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Re: Mahabharat and Ramayana
[This is being posted on behalf of a friend.]
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From: vish.kohli@sdrc.com (Vish Kohli)
I found your postings re: dating of Mahabharat, Ramayan etc fascinating.
I do have the following comments. Books I have read by Mahatma Anand Swami
(1880-1977) of the Arya Samaj (the Arya Samaj holds the Vedas as the
foremost dictum to go by) quote unequivocally that Mahabharat occured 5000
years ago, concurring with what you quoted, and that the Ramayan occured
over a lakh (100 millenia) years ago (there is more prcise number that
escapes my memory).
You also state that the Vedas were passed on by word of mouth till 3300BC
when Rishi Ved Vyas wrote it down. This seems grossly untrue; the people
who knew the Vedas by heart are especially celebrated in our scriptures,
conferred with a special title, and countably few (even great sages are not
among them). It is not an ordinary feat to remember some 20,000 mantras
that comprise the Vedas. Also it suggests that the people before 3300 bc
did not know how to write : a suggestion that holds no water, considering
that so much scientific knowledge is abstractable from the Vedas and
documented in the Mahabharat & Ramayan.
Also, Shri Krishna's daily routine (dincharya) as described in the
Mahabharat (I believe also in the Gita) clearly states that Krishna used
to wake up long before sunrise and listen to a reading of the Vedas from
the mouth of brahmins. Clearly dispelling the notion of "unwritten"
for the Vedas.
On a side note, I would like to focus attention on the fact that the
term "Hindu", of Greek origin and no more than a few hundred yrs old, is an
inappropriate one to use when studying India's history BC. "Vedic" is the
only appropriate term to use about the culture of that past.
(Indeed all texts other than the Vedas defer to the Vedas, should there be
a deviation in interpretation. The Vedas, on the other hand, quote no one.
They are stated as "thought discovered by sages in meditation,
or communicated to them by the Almighty".)
All live souls used the word Vedic in that past to describe their
tradition and suddenly, we Indians have displaced the term Vedic by Hindu,
taking cue from the west. "Hindu" detracts us from seeing our past in the
true light, from noting the pre-eminence of the Vedas in our world view
and essence.
Vishwajit
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