Aaah, the much awaited addition of arguments to the thread. ;-) Abhijit Menon-Sen wrote: > At 2007-07-13 09:37:29 +0530, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> All were just "people" who had (as far as I know) free access >> to travel to areas that they felt they needed to travel to on >> pilgrimage no matter which ruler was in charge of a given area. > > What does "free access" mean?
Free as in you do not pay a country money to enter it. But, you are right. Visas was predominantly non-existent at that time. > Pilgrims were, at that time, preyed upon by bandits along every part of > their route where the local ruler did not, for whatever reason, protect Isn't this a matter of human nature? Prey upon the weak. I don't think that this was something specific to this part of the world. > them effectively. During a typical pilgrimage, I understand they ended > up paying significant amounts to bandits, and selected their routes to > pass through the most friendly kingdoms as far as possible. Whether a > given ruler treated them well seems to have been a toss up, and often > did depend on the religion of both parties (e.g. Shaivite kings might > not give two hoots about Vaishnavite pilgrims, etc.). I don't think the Shaivism or Vaishnavism has anything to do with taking care of guests. As far as my limited knowledge goes, kings used to deliberately invite people who had a different viewpoint to foster cultural growth and it was a matter of pride for them to do it. >> No similar records of people being prevented from travelling to the >> pilgrim centers of Badrinath and Kedarnath. Or the yet to be pillaged >> temple at Somnath. > > There are certainly several such records. Since you mention Somnath, So there were instances where rulers prevented visitors from entering temples? Please provide relevant evidence. > have you read Romila Thapar's book about Somnath? It's very good. ISBN number would be appreciated. >> Modern day Kandahar in Afghanistan has a name derived from Gandhari, >> after a girl from a Kingdom in that area who married Dhritarashtra > > Uhm, surely you're not serious? I think Kandahar and Gandhari are related. It is possible that she was named after the kingdom/place. There are instances of kings/princes/princesses taking the name of the place they hail from. There was a kingdom known as Gandhara and Gandhari was their princess who married a blind king called Dhritarastra. Again, the biggest problem in making this believable is a lack of written history. But there are researchers who are discovering new things everyday.
