Azad KashmirAzad Jammu and Kashmir (ˌɑːzæd_kæʃˈmɪər; , ), abbreviated as AJK and colloquially referred to as simply Azad Kashmir, is a region administered by Pakistan as a nominally self-governing entity and constituting the western portion of the larger Kashmir region, which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947. Azad Kashmir also shares borders with the Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the south and west, respectively.
MirabaiMeera, better known as Mirabai and venerated as Sant Meerabai, was a 16th-century Hindu mystic poet and devotee of Krishna. She is a celebrated Bhakti saint, particularly in the North Indian Hindu tradition. Mirabai was born into a Rathore Rajput royal family in Kudki (modern-day Nagaur district of Rajasthan) and spent her childhood in Merta. She is mentioned in Bhaktamal, confirming that she was widely known and a cherished figure in the Bhakti movement culture by about 1600 CE.
Somnath templeThe Somnath temple, also called Somanātha temple or Deo Patan, is a Hindu temple located in Prabhas Patan, Veraval in Gujarat, India. It is one of the most sacred pilgrimage sites for Hindus and is the first among the twelve jyotirlinga shrines of Shiva. It is unclear when the first version of the Somnath temple was built with estimates varying between the early centuries of the 1st-millennium to about the 9th-century CE.
Chandelas of JejakabhuktiThe Chandelas of Jejakabhukti was an Indian dynasty in Central India. The Chandelas ruled much of the Bundelkhand region (then called Jejakabhukti) between the 9th and the 13th centuries. They belonged to the Chandel clan of the Rajputs. The Chandelas initially ruled as feudatories of the Gurjara-Pratiharas of Kanyakubja (Kannauj). The 10th century Chandela ruler Yashovarman became practically independent, although he continued to acknowledge the Pratihara suzerainty.
KuladevataA kuladevata (कुलदेवता), also known as a kuladaivaṃ (குலதெய்வம்), is an ancestral tutelary deity in Hinduism and Jainism. Such a deity is often the object of one's devotion (bhakti), and is coaxed to watch over one's clan (kula), gotra, family, and children from misfortune. This is distinct from an ishta-devata (personal tutelar) and a grāmadevatā (village deities). Male kuladevatas are sometimes referred to as a kuladeva, while their female counterparts are called a kuladevi.
BanjaraThe Banjara are a nomadic ethnic group of India. They may have origins in the Mewar region of what is now the Rajasthan state of India. The Gor usually refer to themselves as Banjaras and outsiders as Kor but this usage does not extend outside their own community. A related usage is Gor Mati or Gormati, meaning Own People. Motiraj Rathod believes that the community became known as banjara from around the fourteenth century AD and but previously had some association with the Laman, who claim a 3000-year history.
ShekhawatiShekhawati is a semi-arid historical region located in the northeast part of Rajasthan, India. The region was ruled by Shekhawat Rajputs. Shekhawati is located in North Rajasthan, comprising the districts of Neem Ka Thana , Jhunjhunu, parts of Sikar that lies to the west of the Aravalis and Churu. It is bounded on the northwest by the Jangladesh region, on the northeast by Haryana, on the east by Mewat, on the southeast by Dhundhar, on the south by Ajmer, and on the southwest by the Marwar region.
Dogra dynastyThe Dogra dynasty of Dogra Rajputs from the Shivalik hills created Jammu and Kashmir when all dynastic kingdoms in India were being absorbed by the East India Company. Events led the Sikh Empire to recognise Jammu as a vassal state in 1820, and later the British added Kashmir to Jammu with the Treaty of Amritsar in 1846. The founder of the dynasty, Gulab Singh, was an influential noble in the court of the Sikh emperor Maharaja Ranjit Singh, while his brother Dhian Singh served as the prime minister of the Sikh Empire.
KayasthaKayastha (also referred to as Kayasth) denotes a cluster of disparate Indian communities broadly categorised by the regions of the Indian subcontinent in which they were traditionally locatedthe Chitraguptavanshi Kayasthas of North India, the Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhus of Maharashtra, the Bengali Kayasthas of Bengal and Karanas of Odisha. All of them were traditionally considered "writing castes", who had historically served the ruling powers as administrators, ministers and record-keepers.
Garhwali peopleThe Garhwali people are an Indian ethnolinguistic group native to the Garhwal, in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, who speak Garhwali, an Indo-Aryan language. In modern usage, "Garhwali" is used to refer to anyone whose linguistic, cultural, and ancestral or genetic origins is from the Garhwal Himalayas. Their ethnonym is derived from the word ‘Garhwal’ or 'Gadwal. The exact origin of the word Garhwal is unknown.
