Swaveda
Indian history, plainly written.
A short daily post on Indian history — archaeology, genetics, historical linguistics, and the texts. Plus side-by-side translations of public-domain primary works. Plain language; no chest-thumping in either direction.
Plain language
Aimed at any curious reader, not the seminar room. Sanskrit / Pali / Tamil terms get a gloss on first use.
Tradition ≠ evidence
“The Mahabharata describes…” and “the Mahabharata war happened in…” are different sentences, and we don’t silently merge them.
Readers can edit
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Latest articles
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The Zinc of Zawar: How 12th-Century Retort Stratigraphy Reveals the Bureaucracy of Medieval Mineral Wealth
Strata of spent clay retorts and slag heaps at Zawar, Rajasthan, reveal how medieval miners mastered zinc distillation and operated within early mineral taxation frameworks.
Rohan Bhattacharya · Sep 17, 2026
The Dancing Lord of Bronze: How the Term Naṭarāja Emerged from Late Medieval Agamic Philology
A philological investigation into how the iconic South Indian bronze Śiva transitioned from the Tamil "Āḍavallān" to the Sanskritized "Naṭarāja" through late medieval Āgamic codification.
Meera Iyer · Sep 17, 2026
The Barley of Kunal: What Early Harappan Micro-Stratigraphy and Radiocarbon Dates Reveal About Pre-Indus Agriculture
An analysis of early occupational phases and micro-stratified hearths at Kunal, Haryana, challenges linear models of Indus agricultural development, showing advanced grain-processing systems existed centuries before cities.
Rohan Bhattacharya · Sep 16, 2026
The Bread of the Unseen: How the 1943 Bengal Famine Reshaped Calcutta’s Street Life
A new study in South Asian Studies reveals how the rural destitute who flooded Calcutta during the 1943 Bengal Famine reshaped the city's public spaces and created an informal economy of survival.
Kavya Sharma · Sep 16, 2026
The Camphor of Kedah: What Old Tamil Maritime Loanwords Reveal About Early Southeast Asian Trade Networks
Linguistic and epigraphic analysis of Old Tamil loanwords in early Malay and Thai inscriptions provides concrete physical evidence of the botanical and administrative commodities traded by early merchants.
Rohan Bhattacharya · Sep 15, 2026
Recent translations
All texts →Sanskrit
Arthashastra
Chapter 150 · Book 15, Chapter 1: Paragraphical Divisions of This Treatise
Updated Jul 26, 2026
Sanskrit
Arthashastra
Chapter 149 · Book 14, Chapter 4: Remedies against the Injuries of One's Own Army
Updated Jul 26, 2026
Sanskrit
Arthashastra
Chapter 148 · Book 14, Chapter 3: The Application of Medicines and Mantras
Updated Jul 26, 2026
A note on tone
Swaveda is curious, careful, and dry. There’s no civilizational chest-thumping in either direction here — no “Vedic India invented everything,” no “everything came from outside.” If we get something wrong, tell us. We fix it visibly, with a dated note.