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Nāyars
The Nair , also known as Nayar, are a group of Indian Hindu castes, described by anthropologist Kathleen Gough as "not a unitary group but a named category of castes". The Nair include several castes and many subdivisions, not all of whom historically bore the name 'Nair'. Fuller (1975) p. 309 These people lived, and continue to live, in the area which is now the Indian state of Kerala. Their internal caste behaviours and systems are markedly different between the people in the northern and southern sections of the area, although there is not very much reliable information on those inhabiting the north. Fuller (1975) p. 284 Historically, Nairs lived in large family units called ''tharavads'' that housed descendants of one common female ancestor. These family units along with their unusual marriage customs, which are no longer practiced, have been much studied. Although the detail varied from one region to the next, the main points of interest to researchers of Nair marriage cu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Indian Army
The British Indian Army, commonly referred to as the Indian Army, was the main military of the British Raj before its dissolution in 1947. It was responsible for the defence of the British Indian Empire, including the princely states, which could also have their own armies. As quoted in the Imperial Gazetteer of India, "The British Government has undertaken to protect the dominions of the Native princes from invasion and even from rebellion within: its army is organized for the defence not merely of British India, but of all possessions under the suzerainty of the King-Emperor." The Indian Army was an important part of the British Empire's forces, both in India and abroad, particularly during the First World War and the Second World War. The term ''Indian Army'' appears to have been first used informally, as a collective description of the Presidency armies, which collectively comprised the Bengal Army, the Madras Army and the Bombay Army, of the Presidencies of British India ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pliny The Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ''Naturalis Historia'' (''Natural History''), which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. He spent most of his spare time studying, writing, and investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field. His nephew, Pliny the Younger, wrote of him in a letter to the historian Tacitus: Among Pliny's greatest works was the twenty-volume work ''Bella Germaniae'' ("The History of the German Wars"), which is no longer extant. ''Bella Germaniae'', which began where Aufidius Bassus' ''Libri Belli Germanici'' ("The War with the Germans") left off, was used as a source by other prominent Roman historians, including Plutarch, Tacitus and Suetonius. Tacitus—who many scholars agree had never travelled in Germania—used ''Bella Germani ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chris Fuller (academic)
Christopher John Fuller is an emeritus professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics and a Fellow of the British Academy. He has studied and written extensively about the people of India, particularly with regard to subjects such as Hinduism, the caste system, and the relationship between globalisation and the middle-classes. Career Fuller was a lecturer in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester prior to holding a similar position as lecturer in anthropology at the London School of Economics (LSE) between 1979–87. He was a reader in anthropology at the LSE between 1987–94 and has been an emeritus professor of anthropology there since 2009. Fuller's primary area of field research has been the state of Tamil Nadu, particularly between 1976–2001 at the Hindu temple in Madurai that is dedicated to Minakshi. His first fieldwork was among the Nair and Syrian Christian communities of Kerala in 1971–72. Fuller has also conducted fieldw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nāga
The Nagas (IAST: ''nāga''; Devanāgarī: नाग) are a divine, or semi-divine, race of half-human, half-serpent beings that reside in the netherworld (Patala), and can occasionally take human or part-human form, or are so depicted in art. A female naga is called a Nagi, or a Nagini. According to legend, they are the children of the sage Kashyapa and Kadru. Rituals devoted to these supernatural beings have been taking place throughout South Asia for at least 2,000 years. They are principally depicted in three forms: as entirely human with snakes on the heads and necks, as common serpents, or as half-human, half-snake beings in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. ''Nagaraja'' is the title given to the king of the nagas. Narratives of these beings hold cultural significance in the mythological traditions of many South Asian and Southeast Asian cultures, and within Hinduism and Buddhism, they are the ancestral origins of the Nagavanshi Kshatriyas. Etymology In Sanskrit, a () ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nayak (title)
The Nayak is a historic Indian title conferred on Sardars, who were governors of feudal states in the Middle Ages. Today it is also a surname. Nayaks are mostly Hindu and few Sikhs, who follow Hinduism and Sikhism respectively. As a surname Today, the surname ''Nayak'' is used by various castes and ethnic groups across India. Mostly they belong from forward class and mainly follows Sikhism and Hinduism. * Nayak, or Naik is a title used by Koli caste of Maharashtra. The Princely State of Jawhar was founded by a Koli Nayak Jayaba Mukne around 1300. The Maval region was known as Koli country of fifty two valleys in Maratha Empire. Each valley was controlled by a Koli Nayak and the Sirnayak, or head chief, lived at Junnar, and presided over the gotarni, or caste council. the Fort of Sinhagad was built and ruled by Koli chief Nag Nayak who resisted the Mughal Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq for eight months. the Kolis of Maharashtra revolted against Mughal ruler Aurangzeb under t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthropologist
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and values of societies. Linguistic anthropology studies how language affects social life, while economic anthropology studies human economic behavior. Biological (physical), forensic and medical anthropology study the biological development of humans, the application of biological anthropology in a legal setting and the study of diseases and their impacts on humans over time, respectively. Education Anthropologists usually cover a breadth of topics within anthropology in their undergraduate education and then proceed to specialize in topics of their own choice at the graduate level. In some universities, a qualifying exam serves to test both the breadth and depth of a student's understanding of anthropology; the students who pass are pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dravidian Peoples
The Dravidian peoples, or Dravidians, are an ethnolinguistic and cultural group living in South Asia who predominantly speak any of the Dravidian languages. There are around 250 million native speakers of Dravidian languages. Dravidian speakers form the majority of the population of South India and are natively found in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. Dravidian peoples are also present in Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa, Myanmar, East Africa, the Caribbean, and the United Arab Emirates through recent migration. Proto-Dravidian may have been spoken in the Indus civilization, suggesting a "tentative date of Proto-Dravidian around the early part of the third millennium", after which it branched into various Dravidian languages. with whom they intensively interacted. Genetically, the ancient Indus Valley people were composed of an Iranian hunter gatherers-related and an Ancient Ancestral South Indian (AASI) component, while ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snake Worship
Snake worship is devotion to serpent deities. The tradition is present in several ancient cultures, particularly in religion and mythology, where snakes were seen as the holders of knowledge, strength, and renewal. Near East Ancient Mesopotamia Ancient Mesopotamians and Semites believed that snakes were immortal because they could infinitely shed their skin and appear forever youthful, appearing in a fresh guise every time. The Sumerians worshipped a serpent god named Ningishzida. Before the arrival of the Israelites, snake cults were well established in Canaan in the Bronze Age, for archaeologists have uncovered serpent cult objects in Bronze Age strata at several pre-Israelite cities in Canaan: two at Megiddo, one at Gezer, one in the ''sanctum sanctorum'' of the Area H temple at Hazor, and two at Shechem. In the surrounding region, serpent cult objects figured in other cultures. A late Bronze Age Hittite shrine in northern Syria contained a bronze statue of a god holding ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snake
Snakes are elongated, Limbless vertebrate, limbless, carnivore, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other Squamata, squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping Scale (zoology), scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads (cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs about twenty-five times independently via convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of legless lizards. These resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, altho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
9th Battalion, Madras Regiment
The 9th battalion of the Madras Regiment (Travancore) is the oldest extant unit in the Indian Army. It has been in service for over 300 years. History The battalion was raised in 1704 at Padmanabhapuram, the capital of the erstwhile kingdom of Travancore. Raised as personal bodyguards to the Maharaja of Travancore, the unit, though redesigned through the ages, continues to retain its individual identity with no history of disbandment or re-raising. The Travancore Army, known as the Nair Brigade, completely exterminated the superior and better equipped Dutch Forces which landed at Colachal in July 1741 during the reign of Anizham Thirunal Veer Bala Marthand Varma. In the Battle of Colachel, during the Travancore–Dutch War, Capt Eustachius De Lannoy, the Dutch Naval Forces Commander, was captured and was asked later to train the Travancore Army. From 1741 to 1758, Capt De Lannoy remained in command of the Travancore Forces and was involved in annexation of small principalitie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indian Army
The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four-star general. Two officers have been conferred with the rank of field marshal, a five-star rank, which is a ceremonial position of great honour. The Indian Army was formed in 1895 alongside the long established presidency armies of the East India Company, which too were absorbed into it in 1903. The princely states had their own armies, which were merged into the national army after independence. The units and regiments of the Indian Army have diverse histories and have participated in several battles and campaigns around the world, earning many battle and theatre honours before and after Independence. The primary mission of the Indian Army is to ensure national security and national unity, to defend the nation from external aggression an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
