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Kalinga War
The Kalinga war (ended )Le Huu Phuoc, Buddhist Architecture, Grafikol 2009, p.30 was fought in ancient India between the Mauryan Empire under Ashoka the Great and Kalinga, an independent feudal kingdom located on the east coast, in the present-day state of Odisha and northern parts of Andhra Pradesh. It is presumed that the battle was fought on Dhauli hills in Dhauli which is situated on the banks of Daya River. The Kalinga War was one of the largest and deadliest battles in Indian history. This is the only major war Ashoka fought after his accession to the throne, and marked the close of the empire-building and military conquests of ancient India that began with the Mauryan Emperor Chandragupta Maurya. The war cost nearly 250,000 lives. Background According to political scientist Sudama Misra, the Kalinga janapada originally comprised the area covered by the Puri and Ganjam districts. The reasons for invading Kalinga were to bring peace and for power. Kalinga was a pro ...
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Mauryan Empire
The Maurya Empire was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in South Asia with its power base in Magadha. Founded by Chandragupta Maurya around c. 320 BCE, it existed in loose-knit fashion until 185 BCE. The primary sources for the written records of the Mauryan times are partial records of the lost history of Megasthenes in Roman texts of several centuries later; the Edicts of Ashoka, which were first read in the modern era by James Prinsep after he had deciphered the Brahmi and Kharoshthi scripts in 1838; and the ''Arthashastra'', a work first discovered in the early 20th century,: "... another source that enjoyed high standing as a description of the early Mauryan state was the Arthashastra, a treatise on power discovered in the early twentieth century." and previously attributed to Chanakya, but now thought to be composed by multiple authors in the first centuries of the common era. Archaeologically, the period of Mauryan rule in South Asia falls in ...
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Chandragupta Maurya
Chandragupta Maurya (Sanskrit: [Help:IPA/Sanskrit, t̪͡ɕɐn̪d̪ɾɐgupt̪ɐ mɐʊɾjɐ]) (reigned 320 BCE – c. 298 BCE) was the founder and the first emperor of the Maurya Empire, based in Magadha (present-day Bihar) in the Indian subcontinent. His rise to power began in the period of unrest and local warfare that arose after Alexander the Great's Indian campaign of Alexander the Great, Indian campaign and early death in 323 BCE, although the exact chronology and sequence of events remains subject to debate among historians. He started a war against the unpopular Nanda dynasty in Magadha on the Ganges, Ganges Valley, defeated them and established his own dynasty. In addition, he raised an army to resist the Greeks, defeated them, and took control of the eastern Indus Valley. His conquest of Magadha is generally dated to ca. 322–319 BCE, and his expansion to Punjab subsequently at ca. 317–312 BCE, but some scholars have speculated that he might have initially con ...
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Nanda Empire
The Nanda Empire was a vast empire that governed in Magadha and Gangetic plains with an enormous geographical reach in 4th-century BCE northeastern India, with some accounts suggesting existence as far back as the 5th century BCE. The Nandas built on the successes of their Haryanka and Shaishunaga predecessors and instituted a more centralised administration. Ancient sources credit them with amassing great wealth, which was probably a result of the introduction of a new currency and taxation system. Ancient texts also suggest that the Nandas were unpopular among their subjects because of their low-status birth, excessive taxation, and general misconduct. The last Nanda king Dhana Nanda was overthrown by Chandragupta Maurya, founder of the Maurya Empire. Modern historians generally identify the ruler of the Gangaridai and the Prasii mentioned in ancient Greco-Roman accounts as a Nanda king. While describing Alexander the Great's invasion of Punjab (327–325 BCE), Greco-Ro ...
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Ramesh Prasad Mohapatra
Ramesh Prasad Mohapatra (1 October 1939 – 14 January 1989) was an Indian archaeologist and scholar on Odia Studies. He served as curator for archaeology at the Odisha State Museum from 1963 to 1989 and made significant contributions to historical research, especially in the fields of archaeology, art history, religion, and other aspects of Odia cultural history. Early life and education Mohapatra was born in an orthodox Brahmin family with connections to the royal family of Dhenkanal (princely state), Dhenkanal, something that greatly helped him in his later work on ''Military History of Odisha''.Das H. C., ''Tribute to Dr. R. P. Mohapatra'' in ''Tribute to Dr. Ramesh Prasad Mohapatra'', 1989, Bhubaneswar He was the eldest son of Sitanath Paramguru, then the Zamindar of the village, and Moti Devi and married to Kusum Mohapatra. Mohapatra received his master's degree in history from Ravenshaw College in Cuttack, India and obtained a diploma from the Delhi School of Archaeology ...
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Brahmanism
The historical Vedic religion, also called Vedism or Brahmanism, and sometimes ancient Hinduism or Vedic Hinduism, constituted the religious ideas and practices prevalent amongst some of the Indo-Aryan peoples of the northwest Indian subcontinent (Punjab and the western Ganges plain) during the Vedic period ( 1500–500 BCE). These ideas and practices are found in the Vedic texts, and some Vedic rituals are still practised today. The Vedic religion is one of the major traditions which shaped modern Hinduism, though present-day Hinduism is significantly different from the historical Vedic religion. The Vedic religion has roots in the Indo-Iranian culture and religion of the Sintashta ( 2200–1750 BCE) and Andronovo ( 2000–1150 BCE) cultures of Eurasian Steppe. This Indo-Iranian religion borrowed "distinctive religious beliefs and practices" from the non-Indo-Aryan Bactria–Margiana culture (BMAC; 2250–1700 BCE) of south of Central Asia, when pastoral Indo-Aryan tribe ...
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Jainism
Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religions, Indian religion whose three main pillars are nonviolence (), asceticism (), and a rejection of all simplistic and one-sided views of truth and reality (). Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four , supreme preachers of ''dharma''. The first in the current time cycle is Rishabhadeva, who tradition holds lived millions of years ago; the 23rd is Parshvanatha, traditionally dated to the 9th century Common Era, BCE; and the 24th is Mahāvīra, Mahavira, who lived . Jainism is considered an eternal ''dharma'' with the guiding every time cycle of the Jain cosmology, cosmology. Central to understanding Jain philosophy is the concept of ''bhedavijñāna'', or the clear distinction in the nature of the soul and non-soul entities. This principle underscores the innate purity and potential for liberation within every Jīva (Jainism), soul, distinct from the physical and menta ...
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Buddhism
Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or 5th century Before the Common Era, BCE. It is the Major religious groups, world's fourth-largest religion, with about 500 million followers, known as Buddhists, who comprise four percent of the global population. It arose in the eastern Gangetic plain as a movement in the 5th century BCE, and gradually spread throughout much of Asia. Buddhism has subsequently played a major role in Asian culture and spirituality, eventually spreading to Western world, the West in the 20th century. According to tradition, the Buddha instructed his followers in a path of bhavana, development which leads to Enlightenment in Buddhism, awakening and moksha, full liberation from ''Duḥkha, dukkha'' (). He regarded this path as a Middle Way between extremes su ...
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Śramaṇa
A ''śramaṇa''; ; ; ; ) is a person "who labours, toils, or exerts themselves for some higher or religious purpose" or "seeker, or ascetic, one who performs acts of austerity".Monier Monier-Williams, श्रमण śramaṇa, Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, p. 1096 The śramaṇa tradition includes primarily Jainism, Buddhism, and others such as the Ājīvika. The śramaṇa religions became popular in the circles of mendicants from greater Magadha that led to the development of spiritual practices, as well as the popular concepts in all major Indian religions such as ''saṃsāra'' (the cycle of birth and death) and ''moksha'' (liberation from that cycle).Flood, Gavin. Olivelle, Patrick. 2003. ''The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism.'' Malden: Blackwell. pp. 273–274. The Śramaṇic traditions have a diverse range of beliefs, ranging from accepting or denying the concept of Soul, fatalism to free will, idealization of extreme asceticism to that of f ...
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Adivasi
The Adivasi (also transliterated as Adibasi) are heterogeneous tribal groups across the Indian subcontinent. The term is a recent invention from the 20th century and is now widely used as a self-designation by groups classified as Scheduled Tribes by the Indian government. They are officially recognized as " Scheduled Tribes" in India and as " Ethnic Minorities" in Bangladesh. They comprise 8.6% of India's population and 1.1% of Bangladesh's; or 104.2 million in India, according to the 2011 census, and 2 million in Bangladesh according to the 2010 estimate. Claiming to be among the original inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent, many present-day Adivasi communities formed during the flourishing period of the Indus Valley Civilization or after the decline of the IVC, harboring various degrees of ancestry from ancient Dravidians, Indus Valley Civilization, Indo-Aryan, Austroasiatic and Tibeto-Burman language speakers. Adivasi studies is a new scholarly field, ...
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Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, which is part of Oceania. Southeast Asia is bordered to the north by East Asia, to the west by South Asia and the Bay of Bengal, to the east by Oceania and the Pacific Ocean, and to the south by Australia (continent), Australia and the Indian Ocean. Apart from the British Indian Ocean Territory and two out of Atolls of the Maldives, 26 atolls of the Maldives in South Asia, Maritime Southeast Asia is the only other subregion of Asia that lies partly within the Southern Hemisphere. Mainland Southeast Asia is entirely in the Northern Hemisphere. Timor-Leste and the southern portion of Indonesia are the parts of Southeast Asia that lie south of the equator. The region lies near the intersection of Plate tectonics, ...
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Utkala Kingdom
Utkala kingdom was located in the northern and eastern portion of the modern-day Indian state of Odisha. This kingdom was mentioned in the epic Mahabharata, with the names ''Utkala'', ''Utpala'', and ''Okkal''. It is mentioned in India's national anthem, Jana Gana Mana. Early Sanskrit Literature The early Sanskrit medieval literature says "उत्कृष्ट कलायाः देशः यः सः उत्कलः" (), meaning the land having an "excellent opulence of artists". The Puranic division of ''Utkala desa'' was bounded on the north by the river Kapisa, on the south by the river Mahanadi, on the east by the Bay of Bengal and to the west by Mekala hills. Mahabharata The Dasarnas, the Mekalas (a kingdom to the west of Utkala) and the Utkalas were mentioned as kingdoms of Bharata Varsha (Ancient India) (6:9). Utkalas were mentioned as taking part in the Kurukshetra War siding with the Kauravas. Many Mekalas, Utkalas, Kalingas, Nishadas, and Tamralip ...
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