Talk:History of India

"Daily life in ancient india" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Daily life in ancient india and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 January 12 § Daily life in ancient india until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 03:06, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Second urbanization

What was the speed of population growth during the second urbanization? --95.24.60.6 (talk) 03:51, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Mauryan Empire map

Recently the Mauryan Empire map included in this article was changed from to . Both maps are labelled as the "Maurya Empire c. 250 BCE" but show significantly different extents; and both have gone numerous revisions over the years so that they are unlikely to bear much relation with the cited sources on their description page. Anyone know offhand which map (if either) is accurate? Pinging @RegentsPark and Fowler&fowler: for sanity check. Abecedare (talk) 12:43, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

The one on the left is the one with support in the modern sources and therefore the correct one; the one on the right is the traditional one. We mention what the map on the left shows in words in the India page, "Politically, by the 3rd century BCE, the kingdom of Magadha had annexed or reduced other states to emerge as the Mauryan Empire. The empire was once thought to have controlled most of the subcontinent except the far south, but its core regions are now thought to have been separated by large autonomous areas," cited to the books of Burton Stein and Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund. The map on the left is also the main map in the Maurya Empire page and was the result of a consensus; someone changed it, probably very recently, and I had to revert it. That map has quite a few sources, including Monica Smith of UCLA whose work addresses this very issue. Also, historian David Ludden, now of NYU, but then of Penn, (and perennially the stepson of Betty White, who said in an interview, "Our son is a historian at Penn, who works on the agricultural history of South India. Go figure. :)) in India and South Asia has addressed this. We have cited Ludden in the sentence, "Early political consolidations gave rise to the loose-knit Maurya and Gupta Empires based in the Ganges Basin." in the lead of India. I have italicized the reference to the map on the left. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:18, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Forgot to ping @Abecedare: in my reply. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:52, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I've copied the maps and aligned them; "left" and "right" were, on my screen, due to length of the lines, different from what I understand F&f to mean. The 'map with the holes' is the modern understanding, right? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:01, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:41, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks F&F! Based on your input, I have undone the recent edit (pinging @Gauhar2806: in case they wish to argue for the change they made).

Interestingly, Avantiputra7 had added a note to "Version 2" of the map in 2017, saying This is the standard "textbook" map of the Maurya Empire. Historians are now arguing that the Maurya Empire did not include large parts of India, which were controlled by autonomous tribes. For such a map, see File:Maurya Empire, c.250 BCE.png. But the "outdated" map is nevertheless used on several articles on wikipedia, which may need a clean-up. Abecedare (talk) 16:29, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

A lot of?

The south Indian mathematician Madhava of Sangamagrama founded the famous Kerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics in the 14th century which produced a lot of great south Indian mathematicians like Parameshvara, Nilakantha Somayaji and Jyeṣṭhadeva.

Why does "a lot of" in this sentence sound so cluncky and redneck to me? 2600:6C44:74F0:80F0:B7F0:A9B2:C1EA:BD65 (talk) 18:28, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

The entire article needs grammatical improvement. How can I propose changes? Ashok (talk) 10:50, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

This would be how I'd rewrite it:

The mathematician Madhava of Sangamagrama founded the famous Kerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics in the 14th century, which produced several great mathematicians such as Parameshvara, Nilakantha Somayaji and Jyeṣṭhadeva. Ashok (talk) 10:53, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Misleading History of Jainism

This page in its current state claims that Jainism "originated" in 600 BCE. This is an incorrect information as there is no documented date for beginning of Jain religion. It is obscure. The 23rd Jain Tirthankar, Parshvanath is a historical figure who lived in 900 BCE. Apart from this, many notable researchers from the archaeological survey of India had opinion about the existence of Jainism in Indus valley era which I can add with proper citations. I would encourage input from other members of Wikipedia community for their suggestions and wait for a couple of weeks to make a consensus based update. Livingstonshr (talk) 15:51, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Content

I’m willing to work with you, but have I not already given a pretty detailed explanation for why this shouldn’t be here on my talk page? Obviously I can’t form all my points in one edit summary(which is supposed to be summary). There was more detail written there.

“Pretty sure I did provide an edit summary. Nonetheless I’ll explain my edits. Two sources are problematic. One(bowman) doesn’t actually refer to the empire as indianized. The other source is raj. All of these sources were used by another user in the past(mydust) whom added it the khalji dynasty and Delhi sultanate pages. (Although a different user added it to the history of India page). But this was undue because there were more authoritative sources that contradicted the claim that the sultanate became “indo-muslim”. Including Satish Chandra. “ Thus, in a highly fragmented society it is hardly possible to speak of an "integrated" Indo-Muslim state. The position of converted India Muslims from the lower classes hardly changed.” pg 268. Here’s the source. [2] Worst of all, the two sources used aren’t even referring to the dynasty that founded the sultanate(Mamluks). Those two sources were talking about the khalji dynasty(which btw, was not indianized at all, per Chandra). So why is it being used for this particular sentence? “ The Delhi Sultanate was founded in 1206 by Central Asian Turks who were Indianized”, the sources aren’t even referring to that dynasty. Based on that alone, this section should be removed because the sources don’t actually back up what’s written in the article. But even if it did, it would be undue. “also the RfC was only for Mughal Empire” Thats not what I meant. If you looked at the RFC, you would see that the issue is that it’s a short synthetic title. Let me show comments made by a couple of administrators and content experts in that page. Scroll down to RegentsPark and Abecedares vote. [3] “short synthetic labels are always fraught and "Indo-Muslim" is especially so. What is the "Indo" part supposed to denote: the geographic location of the empire (for which, as RegentParks indicates, South Asian is preferable) or the "character" or non-colonial nature of the empires as in the Richards quote (in which case, one needs to spell it out as Richards does)? And does "Muslim" refer to the religion of the Mughal emperors, subject or the state? Both the article lede and body can discuss the geography and character of the empire without trying to label it as something that has little to no currency in the relevant literature and is more likely to to mislead than edify the reader.” By abecadare “No reason for inclusion has been given and the references above (I am definitely not impressed by the WP:REFBOMB) are dubious. Take the first two, for example. All they are saying is that the Mughal Empire was in "India". Since that India doesn't exist anymore, our formulation ("in South Asia") captures this perfectly. Indo, or Indian, in the context of the Mughal empire which also spanned modern Pakistan and Bangladesh, just doesn't fit.”(RegentsPark) The Delhi sultanate much like the Mughals, also encompassed India and Pakistan. Which means that the same exact issue also applies to the sultanate. So like RegentsPark mentioned, a term like “indo-muslim” doesn’t fit, especially sense our modern day conception of India didn’t exist back then. It’s a synthetic label and shouldn’t really be used to describe any of these kingdoms.

Thats what I wrote. What exactly was your issue with the removal? As I’ve already mentioned, the two non raj era sources aren’t even referring to the mamluks. They are referring to another dynasty entirely, and that’s just one of the bigger issues. There’s a lot of problems I’ve already been over(it’s undue, one source is raj, one source by bowman doesn’t even use the term indianized, and as a label, indo-muslim shouldn’t be used here).

@Garudam Someguywhosbored (talk) 05:34, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

On a final note, my intention was never to edit war. I only made the second revert because I thought it was a open and shut case because it’s pretty clear the text doesn’t follow the source. But evidently, you still disagreed and I welcomed you reverting me if you had another dispute as I mentioned on the talk page. I didn’t expect you to just simply not respond to any of the points made, claim I was disrupting the page, and than requesting page protection out of nowhere, even though I welcomed a revert and further discussion. I already was discussing about it with you on my talk page.

And I don’t mean to make this seem like I’m attacking you or throwing shade, I was just genuinely a little perplexed. I would love to end this discussion on a good note rather than a negative one. Still, I do believe we need to find a solution to this discussion. Someguywhosbored (talk) 07:42, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

I see, however if you are referring to this falling into Raj then you might me wrong, as the author is an expert and the paper is also sourced from IHC and JSTOR. You should also look at the degree of sources that is Oxford and California which contradicts your undue part. The more reliable the source, the more weight we should give its opinion, on the other hand you were straight away removing those sources as if the weigh to nothing. Please go through WP:RSUW. Garuda ^Talk! 13:36, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

“ I see, however if you are referring to thisfalling into Raj then you might me wrong, as the author is an expert and the paper is also sourced from IHC and JSTOR”.

This is a common misconception. A lot of people seem to think that WP:RAJ doesn’t apply to certain sources from the era for a variety of reasons including supposed reliability, but this is not the case. We’ve had many discussions about this on Wikipedia, I will show you.

[1]

“I would suggest discounting most Raj era texts regardless of who wrote them and be careful about using obscure or popular texts post-Raj. Sticking to modern academic writers is probably the safest. Context, to quote TB below, matters”.

Per RegentsPark, he also went into detail about it here

Talk:Third Battle of Panipat

Even sources like jadunath sarkar are disregarded. There’s been many more discussions about this in the past so if you still don’t believe me, I can send more discussions about this after. But essentially, Raj era sources should never be used. Instead one should rely on more modern sources which is always preferable. Regardless, the issue of raj isn’t even my biggest issue here, that just shows a problem with one source. Bow for example didn’t say anything about the dynasty being indianized.

My issues with the other sources should also be quite clear. For one, they are contradicted by a source which is more authoritative(Chandra) thus it’s undue. But even worse, it isn’t even referring to the mamluk dynasty. The author was writing about another dynasty entirely, so why does this sentence(“ The Delhi Sultanatewas founded in 1206 by Central Asian Turks who were Indianized”) remain? The source doesn’t even say that the khaljis were indianized! It just says Indian Muslims gained more power than they had previously(more authoritative sources like chandra would completely disagree with this point regardless). The dynasty was still turco Afghan, and there’s no mention of any supposed “indianization” within those sources. Again, the sources don’t even follow what’s written on the article. So why is it still there?

“ You should also look at the degree of sources that is Oxford and California which contradicts your undue part. The more reliable the source, the more weight we should give its opinion, on the other hand you were straight away removing those sources as if the weigh to nothing. Please go through WP:RSUW.”

The sources your referring to have nothing to do with the sentence I was talking about. Your referring to another sentence I removed, which was undue for different reasons.

For one, I think I’ve adequately proved that the title “indo-Muslim” shouldn’t be used on Wikipedia. The issues RegentPark and abecedare brought up apply to the Delhi sultanate(it expanded beyond India, and our modern day conception of “Indian” is not the same as it was in the past).

Regardless, the sources you have there wrote about the sayyid dynasty. And the problem here is that the sayyid dynasty had multiple possible different ethnic origins. With the two biggest theories being sayyid Arab (according to eraly and others), and the other being Punjabi khokhar.(see sayyid dynasty origins section Sayyid dynasty). The dynasty could have just as easily been Arab so why are we adding one viewpoint while ignoring other? Either you say that the dynasty was possibly Arab or Indian, or you simply don’t add that section at all per undue weight.

Like I said, I think this is a pretty open and shut case when half the problem is that the sources don’t even follow what was written on the article. But of course that’s not the only issue. Someguywhosbored (talk) 14:20, 4 January 2025 (UTC)