Article:
Between history and mythology
By Harbans Mukhia
Professor of History, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
The Hindu - July 17, 2014

The casualty of the creation of the dichotomy between history and mythology is the attempt to understand the nature of both. But they are not dichotomous; they have much in common.

The recent observations of the new Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) Chairman, Professor Yellapragada Sudershan Rao, that the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are not works of mythology but of historical veracity brings back to the fore the old debate about the nature of history and mythology. The fundamental assumption here is that the two stand in a dichotomous relationship with no common space between them. This dichotomy also places them in a hierarchy, with history being equated with truth and mythology with falsehood.

Evidence and belief

The dichotomy was created by Positivism, which has unquestioned European provenance. Positivism had, during the eighteenth century and down to much of the twentieth century, sought to recreate the exactitude of the natural sciences in forms of societal knowledge, the social sciences. Auguste Comte, the founder of Sociology, placed this new discipline at the highest level of precision and Mathematics at the lowest, because Mathematics had no objective basis except for a commonly accepted set of values. For Leopold von Ranke, “History tells us as it really happened.” It reveals to us the objective truth, with no ambiguity. The veracity of history is proven by the evidence of facts gathered from archives, epigraphs, archaeology, coins, monuments etc., all being objective realities rather than imaginary creations. Certain norms of spatial and temporal location of events form its core.

On the other hand, mythology stood at the other end of objectivity: all of it was the product of imagination, much like fiction, with no objective evidence open to rational, scientific scrutiny, but dependent instead on one’s beliefs and faith.

It is in this backdrop that the struggle to place mythological creations on a par with history or objective truth, is best understood, for any concession to the imaginary nature of mythology relegates it to an inferior status. Or so it is assumed.

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Image:
Rama's Court, Folio from a Ramayana
India, Himachal Pradesh, Chamba, 1775-1800
Opaque watercolor and gold on paper

Source: Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)