rAjatarangini

by Shri Pandit, Nehru's relative is a little more accurate one and is

useful in this regard for those not wanting to delve into the

sanskrit original. In any case I will post my condensed

reconstruction of the history of LA once I find it on one of my old

CDROMs.



Briefly (of the top of my head), when he came to power he found

Kashmir drawn into the conflict of the Central Asian circuit. He faced

invasion from the Tibetans expanding into the Zingkiang region under

Khri ngyan tsongpa. He entered into an alliance with the Chinas

against the Tibetans but the Chinese failed to deliver him any aid. So

he single handed demolished the Tibetan army near Ladakh and put and

end to their aspirations of westward expansions. He then smashed a

Darada army in the west-location not exactly known. After this he

conducted a series of campaigns in inner India crushing yashovarmA

king of much of northern India, and treacherously overcame the Kings

of Bengal. He also reduced Orissa and the surrounding territory to

vassalage. Then in a successful alliance with the Chinas he routed the

Arab chief Ma'moun who invaded from the northwest. He inflicted two

independent defeats on the Arabs thereafter and one in alliance with

the shahi king in Gandhara. Finally he said to have defeated the

'Tocharians' in an invasion of centra Asia where he appointed his

agent Shri Mangala who seized Kunduz and established an Indian colony

there. He then was confronted with China- Tuergish turk confedration

which he successfuly defeated, grabbing Turkic and Chinese territory

in Central Asia probably right upto the four Garrisons region (Not

Bejing). This is supported by several Indic names appearing here well

after fall of the Karkotakas. Finally he is said to have been murdered

in an internal power struggle with local feudal lords in Kashmir. In

the Turkic campaign he captured a Turk called Sengun who loyally

served him and even helped him build a temple of Nrisimha.

One unsubstantiated statement in the Kashmirian histories is the claim

that he defeated the Queen of Karnataka! We have very little data to

verify what this actually means (any suggestions are welcome).



_Aravind

PS Shri Sitaram Goel is one of the few who gave LA his due- no doubt

we have a 'Kashmir problem' if so many Indians are unaware of him.



http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianCivilization/message/7954

Quote:Their masters, every one of them, are ruling kings. By their orders and under their control these people come to trade in these provinces. How can it happen thatrulers have no greed for territories? These hat-wearers have full ambition to enterinto these provinces to increase their territories, and to establish their own opinions [religion]. Accordingly at various places they have already succeeded in their ambitious undertakings. Moreover this race of people is obstinate. Where a place has fallen into their hands they will not give it up even at the cost of their lives.



However, while great care was to be taken in allowing them to build something, they should be allowed to carry on their trade, considering the importance of commerce to the prosperity of the kingdom: "If they live inthis way by accepting the above conditions it is well; if not, there is no need of them. It is enough if they occasionally come and go, and do not trouble us; nor need we trouble them."



https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/1887/13850/2/Kruijtzer2009-low+resolution+small+file.pdf

Quote:A final example of the intimate connection of Shivaji’s ideologies

to his practices, or of the nigh impossibility to separate the two, is the

following passage from his qaul granted to VOC ambassador Herbert de

Jager in 1677. In it Shivaji puts his proscription of the slave trade discussed

above in the context of a radical (and ideological) break with the past:



In the days of the Moorish government it was allowed for you to buy male slaves

and female slaves here [the Karnatak], and to transport the same, without anyone

preventing that. But now you may not, as long as I am master of these lands, buy

male or female slaves, nor transport them. And in case you were to do the same,

and would want to bring [slaves] aboard, my men will oppose that and prevent it in

all ways and also not allow that they be brought back in your house; this you must

as such observe and comply with.92



Even if Shivaji’s measure was motivated, as Herbert de Jager suggests, by a

concern about revenues (which would be less if there were fewer

inhabitants) rather than a concern for the welfare of the potential slaves, it

is quite impossible to distinguish in this passage the practical measure from

the patriotic appeal conveyed by it, directed as it is against Muslim rulers

allowing the slave trade and Europeans carrying slaves off to foreign parts,unless one would want to argue that Shivaji was not planning to enforce the

measure despite his assurance that his men would do so “in all ways.”



https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/1887/13850/2/Kruijtzer2009-low+resolution+small+file.pdf

Quote:By the time of Sodhi Vadhbhag Singh there were complete relations between Akali Nihang Khalsa Panth and Dhirmalias. Around the early 1750s, Nasir Ali the military governor of Jullander, burnt the sacred Sikh shrine ‘Tham Sar’. Vadbhag Singh got together with the deposed Moghal governor of Punjab, Adina Beg, to capture and destroy the Afghans of Jullander.



Rattan Singh Bhangu writes how the Sodhi Guru summoned ‘Dal Khalsa’ (combined forces of Budha and Tarna Dals) to assist him take Jullander:



‘Vadbhag Singh writing said:

“I am Guru you are the true Singhs. Come to do deed of the Guru. Come all Khalsa prepared for war The Nawab [Adina Beg] has prepared. He has called upon the mountain people to help him”.’

‘Pracheen Panth Prakash’, Translated by Baba Santa Singh, Vol. 2, Pa. 3440



The Akali Nihangs drinking ‘Sukha’ writes Ratan Singh, took Jullander. Vadbhag Singh demanded complete the massacre and dishonor of Jullander. Adina Beg and his Moghals did not come to the rescue of their co-religionists. In the past, these Afghans had perpetuated atrocities on Adina Beg. The Jullander Afghans had also been indiscriminately kidnapping and raping Sikh and Hindu women. By order of Vadbhag Singh, those Afghans who had perpetuated these crimes had their women taken away by the Khalsa. The women were made to eat pork, and marry the Khalsa by simple ceremony of circumventing a small Sikh prayer book on top of a spear or given over to low caste Sikh Hindus.



Nasir Ali, who had died, writes Rattan Singh, had his grave desecrated and pig’s flesh put in his dead corpse’s mouth. Nasir Ali had beaten Vadbhag Singh to inch of his life and desecrated the Sikh shrines at Kartarpur by slaughtering cows in them and burning them. Sodhi Vadbhag Singh the extractor of this terrible revenge on Jullander died in 1819.



http://www.sarbloh.info/htmls/article_samparda_sodhis2.html

Quote:However, he was regarded with hatred by the Afghans and Muslims of what became the North West Frontier. It was claimed that the four years in which he was Governor of Peshawar were characterised by looting, vandalism and rapine. For decades after his death, Yusufzai women would say Raghe Hari Singh ("Hari Singh is coming") to frighten their children into obedience.[20]



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hari_Singh_Nalwa