True Discovery of India
Did Ramayana and Mahabharata really happen ?
Yes, they did. Ramayana and Mahabharata are our collective recollections. But who cares about collective recollections of poor Indians.
Even if they call these scriptures Itihaasa (that which happened).
And what is our collective memory, you may ask ?. Do our collective memories make it to the history textbooks that we read in schools ?
I found out, and you shall too, that it is not true. Our history textbooks are just really poor, I have some nasty adjectives, but I won’t use them here.
Ok, if Ramayana is our collective history, it’s worth asking why it never made it to our textbooks.
Leave Ramayana and Mahabharata, they are just too long, at least one could cover characters like Bhargava Rama, Adinatha, Bharata, Raghav Rama, Vyasa and Krishna, and give them a mention somewhere.
Leave these godly characters, they have made it to temples. At least one could mention saints who had written Vedic scriptures and Sutras — Bharadwaj, Jamdagni, Vashishta, Vishwamitra ?
People carry their names in their surnames goddammit, and no one ever finds a mention in textbooks.
Leave the old bards, at least we could cover scholars.
Where are Yaska, Bhratrihari, Patanjali, Pingala, Valmiki, Panini, Nighanta Gnataputra, Uddalaka Aruni, Goshalak, Shvetaketu and Yagnavalakya ?
The reason why you are reading some of these names for the first time in your life is not because they are too obscure and perhaps not important, but because our collective histories never found a mention in our textbooks.
Now, I am not trying to convince you into believing that what I am saying is truth.
All I am asking is an inquiry.
So, rather than me convincing you of the fact that Krishna walked on this earth as a mortal man, try to ascertain how come such a popular story of the past, just never managed to get any credibility in the grand circle of historians.
Take this not as an exhibition of knowledge, or an attempt to proselytize, but to just invite some of you into something interesting and deeply connected to you.
It is true to that reveling in the past does to us no good, but we are what we are because we have clear memory that we can use justly. So, as a nation, as one of the oldest continued civilizations on earth, it becomes imperative that we are not amnesiac of our past, and also that we put to use our collective memory efficiently.
Our histories are ours. If those who write books cannot do it for us, hell yeah, we will.