Adventures of an Indian rupee in Java. Owing to the success of the Mughal Rupee as a reliable trade coin, the Dutch East India Company made it an official currency on the island of Java in 1693. Rupees coming in with the trade were countermarked for local use. By far the most common mark was… Read more »
An Italian rupee in Africa. Between the 18th and 20th centuries, the most popular coins in the Horn of Africa were the Maria Theresa thaler and the Indian rupee. After Somalia was colonised by Italy, the colonial administration created a Somalian Rupee on par with the Indian one in 1909. Struck at the Royal Mint… Read more »
A rupee to stop smuggling. In 1959, the Reserve Bank of India launched a series of special notes to circulate only in the Gulf States. They were meant to stop the transfer of rupees to buy gold and smuggle it illegally into India. The rupee remained legal tender in the Arab kingdoms till 1972.
An initiation into the Sarmaya team involves the confrontation of and acclimating to certain books from our library. New ‘uns are told this is necessary reading meant to familiarise them with the genres of the collection. Each object inhabits a world that is resonant and multi-faceted and it’s impossible to know where to start. “Today… Read more »
This text and images below are reproduced with permission from the author Bhaskar Koirala and Nepali Times and it was originally published on the Nepali Times website King Harisingh Deva of Simraongarh must have sat on his heavy-set chair while a pair of household staff was cross-legged on the black chlorite stone floor massaging… Read more »
After discussion sped towards the end of the zoom call, the part where people start talking candidly and share recipes or book and binge recommendations, we were mildly concerned that we were all consuming the same things. Faced with the possibility that we were caught up not in a trend, but an echo chamber, we… Read more »
Come with us on a journey of Kerala’s maritime history
Five unputdownable reads that bring all those boring history classes to life with warmth, spirit and great invention
In this interview with the author of ‘History Men’ TCA Raghavan, we talk about the ways in which history has been written, understood and shaped in the Subcontinent
Author Anam Zakaria attempts to understand one of the most defining years in South Asian history with her new book, 1971: A People’s History from Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. The book goes beyond ideologies and politics in an attempt to find the truth and show how people’s history differs when compared to official records.
First published in 1689, this book was written by a surgeon who is best remembered today for his descriptions of seventeenth-century India and Persia. The publication was feted for its accuracy and wealth of cartographical detail.
This 1808 map of South India shows the territories held by the East India Company, outlined in pink. Mysore, nominally independent under the Wodeyar (Wadiyar) dynasty, is depicted in yellow, an island surrounded by British possessions. All territories marked B, N or M represent those areas ceded to the British and their allies, the Nizam… Read more »
This map depicts geographical features and the distribution of various Hindu dynasties in India in 1022. In the north-west, the Ghaznavid Empire was at its zenith under Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni (971 – 1030), who crossed the river Indus and plundered India seventeen times during the course of his reign. The map was published in… Read more »
This is a mid-17th-century travelogue by historian Thomas Herbert, who chronicles his journey to the Middle- East, Asia and Africa with particular emphasis on the empires of Persia and India during the 17th century. Thomas Herbert (1606-1682) was a courtier to Charles I (1600-1649). He travelled to the court of Shah Abbas (1571-1629) of Persia… Read more »