YUDDHA Delayed!

YUDDHA is going on a mid-season break as Anirudh and Aditya are struggling with a sudden invasion of responsibilities from their day jobs (and Anirudh's very exciting first book!) More in this brief episode. YUDDHA is made possible thanks to the support of the Takshashila Institution and the Indep…

YUDDHA Mid - Season Break

YUDDHA is going on a mid-season break as Anirudh and Aditya are struggling with a sudden invasion of responsibilities from their day jobs - we'll be back on December 1st! More in this brief episode. YUDDHA is made possible thanks to the support of the Takshashila Institution and the Independent an…

Empire of Paper: Inside the Mughal War Machine

By the time of the Battle of Haldighati in 1576, the Mughals had consolidated their power over a large swathe of North India. Yet, the desire for further conquests never waned. As the Mughals transformed from a war band into an empire, their armies also mutated into gigantic earth-shaking beasts.Ye…

Akbar's Fury: How the Mughals Made an Empire

It is the unlikeliest of stories. In 1540, Humayun was out of luck and on the run, while Sher Shah was victorious. Barely fifteen years later, Sher Shah was dead in a freak accident and his empire was in chaos. The Mughals returned to the plains of Hindustan with a renewed fury. But it was Humayun’…

Sher Shah Sur: The Outlaw Who Would Be Emperor

The establishment of the Mughal empire was by no means inevitable. In the 1530s and 40s, Farid, the grandson of a horse trader and daughter of an Afghan father and Rajput mother, would drive out Babur's heir, Humayun, and establish one of the most remarkable Indian polities: the Sur Empire. Join us…

Gunpowder and Blood: How Babur Won at Panipat

How did a small-time Central Asian warlord defeat the vast army of the Delhi Sultanate? Join us as we explore the turbulent, syncretic culture of North India in the 15th century, witness the growing ambitions of the Timurid prince Babur, and his finest hour at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526. …

Heirs of Timur: The Renaissance of War and Culture

Season 2 of YUDDHA returns us to the turbulent world of the 16th century. Join us as we explore the social and military churn of the globe from Europe to Central Asia, and meet the ruthless, cultured warlords Timur and his descendant Babur. Together they will transform the history of India and the …

Yuddha Season Finale: Cities of Victory: The Deccan Military Revolution and the Fall of Vijayanagara (feat. Srinivas Reddy)

In our Season 1 finale, we look at the saga of how an unlikely coalition of warring sultanates came to destroy the might of Vijayanagara. We begin with the Battle of Raichur in 1520, in which Vijayanagara's Krishna Deva Raya inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Bijapur sultanate. Over the half-ce…

Ep. 08: Cites of Victory: How the Portuguese Conquered the Indian Ocean

In the 15th century, the Indian Ocean was visited by two fleets that would change the history of the world. The first was the gigantic armada of the Chinese admiral Cheng He, carrying thousands of sailors and tons of luxuries representing centuries of development of maritime commerce in this inter…

Ep. 07: Cities of Victory: Vijayanagara and the Deccan Sultans (feat. Manu S. Pillai)

The great 300-year eruption of the Turkic and Mongol peoples has come to an end, and the sun rises upon a world transformed. The peoples of Eurasia are now welded into an enormous network of competing, innovative, and "globalised" states and societies ranging from England in the West to Japan in th…