Sanatan Archive

When the saffron flag was hoisted atop the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, it carried deep symbolic meaning tied to ancient traditions. On Tuesday, 25 November, the flag — known as the “Dharma Dhwaj” — was raised by Prime Minister Modi during a grand ceremony marking the completion of the temple.

The historic and culturally important Thiruparankundram hill in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, has long held deep religious meaning for the Hindu community. Over the years, it also turned into a point of disagreement between Hindus and Muslims, especially regarding naming rights, traditional practices, and access to specific parts of the hill.

Recent audits by the Kerala government into the Guruvayur Devaswom, which oversees the sacred Sri Krishna Temple, have exposed shocking lapses in the management of the temple’s treasures. These findings, covering the 2019–20 and 2020–21 financial years, reveal that the administration of one of Kerala’s wealthiest temples has long been plagued by poor recordkeeping, secrecy, and misuse of assets.

KOCHI: On Monday, the Kerala High Court directed a thorough investigation into serious irregularities tied to the gold-cladded/plated copper coverings of the Dwarapalaka idols at the Sabarimala temple.

The Tirumala Tirupati temple, dedicated to Lord Venkateswara, is one of India’s most revered pilgrimage centers. Each year, millions of devotees line up to offer their prayers, and with them, extraordinary amounts of wealth—cash, gold, and foreign currency—flow into its coffers.

Hemchandra Vikramaditya—known widely as Hemu—was a 16th-century warrior-king who briefly ruled Delhi in 1556. He climbed from a modest life as a market vendor to lead armies and confront the Mughal Empire. Many remember him as the last indigenous Hindu ruler to hold Delhi’s throne before Mughal power took firm root. His journey—full of bold decisions, battlefield nerve, and a tragic twist—unfolds like a tense adventure. What follows traces his life step by step, from the first struggles to the moment he faced destiny on the field.

History often remembers kings, generals, and rulers, but the truest heroes are sometimes ordinary people who rose when the nation needed them most. In dusty villages, far away from royal courts and armies, women with no training, no wealth, and no privilege chose to pick up arms for their motherland. Among them was Mahabiri Devi, a young Dalit woman from Mundbhar in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh. She was not born to power, but she carried the fire of freedom in her heart. Along with 22 other women of her village, she stood against the British empire. Their story is not written in grand monuments, yet their courage has become immortal in the soil of India.

In the chill valleys of the Himalayas, where oxygen thins and snow never seems to melt, one man dared to imagine a frontier that would expand beyond mountains and borders. That man was General Zorawar Singh Kahluria (1786–1841), a name etched in the history of India as one of the greatest military minds of the 19th century. Born into a Chandel Rajput family in the princely state of Kahlur (present-day Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh), Zorawar’s journey began far from royalty and privilege. His early life was marked by struggle – “a family feud forced him to flee his village, and he received no formal education.” But fate often smiles upon those with unshakable resolve.

In 1528, India experienced one of the most tragic moments in its spiritual history. After asserting control over North India, Mughal emperor Babur sent his trusted general Mir Baqi to Ayodhya—not to rule, but to destroy. His destination was not a palace, but the Ram Janmabhoomi, the sacred birthplace of Lord Ram, revered by Hindus across the land.

Fatehpur District, April 1858: The late afternoon sun cast long shadows as 52 Indian revolutionaries stood beneath a sprawling tamarind tree along the Mughal Road. Moments later, British colonial officers carried out a brutal mass execution, hanging every one of these freedom fighters from the tree’s sturdy branches.