Talk:Karkota dynasty

Page title

I think Karkota dynasty is a better title for this page than the Karkota empire. The boundaries of the empire change in course of time, but the dynasty is of lasting interest. Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 15:55, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Agreed; I believe the "empire" covers a certain (changing) area and was governed by several dynasties. A bit like referring to Ancient Egypt as "the Rameses Empire". Pol098 (talk) 20:55, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Needs sources, in particular for size

I made the following comment (edited) in the List of largest empires Talk page:

"There is one glaring anomaly for which the article on the empire needs some work: the Karkota Dynasty of Kashmir has recently been messed with in this table, but has a totally unreferenced article with what seem suspicious numbers. I've added a comment to its Talk page. The numbers in this table are totally incompatible with the listed rank (much too large). However, I'm not an expert, and haven't found any reliable sources on a quick search. I think the article is best titled "Karkota Dynasty" - there seems to have been a single region ruled by several dynasties. It originally had that name, but it was changed. The size needs to be sourced, in the Karkota article if not here. If somebody has the information, please correct relevant articles, but be sure to include sources." Pol098 (talk) 20:55, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Central Asia

@Utcursch:, Regarding the claims of Central Asian conquest [1], see Andre Wink's first volume, which has a section on the Karkotas. I don't think this is an extraordinary claim by the way. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:20, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: All Wink states is this: "the whole of the Upper Indus or Northern Panjab and the Kabul valley and the Western Himalayas". utcursch | talk 01:43, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

In the long term, yes. But in the short term, he says that Lalitaditya carved out his "Western empire in Central Asia, Afghanistan and the Panjab, between 720 and 730" (p.243). He also recruited soldiers from the "Western Central-Asian highlands, from Tukharistan in the upper Oxus valley..." (p.243) "The imperial system of Kashmir fell apart in a few years after Lalitidya's death. But up to 760 Kashmir's power in the Panjab appears to have remained strong enough to deflect Arab raiding..." (p.245)

We might even suppose that this incorporation of Central Asia in the Kashmiri empire was the invitation for the Central Asians to invade later! (OR) -- Kautilya3 (talk) 08:58, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

OK, that ref looks good. I'll add it to the article. Thanks.

The "region" parameter is for generating categories, though -- it is not displayed in the infobox. So I'll limit it to South Asia -- there is no option to specify multiple regions.

utcursch | talk 14:31, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

File:Karkota Empire, India (derived).jpg

@Amitrochates: What is the source of this map: File:Karkota Empire, India (derived).jpg? The boundaries depicted here don't match even Kalhana's Rajatarangini. utcursch | talk 17:17, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

I have been off wikipedia for a long time now and don't remember the exact details anymore, but I think I had used a similar map in History of Kashmir. The shading was always inaccurate. The author of the map was probably trying to recreate the empire based on Lalitaditya's victories against kingdoms in North India. Even if the military victories are historically accurate they do not obviously automatically imply extension of imperial control. I had planned to improve the map but never got around to doing it. Amitrochates (talk) 18:45, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

@Amitrochates: I just found out that this is very (though not exactly) similar to the one depicted in A Historical Atlas of South Asia edited by Joseph E. Schwartzberg. I'll add the source to the image page. utcursch | talk 01:49, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Individual rulers

I tried rewriting the pages about the individual rulers of this dynasty other than Lalitaditya and there is a dearth of material to flesh out anything apart from six-seven line stubs. This article can easily contain all the information about non-Lalitaditya rulers without getting masive. TrangaBellam (talk) 13:26, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Recently added photos

• How is this photo determined to belong to Durlabhavardhana's time? What is the source?This webpage is unreliable but states the corresponding citation at the museum, which mentions nothing about Karkota. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:54, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
• Is CNG Coins an authoritative source on numismatics? TrangaBellam (talk) 12:56, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi @TrangaBellam:

1) Museum photographs by User:Daderot are generally very high quality and very reliable: he takes museum notices literally for the captions of his pictures. @Daderot: could you by any chance help us confirm the identification of this picture (like, the photograph of the Museum tag for example)? TrangaBellam, for information, here are a few sources, which will give you a good sense of Karkota bronze sculpture. I will certainly find more sources as I dig into the history of the region:

• Barrett, Douglas (1961). "Sculptures from Kashmir". The British Museum Quarterly. 23 (2): 49–52. doi:10.2307/4422666. ISSN 0007-151X.
• A sophisticated blog on Himalayan sculpture (page about the Karkota dynasty) (I'm not claiming this has value as WP:RS, but this gives a good sense of Karkota bronze sculptures).

2) CNG is the main provider of coin images on Wikipedia, and they are fairly reliable and used extensively here, but of course not directly RS, we're just fortunate that they provide us with their photographs of coins, and that they have a strong team of licensed numismats. They reference this coin in particular to the specialist works MACW 3659-60 (Vinayaditya); Donum Burns 1614. You will find plenty of Durlabha coins on the Internet ("Durlabha + coin" on Google). The coins of Durlabha have been identified as early as the 19th century by Cunningham p.43, and you can verify the image of the coin in Plate III No7.

These elements should help reassure you on the identification. Best regards पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 15:28, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Greetings! Yes, I do try to directly copy information from museum notices next to the object. Although I make mistakes sometimes (alas) I think this is indeed information provided by the museum. I myself am not an expert, though. with all best wishes, Daderot (talk)

So what? Sackler makes errors all the time. 7th to 8th century? That's 200 years. Which art historian at Harvard or elsewhere has vetted this? We need the name and a publication. Museum labels might be good enough for images on other WP pages, but they are not for those on India-related ones, where there is too much POV, especially not when User:Pat is adding them. He has a long history of working in the gray-zone between dubious historical sources and semi-dubious historical ones. Need a proper source, chapter and verse. I have removed it. Please proceed per WP:BRD. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:20, 22 March 2021 (UTC)