Now why would you say that about Genghis Khan Venket?:) If you ask a Mongolian, he was almost a demi-god.. basically he did exactly what we all feel happy about RRC and RC doing right? Conquered a lot of new lands..except that he did it on a larger scale than RRC or RC :-)
yes Arun At its height, the Mongolian Empire stretched from Southeast Asia to Europe, covering 35 million square kilometers , little less than the British Empire with its 36 million square kilometers . the empire encompassed almost 50% of the world population It holds the record for the largest continuous landmass controlled by any empire in history.( picked up from wikipedia)
khan is still a demigod in that part of the world. but he was the most cruel in those cruel times Mongols usually killed the entire inhabitants of towns that resisted them China suffered a drastic decline in population. Before the Mongol invasion, China had about 100 million inhabitants; after the complete mongol conquest in 1279, in 1300 had roughly 60 million people.
SO I DONT THINK RRC COULD BE COMPARED TO GHENKIZ. even with kalki's novelistic enhancement of charecter removed, the cholas were never responsible for such genocide.
That is not quite true. I just finished reading a biography of Genghis Khan and yes, he did kill a lot of people (more as a deterrent) than as any planned genocide or (kill the kafirs that the Muslim invaders indulged in). Genghis at the same time had a number of people from different ethnicities working for him. He also introduced record keeping in Mongolia. In fact the Chinese have appropriated Genghis as the founder of the Chinese Yuan dynasty (much to the dismay of the Mongolians.
I think the negative portrayal of Genghis Khan/Attilla the Hun etc is because they weren't Europeans. Alexander "the great" did as much killing if not more, and yet since he was a European killing Asians, it was ok. Genghis, because of the fact that he went up to the very gates of Vienna, has always been seen by Europeans with awe and dread.
and by the way i remember two things about the mongols
they used to wear an inner wear of silk. so that any arrow which hit them in battle can be pulled out with the slippery fabric causing litle damage
and when ghengiz died those meeting the procession were killed to keep it a secret. and after his burial a river was diverted over his grave so that nobody can find it.
Actually the story about the river diversion etc are probably legends. As far as the biographer says (and he spent considerable time in Mongolia researching this), people all seem to have divergent views of what happened after his death. There is an old story that he was brought to Mongolia and was then buried near the Big Mountain there (near where Genghis was born). There are other stories of him being buried in China (a Chinese princess is supposed to have stabbed him with a poisoned knife). Anyway, a very interesting personality.
Dear Sri, perhaps if aaditya karikalan had survived he would have given attila,timur or ghenkiz a run for their money ( based only on ponniyin selvan.not reality)
hypothetically, if aditya karikalan had survived that night at kadambur what would have happened? perhaps they would have wedded manimekalai to him? perhaps he would have engaged mathuranthakans army in pitched battles across chola land perhaps.......?
I disagree. Genghis conquered pretty much the whole of China. Also, his whole idea was not wanton destruction or religious fanaticism. He wanted to control and did manage to control the Great Silk Route. Now you know how much trade was done through that. So in effect he had total control of it. Also, he went right across through Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Iran/Iraq, Turkey.. a very big swath!
Genghiz khan controlled the entire silk route from China till Europe. He controlled the steppes, the wealthy persian empire, the lands in the tigris/euphrates, the caspian (which is home to Armenians and others), whole of central Asia and China. If this is just 'mountains and deserts', I'll be damned. I understand that RRC, RC are all great emperors but not at the cost of others who have done similar or greater feats than them.
Genghis Khan was born with the name of Temüjin He was named after one of the more powerful chiefs of a rival tribe.
gk's non-military achievements include the introduction of a writing system based on the Uighur script (still used in Inner Mongolia today), the idea of religious tolerance throughout the empire, and the achievement of tribal unity among the Mongols.
Mongols today venerate him as the founding father of Mongolia.
the mongols thought themselves descended from the winter wolf
the mongols were always particular about one thing Once the main battle and siege was over, the Mongol army would follow the enemy leader until he was killed in order to prevent him from being a rallying point for his army after war.
now where have all those valiant mongols gone??? is mongolia under the control of china??? and how fertile mongolia is????? how is the inhabitation???? when did the mongols start losing their control and who was responsible for it??
mongols invaded india quite a few times but notably during allaudin khilis time
the indians were terrified of the slit eyed mongols.
though alludin lost his best general zafar khan to them the battle was more of a stand off and the mongols went back with no major damage to delhi infact when allaudin built his new capital siri, he had a thousand mongol prisoners beheaded and had their heads buried in the foundation
thats one reason why the name of the town was siri( sir -head)
why mongols are important to us is because to protect such vast empire from mongols allaudin needed plenty of finances. that was why all his campaigns with malik kafur were aimed at getting loot and less at ruling the conquered lands
from madurai malik took 512 elephants loaded with gold and jewels from warrangal he took the kohinoor diamond the pressure from the mongols was indirectly responsible for the collapse of the moovendar rule in tamilnadu
the mongols were responsible for one man made wonder of the world( not one of the original 7 i guess)
the great wall of china was built to restrain them
mongols went down because of several reasons. the primary one was when they were at the gates of vienna a conquest that would have ensured their survival for many more centuries they had to return to mongolia to elect a new leader( the old one had died)
thus europe was saved
finally there was a lot of infighting amongst the mongols. many became christians( nestorian sect??) and many buddhist. that should have calmed them down
indha china wall dhaan mongols kitterndhu chinese people ai kaapaathichu ngaradhu ellaam somma ullallakaattikku solradhu...
I don't think a wall which at its maximum height is just 7metres can prevent the mongols who were too powerful at the time, from invading China.. that too the wall is not continuous and broken at lot of plces.. very easily one can climb that wall.. when places like Gingee Fort which was so protected could not withstand enemies i dont think a wall would prevent the all powerful mongols.
Dear Arun and Muthu I agree and disagree I dont deny Genghiz Khan was a great king and achiever even greater than Alexanderfor his kingdom extended from Pacific to Danube till near Poland and germany...
But most of Afghanistan,mogolia,tiber and russia are poorly inhabited so his conquest and victories started from persia westwards thats what I meant Sri