I am planning to post a series of articles on some interesting information ,facts,,stories from the Mahabharata.
The source is the Mahabharata by Veda Vyasa in Sanskrit,
I have tried to understand it with my limited knowledge of Sanskrit and Tamil and from a host of references ,mainly from Sri Maharishi Veda Vyasarin Mahabharata Parvangal( Sri Mahabharata Parvaas by Maharishi Veda Vyasa, Translation by E.Srinivasachariar,Sri.M.V.Ramanujachaariar of Kumbakonam and by Sri Ganapahy Sastrigal,The Guru of Kanchi Maha Periyavar,Karunkulam Krishna Sastrigal and A. Venkatesachariar, published by Sri Chakra Publications, Urappakkam ,Chennai)
For the present i Ma quoting relevant portions from the Adi Parva, which I am currently studying.
Corrections and suggestions from authentic sources are welcome to make the posts more authentic.
Now onto the post.
Indians are accused of not possessing an authentic History.
The accusations are from the West and the self-styled Anglophiles and the Liberals(!?) from India.
History is what one chooses to write or more accurately what one chooses to believe in.
What is the History that the West believes in?
Thucydides,Xenophon,Plato,GM Trevelyan,Macaulay, or Winston Churchill?
Or is it the Bible,the reformation literature attributed to so many?
No body saw Socrates, Plato,writing the History as they saw it.
We have books, works attributed to them by the others and we believe in them.
The same applies to the Bible, which is essentially a collection of fables with few facts thrown in.
And mind you, one must remember that the Bible was compiled, not composed or written three hundred years after the death of Christ by Emperor Constantine to keep his Empire intact.
Please read my posts on this filed under Christianity.
And people know the motive behind Macaulay’ History once you look at his speeches in the British Parliament about the introduction of English as the medium of instruction in India, his general attitude to Indians, the Natives as they were /are called and his suggestions to handle the Natives of India.
Compare this with the view of Warren Hastings about Indian Culture.
Hastings was of the view that the Indian Culture and History was very rich!
As to Churchill, well one knows what his attitude towards the Natives and the Independence of India/Indians are.
Yet we believe in their versions of History!
One forgets that the Indian Culture is more ancient and there are records,
The criticism is that they are not in the written form.
Does it mean that what ever some one says is untrue and what is written is true?
if so, which is true, Hitler’s Mein Kampf or The History of the English Speaking Peoples?
Any History is at first oral and then is written.
We have a our tradition of handing down the culture and traditions by word of mouth.
Writing part came later.
The Vedas, Purana , all have been handed over to us by word pf mouth from Generation to generation.
Just how reliable are these?
Let me suggest you hear the intonations of the Vedas in any part of India.
There is absolutely no variation at all between what is chanted in Kanyakumari, Hrishikesh,Puri or Dwaraka.
I recall an incident when I visited the Hrishikesh,Haridwar in 1990.
When I entered the Temples there I was chanting the Rudra, Chamaka.
As I neared the sanctum sanctorum, I was called into the sanctum by the Panda with a remark,
‘Saab, you are chanting Krishna Yajur .This is rare in these parts.
We have not heard for a longtime.
Please come in and recite and perform Abhisheka”
Such is the accuracy of mouth to mouth tradition.
Look at the written History.
Do we have consensus on any historical event/
Even such a latest one as the world War II or even Indo-Pakistan War?
No.
History is as good as the writer and the people who believe in it,
To me my ancestors are more reliable than those from the West.
Related Articles
- Ramayana Mahabharata Dynasties From Manu (ramanan50.wordpress.com)
- Mahabharata English translation by Kisari Mohan Ganguli 1883-1896 (nojal.wordpress.com)
- Mahabharata, The Gita and Blog Posts (ramanan50.wordpress.com)
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