Brick Temples of Kalayat

It was another lazy and hot Sunday. This time I decided to have a ride in a Haryana Roadways bus on the most "EThnic NOrth INdian" route. The bus took me to Kalayat; a small town (village) in Kaithal District of Haryana.This village has one of the oldest existing bricks structures (Temples) in India dating back to 7/8th Century. These temples are the examples of early architecture of "Gurjara-Pratihara" Kingdom and the use of beautifully carved small bricks is magnificent.
Mortar has not been used in these carvings. The beautiful patterns of the bricks and carvings are still there on the walls of temples. Very first glance on the main temple takes you down the ages and the 19-20th century built temples give a bitter taste. What is important is the fact that none of the two olden temples matches any architectural patterns of the newer temples.

More Pictures of Brick temples

Muslims of Indian origin

Got a chance to lay my hands on a (nice) book about the "Muslims of Indian Origin during the Sultanate period". I could not stop myself from going through it "cover to cover". I under stand that no one in the present day generation is interested in the related issues. The matter is highly academic but can be of immense importance for methodology to be employed for the study of emergence of the attitudes of the Indian Muslims and the attitudes of the early converts. It is a very nice account of the developments in the medieval period, collected from various authentic sources.
A number of incidents of interest lay scattered in the stories recorded by the contemporary sources, including travellers. These incidents will certainly be of some interest for any one interested (to any extent) in history of this era. The author has tried to take back the reader to the 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th centuries.All the Khaljis, Aibaks and Saiyyads etc. pass marching by your side. Khusrau and Barani try to drive home their theories about the Turks, Afghans and Arabs.