Read Book Online : http://www.archive.org/stream/dateofmahabharat00srinuoft#page/n7/mode/2up

Download pdf Book : http://ia700400.us.archive.org/4/items/dateofmahabharat00srinuoft/dateofmahabharat00srinuoft.pdf

Where is the carving?

JUST! SUPERB!

Philippa : An episode from Mahabharata - Ellora. http://www.flickr.com/photos/83407683@N00/454591204/

Ok. It's exquisite. Thought I knew Ellora - but can't remember this one. Just goes to show! Changing the subject completely, do you know the temple at Halebid? Some of the best carving I have seen anywhere

Belur and Halebid are exquisite Hoysala Temples...225 kms from Bangalore.

Incredible!!!!!!!!!!!!

Belur-Halebid have become popular because of accessibility and tourist-flow. There are more Hoysala temples which are exquisite and unique.

Forgive my ignorance, but what is a Hoysala Temple? Is are you referring to temples at a place called Hoysala? Nick

Thanks for this book RBSI! I have been curious for quite some time about how astronomical data from Mahabharatha can be used to get to the often quoted 3100s BCE time-frame for it.. This book does that.. it will be interesting to see if, at least to my lay eyes, this looks self-consistent and consistent with modern astronomy.. I am also curious to see if the author addresses the possibility of these date being 'planted' so to speak.. do you have any thoughts/opinions about this?

Nick - I asked the same question of Subbiah (and feel so much better now I discover that you don't know either!! I think I did know once, but had forgotten). He sent this back: The Hoysala Empire - http://www.facebook.com/l/ec716dRRGZId1y4f4AW7DIcm7lQ;en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoysala

@RBSI: Many thanks for uploading this. It is my favourite book and epic. Re dating I had read a theory long time ago which I give below:

@Anand Rajaram: Re Date of Mahabharat: The Mahabharat war started on 22NOV3027 BCE. Now the question is how is this date arrived at? At the time of performing the Rajsuya Yagna at Indraprastha (performed and hosted by The Pandavs), the position of the heavenly bodies was noted down on this auspicious occasion. The same were noted down again on the 1st day of the battle of Mahabharat. Hence a co-relation between the dates was established in Mahabharat Epic. Astronomers agree that if xxx was the position of the stars at Rajsuya Yagna then yyy should be the approx position of the stars when the war started. So we know the position of the Sun on the 1st day of the war. Modern astronomers agree that Sun slips from its current position by 1 degree after 72.5 years. Knowing the present position of the Sun and its position on the 1st day of the war, it is possible to work back and arrive at a figure of how many years must have elapsed between the present and the 1st day of the war. Hence the date of starting of the war is arrived at 22NOV3027 BCE.

@Digvijay: :))

@Pulin Trivedi: Thanks! Yes, I am aware of the general method used in 'astro-history' so to speak :).. My question is more about how correct/believable this is. For example, I can argue that someone who is well versed in astrology wrote this epic and so could have calculated the positions of the planets based on some chosen starting point, say a very good horoscope for the hero of the Epic, Krishna. Another question is this -- per Indian tradition, Ramayana happened much before Maha Bharatha and it is mentioned several times in Mahabharatha itself. But I am sure Ramayana also mentions about the positions of planets at different points of Rama's life. Has anyone done the same kind of analysis on the dates mentioned in Ramayana? Are they internally consistent and also consistent with Mahabharatha?

I partly agree with your skepticism Anand Rajaram. It is possible for many of these irrefutable truths to be hardly that. Most people today cannot understand how long a century is...and how very long back a thousand years really was. Given the then primitive methods of communication and majority of humanity being uneducated... getting along with hard work and maybe two meals a day... in between meaningless wars and a body which was totally defenceless for most diseases and living beyond 40 was an extrordinary acheivement...lets say that life a few hundred years back was very different from the internet age of today. It was therefore possible to fabricate, plant and create myths for the benefit of a few. The Zeitgeist is one such extraordinary movie : http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_994351&feature=iv&v=6pgRUpDDrb0

Well said! And one of my quotes of the year will be "most people today cannot understand how long a century is". Thanks for your, as ever, realism and generous understanding.

@Anand Rajaram: Very observant of you, Anand. My only submission are: 1) That if the epic is history and not mythology, then it is possible that the position of stars were noted down by people well versed in astronomy and the scribe merely noted down what was written down by the astronomers of yore. He didn't have to be an astronomer. 2) The co-realation between two readings (taken at the time of Rajsuya yagna and on the 1st day of the war did seem that they co-related as the time lapsed between Rajsuya and the war is not difficult to compute. Say Rajsuya took place on date x. After 1-2 years the great gamble took place and Pandavs lost and hence went to 'vanvaas' or exile on date x+1 or 2. After 13 years they revealed themselves i.e. x+2+13 i.e. x+14 or 15. Lets say both sides took a year to mobilize for the war i.e. x+15 or 16. And then the war started. So there must have been a gap of 16 years+/- between Rajsuya and the war. 3) Re Ramayan, you are quite correct in enquiring if the position of heavenly bodies were recorded. Unfortunately, I have not come across any such notation in my limited reading. But then it is generally accepted by us Hindus that Ramayan took place in Treta Yud and Mahabharat in Dwapar Yug. In fact the Kal Yug set in in the life time of Janmejaya s/o Parikshit s/o Abhimanyu s/o of Arjun. Believing that there can't be smoke without a fire somewhere, I generally tend to accept that the epics happened in Treta and Dwapar Yug.

@RBSI: I think we need to keep an open mind re ancient times. As according to what you have written above, the earth has reached this age of civilization for the 1st time. I believe that it might, repeat might have reached this zenith of civilization earlier also and that all was lost due to a nuclear war (to be read as war fought with divine weapons e.g. Brahmaastra, Indraastra, Pashupatastra, agneyaastra etc). In fact when I was in the college, I read in The Times of India that a professor of physics went with a geiger counter to Kurukshetra and actually managed to identify where the radio activity suddenly was a lot higher than in the neighbourhood. He had actually demarcated the battlefield of Kurukshetra on the basis of radio activity which would only come into play if nuclear weapons were used. And this is referred to in Mahabharat as Divya astras being used by certain persons only, who had access to them. Believe you me, if god forbid there is a nuclear war, all our internet civilization would be lost an in the time of our great-great grand children, their parents would tell them that it is rumoured that people in 20th/21st century could think of anyone in the world and see him and talk to him immediately (mobile phones and skype???). And that is what we hear in epics of Indra having remembered narad muni and voila, there was Narad chanting "Narayan Narayan". so it is quite possible that our planet had achieved the present degree of civilization - if not higher - even earlier and all was lost due to wars.

Generally speaking, who had divya astras in Mahabharat? Not Duryodhan though he is the main antagonist, or for that matter no Kauravs. But on their side, Bhishma, Dron, Karna, Ashwathama possessed them. Similarly on the Pandav side, one doesn't read of Nakul or Sahdev firing the super weapons. Arjun did possess them. The question come as to why these few people had them? My response would be that look at their ancestry. Bhishma was son of Ganga a celestial being, Dron learned the science of war from Parshuram - again a celestial being, Karna was Surya Putra and Surya is celestial being, Ashwatham inherited them from Dron - father's weakness or love for his only son. Arjun the Indra Putra, Bhim the Vayu Putra. In each case one parent of these heros were celestial beings. Could it be that they were move evolved as half alien than the ones who were just earthlings with both parents from earth? I'd say we need to keep an open mind that it could have happened or it may not have. Just because the times were ancient does not necessarily mean that the people were primitive or lived in stone age. People will live in stone age even now in case of a nuclear world war, after the war. Cheers.....

Pulin : Honestly...you might be right too. Who knows ?

Anyway, back to the real comment on the picture: The picture is really beautiful and I have had the opportunity to enjoy the sculptures at close quarters. IIRC, In Halebedu there is a sculpture of dancing girl with a mirror, you drop water on her head, it rolls down the body very gracefully from point to point (Just like Kalidasa mentions in his Kumara sambhava about Parvati). Im forgetting the details.

Vasudevan : Maybe this is the one... Darpana Sundari - http://lh4.ggpht.com/_J3kVEeT9g_4/SNu9rM_oEYI/AAAAAAAABts/9-eWJjWjC7k/DSC05688.JPG

Belur- the sculptor's excellence : http://www.ourkarnataka.com/states/hassan/belur.htm

@RBSI, yes thats the one... thx!

I REALLY FEEL PROUD !:-)

@RBSI: Thanks for using the right word to describe my attitude in this. I am a skeptic but I dont belong to the block that dismisses 'Itihasa' and 'purana' as 'mythology'. I also dont belong to the block that takes every word in these too seriously. They are mostly poems after all, so subject to all kinds of exaggerations. To me, the simplest explanation that fits the known facts is the one to be adopted, while keeping an eye open for new facts that might undermine the adopted theory. btw, can you substantiate your claim about "living beyond 40 was an extrordinary acheivement" and also your claim about "majority being uneducated"? This is a general assumption that I see many people make just because this has been the case in Europe. To see a counter example to this claim, see "Indigeneous Education In The 18th Century" by Dharampal where details about the educational system in India *before* the Brits took full control.. and the statistics in the books are courtesy Brits!

@Pulin Trivedi: I guess Itihasas/Puranas are neither history nor mythology. These words come with a certain (Western) way of looking at the world. but it is by no means the correct or only way. Perhaps every culture has a different way of looking at past. On your notes about 'divya astras' etc. -- if one wants, we can always assume anything. Take Harry Potter books for example -- if as you say the current civilization collapses due to an asteroid, then will it be right for the subsequent civilization to think of Harry Potter stuff as potential truths? Having an open mind is one thing, but the 'probability' of the 'adivya astras' etc. being true is as low as it can get. If there is even a shred of *solid* statement of a scientific fact in MB that was too advanced for that time, then these things will belong to the category worthy of real investigation.. do you know of any such thing?

@Vasu: I agree with you about your point about Einstein. In fact, Einstein said almost the same thing about M.K. Gandhi :) I also agree that the same yard stick should be applied to all histories/ancient texts. This is certainly not the case. For example, all of us have heard of Hindu mythology and Greek/Roman mythology. This kind of 'mythology' tag is rarely associated with some of the other religions of the world. This is certainly *not* because of the lack of unbelievable stories in these other religions.. I think the only place where I differ from you is my hope that MB dates can be proved one way or the other. I read somewhere that Indian astronomy makes a specific mistake compared to modern astronomy and that, because of this mistake, it was virtually impossible for them to back calculate the positions of the planets and stars to a specific date/time w/o the help of a computer.. I dont recall where I came across this..this might be totally baseless...but if this is indeed true, then there will be two ways to explain the consistent dates in MB -- 1) someone was really there to see those planet/star alignments. 2) someone had access to computer at that time.. 3) We are missing some mathematical shortcut that ancients knew about.. Out of the three, I would think #1 is the simplest explanation...

Anand Rajaram : Validation for an otherwise generalised statement : Life expectancy variation over time - The following information is derived from Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1961 and other sources, and unless otherwise stated represents estimates of the life expectancies of the population as a whole. In many instances life expectancy varied considerably according to class and gender. The life expectancies at birth listed below take account of infant mortality but not pre-natal mortality (miscarriage or abortion). Humans by Era Average Lifespan at Birth (years) Comment Upper Paleolithic 33 At age 15: 39 (to age 54)[6][7] Neolithic[8] 20 Bronze Age and Iron Age[9] 35+ Classical Greece[10] 28 Classical Rome[10] 28 At age 15: 37 (to age 52) Pre-Columbian North America[11] 25-30 Medieval Islamic Caliphate[12] 35+ Medieval Britain[13][14] 30 At age 21: 38 (to age 59) as an average for British aristocrats [15] Early Modern Britain[9] 40+ Early 20th Century[16][17] 30-45 Current world average[18] 67.2 2010 est. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expactancy

Anand Rajaram : It is my presumption that there was very little literacy as a percentage of the whole population in the earlier centuries of India. Firstly, education was generally the privelege of Brahmins and a few of the upper castes. And this group constituted a small percentage of the population. Secondly, the main occupation of the people (then as now) was agriculture. It was a lot of hard work and every physical hand helped... hence the priority of work over education as an attitude. Thirdly, the number of indigenous schools were definitely not sufficient to provide education to the masses...by todays standards.

@Anand Rajaram: Re further investigations, India is by far a dark continent as far as excavations and digging up the past is concerned and hope you would agree with that. One looks at probabilities and thinks whether could it have happened. the description of Brahmaastra and destruction it can cause is similar to the modern Atom/Hydrogen bomb. Now if one wants to disregard the similarities, then all I would ask is that whether people of ancient times who used to hunt with stones and stone axes, could have sat and imagined it all? Have you read Chariots of the Gods by Erich von Daniken? it sets one thinking. A simple example from his book is a perfect circular hole that that could only be made by a bulletin the skull of a bison found in Russia and the skull is dated to be thousands of years old, much before the firearms were invented. Either we can sweep it under the carpet or we can accept the possibility that it was made by a bullet - maybe by an alien who visited the earth. Till we do not find a actual divya astra, it will remain a matter of conjecture. The thing is that ravages of time, spare nothing, no metal, no chip, so plastic except maybe stone and the moment we see stone it is too easy to jump to the conclusion that it is stone age. I like to give a benefit of doubt and am willing to acept both possibilities that it could be or may be it could not be...... I would not dispute your view of looking at things the way you do or like to, and hope you would grant me the same leeway.

@ Pulin Trivedi: I agree with you that not much excavations have been done in India.. so it is always possible we might excavate something wonderful and unexpected some day.. but the same can be said about any place.. I can say that Antarctica is largely unexplored, so there could have been great civilizations on it when it was not covered with ice and no one can dispute that this is 'possible'.. My only point is that we should differentiate between 'possibilities' and 'probabilities'.. almost anything is 'possible', but not everything is 'probable', given the current set of known facts.. a good example is this -- if I claim that there is an asteroid with my name printed on it, you cannot say it is impossible. you can only say it is improbable. Re. 'disputing views' etc. -- like I said earlier, each of us individually can believe almost anything. That is up to us.. so I cannot interfere with what you think is possible.. but on whether something is 'probable', I think it is a more relevant question for public discussions.. On ancient aliens, I sometimes watch this stuff on TV and each time, it makes me ROTFL because of the simplistic assumptions and unsubstantiated claims that they make, especially on scientific sounding stuff.. I cannot stop you from believing this stuff, but I can warn you -- beware of the junk they tell you :)

Anand Rajaram : The difference between possibility and probability was excellently expressed. I was particularly impressed by the clarity of this observation... ..."My only point is that we should differentiate between 'possibilities' and 'probabilities'.. almost anything is 'possible', but not everything is 'probable', given the current set of known facts.. a good example is this -- if I claim that there is an asteroid with my name printed on it, you cannot say it is impossible. you can only say it is improbable."... And of course with more information...the possibility would naturally become a probability.

@Anand Rajaram: To each his own, I guess. I would not warn you about any "junk" and you do not classify as "junk" what I give a benefit of doubt. Is that a deal? or is that a deal??

xcellent..... !!!

@ Pulin Trivedi: I called the ideas in the book 'junk', it was not directed towards you!!! I still stand by what I said -- the ancient-aliens idea is textbook pseudoscience. I welcome you to criticize any of my ideas. I have learnt more from honest criticisms than anything else in my life :)

@ RBSI: Any ideas/opinions/criticisms about the Dharmapal book I mentioned? Just curious :)

On the issue of dating MB, the best work so far is by Prof Narhari Achar of Memphis univ, who has used ALL of the astronomical references (there are over 32 major references) to calculate the date.