Mahmud of Ghazni vs Rajendra Chola

[anonymus]

Errrrr... No, in those times large lumbering armies were slaughtered by small ones, primarily because small armies were more quick and easily deploy able, furthermore they were more easy to administer. Throughout history smaller armies have nearly always remained victorious. A famous example is the battle of Qadisiya, I suggest you read about it, it shows that faster and smaller armies can deal a much more damage against larger ones.

Actually that is not true.

If we discount some rabbles assembled in a hurry, in pre-modern time, Large armies defeated small armies 9 out of 10 times. The instances of smaller armies defeating larger armies are famous only because they buck a trend. For every such famous victory, there are 100 of battles in which larger army won, but is not much appreciated as such a result was expected.

You are a Hindu and you are forgetting that Mahmud Ghaznavi was a Muslim.......from where you are getting the ideas that he could be a Pashtun?....He was a Turk from Khorasan and his army army consisted of Turks, Khorasanis (Tajiks) and Afghans (Pashtuns)..............He smashed Hindus and we admire him for that , it doesnt matter how much cruel he was to you people. Pashtun mercenaries benefited from his military campaigns and also his destruction of Hindus in modern day KPK, allowed our people to colonized the empty area. DIlzaks got settled in KPK in his times and provided troops to his army. Ghaznavids and Ghorids paved the way for spread of Islam in India, we admire them , their ethnicity is irrelevant as they were multicultural dynasties.

I know I know.

There is this tendency among inferior muslims (and have no doubt Pashtuns are inferior as Infact, Pashtuns hardly had any status ever and were opportunist mercenaries at best which they remained till 15th century) to venerate their conquerors as heroes, even if they have been enslaved by that supposed "hero". Thus is pretty natural for them to admire and feel proud of their conquerors like Greek feel proud of Suleiman the magnificent , or Persians admire Chengis Khan or Khalid-ibn-al-Waleed ( ) . Here talk of enslavement of one's ancestors is futile. Isn't it @Samandri ?

BTW, your hero is not an undefeated General. He lost two battles in India, and may have lost more elsewhere.

 

[nForce]

Military victories are fine. That just makes one a warlord. What are the attributes that makes one a good ruler ?

 

[anonymus]

I read that Raja Bhoj of Malwa attacked Mahmud Ghazni during his invasion of Somnath and that
Mahmud fled to Ghazni because he feared the large army of Raja Bhoj of Malwa.
This also seems to be his last Indian campaign.

I have mentioned this in my earlier post.

And if someone think of it as a myth or historical revisionism, you could point it out to him that this is written by a Turkish Author Gardizai fro Mahmud's court, authors who were always biased in favor of their patrons.

 

[Shark2]

Nothing like that happened. Mahmud not only took a lot of wealth but he also took away tens of thousands of slaves with him after the raid. I don't remember the exact figures but the amount of gold, jewel, precious stones he took with him would give the Arab Sheikhs a cardiac arrest. The loot was astronomical in its monetary worth. So vast was the wealth that his subjects did not have to pay any tax for three straight years.

Mahmud or any body at that time cannot flee through the desert taking so much wealth and slaves with them. Any pursuing party would catch up with them within days.

Thing is many people are revising history to make themselves or their regional rulers look better. Mahmud was unopposed in all his campaigns.

This is wrong. Mahmud failed a few times in India. He failed to conquer the Gwalior fort and
he also was not able to capture the Kalinjar fort of the Chandela Kingdom. He was certainly not
unbeatable. There is a reason why he never invaded the Paramara Kingdom of Malwa.

 

[Echo_419]

The thread was talking from 11th century onwards.The Rashtrakutas were probably the most powerful empire in india at that time. For some peculiar reason the north Indians do not appreciate the greatness of south Indian history.

Vijaynagar was not the most powerful empire in "India" but it surely was wealthy and powerful in the deccan peninsula.

The Marathas were not a dynasty but a confederacy. Shivaji's descendents did not rule the Marathas empire, his son Sambhaji was killed and their was no dynasty as such after that. It was the Maratha Peshwas who build the Maratha empire. They had the largest "Hindu" empire in medieval history.

I have to agree on this one North India specially NCR doesn't knows to much about the history of South & specially the Norty East I hope the govt starts some kind of education program on this

 

[Shark2]

Military victories are fine. That just makes one a warlord. What are the attributes that makes one a good ruler ?

Well, its pretty obvious that the Chola Kings were greater rulers than the Ghaznavid rulers.
The Chola Kings established a real Empire with a great administration which is one of the
main reasons why the Chola Dynasty ruled for such a long time and why the the Chola
Dynasty produced so many great Kings.
On the other hand the Ghaznavid Kingdom was more like a tribal confederacy which
rose during the reign of one great military leader Mahmud of Ghazni but which declined rather
quickly after his death.

 

[SarthakGanguly]

People who comment India never attacked anybody in past 10,000 years and bla bla need to read up on proper history. The SEA countries propbably saw India as the same invaders as Indians viewed Ghaznavi.

Only that they don't. The reason being the lack of damage to life, property and way of life.

 

[Jaanbaz]

The Chola dude wins.

 

[Jaggu]

Central Asian armies were a fast mobile army which made blitzkrieg attacks vs Indian armies which were slow and used tactics which were outdated thousands of years old. One of the main reasons why the pre Panipat Marathas were successful is because they were not tied down by the ancient tactics and adopted the same fast mobile tactics of the central Asians where as the later mughals adopted the same slow sluggish war tactics. The Mughals of Aurangzeb's era were no longer fast and mobile like Babur was. As for Cholas vs Ghazni. It's hard to say because although Ghazni had a very fast effective army but the Cholas had a huge army. So if either army won it would be a hard earned but bloody victory like the three Panipat battles.

 

[Providence]

Why is this question being dissected on religious lines ? People of the sub continent cant be so stupid at times.

I am sure Chola guy would have sliced down any buddhist or hindu guy who was in his army/navy's way and the same thing applies to the ghazne guy.

Doesn't pakistanis trace their islamic history from 800ish AD ? That time as someone said ghazni sliced down hindus of afganisthan and lahore region isn't there some conflict of history there ?

And ghazni was what ? in 1200ish era ? So if sub continent was hindu at that time, when did they convert then ?

Similarly, the chola guy killed and smashed so many hindu kings whoever was on his path to a greater chola empire..

Bottomline is, both wanted to do what they wanted to do. And they didn't differentiate the enemy based on the religion but by their battle tactics probably ! So you guys shouldn't do it either.

By the way, people here in europe think so differently. I mean if you see scottish history of 900s and 1100s, it was the rise of the protestant era in this region. Then ofc we have the british empire having half of the known world under their control in 1800s. Have you ever heard a christian claiming we ruled over hindus or muslims ? or a protestant claiming to have ruled catholics ? No because it sounds stupid !

Grow up a pair of grey cells u guys for fcuks sake !

 

[Shark2]

Why is this question being dissected on religious lines ? People of the sub continent cant be so stupid at times.

I am sure Chola guy would have sliced down any buddhist or hindu guy who was in his army/navy's way and the same thing applies to the ghazne guy.

Doesn't pakistanis trace their islamic history from 800ish AD ? That time as someone said ghazni sliced down hindus of afganisthan and lahore region isn't there some conflict of history there ?

And ghazni was what ? in 1200ish era ? So if sub continent was hindu at that time, when did they convert then ?

Similarly, the chola guy killed and smashed so many hindu kings whoever was on his path to a greater chola empire..

Bottomline is, both wanted to do what they wanted to do. And they didn't differentiate the enemy based on the religion but by their battle tactics probably ! So you guys shouldn't do it either.

By the way, people here in europe think so differently. I mean if you see scottish history of 900s and 1100s, it was the rise of the protestant era in this region. Then ofc we have the british empire having half of the known world under their control in 1800s. Have you ever heard a christian claiming we ruled over hindus or muslims ? or a protestant claiming to have ruled catholics ? No because it sounds stupid !

Grow up a pair of grey cells u guys for fcuks sake !

Dont be ridiculous. This does not have much to do with religion.
Most of the Indians prefer Rajendra Chola because he was an Indian ruler
and Mahmud Ghazni was a foreign Turkic invader. At least the Indian point of view makes
sense. But I dont know what Pakistanis think about the Turkic invader Mahmud Ghazni.

 

[SrNair]

Rajaraja Chola ,the only Indian King that made some huge invasions outside the subcontinent.
At his time Chola had the most powerful naval forces in the world.Powerful enough to explore SE Asia.
Those blitzkerg of Ghazni wouldnt be enough against Chola.
How can they ?Even if he invaded those nations it was not brutal like those Central Asians and camel ridrs.A good side of his thousands years old dharmic beliefs.

Only that they don't. The reason being the lack of damage to life, property and way of life.

 

[Echo_419]

Rajaraja Chola ,the only Indian King that made some huge invasions outside the subcontinent.
At his time Chola had the most powerful naval forces in the world.Powerful enough to explore SE Asia.
Those blitzkerg of Ghazni wouldnt be enough against Chola.
How can they ?Even if he invaded those nations it was not brutal like those Central Asians and camel ridrs.A good side of his thousands years old dharmic beliefs.

Indeed all Indians must take pride in the achievements of Rajendra Chola specially on the naval front

 

[Shark2]

Errrrr... No, in those times large lumbering armies were slaughtered by small ones, primarily because small armies were more quick and easily deploy able, furthermore they were more easy to administer. Throughout history smaller armies have nearly always remained victorious. A famous example is the battle of Qadisiya, I suggest you read about it, it shows that faster and smaller armies can deal a much more damage against larger ones.

No. Before the use of guns and cannons the larger armies usually won the battles and there were only
a few cases when smaller armies were able to win. And Mahmud Ghazni never had to face such a
large army like the one of the Chola Dynasty.

 

[Samandri]

Actually that is not true.

If we discount some rabbles assembled in a hurry, in pre-modern time, Large armies defeated small armies 9 out of 10 times. The instances of smaller armies defeating larger armies are famous only because they buck a trend. For every such famous victory, there are 100 of battles in which larger army won, but is not much appreciated as such a result was expected.




I know I know.

There is this tendency among inferior muslims (and have no doubt Pashtuns are inferior as Infact, Pashtuns hardly had any status ever and were opportunist mercenaries at best which they remained till 15th century) to venerate their conquerors as heroes, even if they have been enslaved by that supposed "hero". Thus is pretty natural for them to admire and feel proud of their conquerors like Greek feel proud of Suleiman the magnificent , or Persians admire Chengis Khan or Khalid-ibn-al-Waleed ( ) . Here talk of enslavement of one's ancestors is futile. Isn't it @Samandri ?

BTW, your hero is not an undefeated General. He lost two battles in India, and may have lost more elsewhere.

Lol Ghaznavids and Ghorids did keep slaves but they were Turk.....Afghan and Khilji soldiers are mentioned as free mercenary soldiers in their army. My ancestors were in those armies and they reddened their swords with blood of your people.......

Sultan Mahmood Ghaznavi and Shahbudeen Ghori , heroes of Afghanistan, were good muslims, both patronized pashtuns and you expect me to dislike them? keep wishing