Often Hindus say that Hinduism is resilient and it will survive whatever happens giving an impression that it’s ok don’t worry about the attacks on Hinduism but just go on with your life and somehow Hinduism will miraculously survive anyway. So did our forefathers just go on with their lives while foreign invaders indulged in plunder and destruction? Historically the answer to that question shows that Hindu resilience was expressed in warfare on every level for nearly a thousand years. Where A stream of Hindu Sages and Warriors combined to keep the flame of Sanatana Dharma alive through the ages .This is probably the longest war that’s ever taken place on Mother Earth and is still continuing in some form or another.
If we are Hindus today it’s because someone somewhere in the past sacrificed his or her life to defend the Hindu way of life but unfortunately most Hindus of today are not even aware of what took place back in time.There’s no celebration or remembrance or even any awareness kept for so many sacrifices , bravery and courage that took place in the history of the Hindus . All across the Hindu civilisation there is a story to tell like the following one ..
In 1311 Alla-ad-din Khalji sent his lover and general Maliq Kaffr to devastate the Telengana region with his ferocious army of Islam. The invasion was savage and Hindu kshatriyas of the Kakatiya, Chalukya and Chola clans fought with great valor but were routed in the battles around Warangal. The survivors took shelter in the fort of Kondapalli and held out against the Mohammedan blizzard.
However, in 1316 Alla-ad-din died and the tumultuous events in Delhi triggered by the Gujarati rebellion prevented the Mohammedans from consolidating their grip over Telangana. As result there was severe local unrest and Kakatiyas under Prataparudra started re-establishing themselves. The veteran Ghazi from Afghanistan, Ghazi al Maliq Tughlaq, soon set matters right for the Mohammedans in Delhi and decided to consolidate the flagging Jihad in peninsular India.
He sent his able successor Mohammed bin Tughlaq to prosecute the Jihad with unrelenting vigor in South India. M b Tughlaq charted elaborate plans for the invasion of Pune, Devagiri, Telengana and Tondaimandalam and set them rolling in 1321. After having sacked Pune in course of a year long siege of Kondana which was valiantly defended by Naga Nayaka he plowed through Devagiri and turning south east arrived in Telengana in 1322.
After a prolonged, fierce see-saw encounter in which the Mohammedans constantly receiving supplies from Devagiri and Delhi the Kakatiya army of Prataparudra was vanquished at Warangal.
They were forced into the defensive as the army of Islam mounted a massive encirclement attack on the fort of Rajamahendravaram. They held out for 6 months but at the end of it the Mohammedans stormed the fort and massacred the defenders to man. Prataparudra and his family was captured and sent to Delhi, but on the way he killed himself rather than go through the ordeal of converting to Islam. The grand Shri Venugopala Swami temple built by the Chalukyas was demolished by Tughlaq and he erected a mosque using the material from the temple. With that the kshatriya presence in Telengana had been smashed the the oppressive crescent banner terrorized the land.
In 1325 the responsibility of organizing defense of the dharma was taken up by the valiant shudra warrior Prolaya Vema Reddy. Son of local warlord, he describes himself “as one of the 4th varna that emerged from the feet of mahavishnu” who decided to rid the land of the wicked Turks after kshatriyas had all been killed for the protection of the agraharas and brahmanas.
Vema Reddy drawing inspiration from his deity ga~nga, who had also apparently emerged from the feet of vishnu as the fourth varna, and the warrior god kumara assembled a large army drawn from the peasants and herdsmen of the ravaged land. His clan had long excelled in cattle raids and honed the skills of the the rapid hit and run methods. He joined hands with two other major local landowners like Prolaya Nayaka and Kaapaya Nayaka and they formed a coalition with at least 75 other local strongmen and warlords. Reddy assembled his Hindu armies at Addanki and marched on the Tughlaq army.
The Reddys apparently used biological warfare in this conflict and contaminated the water supplies leading to the Mohammedans with sewage resulting a raging dysentry which decimated the Tughlaq army. Tughlaq himself fell ill and retreated. As the Moslems were in disarray the Hindu army fell upon them and crushed remanants in pitched encounter at 
the outskirts of Warangal. The Vema Reddy realized that even though the army had departed the local Moslem Amirs and merchants were a major obstacle in restoring Hindu rule. So he conducted a series of raids destroy their trading networks and militias and extirpating the pockets of Islamic garrisons distributed over the country. In the process they were aided by the Hindu king Vira Ballaala of Dwarasamudra, who staved of attacks by the army of Islam from its head quarters in Devagiri.
In 1335 M b Tughlaq sent a large force under Maqbool Iqbal to smash the Hindu revival in Telengana. However, the Reddy and Nayaka army aided by auxillaries sent by Vira Ballaala inflicted a massive defeat on them, killing 15 Moslem Amirs on the field. Vema Reddy chased Iqbal into the Warangal fort and seeing that he was hard-pressed to defend it Kaapaya Nayaka stormed the fort.
Vema Reddy then moved on the fort of Kondvidu and stormed it by hacking off the head Maliq Gurjaar, the Moslem commander. Then liberated Nidadavolu, Vundi and Pithapuram after pitched battles. He then massacred an army of Jalal-ud-din Shah in a raid on Tondaimandalam even as Ballaala engaged the sultan himself.
However, after a long struggle with the Sultans of Madhurai and Delhi, Ballaala finally fell into the hands of the Moslems. He was skinned alive and his dry skin was pegged on one of the wall of Madhurai (seen later by ibn Battuta). Undaunted Vema Reddy launched a series of daring attacks on the Moslem garrisons in the forts of Bellamkonda, Vinukonda and Nagarjunakonda and captured all of them after slaughtering the defenders.
He raised his flag in Kondavidu and declared himself a Raja. His famous inscriptions from this period state:
” I restored all the agraharas of Brahmins, which had been taken away by the evil Moslem kings”. “I am indeed an Agastya to the ocean which was made of the Moslem”.
To restore the dharma he instituted major repairs to the Shrishailam rudra temple and built a flight of steps from the Krishna river to the temple on the mountain top. He also repaired the vishnu temple at Ahobilam. He also built a palace in Kondavidu for housing the women he had acquired. This became the harem for all the other subsequent Reddys. His restoration of the dharma also caused a major revival of local literature, especially under the auspices of the Telugu author Erranna, a vatsa bhargava brahmana of the middle migration of the bhargavas. His ramayana was supposed to have been a master piece.
His successor was Anavema Reddy continued the struggle against the army of Islam. His began by liberating Rajahmahendravaram and demolished a Mazar which had been built there on a Hindu shrine. He then scaled the fort of Korukonda with a small force at night liberated it from the Moslem garrison. Next he conquered Simhachalam fort and parts of the Kalinga kingdom.His inscription states “I the valiant member of the 4th varna destroyed the throngs of Moslems and gathered learned brAhmaNas at this court”. He built the vIra shiromanDapam in the Shrishailam temple. The Shrishailam temple was also renovated by two other great Hindu fighters, Krishnadeva Raya and Shivaji Chatrapati at a later time.
The war of independence in Telengana is one more of those largely forgotten stories of the provincial Hindu resistance in the aftermath of the Khalji-Tughlaq years.
Kondaveedu Fort English Documentary
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Puli Thevar was born in the martial community of Hindu Marvars . After defeating a coalition of Islamists(the soldiers of the nawab of Arkot)-British forces, he was taken as a prisoner by deceit while on his way to the Sankaran Kovil temple. He was taken through the town streets, in a procession, by the muslim soldiers to shame him and left him alone in the sacred sanctum of the temple before they could take him to the courts for dispensing justice to the man who brought the mercenaries of Adharma to their knees.
Seeds of this rebellion were in 1736 when the Muslim Nawab of Arcot, Mohammed Aley, annexed the Hindu kingdom of Madura in present day Tamil Nadu. The Hindu Poligars (Chieftans and vassals to the king), being the descendants of the Cholas and Pandyas, were in no mood to accept the lordship of a usurper and Adharmika refused to compromise with him or pay taxes of homage to him.
No sooner had Puli Thevar refused the British demand for the payment of fief as an acceptance of their lordship over him, they launched an attack on Thevar. Puli Thevar’s informant in the British camp, the interpreter of Heron, sent him news that the British were short on supplies and did not have much heavy artillery. Hearing this Thevar decided to hold the British attack further.
Understanding fully well that the British would not back down and would come back to attack his people again, Puli Thevar sent one of his generals to Travancore to win over the support of Maharajadhiraj Marathanda Varma who was the regent of Travancore. The general managed to convince His Majesty to support the Polingar confederacy lead by Puli Thevar and returned back with 4000 troops.
Being very well aware that without the reinforcements from Travancore his army stood little chance against the gigantic cavalary of Mahfuz Khan, Thevar assembled all his troops and guns inside his fort complex at Nelkattumseval. Taking advantage of the situation the devious Khan sent his troops to devastate the Marvaras who had given him a hard time Kalakadu. The Muslim troops reestablished control of Arcot, which till then had been devastated by the Marvaras, and surrounded Puli Thevar in fort.
Thevar being an astute militant commander decided to take this difficult route instead of a straight highway inorder to conceal the movement of his troops and to take the enemy by surprise.His plan was based in the information of a spy’z report that Mudali had camped his bulk force some twenty miles away where he anticipated Thevar;’s attack. Thevar decided to wait till nightfall before entering Tinnevelly. By dawn they had infiltrated into the town in small bands through unguarded points.
In early 1757, Thevar along with Mahfuz Khan and supported by many Polygars marched towards Tirunelveli for the third time at the head of an army of 10,000 men. They camped near Tirunelveli but did not attempt to capture the town. Thevar remembered well what would happen if a largely primitive force engaged with the well-equipped army which held Tirunelveli.
The pro-British Kattabomman died and the new Kattabomman loathed them. He, as the leader of Eastern Poligars, pledged support to Puli Thevar, the undisputed leader of Western Poligars. This union was aimed to meet the threat of Yusuf Khan.
The Polygar of Wadagiri took refuge with Puli Thevar at Nelkattumseval. Puli Thevar himself was worried as the most powerful Western Polygar-Wadagiri Polygar was finished. He learnt that the French had sent a letter to Mahfuz Khan which stated that soon the English would be finished and that Mahfuz would be crowned as Nawab after the present Nawab, an English puppet, was ousted. Thevar exploited this situation.
In December, 1759, Yusuf besieged fort of Vasudevanellur with his allied troops after he received a large stock of ammunition. This fort belonged to Puli Thevar and was his second strongest fort, located on top of a mountain range and was covered by a vast forest on all sides.
Thevar did not leave Yusuf Khan in peace. His Maravas ravaged Tirunelveli country so much that Yusuf Khan himself realised that he could not crush them by force so he bribed many of them to join his side. Yusuf soon found himself at war with Mysore and Dutch, which bought Thevar time. Yusuf Khan crushed a force of 3000 men sent by Kattabomman. Thevar learnt that the French were besieged in Pondicherry by the English and that Mahfuz Khan had gone over to Nawab, but his Maravas ravaged lands held by Yusuf Khan so much that he soon deployed the bulk of his force in front of Nelkettumseval in order to force the Maravas to abandon his lands.
The Kunwars had since set up an alliance with the Shah kings of Nepal from the dynasty of the Hindu monarch Prithvi Narayan Shah and held several important positions under the dynasty, helping to consolidate the Shah rule over Nepal.
It was at this time that Balbadra supported by only 600 troops (including women, the young and elderly) and fight these foreign mercenaries who had come to occupy his Hindu lands.
Seeing the condition of his people, Balbhadra decided to ask Kathmandu for more troops as reinforcement to fight the foreigners. Sadly as the Shah’s were still consolidating the Hindu Kingdom, these troops could not be provided on time and so the Commander decided to move on to Gopichand hill fort from Dwara on Nov 18, 1814.
Bhalbhadra Kunwar did not loose his life in the Gurkha-Anglo war, he procceded to Lahore, then capital of Punjab to join ranks with the new Lahore regiment formed by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Balbhadra Kunwar in keeping with his brave past was made the General of this new regiment, which consisted of entirely Hindu Gorkhali troops. The word Gorkhali was strictly reserved for those Hindus who served under the Hindu kings, others who had served the Muhammadan warlords were known as “Munglane” and were seen as lowly and unclean.
Western ‘scholarship’ has generally painted a picture of Hindu society in which women have forever been secluded from public life. This view has penetrated widely into the public mind, and has even been internalised by many Hindus. Yet if fails to take into consideration many facts.
On taking control of Indore, she declared, “This kingdom belongs to Shankar (Shiva). On behalf of Shankar I will do my duty to manage the affairs for the benefit of the people.” She lived a very simple life. Instead of living in the palace she preferred to live on the banks of the River Narmada at the pilgrimage site called “Maheshwar”. Very few rulers in history have demonstrated such a lifestyle in which they give up all royal comforts but at the same time carried on their job very well.
own country with the increasing hold of the British over the political structure of India backed by its native Indian army. Everything was set for an explosion.
When the fires of freedom were spreading the Rani had no hesitation in throwing her lot in with the freedom fighters. Her brave and steady character with her son Damodar Rao was strapped tightly to her back going onto the battlefield earned her the respect of the other fighters such as Tatya Tope, Kunwar Singh, Amar Singh , Peshwa Nana Saheb and others.
All these disciplined and training patterns came in use during the Indian war of Independence in 1857. Many lives were lost and innocence people killed. Although India did not gain independence the Rani did win back Jhansi and created the state to its former glory having a full treasury and army of women matching the army of men.Finally, in 1858 with the rebel leaders either killed in action or hanged Sir Hugh Rose attacked Jhansi . The next day’s battle was the Rani’s last.
Shortly there after, in 1640 CE the Mughal tyrant Shah Jahan ( of the Taj Mahal fame) dispatched Ghazi Najabat Khan with the orders to extirpate the Kafirs of the Uttarakhand. The warrior queen karnavati is said to have prepared for the invasion by leading the troops herself. She drew the Mughals to an ambush in steep mountain slopes north of Dehradun and fallen upon them with the advantage of height. The Mughal army suffered a major defeat. She is said to have prevented their retreat by blocking their rear in the narrow valley and captured several Jihadis.
Rani Chennamma released the hostages with an understanding with Chaplin that the war would be terminated. But Chaplin treacherously continued the war with even more soldiers. Chennamma fought fiercely with the aid of her lieutenant, Sangolli Rayanna, but was ultimately captured and imprisoned at Bailhongal Fort, where she died on 21 February 1829. Sangolli Rayanna continued the guerrilla war up to 1829 until his capture, but it was in vain, and was caught due to treachery and hanged.
n 1542, she was married to Dalpatshah, the eldest son of king Sangramshah of Gond Dynasty. Chandel and Gond dynasties got closer as a consequence of this marriage and that was the reason Keerat Rai got the help of Gonds and his son-in-law Dalpatshah at the time of invasion of Shershah Suri in which Shershah Suri died.
This plan of Mughul invasion was the result of expansionism and imperialism of Akbar. When Rani heard about the attack by Asaf Khan she decide to defend her kingdom with all her might although her minister Adhar pointed out the strength of Mughal forces. Rani maintained that it was better to die respectfully than to live a disgraceful life.
During the next few years, Schrödinger and Heisenberg and their followers created a universe based on superimposed inseparable waves of probability amplitudes. This new view would be entirely consistent with the Vedantic concept of All in One. He became a Vedantist, a Hindu, as a result of his studies in his search for truth. Schrödinger kept a copy of the Hindu scriptures at his bedside. He read books on Vedas, yoga, and Sankhya philosophy and he reworked them into his own words, and ultimately came to believe them. The Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita were his favourite scriptures.
“insight is not new From the early great Upanishads the recognition Atman = Brahman (the personal self equals the omnipresent, all-comprehending eternal self) was in Indian thought considered, far from being blasphemous, to represent the quintessence of deepest insight into the happenings of the world. The striving of all the scholars of Vedanta was, after having learnt to pronounce with their lips, really to assimilate in their minds this grandest of all thoughts.”