A Journey To Discover Life

More often than not, the private lives of kings and the existence of their queens remain in the words of bards rather than those of chroniclers. Dhruvasvamini is no different, even after being the queen of the golden age of the Indian Subcontinent. She appears in the Basarh Clay Seal as the mother of Govinda Gupta (attributed as a sibling of Kumara Gupta I) and the queen wife of Chandra Gupta II or Vikramaditya. Except for one mention of Dhruva Devi, as she is popularly known, she remains a mysterious character in the Gupta lineage, with a side mention in the dynasty’s history. Visakhadatta, a famous poet and playwright, who later wrote DeviChandraGuptam, a play capturing the life of Chandra Gupta II, portrayed Dhruva Devi as one of the protagonists of his story. Although some scholars attribute Visakhadatta to being under the patronage of Chandra Gupta II himself when he wrote this story, many historians debate the literary work as a work of historical fiction written much after his t...

The Indian Subcontinent is a diverse mix of cultures, religions and traditions that make up its value system. The moment we discuss the early Indian Subcontinent and its religions, long before Buddhism or Jainism came into existence or the Abrahamic religions were introduced on the western coasts by travellers and traders, long before any invasion proved any sign of forced conversion, a layman’s idea of the Indian Subcontinent is that of a single unified culture. Religion in Ancient India: Historically speaking, that is far from the truth. The Indian Subcontinent, since evidence of early civilisation has been found in its river banks, like that in Bhirrana or Mehrgarh, dating back to around 6000 BCE, has never had one unifying belief through its geographic boundaries. The terms Hindu, Hindustan and many others come originally from the primary sources of the Ancient West Asian civilisation. But our history starts much earlier than that. And where there is society and civilisation, there...

  This is a collaboration post with " Kathaavali " blogger, Shomik, who gave his much-needed insight and expertise, as well as his extensive research on the topic of ancient India and introduced me to this forgotten queen who deserved a blog on her.  The Discovery: Around the 1970s, excavations were underway at Ramtek Hill in Maharashtra under Dr A.P. Jamkhedkar, the Director of the Archaeological Survey of India. The idea was to further study the Maratha fort at Ramtek and their lineage owing to the Ram Temple constructed by Raghuji Bhonsle, the ruler of Nagpur in the 18th century. As the excavation progressed, a temple was unearthed. It was soon discovered that the temple was not from the Maratha times after all. In fact, this Vaishnava temple dates back to the 5th century CE and soon shed light on one of the most important Queens of ancient India, forgotten like many others in the tide of time.  The Sanskrit inscription on the temple wall at Ramtek Kevala, although bad...