Jijabai was the mother of Shivaji perhaps the most famous and succesful Hindu warriors of the medieval age. The life of his mother, Jijabai, is no less inspiring or sacred, and takes a proud place in our history. Her father, Lakhuji Jadhav Rao, was an important leader serving under the Muslim Nizamshahi administration. During those days, many Hindu leaders of that region were serving under the Nizam. They had small armies of their own and had obtained lands, high position and ranks under the Nizam. But they hated one another and were always trying to increase their power and prestige at the expense of one another. It was Holi, and Jijabai's father was holding a celebration at his hall, where many were assembled. Shahji, son of Maloji (who was serving under Jadhav Rao...
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Rani Lakshmi Bai was the queen of the princely state of Jhansi, which is located on the northern side of India. She was one of the most leading personalities of the first war of India's independence that started in 1857. In this article, we will present you with the biography of Rani Lakshmibai, who was an epitome of bravery and courage. Early Life She was born to a Maharashtrian family at Kashi (now Varanasi) in the year 1828. During her childhood, she was called by the name Manikarnika. Affectionately, her family members called her Manu. At a tender age of four, she lost her mother. As a result, the responsibility of raising her fell upon her father. While pursuing studies, she also took formal training in martial ...
Born: May 22, 1772 Died: September 27, 1833 Achievements: Founded Atmiya Sabha and Brahma Samaj. Played a key role in abolition and Sati. Fought for the rights of women. Raja Ram Mohan Roy is known as the 'Maker of Modern India'. He was the founder of the Brahmo Samaj, one of the first Indian socio-religious reform movements. He played a major role in abolishing the role of Sati. Raja Rammohan Roy was a great scholar and an independent thinker. He advocated the study of English, Science, Western Medicine and Technology. He was given the title 'Raja' by the Mughal Emperor. Raja Ram Mohan Roy was born on May 22, 1772 in village Radhanagar in the District of Hooghly in Bengal. His father Ramkanto Roy, was a Vaishnavite, while his mother, Tarini, was from a Shakta background. Raja Ram Mohun Roy was sent to Patna for higher studies. By the age of fift...
The meaning of Ashoka in Sanskrit is ‘without sorrow’. He was also called Samraat Chakravartin (emperor of emperors), Devānāmpriya (the beloved of god), Priyadarśin (He who regards everyone with affection). He was born around 304 BCE in Patliputra, Patna. He was the son of king Bindusara and Maharani Dharma. His grandfather was the founder of Maurya Dynasty, Chandragupta Maurya. Ashoka had many brothers ready to take the throne after the death of Bindusara. But Ashoka becomes the king with the help of a minister Radhagupta. There is a story that Ashoka killed his 99 brothers leaving only one...
Born on 1st November 1973 in Mangalore, Karnataka this green-blue eyed beauty has captured the hearts of millions. Her tryst with fame began with ad campaigns for many prestigious firms, that brought her into limelight. Aishwarya was an architecture student before she entered modelling as her part time job. She was best known for her Pepsi commercial. With her green gray eyes, she was already approached by big names in India's film industry to star in films. She rejected the film offers since she aimed to be an architect. However, fate had other things in store for her. Road to Stardom Aishwarya Rai's career took off as soon as she became 1994 MISS WORLD. Soon after her winning, again she received offers to star in movies.Rai made her film debut in Mani Rathnam's "Iruvar" (1997). Her performance in Rahul Rawail's "…Aur Paar Ho Gaya" (1997) garnered her the Best Female Debutante Award.In 20...
Mahatma Gandhi : Father of the Nation Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in the town of Porbander in the state of Gujarat on 2 October 1869. He studied law at University College, London. In 1891, after having been admitted to the British bar, Gandhi returned to India and attempted to establish a law practice in Bombay, with little success. He went to South Africa to wrork but found himself treated very shabbily and like someone of inferior race. This realization changed the face of Indian dependence and freedom struggle. Political Awakening Gandhi emerged as the leader of the Indian community, and it is in South Africa that he first coined the term satyagraha to signify his theory and practice of non-violent resistance. Gandhi returned to India in early 1915 ver the next few years, he was to become involved in numerous local struggles all over the country. Gandhi became the international symbol of a f...
BKS Iyengar: Four things you need to know about the yoga guru behind today's Google Doodle Google has chosen to honour the Indian guru BKS Iyengar - who is credited with bringing yoga to the West - to mark what would have been his 97th birthday. BKS Iyengar - whose birth name was Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar - died last year after an eight-decade career popularising his version of “Iyengar yoga” in India and across the world. But here are some of the things you may not know about the great yogi: 1.His brother-in-law was known as the “father of modern yoga” In 1934, Tirumalai Krishnamacharya first invited his young, sickly brother-in-law to train with him in what was then the kingdom of Mysore (now Karnataka state) in southern India to improve his health. Krishnamacharya was one of the key figures behind the revival of “hatha yoga” - from which Iyengar yoga developed - in the early 20th century which focused on the correct alignment ...
Synopsis: Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847, in Edinburgh, Scotland. His education was largely received through numerous experiments in sound and the furthering of his father’s work on Visible Speech for the deaf. Bell worked with Thomas Watson on the design and patent of the first practical telephone. In all, Bell held 18 patents in his name alone and 12 that he shared with collaborators. He died on August 2, 1922, in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. Early Life: Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847, in Edinburgh, Scotland. The second son of Alexander Melville Bell and Eliza Grace Symonds Bell, he was named for his paternal grandfather. The middle name “Graham” was added when he was 10 years old. He had two brothers, Melville James Bell and Edward Charles Bell, both of whom died from tuberculosis. During his youth, Alexander Graham Bell experienced strong influences that had a profound effect on his later life. Bel...
October 2, 1869 saw the birth of a famous Indian personality, lovingly called, the Father of the Nation. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born to the Diwan of Porbandar, in the state of Kathewar in Gujarat. His mother, Putlibai, was a very religious lady and brought up her son with stories from the scriptures and mythology. Little Gandhi grew up to be an honest, upright student. At the tender age of 13 he was married to a beautiful damsel named Kasturba. At 19, much to his mother's chagrin, he was sent to England to study law. He promised his mother that he would keep away from wine, women and non-vegetarianism - and he managed to stick to his word. A Mission in South Africa: He returned to India as a barrister in 1891 and started his own practice at Bombay and Rajkot. In 1893 he went to S. Africa to fight a case. It was there that his life's mission was determined - to fight against injustice. Gandhiji could not tolerate the oppression of the Indians by...
Known as a revolutionary - ascetic, patriot, philosopher and yogi, Sri Aurobindo was a many faceted brilliant personality. Born in Calcutta on 15th August 1872, he tried to assimilate both Indian and Western philosophical thoughts and find the paths of divine communion and spiritual realization. Early Influences: His father, Dr. Krishnadhan Ghose, was an Anglophile, and so sent little Aurobindo to England to study at St. Paul's school in London and then at King's College, Cambridge. In 1890, he passed the I.C.S examination with flying colours, but as he did not want to serve the British, he disqualified himself. Instead, he returned to India and served in Baroda as a civil servant, a professor, and finally as Vice-Principal of Baroda College. Nationalistic Fervour: In 1905, Aurobindo Ghose joined the freedom struggle of India. He was the revolutionary who encouraged direct political action against the British instead of moderate reformism. He began writing es...
Chandragupta Maurya’s empire when he founded it. Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the Mauryan Empire and the first unifier of India is believed to have lived between 340 BC and 298 BC. He was successful in conquering most of the Indian subcontinent and consolidated power from many small regional kingdoms. The unified Mauryan empire extended from Bengal and Assam in the east, to modern day Afghanistan in the west, to Kashmir and Nepal in the north, and to the Deccan plateau in the south. Chandragupta is associated with the Nanda dynasty of Magadha (modern day Bihar in eastern India). According to one legend, he was the son of the Nanda king Sarvarthasiddhi and a dasi named Mura, daughter of a Vrishala (Shudra). This indicates that the great king had very humble origins As per another legend, Chandragupta belonged to a Kshatriya clan names Moriya (Maurya) of Pippalivana. Yet another legend connects him to the Shakya clan of Gautam Buddha, a clan which belon...
The Mughal (Moghul) Empire was established in the Indian subcontinent around 1526 AD. It was founded by Emperor Babur, who was a descendant of the Timurids (from father’s side) and also Genghis Khan (from mother’s side). His full name was Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur and he was originally the ruler of the Ferghana valley in Central Asia (modern day Uzbekistan). Although Babur hailed from the Barlas tribe which was of Mongol (Moghul in Persian) origin, his tribe had embraced the Persian culture and language, and converted to Islam. Babur encountered a series of setbacks during is reign of Ferghana and after losing his principality there, he wandered towards the Indian subcontinent in hopes of acquiring territories in Hindustan. He raided Kabul in 1504 and started to move southwards with the establishment of a base camp in Peshawar in 1524. In 1526, after his fifth attempt, Babur defeated Ibrahim Shah Lodi, the last of the Delhi Sultans and annexed Delhi and Agra. T...
After the Parliament of Religions in 1893, in Chicago , Vivekananda spent nearly two whole years lecturing in various parts of eastern and central United States. By the spring of 1895, he was weary and in poor health, because of his continuous exertion. After suspending his lecture tour, the Swami started giving free and private classes on Vedanta and Yoga. In June 1895, for two months he conducted private lectures to a dozen of his disciples at the Thousand Island Park. Vivekananda considered this to be the happiest part of his first visit to America. He later founded the "Vedanta Society of New York”. During his first visit to America, he traveled to England twice. His lectures were successful there. Here he met Ms. Margaret Noble, an Irish lady, who later became Sister Nivedita. During his second visit in May 1896, while living at a house in Pimlico, the Swami met Max Müller a renowned Indologist at Oxford University who wrote Ramakrishna's first biogr...
If you have been associated with India in the 1980s and 1990s, there is a good chance you have heard of super cop Kiran Bedi. Born on June 9, 1949, Kiran Bedi became the first woman officer in the IPS (Indian Police Service) in 1972. She was born in Amritsar, Punjab to parents Prakash Peshawaria and Prem Peshawaria. She is the second of four daughters. Her three sisters are; Shashi, an artist settled in Canada, Reeta, a clinical psychologist and writer, and Anu, a lawyer. She attended the Sacred Heart Convent School, Amritsar, where she joined the NCC ( National Cadet Corps). She took up tennis and won the Junior National Lawn Tennis Championship in 1966, the Asian Lawn Tennis Championship in 1972, and the All-India Interstate Women's Lawn Tennis Championship in 1976. In addition, she also won the All-Asian Tennis Championship, and won the Asian Ladies Title at the age of 22. On the personal front, in 1972, Kiran Bedi married Brij Bedi, a textile mac...
Maulana Azad , as he is popularly known was a prominent political leader of the Indian Independence Movement. A highly learned Muslim scholar, he was one of the major proponents of Hindu-Muslim unity and opposed the partition of British India (into modern day India and Pakistan) along communal lines. Abul Kalam Muhiyuddin Ahmed Azad was born on November 11, 1888 in Mecca. Azad's family descended from a line of eminent Islamic scholars. His mother was of Arab descent, the daughter of Shaikh Muhammad Zahir Watri, and his father, Maulana Khairuddin lived with his family in the Bengal region until he left India during the First Indian War of Independence and settled in Mecca, the holiest city in Islam. He came back to Calcutta with his family in 1890. Azad mastered several languages, including Pashto, Urdu, Arabic, Hindko, Persian, Bengali and Hindi. He was also trained in various topics such as Shariat, Mathematics, Philosophy, World History and Science. An ...
Raja Ram Mohan Roy was an Indian socio-educational reformer who challenged traditional Hindu culture and led conservative Indian society towards progressing India. He is also called the "Maker of Modern India" He founded the Brahmo Samaj at Calcutta in 1828, which was initially known as the "Brahmo Sabha." Raja Rammohan Roy was a great scholar and an independent thinker. He advocated the study of English, Science, Western Medicine and Technology. He was given the title 'Raja' by the Mughal Emperor. Raja Ram Mohan Roy was born in a Bengali Hindu family in Radhanagore, Hooghly, West Bengal 1772. His family background displayed religious diversity; his father Ramkanto Roy was a Vaishnavite, while his mother Tarinidevi was from a Shaivite family. He was sent to Patna for higher studies. By the age of fifteen, he had learnt Bangla, Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit. He studied Hindu scriptures like the Vedas, the Upanishadas etc. and books of other rel...