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Mauryan Polish (wikipedia.org)
67 points by benbreen on May 23, 2021 | hide | past | favorite | 26 comments



I Am Disappointed That This Isn’t About A Forgotten Dialect Of Polish.

(Seriously, The Rule That Every Word In A Title Has To Be Capitalised Is Silly.)


I'd say it is misleading rather than disappointing. The word is not capitalized in the Wikipedia article and titlecase is not a requirement here either.


It's not a requirement but it is the common convention.

Wikipedia has stricter style guidelines that go against that convention but in the absence of such a style guide on HN, one can see why common convention would typically be followed.

Agree in general though; I don't know why this convention exists and suspect we may be better off without it.


I was imagining that it was going to be some tribe of Māori people that spoke Polish because of Polish explorers having been there some hundred years ago.


or descendants of Polish soldiers that were sent there to quash a colonial rebellion, only to join the rebels and defeat the colonizers.


The upcase Polish fixed the context so firmly in my mind that I actually read it as Magyar Polish, which contextually was at least plausible.


I am disappointed that most people in the West have never heard about the Mauryan empire (which is at least as much of a factor in you having misread the title).


I’m well aware of the Mauryan empire and was curious about how a polish diaspora could have ended up there.


Fun fact: George Lucas named Ahsoka Tano after the most famous emperor of Maurya Empire: Ashoka.

This historical character is fascinating to me especially, as someone who lives on the banks of river Daya where Ashoka fought his bloodiest war: the Kalinga war.

Ashoka blamed himself as the cause for destruction. In repentance, Ashoka decided to devote the rest of his life to Ahimsa and converted to Buddhism.


The submitter can edit the title to change capitalisation. Moderators can also edit the title.


The title is titlecased automatically, but when I edit the title manually my own capitalization sticks. Not sure who can edit and if this works for everyone.


Not each of them - in your sentence the, in, a, and is shouldn't be capitalized.


And generally "of" unless it's the last word. There are a few other rules depending on the authority used. It's unclear to me whether a post title is a title to CMOS and I don't have a recent enough copy that would include such digital categories.


I'd say so since 8.156 in the 17th edition explicitly mentions websites: "The following guide­lines apply primarily to titles as they are mentioned or cited in text or notes. They apply to titles of books, journals, newspapers, and websites . . ." And 8.191 elaborates further: " Titles of websites mentioned or cited in text or notes are normally set in roman, headline-style . . ." Basically, there are some differences regarding italics/quotation marks but headline style seems to apply to all kinds of titles of digital resources.


That works. Thanks for looking it up.


If you can't remember the rules, there is always: https://titlecase.com/


The modern Indian state takes a lot of its iconography from the Mauryan empire, most prominently the Lion Capital of Sarnath (image is in the article). It's super interesting to hear about this technique which was instrumental in producing these capitals.


Related?

Dorodango: The Japanese Art of Making Mud Balls

https://www.laurenceking.com/blog/2019/09/26/dorodango-blog/


Tangentially, but wow that is interesting! Apparently polishing mud is not the same thing as putting lipstick on a pig.


the article doesn't describe the technique, but googling it seems maybe ground diamonds were used.


The Mouryan Empire was the first pan-Indian empire. It was one the most powerful empires of the world at that time.

The first Emperor Chandragupta was guided by a scholar called Chanakya. He wrote one of earliest book on Polity in the world. He was Machiavellian (he predates Machiavelli) and always promoted realpolitik. The book is called Artha Shastra and you can read it in English.

One of the curious things I found is that sex work was legalized and regulated by state. Sex workers paid taxes to the state. This is something some Europeans and Americans debate to this day.

Chandragupta's grandson, Ashoka is one of the Great Emperors of the world. He was the earliest ruler of a welfare state. He put an end to discriminatory penal practices favoring Brahmins, the priest class. He made shelters and planted trees. And declared he cared about each and every subject of his Empire. He send envoys to different countries of SE Asia to spread Buddhism, and he took up monkhood in the last stage of his life and died.

Indians forgot about his legacy and the whole Empire. It is through his pillars spread across ahuge landmass, that the scholarly Orientalist William Jones came to know about this Empires.

Indians were thought to have always divided into very small kingdoms before the Mughal, but this proved on the contrary. And the British, at least a few of them began to have a respect for the Indians.


This guy seems like an author on the subject https://youtu.be/kA7BxO-v8ng


Once stone is polished, does it forever remain thus? I find it amazing that a 2000 year old artifact could be shiny.


If it is inside a building/cave and no one scratches it on purpose, there would be practically no erosion.


Some of the pillars were huge and outdoors. The Wikipedia pages shows one of them in outdoors.


Beautiful style. Just like their coinage.




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