|
Introduction
The Mahabharat has excercised a continuous and pervasive influence on
the Indian mind for milleniums. The Mahabharat, orginally written by Sage
Ved Vyas in Sanskrut, has been translated and adapted into numerous languages
and has been set to a variety of interpretations. Dating back to "remote
antiquity", it is still a living force in the life of the Indian masses.
Incidently, the dating of the Mahabharat War has been a matter of challenge
and controversy for a century or two. European scholars have maintained
that the events described in the ancient Sanskrut texts are imaginary and
subsequently, the Mahabharat derived to be a fictitiou tale of a war fought
between two rivalries. Starting from the so- called Aryan invasion into
Bharat, the current Bharatiya chronology starts from the compilation of
the Rigved in 1200 B.C., then come other Ved's, Mahaveer Jain is born,
then Gautam Buddha lives around 585 B.C. and the rest follows. In the meantime,
the Brahmanas, Samhi- tas, Puranas, etc. are written and the thought contained
therein is well-absorbed among the Hindu minds. Where does the Ramayan
and Mahabharat fit in ? Some say that the Ramayan follows Mahabharat and
some opine otherwise. In all this anarchy of Indian histography, the date
of the Mahabharat (the mythical story!) ranges between 1000 B.C.to 300
B.C. Saunskrut epics were academically attacked occasion- ally - an attempt
to disprove the authencity of the annals noted therein. For example, the
European Indologiest Maxmuller, tried the interpret the astronomical evidences
to prove that the observations recorded in the Hindu scriptures are imaginary,
probably because it did not match the prevelant views of European historians!
|
