History

The Chalcolithic Age (5,500 – 3,000 BC) Originally the definition of the Chalcolithic period was clear. The beginning of the Chalcolithic age meant that humankind started using copper. The definition of the end, on the other hand, meant that the copper and tin are mixed to make bronze – hence Bronze age. However, later discoveries (e.g., Yumuktepe, circa 4300 BC) showed that before the Chalcolithic age started the humans were using copper. Also in the Chalcolithic period there was already experimentation to mix copper and tin. So the current definition of the Chalcolithic age seems to be out of date. It is also worth mentioning that, in addition to copper, use of stone and obsidian was common in this period.Obsidian is glass naturally forming around volcanoes when lava cools and solidifies fast before it crystallizes. Obsidian was used as a cutting tool in ancient times. Still in modern day it finds use as a cutting tool in some surgeries because of its superior sharpness compared to steel scalpel.Another distinguishing feature of this era was the sophistication in pottery making. Earthenware was decorated with variety of motifs (e.g., geometric) and paint was used in the process. The Chalcolithic artists spent their time mostly making monochrome and color painted pottery instead of drawing and painting the walls of the dwellings. As a continuation of the Neolithic era, terra cotta figurines of mother-goddess were common too.The Chalcolithic men used stone, adobe, and mud-bricks to build houses. They also learned how to use limestone for whitewash. The houses had stone foundations. The roofs, however, were flat.Beautiful metal tools attracted people who do not have them but have other valuable things to give, such as textile and ceramic. So trade started between people from different villages and tribes. Trade created new needs, such as keeping an inventory, making contracts between the traders. All these needs caused the invention of writing- not in Asia Minor though.Around 4,000 BC (the Late Chalcolithic period) the cities started to appear. Trading, the invention of writing, and relatively large size of population of human beings living in a close proximity were the beginning of the development process of modern societies that we have come to know now.Also circa 4,000 BC (the Late Chalcolithic age), migration to Asia Minor from the Balkans brought new people creating a heterogeneous cultural environment. Possibly, this development also helped promote the creation of modern societies. There were migrations from the Southeast too. And as in the rest of the history there were problems. During the droughts, for example, the tribes experiencing famine attacked and looted other tribes who had food.In the Early Stone Age, Asia Minor had the most advanced civilization. From the artifacts found it is known that the Chalcolithic men of Asia Minor interacted with the people in North Syria and Mesopotamia. However, towards the end of this period it lost its superiority. Egypt and Mesopotamia took the lead by improving trade and inventing writing. Asia Minor was a thousand years late in harnessing the power of writing. So at the end of the Chalcolithic Age the people of Asia Minor had a primitive life style compared to their neighbors, Egypt and Mesopotamia5.In the text the term “höyük” (mound) is used frequently. So it might be a good idea to explain what it means. In prehistoric times the dwellers of Asia Minor were building mud-brick houses on flat areas and lowlands, near rivers or creeks. When these houses were destroyed during earthquakes, wars, or just become unusable over the time, they were flattened and new ones were built on top of the previous ones. As the time passed the mounds were growing tall. When they reached 20-30 meters tall (66 – 98 ft.) climbing up and down used to become difficult so they were abandoned and new ones were built. Höyüks may reach to a diameter of 100 – 500 meters (328 – 1640 ft.). Since the new houses were built on top of the old demolished ones, they were in some sense recording the history, layer by layer over thousands of years.Since höyüks were dwellings of common people as opposed to the tumuli (tombs) of prominent individuals there are some main differences between höyüks and tumuli. Höyüks grow taller over a long period of time. If excavated, artifacts, such as common household tools, might be unearthed in its layers.Findings in the Hacilar settlement near Burdur and in Mersin-Yümüktepe area are some examples of the Chalcolithic age in Asia Minor. Among many other known Chalcolithic settlements in Asia Minor Nor#1untepe, Tepecik, Kalaycik, Kuruçay, Canhasan, Köskhöyük, Tülintepe, Korucutepe, Samsat, and Tilkitepe can be mentioned.    

Pre-historic period The Antiquity of Man: We do not know when man first appeared upon the earth. We only know that in ages long past, when both the climate and the outline of the continents were very different from what they are at present, primitive man roamed over them with animals now extinct; and that, about 5000 B.C., when the historic curtain first rises, in some favoured regions, as in the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates, there were nations and civilizations already venerable with age, and possessing arts, governments, and institutions that bear evidence of slow growth through very long periods of time. The Prehistoric and the Historic Age :The uncounted millenniums which lie back of the time when man began to keep written records of what he thought and did and of what befell him, are called the Prehistoric Age.The comparatively few centuries of human life which are made known to us through written records comprise the Historic Age. In the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates there have been discovered written records which were made at least four or five thousand years before Christ; so we say that the historic period began in those lands six or seven thousand years ago. On the island of Crete numerous inscriptions have recently been found that apparently were written as early as the fourth millennium B.C. These, however, have not yet been deciphered. Some written records used by Chinese historians seem to go back to the third millennium before our era. In other regions the historic period still begins for us at a much later date. Thus the truly historic age did not open in Greece and Italy until about 800 or 700 B.C., and for the countries of Northern Europe, speaking broadly, not until about the beginning of our era. How we learn about Prehistoric Man ?A knowledge of what prehistoric man was and what he did is indispensable to the historical student; for the dim prehistoric ages of human life form the childhood of the race, and the man cannot be understood without at least some knowledge of the child.But how, in the absence of written records, are we to find out anything about prehistoric man? In many ways we are able to learn much about him. Thus, for instance, we may regard existing savage and semi-savage races as representing the prehistoric state of the advanced races. As it has been put, what they now are we once were. So by acquainting ourselves with the life and customs of these laggard races we acquaint ourselves with our own prehistoric past and that of all other civilized peoples.Again, the men who lived before the dawn of history left behind them many things which witness as to what manner of men they were. In ancient gravel beds along the streams where they fished or hunted, in the caves which afforded them shelter in the refuse heaps on the sites of their villages or camping places, or in the graves where they laid away their dead, we find great quantities of tools and weapons and other articles shaped by their hands. From these things we learn what skill these early men had acquired as tool makers and to what degree of culture they had attained. Divisions of Prehistoric Times.–The long period of prehistoric times is divided into different ages which are named from the material which man used in the manufacture of his weapons and tools. The earliest epoch is known as the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age; the following one as the Neolithic or New Stone Age; and the later period as the Age of Metals.The division lines between these ages are not sharply drawn. In most countries the epochs run into and overlap one another, just as in modern times the Age of Steam runs into and overlaps the Age of Electricity.The Paleolithic or Old Stone Age : In the Old Stone Age man’s implements were usually made of stone, and particularly of easily chipped flints, though sometimes bones, horns, tusks, and other material were used in their manufacture. These rude tools and weapons of Paleolithic man, found in gravel beds and in caves, are the very oldest things in existence shaped by human hands.The man of the Old Stone Age saw the retreating glaciers of the last great ice age, of which geology tells us. Among the animals which lived with him on the continent of Europe–we know most of Paleolithic man there–were the mammoth, the cave bear, the elk, the rhinoceros, the wild horse, and the reindeer; species which are no longer found in the regions where primitive man hunted- them. As the climate gradually grew warmer they either became extinct or retreated up the mountains or migrated towards the north.What we know of Paleolithic man may be summed up as follows: he was a hunter and fisher; his habitation was a cave or a rock shelter; his implements were in the main roughly shaped flints; he had no domestic animals save possibly the dog and the reindeer; he was practically ignorant of the art of making pottery; he had no belief in a future life, at least we have no evidence that he buried his dead after the manner of those folk who have come to hold such a belief.The length of the Old Stone Age no one knows; we do not attempt to reckon its duration by centuries or millenniums even, but only by geologic epochs. But we do know–and this is something of vastly greater moment than a knowledge of the duration of the age–that the long slow epochs did not pass away without some progress having been made by primeval man, which assures us that though so lowly a creature he was a creature endowed with capacity for growth and improvement.Before the end of the age man had learned the use of fire, as we know from the traces of fire found in the caves which were his abode, and

Muhammad bin Qasim (31 December 695–18 July 715)    It is said that when the Caliph Walid sent for Suryadevi and Parmaldevi, the daughters of Dahir, he first selected the elder for the honor of sharing his bed, but the damsel protested that she was unworthy, for Muhammad had dishonored both her and her sister before sending them to his master. Walid, transported with rage, wrote with his own hand an order directing that the offender, wherever he might be when the message reached him, should suffer himself to be sewn up in a raw hide and thus dispatched to the capital.When the order reached the young hero it was at once obeyed. He caused himself to be sewn up in the hide, the contraction of which as it dried would crush him to death, enclosed in a box and sent to Damascus.The box was opened in the presence of the Caliph and Suryadevi, and Walid pointed proudly to the corpse as evidence of the obedience which he was able to exact from his servants. Suryadevi, having read him a homily on the duty of investigating all complaints made to him before issuing orders on them, confessed that her accusation was false, that Muhammad had scrupulously respected her honor and that of her sister, but that she had no other means of avenging her father’s death.Walid condemned both sisters to a horrible death. We need not stop to inquire whether they were immured alive, or whether they were dragged through the streets of Damascus by horses until they expired.Both accounts are extant, but the end of the young conqueror, though tragic enough, was not due to an act of romantic and quixotic obedience to a distant and ungrateful master.    

The Death of Dahir   Dahir had meanwhile assembled an army of 50,000 horse, and marched from Brahmanabad to Rawar to meet the invader. The armies lay opposite to one another for several days, during which some skirmishing took place, and on June 20 Dahir mounted his elephant and advanced to the attack.The battle was sustained with great valor on both sides, but an Arab succeeded in planting an arrow, to which burning cotton was attached, in Dahir’s elephant, and the terrified beast turned and fled towards the river, pursued by the Arabs. The driver arrested his flight in midstream and induced him once more to face the enemy, and the battle was renewed on the river bank.Dahir charged the Arabs, and did great execution among them until he was struck by an arrow and fell from his elephant. He contrived to mount a horse, but an Arab cut him down, and the Hindus fled from the field, some towards Aror, the capital, and others, with Jai Singh, to Bahmanabad, while Dahir’s wife, Rani Bai, and her handmaids immolated themselves at Rawar, to avoid falling into the hands of the strangers.The remnant of the Hindu army rallied at Brahmanabad and offered such a determined resistance that 8000 or, according to another account, 26,000 of them were slain.Jai Singh, loth to sustain a siege in Brahmanabad, retired to Chitrur and Muhammad captured Brahmanabad, and with it Rani Ladi, another wife of Dahir, whom he afterwards married, and Suryadevi and Parmaldevi, Dabir’s two maiden daughters, who were sent through Hajjaj to the Caliph.After the capture of Brahmanabad he organized the administration of Lower Sind, placing governors in Rawar, Sehwan, Nirun, Dhaliya, and other places, and on October 9th set out for Aror (or Alor), receiving on his way the submission of the people of Muthalo and Bharur, and of the Sammas, Lohanas, and Sihtas.Aror was held by a son of Dahir, called by Muslim chroniclers Fufi, whose conviction that his father was yet alive and had but retired into Hindustan to collect an army encouraged him to offer a determined resistance.Muhammad attempted to destroy his illusion, which was shared by the people of Alor, by sending his wife Ladi to assure them that her former husband had indeed been slain and that his head had been sent to the Caliph’s viceroy, but they repudiated her with abuse as one who had joined herself to the unclean strangers. Fufi was, however, at length convinced of his father’s death, and fled from Alor by night. Muhammad, on learning of his flight, attacked the town, and the citizens, deserted by their leader, readily submitted to him.On his way thither he first reached a fortress to which Kaksa, a cousin of Dahir, had fled from Alor.Kaksa submitted to him, was taken into his confidence and became one of his most trusted counselors. Continuing his march north-eastwards he came to a fortress of which the name has been so corrupted that it cannot be identified, but it lay on the northern bank of the Beas, as it then flowed. It was bravely defended for seven days, but was then deserted by its governor, a nephew of the ruler of Multan, who took refuge in Sika, a fortress on the southern bank of the Ravi.The people, left to themselves, surrendered the fortress and were spared, but the garrison, to the number of four thousand, was put to the sword, and their wives and children were enslaved.After appointing an Arab governor Muhammad crossed the rivers and attacked Sika, the siege of which occupied him for seventeen days and cost him the lives of twenty-five of his best officers and 215 men.When the commander of the fortress fled to Multan and the place fell, he avenged the death of his warriors by sacking it and passed on to Multan. The Hindus were defeated in the field and driven within the walls but held out until a deserter pointed out to Muhammad the stream or canal which supplied the city with water, and this was destroyed or diverted, so that the garrison was obliged to surrender.In the great temple were discovered a golden idol and such quantities of gold that the Arabs named the city ‘The House of Gold’.The fighting men were put to the sword and their wives and children, together with the attendants of the temple, numbering six thousand souls in all, were enslaved, but the citizens were spared. Amir Daud Nasr was appointed to the government of the city and another Arab to that of the province, and Arabs were placed in charge of the principal forts.There is a conflict of authority regarding Muhammad’s movements after the capture of Multan in 713, which laid at his feet upper Sind and the lower Punjab.According to one account he became involved in hostilities with Har Chandra, son of Jhital, raja of Qinnauj, not to be confounded with the great city of Kanauj in Hindustan, and marched to meet him at Odipur, fourteen miles southward of Alwana, on the Ghaggar, and according to another he returned to Aror, but his career of conquest was drawing to a close, his sun was setting while it was yet day.    

Fall of Debul (Near modern Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan):   Makran, was an autonomous princely state of both British India and Pakistan, which ceased to exist in 1955.It was located in the extreme southwest of Pakistan, an area occupied by the districts of Gwadar, Kech and Panjgur.The state did not include the enclave of Gwadar which was under Omani rule until 1958 .On17 March 1948, Makran acceded to Pakistan and on 3 October 1952 it joined Kalat, Kharan and Las Bela to form the Baluchistan States Union.The state was dissolved on 14 October 1955 when most regions of the western wing of Pakistan were merged to form the province of West Pakistan.When that province was dissolved in 1970, the territory of the former state of Makran was organised as Makran District and later Makran Division of the province of Baluchistan (later changed to Balochistan).Muhammad, with 6000 Syrian horse, the flower of the armies of the Caliphs,a camel corps of equal strength, and a baggage train of 3000 camels, marched by way of Shiraz and through Mekran towards Sind, crossing the frontier at Annan, probably not far from the modern Darbeji.On his way through Mekran he had been joined by more troops and the Arabs appeared before Debul, then a seaport situated about twenty-four miles to the south-west of the modern town of Tatta, in the autumn of 711.His artillery, which included a great balista known as “the Bride”, worked by five hundred men, had been sent by sea to meet him.The town was protected by strong stone fortifications and contained a great idol temple, from which it took its name. The siege had continued for some time when a Brahman deserted from the temple and informed Muhammad that the garrison consisted of 4000 Rajputs and that 3000 shaven Brahmans served the temple.It was impossible, he said, to take the place by storm, for the Brahmans had prepared a talisman and placed it at the base of the staff of the great red flag which flew from the steeple of the temple.Muhammad ordered Jawiyyah, his chief artillerist, to shorten the foot of “the Bride”, thus lowering her trajectory, and to make the flagstaff his mark. The third stone struck it, shattered its base, and broke the talisman.The garrison, though much disheartened by the destruction of their palladium, made a sortie, but were repulsed, and the Arabs, planting their ladders, swarmed over the walls.The Brahmans and other inhabitants were invited to accept Islam, and on their refusing their wives and children were enslaved and all males of the age of seventeen and upwards were put to the sword.The carnage lasted for three days and Muhammad laid out a Muslim quarter, built a mosque, and placed a garrison of 4000 in the town. The legal fifth of the spoil and seventy-five damsels were sent to Hajjaj, and the rest of the plunder was divided among the army.Dahir attempted to make light of the fall of Debul, saying that it was a place inhabited by mean people and traders, and as Muhammad advanced towards Nerun, about seventy-five miles to the north-east and near the modern Haidarabad (Hyderabad), ordered his son Jai Singh to leave that fort, placing a priest in charge of it, and to join him in the strong fortress of Brahmanabad.The Arabs, after seven days’ march, arrived before Nerun early in 712, and the priest left in charge of the place surrendered it to Muhammad, who, placing a Muslim governor there marched to Sehwan, about eighty miles to the north-west.This town, populated chiefly by priests and traders, who were anxious to submit at once to the invaders, was held by Bajhra, son of Chandra and cousin of Dahir, who upbraided the inhabitants for their pusillanimity and prepared, with the troops at his disposal, to defend the place, but after a week’s siege lost heart, fled by the north gate of the city, crossed the Kumbh, which then flowed more than ten miles to the east of Sehwan, and took refuge with the Jats of Budhiya, whose raja was Kaka, son of Kotal, and whose capital was at Sisam, on the bank of the Kumbh.The inhabitants of Sehwan then surrendered the town to Muhammad, who granted them their lives on condition of their remaining loyal and paying the poll-tax leviable from non-Muslims.Sir William Muir has observed that the conquest of Sind marks a new stage in Muhammadan policy. The Islamic law divides misbelievers into two classes, “the People of the Book”, that is Christians and Jews, as the possessors of inspired Scriptures, and idolaters.The first, when conquered, are granted, by the authority of the Koran, their lives, and may not lawfully be molested in any way, even in the practice of the rites of their creeds, so long as they loyally accept the rule of their conquerors and pay the jizya or poll-tax, but a rigid interpretation of the Koran, subsequently modified by commentators and legislators, allows to idolaters only the choice between Islam and death.In India Muhammad granted the amnesty to idolaters, and in many cases left their temples standing and permitted their worship.At Debul he had behaved as an orthodox Muslim, but his subsequent policy was toleration except when he met with obstinate resistance or his troops suffered serious losses.Thus we find the zealous Hajjaj remonstrating with the young soldier for doing the Lord’s work negligently and Muhammad consulting his cousin on the degree of toleration permissible.His campaign in Sind was not a holy war, waged for the propagation of the faith, but a mere war of conquest, and it was undoubtedly politic in the leader of a few thousand Arabs to refrain from a course which might have roused swarms of idolaters against him.From Sehwan he marched to Sisam on the Kumbh, defeated the Jats, who attacked his camp by night, and captured their stronghold in two days. Bajhra, Dahir’s cousin, and his principal followers were slain, but Kaksa submitted, and afterwards joined the Muslims.In accordance with orders received from

Arab Invasion Of Sindh :   The rise of Islam is one of the marvels of history. In the summer of AD 622 a prophet, without honor in his own country, fled from his native city to seek an asylum in the town of Yathrib, since known as Madinat-un-Nabi, ‘the Prophet’s City’, rather more than two hundred miles north of Mecca, the town which had cast him out.Little more than a century later the successors and followers of the fugitive were ruling an empire which extended from the Atlantic to the Indus and from the Caspian to the cataracts of the Nile, and included Spain and Portugal, some of the most fertile regions of southern France, the whole of the northern coast of Africa, Upper and Lower Egypt, their own native Arabia, Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Persia, Afghanistan, Baluchistan and Transoxiana.They threatened Christendom almost simultaneously from the east and the west, besieging Constantinople three times and advancing into the heart of France, and but for the decisive victory of Theodosius III before the imperial city in 716 and the crushing defeat inflicted on them near Tours in 732 by Charles the Hammer, the whole of Europe would have passed under their sway.The battle of Poitiers decided whether the Christians’ bell or the muezzin’s cry should sound over Rome, Paris and London, whether the subtleties of the schoolmen and later, the philosophy of Greece, or the theology and jurisprudence of the Koran and the Traditions should be studied at Bologna, Paris, Oxford and Cambridge.By the beginning of the eighth century of the Christian era the Arabs had carried their arms as far as the western confines of India and bore sway in Mekran, the ancient Gedrosia, that torrid region extending inland from the northern shore of the Sea of Oman. Immediately to the east of this province lay the kingdom of Sind, ruled by Dahir, son of the usurping Brahman Chach.An act of piracy or brigandage, the circumstances of which are variously related, brought Dahir into conflict with his formidable neighbors.The King of Ceylon was sending to Hajjaj, viceroy of the eastern provinces of the caliphate, the orphan daughters of Muslim merchants who had died in his dominions, and his vessels were attacked and plundered by pirates of the coast of Sind.According to a less probable account, the King of Ceylon had himself accepted Islam, and was sending tribute to the Commander of the Faithful.Another author writes that Abdul Malik, the fifth Umayyad, and father of Walid, the reigning Caliph, had sent agents to India to purchase female slaves and other commodities, and that these agents, on reaching Debul, Dahir’s principal seaport, had been attacked and plundered by brigands.Hajjaj sent a letter through Muhammad bin Harun, governor of Mekran, demanding reparation, but Dahir replied that the aggressors were beyond his control, and that he was powerless to punish them.Hajjaj then obtained from Walid permission to send an expedition into Sind and dispatched Ubaidullah against Debul, but he was defeated and slain and Budail, who followed him, shared his fate.Hajjaj, deeply affected by these two failures, fitted out a third expedition, at the head of which he placed his cousin and son-in-law, Imaduddin Muhammad, son of Qasim, a youth of seventeen years of age.    

Lingayat community   Lingayatism is a distinct Shaivite religious tradition in India. Its worship is centered on Hindu god Shiva as the universal god in the iconographic form of Ishtalinga. The adherents of this faith are known as Lingayats. Lingayatism was founded by the 12th-century philosopher and statesman Basava and spread by his followers, called Sharanas. Lingayatism emphasizes qualified monism and bhakti (loving devotion) to Shiva, with philosophical foundations similar to those of the 11th–12th-century South Indian philosopher Ramanuja The terms Lingayatism and Veerashaivism have been used synonymously, and Lingayats also referred to as Veerashaivas. Lingayatism is considered a Hindu sect,[2][5] but some Lingayats have sought legal recognition as a religion distinct from Hinduism. Lingayatism shares beliefs with Indian religions, such as about reincarnation, samsara and karma Contemporary Lingayatism is influential in South India, especially in the state of Karnataka. Today, Lingayats, along with Shaiva Siddhanta followers, Tirunelveli Saiva Pillai, Nadar, Naths, Pashupaths of Nepal, Kapalikas and others constitute the Shaiva population The Lingayat iṣṭaliṅga is an oval-shaped emblem symbolising Parashiva, the absolute reality, and is worn on the body by a cord hung around the neck. Basava is credited with founding Lingayatism and its secular practices. He was a 12th-century Hindu philosopher, statesman, Kannada poet in the Shiva-focussed Bhakti movement and a social reformer during the reign of the Kalachuri-dynasty king Bijjala I in Karnataka, India Basavanna spread social awareness through his poetry, popularly known as Vachanaas. Basavanna rejected gender or social discrimination, as well as some extant practices such as the wearing of sacred thread, and replaced this with the ritual of wearing Ishtalinga necklace, with an image of the Shiva Liṅga Lingayat scholars thrived in northern Karnataka during the centuries of rule by Vijayanagara Empire. The Lingayats likely were a part of the reason why Vijayanagara succeeded in territorial expansion and in withstanding the Deccan Sultanate wars. The Lingayat text Sunya sampadane grew out of the scholarly discussions in a Anubhava Mantap, and according to Bill Aitken, these were “compiled at the Vijayanagara court during the reign of Praudha Deva Raya Similarly, the scripture of Lingayatism Basava Purana was completed in 1369 during the reign of Vijayanagara ruler Bukka Raya I Lingayat (Veerashaiva) thinkers rejected the custodial hold of Brahmins over the Vedas and the shastras, but they did not outright reject the Vedic knowledge. The 13th-century Telugu Virashaiva poet Palkuriki Somanatha, author of Basava Purana – a scripture of Veerashaivas, for example asserted, “Virashaivism fully conformed to the Vedas and the shastras Lingayatism teaches a path to an individual’s spiritual progress is viewed, and describes it as a six-stage Satsthalasiddhanta. This concept progressively evolves the individual starting with the phase of a devotee, Shunya in a series of Kannada language texts is equated with the Virashaiva concept of the Supreme. In particular, the Shunya Sampadane texts present the ideas of Allama Prabhuin a form of dialogue, where shunya is that void and distinctions which a spiritual journey seeks to fill and eliminate. It is the described as state of union of one’s soul with the infinite Shiva, the state of blissful moksha. This Lingayat concept is similar to shunya Brahma concept found in certain texts of Vaishnavism, particularly in Odiya, such as the poetic Panchasakhas. It explains the Nirguna Brahman idea of Vedanta, that is the eternal unchanging metaphysical reality as “personified void”. However, both in Lingayatism and various flavors of Vaishnavism such as Mahima Dharma, the idea of Shunya is closer to the Hindu concept of metaphysical Brahman, rather than to the Śūnyatā concept of Buddhism.[35] However, there is some overlap, such as in the works of Bhima Bhoi. The Lingayats always wear the Ishtalinga held with a necklace. The Istalinga is made up of light gray slate stone coated with fine durable thick black paste of cow dung ashes mixed with some suitable oil to withstand wear and tear. Sometime it is made up of ashes mixed with clarified butter. The coating is called Kanti (covering) The Lingayats bury their dead. The dead are buried in the Dhyana mudra (meditating position) with their Ishta linga in their left hand.    

MIMAMSA :   Mimamsa: According to this philosophy liberation is possible by means of karma Mimamsa is a Sanskrit word that means “reflection” or “critical investigation” It is one of six orthodox (astika) schools of Hinduism. The school is known for its philosophical theories on the nature of dharma, based on hermeneutics of the Vedas The Mīmāṃsā school was foundational and influential for the vedānticschools, which were also known as Uttara-Mīmāṃsā. The differences were that the Mīmāṃsā school developed and emphasized karma-kāṇḍa, or the study of ritual actions, using the four early Vedas, while the Vedānta schools developed and emphasized jñana-kāṇḍa, the study of knowledge and spirituality, using the later parts of Vedas like the Upaniṣads. The school of Mīmāṃsā consists of both atheistic and theistic doctrines, but the school showed little interest in systematic examination of the existence of God. Rather, it held that the soul is an eternal, omnipresent, inherently active spiritual essence, and focused on the epistemology and metaphysics of dharma. The Mīmāṃsā school of Hinduism is a form of realism A key text of the Mīmāṃsā school is the Mīmāṃsā Sūtra of Jaimini Between the Samhitas and Brahmanas, the Mimamsa school places greater emphasis to the Brahmanas – the part of Vedas that is a commentary on Vedic rituals Purva-Mimamsa was just known as the Mimamsa school, and the Uttara-Mimamsa as the Vedantaschool The scholars of Mimamsa school are referred to as the Mimamsakas The core tenets of Pūrva Mīmāṃsā are ritualism (orthopraxy), anti-asceticism and anti-mysticism. The central aim of the school is elucidation of the nature of dharma, understood as a set ritual obligations and prerogatives to be performed properly.    

Vaiśeṣika darshana:   Vaiśeṣika darshana was founded by Kaṇāda Kashyapa around the 2nd century BC The epistemology of Vaiśeṣika school of Hinduism, like Buddhism, accepted only two reliable means to knowledge: perception and inference. The Vaiśeṣika system became similar in its philosophical procedures, ethical conclusions and soteriology to the Nyāya school of Hinduism, but retained its difference in epistemology and metaphysics. Although the Vaisheshika system developed independently from the Nyaya school of Hinduism, the two became similar and are often studied together. In its classical form, however, the Vaishesika school differed from the Nyaya in one crucial respect: where Nyaya accepted four sources of valid knowledge, the Vaishesika accepted only two.    

Samkhya school: Samkhya school: It is most related to the Yoga school of Hinduism, and it was influential on other schools of Indian philosophy.Sāmkhya is an enumerationist philosophy whose epistemology accepts three of six pramanas (proofs) as the only reliable means of gaining knowledge The existence of God or supreme being is not directly asserted, nor considered relevant by the Samkhya philosophers. Sāṃkhya denies the final cause of Ishvara (God). While the Samkhya school considers the Vedas as a reliable source of knowledge, it is an atheistic philosophy according to Paul Deussen and other scholars. A key difference between Samkhya and Yoga schools, state scholars,is that Yoga school accepts a “personal, yet essentially inactive, deity” or “personal god”. Some 19th and 20th century scholars suggested that Samkhya may have non-Vedic origins. Dandekar, similarly wrote in 1968, “The origin of the Sankhya is to be traced to the pre-Vedic non-Aryan thought complex”. Here – in Kaushitaki Upanishad and Chandogya Upanishad – the germ are to be found (of) two of the main ideas of classical Samkhya. Sage Kapila is traditionally credited as a founder of the Samkhya school. The earliest mention of dualism is in the Rigveda, a text that was compiled in the second millennium BCE