Epic historical documentary on the Vijayanagara Empire

[Muloghonto]

9 hours ago, Lone Wolf said:

Tactically yes Indians struggled.  Rajputs were extremely backward in dealing with Turks. Once they managed to get past North...  Bhaktiyar especially faced no resistance whatsoever in Bihar and Bengal with his tiny contingent and massacred with impunity.  Until he encountered Ahoms of Assam whom he admired in his memoirs.  Only places which had stronger forts survived his onslaught.

 

Only exception among Indian Muslim rulers was Ala Uddin when it comes to invaders.. he actually maintained a huge standing army.  And successfully repelled Mongol invasions.  And later on used it against native Indian kingdoms.  Perhaps was most imperialist monarch since Bindusara.

 

Rest of them always struggled. Timur absolutely wrecked them, then Babur with his cannons.

 

Shahjahan emptied royal treasury on his failed attempts in invading Safavids of Iran for some useless stretch of land in Kandahar.

 

Bihar and Bengal werent exactly tranquil peaceful lands of plenty when Bhaktiyar arrived.

The last 50 years of Pal empire and the first 50 years of Sen empire were extreme periods of anarchy in Bihar-Bengal, with as many as 4 kingdoms emerging and duking it out for supremacy, with even a cadet branch of Pals ( kamboj pals) emerging to fight it out game of thrones war of 5 kings style.

When Bhaktiyar arrived, this region had been tranquil for less than 20 years after this period of extreme anarchy, which is also why the Bengal forces were so weak. 

 

Its almost identical timing with how the muslims beat the Sassanid Persian empire : they showed up less than 5 years after the Sassanids and Rome fought the mother of all wars, where it saw BOTH empires completely devastated and each others capitals seiged and richest provinces torched, over a 20 year span.

Khalid Ibn Walid was a great general but he also had it the easiest mode for a general once he started fighting the romans and persians : we do not have persian records, but we DO have for Roman ones for battle of yarmouk- Roman infantry was mostly conscript boys under age of 20. yes, they numbered 80,000+

And yes, Khalid's army was only 25,000 arabs.
But this isnt pointing a gun and pulling a trigger and holding your courage. This is 20 year veteran sword-saint vs 18 year old kid who's picked up a sword 1 year ago max.Why ? coz the roman & persian sword saints are all dead - they killed each other over a MOTHER OF ALL WARS (thats the Roman name for the Roman-Sassanian war of 600-625 CE btw, not my bombast), so now when Khalid showed up, its the few remaining nobles and grizzled vets leading a charge of boys.

 

Same is true for Persians in this period and we can tell there is EXTREME tumult in Persian society because at the eve of Arab invasion is the first time we see a woman shahanshan in Persia and that too, 2 or 3 women over a 3-4 year period.

 

In Bengal-Bihar, Bhaktiyar faced the same ease of conquest.

Plus another thing about Bihar-Bengal is, as the Pratiharas, Marathas, Rashtrakutas, Cholas, etc have shown throughout history, its actually a very easy place to raid and run away, because this is the biggest delta region on the planet and bengal delta is no joke - every rivulet arm is massive of maa ganga and getting from Jessore to Bordhoman involves at least 4 major river crossings.
So in pre-modern times, bengal is toast in terms of raiding, because the entire Mallabhum-Rarhbhum and Magadh itself is open to raiding, because by the time king of Bengal/Bihar calls his rajas and amatyas and they show up with their armies, its been 30 days coz they had to cross 5 rivers to get to their king.
And there is no way to solve this, because back then we didnt have concrete bridges. All major river crossings were boat crossings. Even if you showed up to the best port town on paira river ( delta arm of maa ganga) and its your own city, it will STILL take you a couple of days to ferry your army of 10,000 men over so you can keep marching to your Maharaj's war call.

Meanwhile, major powers based in UP, Madhya Pradesh, Deccan, etc. didnt face this mobility handicap - they didnt need 30 days and 5 river crossing to show up to their maharaja's summons in the first place. UP also has a ton of rivers, but UP has march-advantage due to geography of being foothills of himalayas- you dont need boats, you just march till you get to hardiwar and walk cross maa ganga and maa yamuna at its foothills. Thats crossing entire river in 3-4 hours max for your entire army itself, not sit around for days as 50 boats furiously ferry your men across a delta river arm.

 

This is why Bengal/Bihar have either been a 'go big or go home, be a YUGE empire or be someone else's bitch, no stable prosperous medium sized kingdoms'  in Bengal-Bihar history.
Because Bengal & Bihar itself are not protectable at its borders, due to this riverine logistics problem. All the stable, medium sized kingdoms you see in Indian history, are all in the south/western India region, because they happen to have more easier defensible frontiers & deployment logistics than Bengal.
 

Edited April 18 by Muloghonto

[Muloghonto]

8 hours ago, Lone Wolf said:

Tactically yes Indians struggled.  Rajputs were extremely backward in dealing with Turks. Once they managed to get past North...  Bhaktiyar especially faced no resistance whatsoever in Bihar and Bengal with his tiny contingent and massacred with impunity.  Until he encountered Ahoms of Assam whom he admired in his memoirs.  Only places which had stronger forts survived his onslaught.

 

Only exception among Indian Muslim rulers was Ala Uddin when it comes to invaders.. he actually maintained a huge standing army.  And successfully repelled Mongol invasions.  And later on used it against native Indian kingdoms.  Perhaps was most imperialist monarch since Bindusara.

 

Rest of them always struggled. Timur absolutely wrecked them, then Babur with his cannons.

 

Shahjahan emptied royal treasury on his failed attempts in invading Safavids of Iran for some useless stretch of land in Kandahar.

 

Rajputs for some reason were extreme duffers in strategy AND tactics of war. Which is really strange, because the immediate ancestors OF the rajputs - Gurjar pratiharas- were NOT duffers in tactics or strategy and fully knew how to defeat superior armies, which the Rashtrakutas mostly were to the Gurjars ( Gurjas got the short end of the stick in their wars vs the Rashtrakut, but they also won several times, so it was by no means a bitchslap on them completely). Or the Arab army of Mohammed Bin Qasim's successor Junaid - who came with exact same army and got crushed by the Gurjars.

 

Look closely at Indian history and what do you see about some of the early historical invasions ? Indians beat Imperial Arab Caliphate. Indians beat the huns. These forces were both CRUSHED eventually in India, by Indians and destroyed forever as a threat. But WHERE and HOW ?

The answer is, interestingly, repeatedly ( 3-4 times for Arabs and twice for Huns in catastrophic fashion)  in Malwa. Somewhere in Malwa.battle of sondani ? Malwa. Battle of ujjaini ? malwa.
Why Malwa ??

Because remember - INDIA IS CRAP IN HORSES AND ALL THESE FOREIGNERS HAVE HORSES and are mostly cavalry based army. In case of Huns, they were ALL cavalry!!!

How the hell do you chase down and fight a cavalry based army in ganges plain without cavalry of your own ?! Haati can kill a horse easy but it cannot chase down a horse...wtf.

In fact, the key to huns destroying the Gupta empire was 'torch and flee, make the lumbering haathi gupta army march around and run in circles and destroy them when tired' tactics.

So the answer is, lure them into broken hilly terrain of Malwa. The nearest spot in India, once you go south of the himalayas, where there is broken terrain, hills and cliffs and where you can TRAP a cavalry and use hathi to crush the living bejeezus outta them.

And it worked. every single time. But somehow, when the Turkis and mughals started showing up, Rajputs got total stupids. They forgot to fight them in Malwa. THey fought them in open plains of panipat or tarain.

They didnt bring much haathi either. WTF.

 

By the time you have Rana Sanga or Rana Pratap, they get total stupids - they dont even understand that when Turki raider comes into your country with superior arms and far away from home, the answer isnt to charge head-long into them and die and then get ALL your praja killed, the answer is to let them kill a few of your praja as you lead them around your own lands and do nothing and slowly starve them and weaken them and THEN give them battle. Coz its your land. You can run the heck around with 0 cost to you. He has to keep chasing you with 1000km long supply lines to maintain.

Shivaji used pretty much this simple facect to gut the Mughal empire's treasury and then kick over the hulking carcass once the monies dried up. And i dont consider Shivaji a genius level tactician or strategist, he is your good old above average competent in both guy to be fair.

Yet, he stands out as one genius (outside of the Ahoms) in the last 500 years of Indian history for a non turki or non habshi.

Thats a rather sad testament to the late medieval Indian war culture/abilities and its a huge mystery how did it get so bad so quick.

 

Edited April 18 by Muloghonto

[Lone Wolf]

10 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

 

Rajputs for some reason were extreme duffers in strategy AND tactics of war. Which is really strange, because the immediate ancestors OF the rajputs - Gurjar pratiharas- were NOT duffers in tactics or strategy and fully knew how to defeat superior armies, which the Rashtrakutas mostly were to the Gurjars ( Gurjas got the short end of the stick in their wars vs the Rashtrakut, but they also won several times, so it was by no means a bitchslap on them completely). Or the Arab army of Mohammed Bin Qasim's successor Junaid - who came with exact same army and got crushed by the Gurjars.

 

Look closely at Indian history and what do you see about some of the early historical invasions ? Indians beat Imperial Arab Caliphate. Indians beat the huns. These forces were both CRUSHED eventually in India, by Indians and destroyed forever as a threat. But WHERE and HOW ?

The answer is, interestingly, repeatedly ( 3-4 times for Arabs and twice for Huns in catastrophic fashion)  in Malwa. Somewhere in Malwa.battle of sondani ? Malwa. Battle of ujjaini ? malwa.
Why Malwa ??

Because remember - INDIA IS CRAP IN HORSES AND ALL THESE FOREIGNERS HAVE HORSES and are mostly cavalry based army. In case of Huns, they were ALL cavalry!!!

How the hell do you chase down and fight a cavalry based army in ganges plain without cavalry of your own ?! Haati can kill a horse easy but it cannot chase down a horse...wtf.

In fact, the key to huns destroying the Gupta empire was 'torch and flee, make the lumbering haathi gupta army march around and run in circles and destroy them when tired' tactics.

So the answer is, lure them into broken hilly terrain of Malwa. The nearest spot in India, once you go south of the himalayas, where there is broken terrain, hills and cliffs and where you can TRAP a cavalry and use hathi to crush the living bejeezus outta them.

And it worked. every single time. But somehow, when the Turkis and mughals started showing up, Rajputs got total stupids. They forgot to fight them in Malwa. THey fought them in open plains of panipat or tarain.

They didnt bring much haathi either. WTF.

 

By the time you have Rana Sanga or Rana Pratap, they get total stupids - they dont even understand that when Turki raider comes into your country with superior arms and far away from home, the answer isnt to charge head-long into them and die and then get ALL your praja killed, the answer is to let them kill a few of your praja as you lead them around your own lands and do nothing and slowly starve them and weaken them and THEN give them battle. Coz its your land. You can run the heck around with 0 cost to you. He has to keep chasing you with 1000km long supply lines to maintain.

Shivaji used pretty much this simple facect to gut the Mughal empire's treasury and then kick over the hulking carcass once the monies dried up. And i dont consider Shivaji a genius level tactician or strategist, he is your good old above average competent in both guy to be fair.

Yet, he stands out as one genius (outside of the Ahoms) in the last 500 years of Indian history for a non turki or non habshi.

Thats a rather sad testament to the late medieval Indian war culture/abilities and its a huge mystery how did it get so bad so quick.

 

Arabs lost because Indians were ready for them after witnessing fall of Sindh and Multan.  They realised the threat.

 

Fortunately for Indians & unfortunately for Arabs... Gurjara Pratiharas Rashtarakutas and Karakotas of Kashmir were at peak of their powers.  Numbers advantage was utilised at its fullest.  Hindu Confederacy which was unheard of was out there.

 

Karakotas were technologically very advanced.. Lalitaditya of Kashmir had relations with Qing dynasty of China and he employed their battle gear as per Qing records.

Arabs chronicles (Suleiman) called him biggest enemy of Islam in the world.

 

After Tripartite struggle Rashtarakutas and Pratiharas were weakened.. Karakotas disintegrated post Lalitaditya's death in Xinjiang.

Dark era began..

Weak Rajput rulers refused to change with times.  Of course luck deserted them in Key moments.  Battle of Chandwar between Jaichand and Ghori is key example.  Underrated Battle imo.. opened up entire Gangetic plains for Turks.

[Muloghonto]

20 hours ago, BacktoCricaddict said:

War with Kalinga

The Gajapatis of Odisha ruled a vast land comprising parts of Bengal, Andhra, and Odisha. Krishnadevaraya's success at Ummatur provided the necessary impetus to carry his campaign into the coastal Andhra region, which was under the control of the Gajapati king Prataparudra Deva. The Vijayanagara army laid siege to the Udayagiri fort in 1512. The campaign lasted for a year before the Gajapati army disintegrated due to starvation. 

 

Krishnadevaraya offered prayers at Tirupati thereafter, along with his wives Tirumala Devi and Chinnama Devi. The Gajapati army was then met at Kondaveedu. The armies of Vijayanagara, after establishing a siege for a few months, began to retreat due to heavy casualties. Timmarusu discovered a secret entrance to the unguarded eastern gate of the fort and launched a night attack. This culminated with the capture of the fort and the imprisonment of Prince Virabhadra, the son of Prataparudra Deva. Vasireddy Mallikharjuna Nayaka took over as governor of Kondaveedu thereafter.

 

 

Krishnadevaraya planned an invasion of Kalinga, but Prataparudra learned of this plan and formulated his own plan to defeat the former at the fort of Kalinganagar. Timmarusu discovered Prataparudra's plan by bribing a Telugu deserter from the service of Prataparudra. When the Vijayanagara Empire did invade, Prataprudra was driven to Cuttack, the capital of the Gajapati Kingdom. Prataparudra eventually surrendered to the Vijayanagara Empire, and gave his daughter, Princess Jaganmohini, in marriage to Krishnadevaraya. Krishnadevaraya returned all the lands that the Vijayanagara Empire had captured north of the Krishna River; this made the Krishna river the boundary between the Vijayanagara and Gajapati Kingdoms.

 

B2C's questions: 

Why invade? 

How is it different from other invasions and conquests? 

How is it a false equivalency to compare this brutal invasion (I mean, if you were a Kalinga vaasi, wouldn't you think that?)

 

 

 

 

One major cause of Vijayanagar's defeat that is overlooked, is that they also suffered in the end from being a primitive Indian military of medieval period - the Bahamani sultanate were significantly more advanced near the end, employing significantly better war horses + crossbows + chain mail than Vijayanagar army. And while we can forgive sole Hindu power to not have advantage or parity with muslims over horses, there is no excuse for still sticking to the Gupta era armies of longbowmen, light-swordsmen +spearmen + elephant archers to get the job done.

 

Its like Indian military technology stagnated around 300-400 AD period because in terms of material culture, we dont see much evolution in material technology between Gupta Empire and Vijayanagar Empire.
Which IMO is a testament to how powerful ancient India was, given that there STILL was a major Indian military power just over 500 years ago, using 2000 year old Indian war technology.

But it is also a rather sad testament to how the Vijayagar empire didnt/couldnt learn from the ample experience of war technologies and its importance provided by previous 500 years of islamic raids and invasions of India.

 

I guess the moral of the story is, Indian civilization faced the same military catastrophies Rome faced at hands of Huns and Goths and Germanics, except that the Germanics came and married and german-ified the romans instead of wiping them out or converting them to their religions like muslims did with us.

And just like Rome, India was a victim of its success - Roman legionary system was the GOD of the battlefield, just like the Indian haathi-chariot-light infantry-archer system was the GOD of the battlefield -until it wasnt. And when it wasn't, it became victim of its own success and got wiped out completely.

nothing stood in its way, a monkey could win against a foreign genius with this war weapon. Until something did. But by then, the innovation had stagnated to such a degree, that no one could stop the catastrophic fail.

Vijayanagar is that Catastrophic fail at the battlefield. At the end of the day, Aliya Rama Raya fought with an army composition that Chandragupta Vikramaditya or his father Samudragupta would've INSTANTLY recognized and been able to take over at the spot if they time-travelled. If you ressurrected any chalukya or rashtrakut and asked them to take over mid-battle field to the Bahmani army, it'd be like asking Napoleon to time travel to tokugawa japan in middle of a battle and take over for one side without ever seeing a samurai.

And that says a lot, sadly.

 

[Muloghonto]

27 minutes ago, Lone Wolf said:

Arabs lost because Indians were ready for them after witnessing fall of Sindh and Multan.  They realised the threat.

 

Fortunately for Indians & unfortunately for Arabs... Gurjara Pratiharas Rashtarakutas and Karakotas of Kashmir were at peak of their powers.  Numbers advantage was utilised at its fullest.  Hindu Confederacy which was unheard of was out there.

 

Karakotas were technologically very advanced.. Lalitaditya of Kashmir had relations with Qing dynasty of China and he employed their battle gear as per Qing records.

Arabs chronicles (Suleiman) called him biggest enemy of Islam in the world.

 

After Tripartite struggle Rashtarakutas and Pratiharas were weakened.. Karakotas disintegrated post Lalitaditya's death in Xinjiang.

Dark era began..

Weak Rajput rulers refused to change with times.  Of course luck deserted them in Key moments.  Battle of Chandwar between Jaichand and Ghori is key example.  Underrated Battle imo.. opened up entire Gangetic plains for Turks.

Technological advancement of Indian battlefield stopped around 400s-500s CE. the army that fought the Huns in the dying days of Gupta Empire is effectively the same army that fought in battle of talikota : neither had chain mail, both wore quilted mail for the common soldier (the average bahmani soldier had chain mail), they both relied on war elephant archer-javeliners + light swordsmen + spearmen + light/medium cavalary ( ie, no lancers) + longbowmen. No crossbows. No seige weaponry.

its effectively the SAME army. Rashtrakutas held dominance in the tripartite struggle and held overall dominance in india,because as Arab chronicles note, though the Gurjara Pratiharas were master of the horses, they are still Indian horse importers and Rashtrakutas had the best infantry reputation to the arabs.

 

The weakening of the political powers in India is only part of the story. the other part, is stagnation of Indian military sytems in post gupta period. For eg, in post Harsha period, we see a gradual disappearance of knoweldge of the Magadh empire itself, of Arthashastra and ashoka/etc becoming more and more mythified whereas up to harsha period & Faxian's visit, we see Indians are fully aware of these texts and systems of governance and militaries.

But innovation, IMO, in Indian military tech stops and around 200-300 AD, the same way Roman military innovation stopped around 100 BCE, prior to Julius Caesar, when they invented the manipular system of infantry engagement-rotation. Its the same Roman military of 100 BCE, technologically, that fought the Sassanid military 400-500 years later in the dying days of western Roman empire.

Similiary, Indian military system, on the battlefield, once assembled, was GOD of war from 500s BCE onwards till when cannons show up in 1400s CE. Why ? Because haathi beats ghora, any ghora and haathi beats infantry, any infantry. And when you bring 10,000 haathi to war and surround them with competent, if lightly armoured infantry in their tens of thousands, its total good game to your cavalry+infantry based army.

Remember one simple fact the GREEKS record in history themselves : Alexander ran way from Magadh-maharaj in fear. That was the cause of his mutiny. Why ? coz magadh maharaj was coming with 5,000 haathi. Remember, by greek versions THEMSELVES, Alex-babu fought Puru-babu, when Puru-babu had 150-200 war elpehants and fought him for a whole day and couldnt kill puru-babu, had to get puru-babu to surrender. Meaning whole day of fighting 150-200 haathi and still some left alive.

Alex-babu was himself a demi-god of war and therefore no fool - he knew if Puru-babu was unbeaten with 200 haathi(Puru babu was losing harshly to the Greek devta of war, but he was still hanging on, after whole damn day, when Ambhi comes to him with surrender/peace offer), Magadh-naresh will crush him like worm with 5000 haathi. So byebye to India. This isnt some hindu supremacist conspiracy, this is recorded by arrian, appian, ctesias, etc. Ie, greeks who lived in that period or couple of 100 years after Alex-babu.

 

Sometimes a military system is so successful, that aeons go by and it runs itself on auto-pilot, then it meets a new innovation and cannot adapt, due to the rigidity set in the system and being victim of your own success in terms of ability to adapt. That at least, is my explanation.

 

Edited April 18 by Muloghonto

[BacktoCricaddict]

3 hours ago, Muloghonto said:

 

 

One major cause of Vijayanagar's defeat that is overlooked, is that they also suffered in the end from being a primitive Indian military of medieval period - the Bahamani sultanate were significantly more advanced near the end, employing significantly better war horses + crossbows + chain mail than Vijayanagar army. And while we can forgive sole Hindu power to not have advantage or parity with muslims over horses, there is no excuse for still sticking to the Gupta era armies of longbowmen, light-swordsmen +spearmen + elephant archers to get the job done.

 

Its like Indian military technology stagnated around 300-400 AD period because in terms of material culture, we dont see much evolution in material technology between Gupta Empire and Vijayanagar Empire.
Which IMO is a testament to how powerful ancient India was, given that there STILL was a major Indian military power just over 500 years ago, using 2000 year old Indian war technology.

But it is also a rather sad testament to how the Vijayagar empire didnt/couldnt learn from the ample experience of war technologies and its importance provided by previous 500 years of islamic raids and invasions of India.

 

I guess the moral of the story is, Indian civilization faced the same military catastrophies Rome faced at hands of Huns and Goths and Germanics, except that the Germanics came and married and german-ified the romans instead of wiping them out or converting them to their religions like muslims did with us.

And just like Rome, India was a victim of its success - Roman legionary system was the GOD of the battlefield, just like the Indian haathi-chariot-light infantry-archer system was the GOD of the battlefield -until it wasnt. And when it wasn't, it became victim of its own success and got wiped out completely.

nothing stood in its way, a monkey could win against a foreign genius with this war weapon. Until something did. But by then, the innovation had stagnated to such a degree, that no one could stop the catastrophic fail.

Vijayanagar is that Catastrophic fail at the battlefield. At the end of the day, Aliya Rama Raya fought with an army composition that Chandragupta Vikramaditya or his father Samudragupta would've INSTANTLY recognized and been able to take over at the spot if they time-travelled. If you ressurrected any chalukya or rashtrakut and asked them to take over mid-battle field to the Bahmani army, it'd be like asking Napoleon to time travel to tokugawa japan in middle of a battle and take over for one side without ever seeing a samurai.

And that says a lot, sadly.

 

 

This is all clearly very fascinating - as is all of history. It almost seems like time and time again, kingdoms that enjoyed long-term peace and prosperity became complacent, did not keep up with modern warfare and got plundered.

 

My problem, really, is with the purpose of conquests and conquerors themselves - regardless of whether or not they imposed their religions and destroyed shrines. Take KDR for instance. By all accounts he had a prosperous and peaceful kingdom that he ruled over. All he had to do was be sure to defend his territories. What was the need to plunder the Gajapati kingdom? To indulge in carnage? To lord over death and destruction while, ironically, pray at Tirupati for blessings? OK, he may not have destroyed religious shrines and landmarks. But he sure did destroy 1000s of lives, which are arguably more precious than any monument. 

 

I feel the same way about the Tamizhs (Chozhas and others) and their plunders of Sri Lanka (Anuradhapura) - 17 times?  Why should we glorify them, while condemning the waves of Islamic invaders?  As @kepler37b suggests, they may have been "less" cruel than the Islamic invaders. But, reading the accounts of the Sri Lankan plunders by Chozhas, the only difference between them and the Islamic invaders in the non-imposition of religion. But, in every other way, it seems quite the same (http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2011/01/invasionsviolence-atrocities-and.html).

 

As for me, I condemn all invaders and their invasions. But I also am not stupid enough to think that they will stop. History is replete with invasions carried out in the name of religion or increasing footprints or kings' egos or whatever. And there is no hope that they will ever stop.

 

Edited April 18 by BacktoCricaddict

[Lone Wolf]

12 hours ago, Muloghonto said:

Plus another thing about Bihar-Bengal is, as the Pratiharas, Marathas, Rashtrakutas, Cholas, etc have shown throughout history, its actually a very easy place to raid and run away, because this is the biggest delta region on the planet and bengal delta is no joke - every rivulet arm is massive of maa ganga and getting from Jessore to Bordhoman involves at least 4 major river crossings.

Yes that's true During the ancient age  Bengal was a vassal of Magadha.  The Classical age saw Bengal's only indigenous dynasty of note, the Palas emerge. However, the Palas spent the majority of their time getting thrashed by Gurjara Pratiharas and Rashtrakutas who were both far more powerful and aggressive than them. The Palas were also raided by the Cholas, who marched all the way from the Southern tip of India defeated the king Mahipala I and looted the Pala capital.

From the Pala king Chola king obtained 'elephants of rare strength, women and treasure

Source: John Keay's India: A history

Shortly after this conquest Samanta Sena a Brahmana commander of the Karnataka region, conquered Bengal with a few soldiers and began ruling there.

 

[BacktoCricaddict]

6 hours ago, Lone Wolf said:

The Palas were also raided by the Cholas, who marched all the way from the Southern tip of India defeated the king Mahipala I and looted the Pala capital.

 

:-(.

[Muloghonto]

17 hours ago, BacktoCricaddict said:

 

This is all clearly very fascinating - as is all of history. It almost seems like time and time again, kingdoms that enjoyed long-term peace and prosperity became complacent, did not keep up with modern warfare and got plundered.

 

My problem, really, is with the purpose of conquests and conquerors themselves - regardless of whether or not they imposed their religions and destroyed shrines. Take KDR for instance. By all accounts he had a prosperous and peaceful kingdom that he ruled over. All he had to do was be sure to defend his territories. What was the need to plunder the Gajapati kingdom? To indulge in carnage? To lord over death and destruction while, ironically, pray at Tirupati for blessings? OK, he may not have destroyed religious shrines and landmarks. But he sure did destroy 1000s of lives, which are arguably more precious than any monument. 

 

I feel the same way about the Tamizhs (Chozhas and others) and their plunders of Sri Lanka (Anuradhapura) - 17 times?  Why should we glorify them, while condemning the waves of Islamic invaders?  As @kepler37b suggests, they may have been "less" cruel than the Islamic invaders. But, reading the accounts of the Sri Lankan plunders by Chozhas, the only difference between them and the Islamic invaders in the non-imposition of religion. But, in every other way, it seems quite the same (http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2011/01/invasionsviolence-atrocities-and.html).

 

As for me, I condemn all invaders and their invasions. But I also am not stupid enough to think that they will stop. History is replete with invasions carried out in the name of religion or increasing footprints or kings' egos or whatever. And there is no hope that they will ever stop.

 

 

I don't condemn all invasions. Because nations are built through invasions. China is China today coz it invaded lands till it met a physical boundary. Same with India. 

 

Not to mention, invasions and fighting for stuff is basic human nature. And you cannot suppress or reform basic human nature. All u can do, is shape it so it yeilds a more benevolent Roop like Hindu or Buddhist kings or a more savage Roop like Islamic and christian genocide-mongers. 

 

[Muloghonto]

9 hours ago, Lone Wolf said:

Yes that's true During the ancient age  Bengal was a vassal of Magadha.  The Classical age saw Bengal's only indigenous dynasty of note, the Palas emerge. However, the Palas spent the majority of their time getting thrashed by Gurjara Pratiharas and Rashtrakutas who were both far more powerful and aggressive than them. The Palas were also raided by the Cholas, who marched all the way from the Southern tip of India defeated the king Mahipala I and looted the Pala capital.

From the Pala king Chola king obtained 'elephants of rare strength, women and treasure

Source: John Keay's India: A history

Shortly after this conquest Samanta Sena a Brahmana commander of the Karnataka region, conquered Bengal with a few soldiers and began ruling there.

 

As I mentioned, it isn't that the pratiharas were more powerful than the pals - pratiharas never invaded Bihar or Bengal aka core pal lands. Rashtrakutas did though and so did the cholas.  

What pratiharas had, was mobility advantage due to delta problem.