I'm biting the bullet and asking about the history of horses on the Deccan Plateu. (Also where is the deccan plateu? My geography of India isn't the best)
The Deccan Plateau is part of central-south India, consisting of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra, Karnataka, and…. I think Telangana? It was formed when a meteor (yes, the one that killed the dinosaurs) smashed into the earth, causing immense volcanic activity within the Indian subcontinent and a subsequent rise in elevation due to lava flow. The Ghats (both ranges) essentially funnel rains towards the plateau during the rainy season and break the worst of the typhoons that might batter it otherwise, allowing for the absolutely gorgeous weather you get in Bangalore- which resides in the middle of the plateau.
(That’s where the Deccan is, on a rough scale. There’s no official definition of where the Deccan ends and where it begins, but… yeah.)
As to the history of horses in the Deccan Plateau, there are a couple factors that you need to be aware of:
The Deccan Plateau is fertile ground. It’s borne some fifteen dynasties over a long period of time, because everyone wants to rule it
Horses are a good way of a) traveling over long distances and b) showing off
So everyone wants horses, but the issue is that in the Deccan- well, not everybody gets them, because the Deccan also doesn’t have a native breed of horse
(Point 3 is an exaggeration, but not much of one: native Deccan horses were used by farmers for plowing, not as instruments of war. Compared to the majestic Arabian destriers… well, the Deccan kingdoms wanted those horses, not their native ones. Only later, in the 1700s, would they be exploited to their full use.)
Going back to the Mughals: Abul Fazl is considered the best historian of that time; he authored the Akbarnama and still contributes hugely to our understanding of the Mughal Empire and Mughal-era India today. He writes of seven major breeds of horses: Kathiawari, Kutchi-Sindhi, Marwari, Spiti, Zanskari, Bhutia and Manipuri horses. If you notice, none of these are from the Deccan.
Now, this was the first point of unsustainability.
Imagine you’re a Yadava king sitting in the middle of the Deccan, on your way to war against the Mughals. You need horses, because the Mughal army is made up of them. The Mughals have a steady inflow of horses from North and Central Asia- along with whatever breeds they’re coming up with themselves. In fact, North India as a whole has access to horses, know you want them, and are withholding their supply.
But you don’t have any.
So what does any enterprising king do?
He sends messengers out to the Middle East. Iran, particularly, but also Russia; apparently the coastal city of Dabhol was literally a meeting point for horses from Central Asia and the Middle East. At its height, Deccan rulers were importing thousands of horses every year.
Second point of unsustainability:
You can’t keep selling a kingdom horses. At some point they’ll start breeding their own from the ones you give them. So what does any enterprising merchant do?
He neuters the horses.
(Also, apparently Deccan rulers had things against riding mares, but that’s a story for another day.)
Not only that- these horses were being imported by sea. To keep them sedated for the journey, their blood would be drawn; this likely made them weaker and more susceptible to Indian illnesses. The horses weren’t fitted with horseshoes, because merchants didn’t want to bear the expense. Deccan rulers also- apparently- might have fed the horses a diet of meat alongside barley, which can lead to digestive complications and illnesses in horses.
All of which mean that there’s a huge rate of turnover of the horses, and the merchant gets to keep coming back every year to sell more of them.
Now, of course, times change.
By the late 1700s, the Marathas had begun their own horse breeding experiments, eventually developing a small, nimble horse that was very good for the kind of guerrilla warfare employed by the Marathas upon invading Mughal armies. These were developed by crossing the Middle-Eastern horses with the native ones, to get a hardy and tougher kind of horse than you might expect otherwise.
Of course, as time went on, the status and symbol of horses died out. WW1 was the last time horses were used in major combat. But for nearly five centuries, the lack of horses in the Deccan- as well as a non-conducive environment to breeding them- led to one of the largest sea-faring trade routes between South India and the Middle East.
(A lot of this information is taken from the book The Tale of the Horse: A History of India on Horseback, by Yashaswini Chandra. I’ve focused less on the art history here, but if you’re interested in how that feeds into her conclusions, I’d strongly suggest reading that book as well as watching this video, where she describes her thought process in much more depth.)
(She also describes Chand Bibi’s death as “[she] was killed by her detractors among the feckless nobility of the beleaguered sultanate”, it’s a great book, 20/10 would rec lmao)
Society gave the courtesan cognizance as a part of the social mainstream; on festive occasions she was engaged to sing and dance at the urs or death anniversaries of saints. […] In the eighteenth century, the salon of the courtesan was a school for manners to which sires of well-to-do families were sent - - as daughters of the wealthy are sent today to finishing schools; it was a cultural focus, and played an important role in the development of the khayal, gayaki and kathak. […]
…society did not not equate the courtesan with a prostitute simpliciter; such a equation was to await the new morality of the Hindu and Muslim revivalist movements at the turn of the century. Till then the courtesan remained an integral part of a certain way of life, and her existence, as that of her patrons, cannot be understood merely in the context of the moral opprobrium now attached to the kotha.
But wait, you’re thinking – Lakshmi is a Hindu goddess, right? She is, the goddess of wealth, fortune and prosperity and the wife of Vishnu.
But this particular Lakshmi figurine was found in the ruins of Pompeii. It is beautiful proof of the trade links between the Roman Empire and the other great civilizations of their day.
The first temple in the world made out of granite is the Brihadeeswarar Temple at Tanjavur, Tamil Nadu, India. The sacred heart of the temple, the towering shikhara (“mountain peak”) is made from a single 80-ton piece of granite.
Amazingly, the temple was built in just eight years! Rajaraja Chola I, emperor of the Chola Empire, ordered Brihadeeswarar built in 1002 CE to fulfil a command that came in a dream. It was finished by 1010 CE. Which means Brihadeeswarar Temple recently had it’s 1000th birthday
that sounds amazing holy, fucking shit.
shimuka and cleopatra would be amazing with the added bonus of cleopatra not marrying the kinda-son of octavian, and cleopatra’s country not being buddy-buddy with the man who killed her family.
holy shit, WHAT a power couple.
what traditions do you think cleopatra would carry over?
though the environments are very different, do you think the deccan plateau would remind her of the rich land around the nile?
also something
(Pt. 2):
that sounds amazing is cleopatra finding herself at peace with Jainism i’m not sure why that parts just seems such a golden yellow to me because at long-last, she can find comfort do you think she felt let down by Isis, by Dionysus, by her Ptolemic and Egyptian gods? and here, the daughter of Nea Isis can let herself go, stop fighting, allow herself to change
OMG DO I HAVE A CONVERT????
But yeah, to answer your questions- idk if Cleopatra would know that much about her own traditions. She was ten when forced to leave Egypt, and after that she lived in a pretty hostile nation for a long period of time. More importantly, Cleopatra’s mother knew very well the use of utilizing godliness to further your own rule, which means that Cleopatra likely doesn’t have the blind belief that further people might have had.
But Jainism doesn’t believe in a god- they believe in a perfect being, which humans can become upon destroying their karmas- so Cleopatra takes comfort in that, imo. She finds it in herself to let go of bitterness, or overt vengeance. And her Ptolemaic and Egyptian gods: idk.
(some part of her probably feels guilty for leaving them behind, for not knowing enough to honor them as the last of the Ptolemies should, but she’s also got pragmatism sewn deep into her soul so she learns to swallow that pain quickly enough.
but the bitter taste never really leaves, just as her desire for shifting sands never fades)
And there are similarities between lands EVERYWHERE, right? She’ll find a small riverside grove somewhere, lol, and it’ll be beautiful and smell like the Nile in summertime and there’ll be cattails along the banks that sounds precisely like the sound that would happen when her mother’s boat docked, and Cleopatra will be content.
