Chagatai language

Encyclopedia

Chagatai (چغتای), also known as Turki or Chagatay Turkic (Čaġatāy türkīsi), is an extinct Turkic language that was once widely spoken in Central Asia and remained the shared literary language there until the early 20th century. Literary Chagatai is the predecessor of the modern Karluk branch of Turkic languages, which include Uzbek and Uyghur. Ali-Shir Nava’i was the greatest representative of Chagatai literature. Lizheng gate in the Chengde Mountain Resort, the second column from left

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Celestial globe

Encyclopedia

Celestial globes show the apparent positions of the stars in the sky. They omit the Sun, Moon, and planets because the positions of these bodies vary relative to those of the stars, but the ecliptic, along which the Sun moves, is indicated. There is an issue regarding the “handedness” of celestial globes. If the globe is constructed so that the stars are in the positions they

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Cavalry

Encyclopedia

Cavalry (from the French word cavalerie, itself derived from “cheval” meaning “horse”) are soldiers or warriors who fight mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the most mobile of the combat arms, operating as light cavalry in the roles of reconnaissance, screening, and skirmishing in many armies, or as heavy cavalry for decisive shock attacks in other armies. An individual soldier in the cavalry is known by a number of designations depending on era and tactics,

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Cash crop

Encyclopedia

A cash crop or profit crop is an agricultural crop which is grown to sell for profit. It is typically purchased by parties separate from a farm. The term is used to differentiate marketed crops from subsistence crops, which are those fed to the producer’s own livestock or grown as food for the producer’s family. In earlier times cash crops were usually only a

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Carnatic Wars

Encyclopedia

The Carnatic Wars were a series of military conflicts in the middle of the 18th century in India’s coastal Carnatic region, a dependency of Hyderabad State, India. Three Carnatic Wars were fought between 1744 and 1763. The conflicts involved numerous nominally independent rulers and their vassals, struggles for succession and territory; and included a diplomatic and military struggle between the French

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Bengal Sultanate

Encyclopedia

The Sultanate of Bengal (Bengali: শাহী বাংলা, Persian: شاهی بنگاله‎ Shāhī Bangālah), also known as the Bengal Sultanate or simply Bengal (Persian: بنگاله‎ Bangālah, Bengali: বাংলা, romanized: Bangla), was an empire based in Bengal for much of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. It was the dominant power of the Ganges–Brahmaputra Delta, with a network of mint towns spread across the region. The Bengal Sultanate had a circle of vassal states, including Odisha in the southwest, Arakan in the southeast, and Tripura in the

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Bollywood

Encyclopedia

Hindi cinema, often known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, is the Indian Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai (formerly Bombay). The term is a portmanteau of “Bombay” and “Hollywood”. The industry is related to Cinema of South Indiaand other Indian film industries, making up Indian cinema—the world’s largest by number of feature films produced. In 2017, Indian cinema produced 1,986 feature films, with Bollywood as

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Bichuwa

Encyclopedia

The bichuwa or bichawa is a dagger, originating from the Indian subcontinent, with a loop hilt and a narrow undulating sharp blade. It is named for its resemblance to the sting of a scorpion, for which the Hindi name is bichuwa. The weapon was based on the maduvu, or horn dagger created in South India, and many bichuwa have blades which retain the shape of

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Bibi Ka Maqbara

Encyclopedia

The Bibi Ka Maqbara (English: “Tomb of the Lady”) is a tomb located in Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India. It was commissioned in 1660 by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in the memory of his first and chief wife Dilras Banu Begum (posthumously known as Rabia-ud-Daurani) and is considered to be a symbol of Aurangzeb’s ‘conjugal fidelity’. It bears a striking resemblance to the Taj Mahal, the mausoleum of Aurangzeb’s

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