How we work

Curiosity, care and room to learn.

We want our stories to be welcoming, useful and fair to the people whose knowledge they describe.

Begin by listening

For fieldwork, we plan to explain why we are recording, agree what can be shared, and credit each contribution as the person wishes. A conversation will be presented as one person's account, with its place and context.

Publication levels

• Foundation — the scope, vocabulary and care rules for each pillar. A map, not a finished encyclopedia.
• Editorial orientation — explanation that names its sources and states its limits, at one of two depths. Reading list: the scholarship behind the chapter is named, but individual claims are not yet traceable to an openable document. Claim-level: each claim carries a citation that resolves to a document you can open. These introductions are not expert-reviewed.
• Verified — claim-level sources, a versioned evidence pack and a named, consenting expert reviewer.

Source hierarchy

• T1 — Primary. Inscriptions, primary texts, archival records and our own consented field documentation.
• T2 — Scholarly. Peer-reviewed research, academic monographs and institutional scholarship.
• T3 — Reputable public sources. Used for orientation or current facts, never as the only support for a sensitive historical claim.

Care rules

Dates, rankings, “first” or “oldest” claims, statistics, medical claims and claims about living communities receive a higher evidence bar. We separate normative texts from evidence of lived practice, and we do not treat one region or tradition as all of India.

Corrections

Spot something we should revisit? Send us the page and your correction. We correct the text, change its version and record substantive changes.

AI disclosure

AI tools may assist with research organisation and drafting. They are never treated as sources. We state plainly where that leaves each page. On reading-list pages we name published works on each topic; we are still checking each reference, including titles, chapter headings and page ranges, against the sources themselves, and we correct errors when we find them. On claim-level pages every citation resolves to a document you can open and check yourself. Verified work additionally requires named expert review. We would rather tell you which of these you are reading than let a confident tone imply the strongest one.