The Dharma Dispatch Bestsellers 2022

AT THE OUTSET, the entire Dharma Dispatch team takes great pleasure to wish our readership a very happy 2023, according to the Gregorian calendar. To say that 2022 breezed past like a short but powerful gust is to state the obvious.     

At The Dharma Dispatch, we make lists mainly on two occasions: our anniversary and the new year. In 2022, we published 200-plus essays woven around our core focus areas: Hindu civilisation, culture and history. Without further ado, here is a list of the 10 essays that elicited the maximum response from you. 

Happy reading!

1. Indian Historiography at 75

This is a deep dive into the trajectory of Indian historiography over the last 75 years. In brief, it traces the journey of the hesitant origins of our historiography, its brilliant flowering for about a century followed by a cold-blooded destruction of Indian history as a discipline. It occupies the number-one spot as the most read piece in 2022 on The Dharma Dispatch.

Read the full story!   

2. Downfall of Indian Cinema 

In this long form series, we trace the downfall of Indian cinema over the last eighty years. We consider Bollywood as a representative case illustrating this downfall. The analysis primarily uses the principles of Indian aesthetics, social stability, and the dastardly role that the Far Left has played in this destruction. We are happy to report the fact that our series has been widely cited by various institutions and publications. 

The whole series is available here.    

3. The Vijayanagara Empire or the Hindu Resistance to Islamic Expansion in South India

This series of historical essays gives an exploratory backdrop to the founding, rise and expansion of one of the world’s greatest empires, which arose to meet an existential challenge. The Vijayangara Empire not only met the challenge, it overpowered it and saved Dakshinapatha from the fate that Uttarapatha met at the hands of serial Turushka invasions. Not only that, there is no area of Hindu life and activity that the Vijayanagara Empire did not touch and transform into gold. 

This series continues to remain widely read on The Dharma Dispatch. Begin reading here! 

  4. How Sacred Learning was Imparted in Bharatavarsha throughout the Ages

This essay series traces the extraordinary educational tradition of spreading sacred knowledge throughout the length and breadth of Bharatavarsha for a period of at least three millennia. In our conception, sacred education was regarded as essential education, and our Rishis and Acharyas and Gurus and bards and poets and wandering minstrels and Mathas and Ghatikas and drama and painting and sculpture and music and dance were the vehicles used to powerfully and effectively transmit this essential education to the masses. 

We received an overwhelming, positive response to this series from you. Some messages were absolutely moving, to say the least. Begin reading the series here. 

5. Corporate and Business Life in Ancient India: A Brief Journey

This bestseller series ranks #5 on this list. Spread over seven episodes, it gives a panoramic history of corporate and business life in ancient India, and the journey is eye-opening to say the least. As the episodes reveal, there is much timeless wisdom that India evolved more than two millennia ago, which have universal applicability. We emphasise on the fact that several elements of our commercial life can and must be prescribed for students pursuing higher education in such fields as MBA. 

Begin reading the series here. 

6. An Introduction to Mankhas, the Extinct Sanatana Picture-Artists

From commerce to culture. This long form essay narrates the history of Mankhas. Mankhas or Picture Showmen were practitioners of narrative pictorial storytelling. From very ancient times, it evolved into a separate art form and captured the imagination of countless generations and lasted up to even recent times. The stunning legacy of this art form persisted in a diluted way, spilling over into the 1980s! It left an extraordinary and sweeping imprint on countries as diverse as Indonesia, Malaysia, China and Persia. 

Do read the whole thing here and here! 

7. The Sevuna Empire of Embracive Abundance: A Forgotten Brilliance of Hindu History

This two-part series provides a bird’s eye view of the Sevuna or Yadava Empire of Devagiri whose stellar contributions to Hindu civilisation and culture have largely been obscured. It is unfortunate given the fact that the Sevuna Empire attained truly spectacular peaks in a relatively short span. It produced original geniuses in every imaginable realm of human activity: astronomers, litterateurs, musicians, statesmen, lawgivers, warriors and business tycoons. The Sevuna dynasty gave the Marathi language and literature its first, sturdy foundations, which have endured till date. 

This two-part series elicited quite a substantial response from both the scholarly community and lay readers alike. Read both parts. 

8. Military Geography of Ancient India

In this two-part series, we give some contours of the military history of India set in the backdrop of the geography of ancient and medieval India. The overall picture of Bharatavarsha’s geography comes alive in a brilliant and often brutal fashion when we regard it as a Great Military Theatre placed on the canvas of Time. In a limited sense, in some of its particulars, it has all the dimensions of a Cosmic Play that Bharatavarsha was both fortunate and ill-fated to participate in. We also explore a familiar theme in this context: we call it the period between Dusshera to Ugadi. 

Do read both parts of this exciting series!

9. The Deadly Riot of Delhi Shoe-Sellers in 1729

This long form series unearths details of the little-known Delhi Shoe-Sellers' Riot of 1729. It throws a stark and informative light on the real extent of the decay of the Mughal Empire under Muhammad Shah. It also reveals substantial and dark details of the nature of the Muslim society of that period. In short, the episode shows how Muhammad Shah, Aurangzeb’s successor, had been held hostage to a bunch of bigoted and violent Muslim shoe-sellers. 

The feedback we received for this essay from our readers ranged from “astonished” to “eye-opening.” 

Start reading: Part 1 and Part 2. 

10. The Wonderful World of Vipravinodins: The Forgotten Brahmanas of Vijayanagara

Vipravinodins were Brahmanas in the Vijayanagara Era whose profession was jugglery. In this historical essay, we attempt to explore their chequered history using inscriptional evidence. Although their origins are largely unknown, inscriptional data reveals that they started out in the plebeian class and by the sheer dint of their character and service to Dharma, slowly gained prominence. Eventually, they came to be recognized as Vipravinōdin Brahamanas throughout the Empire. 

The Dharma Dispatch received several emails from readers from various walks of life in the Andhra-Desa who supplied a host of oral histories and anecdotes that shed more light on the Vipravinodins. We consider this as a profound mark of success of our work. 

Do read the essay here!

A Heartfelt Appeal

That concludes our list of the bestsellers on The Dharma Dispatch for 2022. As always, it was an year full of learning and exploration and a continued reaffirmation of our commitment to bring the best elements of the Sanatana civilisational heritage to our readership. We measure the extent of our success in our pursuit of this sacred endeavour by the nature and mien of your response. And your response has been rather overwhelming to say the least. 

So a heartfelt note of thanks for all of you who have loved our content and supported our sacred work with contributions and messages of encouragement. 

In the end, we make a familiar request: please do consider making a contribution to The Dharma Dispatch with an amount of your choice. Our work is sustained entirely through our discerning readership. 

It is your contribution that enables and empowers us to produce such rare, valuable and insightful content related to various aspects of the Sanatana civilisational heritage. Every single rupee of your contribution pays our bills and helps us offer more back to our community.  

To contribute and help our work in disseminating the best elements of Sanatana Dharma, click the link below.