Elora Tribedy

@Sachin_Chat @narendramodi @APanagariya @DrSJaishankar @MEAIndia #Nalandaspirit

Thanks Hon’ble PM Shri @narendramodi Ji for dedicating this excellent #NetZero campus to the nation. On the 2nd Anniversary we rededicate ourselves for advancing the #Nalanda spirit @APanagariya @DrSJaishankar @MEAIndia

Nalanda University invites applications for its M.A. and Ph.D. programmes in Archaeology for the Academic Year 2026–27. The programmes offer a distinctive blend of rigorous academic inquiry and experiential learning through intensive fieldwork, excavation exposure, site documentation, Digital Archaeology, and expert-led training. Situated in the historic region of Magadha, students gain valuable insights into the archaeological traditions, heritage, and cultural landscapes of South and Southeast Asia through interdisciplinary and practice-oriented approaches. Admission Helpline: +91 9031027489 | +91 7033291552 Email: admission@nalandauniv.edu.in Application Link: nalandauniv.edu.in/admissions/ #NalandaUniversity #Archaeology #Admissions2026 #StudyAtNalanda @Sachin_Chat | @MEAIndia | @mygovindia | @indiatoasean | @DDNewsHindi | @StudyInIndiaGov | @PIB_India

Oof, Audrey Truschke dropping a masterclass in selective scholarship.This is what happens when you manifest History in the "HAREM OF MUGHALS" First you admit6 you don't know the data, then confidently push the narrative anyway, and frame any pushback as "nationalism." Peak tenured historian energy. Let's fix that "not familiar with numbers" bit with actual numbers, Prof: Total sites: Over 1,000–1,500+ Mature Harappan sites discovered. India has significantly more, reliable counts put ~616 in India vs 406 in Pakistan (2008 data from ASI and different sources, with updated estimates at ~900–925 in India vs ~475 in Pakistan (India holding ~65%) Post-Partition discoveries exploded in India along the Ghaggar-Hakra (ancient Saraswati) system, because Indian archaeologists actually kept digging. "The big cities were definitely... in what's now Pakistan"? The five major urban centres: Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, Ganweriwala (Pakistan), Dholavira & Rakhigarhi (India). So already 2/5 firmly in India.But size? Rakhigarhi (Haryana, India): ~350 hectares, now the largest known IVC site, bigger than Mohenjo-daro (~250–300 ha) and Harappa (~150 ha). Excavations confirm it. Classic Mohenjo-daro (in Pakistan, iconic but no longer #1) Dholavira (Gujarat, India) is also a massive UNESCO site with advanced water management.The civilization wasn't "Indus River only", it boomed along the Ghaggar-Hakra/Saraswati too, which is mostly dried-up riverbed inside modern India. Audrey, you literally teach and just wrote a 600-page book starting with the IVC, yet "not familiar with numbers-to-numbers" on the most basic ownership-by-site-count flex that Indians have been citing for years? You dismiss site distribution as "Indian nationalism" while conveniently hyping the Pakistan-side icons that were excavated pre-Partition. Meanwhile, India has preserved, expanded excavations, and uncovered the actual biggest one. IVC is a shared Bronze Age gem that predates both countries by millennia, nobody "owns" it like a cricket trophy. But pretending the data doesn't show heavier modern Indian territory footprint + larger current flagship site, while sneering "not my problem"... that's not history. That's agenda with extra steps. Facts don't care about your narrative, and neither do the mounds at Rakhigarhi.

Despite decades of scholarship on Pāśupata and other Saiva traditions, @AudreyTruschke still attempts to reduce Śaivism merely to phallic symbolism. One must ask: how deeply has her scholarship engaged with the vast body of work produced by scholars who spent their lives studying Śaivism and Tantra in the Indian subcontinent? Did she read any serious scholars including western scholars such as Stella Kramrisch and others who explored the symbolic and cosmological representation of Śiva and Śakti beyond reductionism or multiple dimensions within Saivism ? Any serious academician of Indian history, religion, or culture is aware of the long continuities within the Indian religious ethos. The continuity of the Pāśupata tradition, even with transformations, is well established within the broader histories of Śaivism in India and Nepal. The role of traditions such as the Nātha or Māṭhamayūra lineage in peninsular South India is equally well known to scholars working on medieval religion and temple networks. A little ‘know it all’ does not make you a serious historian of religion or art historian @AudreyTruschke . @labstamil @MinOfCultureGoI @EduMinOfIndia @Sachin_Chat @HindolSengupta @authoramish @ARanganathan72

It was celebration time again for epigraphists and scholars of Chola history when Leiden University in the Netherlands handed over the Anaimangalam copper-plate charter, popularly known as the Leiden plates, to Prime Minister Narendra Modi at The Hague on May 16, 2026. Not mere inscriptions, scholars say, the plates bear living evidence of Chola administration, land grants and maritime links. ✍️ T.S. Subramanian thehindu.com/society/histor…

@AudreyTruschke The problem with this interpretation is the outdated diffusionist framework behind it. Current archaeology increasingly recognizes the Harappan Civilization as an indigenous cultural formation with its own symbolic, artistic and religious vocabulary, not merely a derivative of Proto-Elamite or “Eurasian” models. The so-called Shiva and Pashupati connection in the Harappan Pashupati seal cannot be simplistically dismissed when we see the continuity of idea of protector deity and harbringer of balance in human and animal world in the concept of this deity in Harappan culture, in the Pre-Vedic roots of Rudra, Role of the deity Rudra in the Vedic textual corpus, subsequent appropriation of Rudra and Shiva in later religious texts, and continuity of the idea of Shiva as a protector of Devas, Asuras and the natural world being present in the long trajectory of Indian religious and cultural history. It is indeed a remarkable evidence of the civilisational continuity not only within Indian Subcontinent as well as in South Asia as far as My Son in Vietnam. Serious scholarship for a comprehension of Indian Civilisation requires moving beyond surface treatment of information and engaging with archaeology, visual culture, and textual traditions together, rather than isolating one from the other. We know this whole debate is part of the promotional campaign for your book on ‘India’ with a Longue durée approach … It’s such a sad contradiction .. We hope at least this time, unlike the one on Aurangzeb, the book is not just a narrative, lacking depth of analysis of historical information.. Moreover, please move above Doris Meth and Asko Parpola’s generalised fancies on Harappan Culture.. Please update yourself with more substantial publications. @MinOfCultureGoI @MEABharat @Sachin_Chat @nalanda_univ

Pashupati Seal as adapted from Proto-Elamite or Eurasian iconography is deeply problematic, rests upon an outdated theory of cultural diffusionism. The Harappan world developed its distinctive material culture, symbolic systems, visual language. @HindolSengupta @Sachin_Chat