Dating Ancient Indian History-
How old was Hindu/Vedic/Indian Civilization? Apart from how you place the equivalences and correspondences between the three terms (Hindu, Vedic and Indian — in my classification Indian equals Hindu, but Vedic refers originally to the culture or Civilization of only the Bharata Pūru people centered in and around Haryana), which can itself be the subject of contentious and violent debate, this question of the age of Indian Civilization has been raging around on the internet since quite some time.
As, apparently, many of the principal self-declared experts on Indian Chronology on twitter and elsewhere (and I am not referring here to the AIT supporters who start Vedic history in India after the alleged invasion of India by "Aryans" after 1500 BCE), apparently make frequent and disparaging references to my chronology (Rigveda 3000+ BCE- 1500 BCE or so, Mahabharata 1500 BCE or so), I feel it is time to make some sort of response.
As I have to start somewhere, let me start with a recent tweet by Nilesh Oak:
And this latest one yesterday (17/3/2021):
Nilesh Oak himself, it may be pointed out at the start here, dates the Rigveda at 22000+ BCE to 6th millennium BCE, the Ramayana at 12209 BCE and the Mahabharata at 5561 BCE. Incidentally, he also dates Sushruta to before 6000 BCE. He has a huge and massive fan-following among Hindus, as naturally anyone proposing such dates would be bound to have. Another expert, Ved Veer Arya, with an equally massive and devoted fan following, is supposed to have presented the following chart on twitter recently, about the value of π in different texts as dated by him:
I have had frequent interaction with Nilesh Oak both by email as well as personally at two or three Seminars in the last few years (in one of which I also met Ved Veer Arya, but without any significant interaction). In one discussion, where he was insisting that the text of the Ramayana was (more-or-less) simultaneous with the event and contained no interpolations or additions, I pointed out that the text of the Ramayana refers not only to Greeks and Romans (yavana and romaka, although many people try to sidestep these words by insisting that these words do not refer to Greeks and Romans, but to some other ancient tribes native to India with no connection to Greeks and Romans) but also to the Chola, Chera/Kerala, Pandya dynasties of the South who were contemporaneous with the Mauryas.
Nilesh Oak does accept or agree with my relative chronology of the Rigveda and has frequently expressed his approval (see also above tweet). But, obviously, he disagrees strongly with my absolute chronology (i.e. chronology in absolute dates BCE).
In another recent tweet, he tells his readers:
I have refrained from commenting on Nilesh Oak so far because my relations with him have been friendly in spite of our differences, and because he does always express his approval at least of my relative chronology. And I have no doubt that our relations will continue to be friendly hereafter as well. But I feel it is time I made my own stand clear.
To begin with, I have always found it strange that (as I have been informed by many people) a google search of my name comes up with an article by Nilesh Oak entitled "Is Shrikant Talageri a Confused Clown?". I have read this article, uploaded I think in 2016, long ago, and was completely foxed by the title. According to Nilesh Oak, someone or the other told him that (or asked him whether) I was a "confused clown". As per the said article, Oak disagrees with this view, and the whole article is more or less in praise of my work (except for my absolute dating). In this circumstance, I totally failed to understand why such an opprobrious epithet was used in the title of the article: anyone who sees only the title in a google search, without bothering to read it, or who sees the title in passing while skimming through the internet, is not likely to be left with any positive opinion of my work or myself.
To give a rather crude analogy, if someone were to say that someone else (call this someone else "ABC") is a "b*****d", and I were to write an article entitled "Is ABC a b*****d?", and, in the course of the article, prove (by giving photocopies of ABC's birth-certificate, his parents' marriage-certificate, and DNA reports showing that ABC is indeed the biological son of his parents) that he is not one, is it likely that ABC would find my article or its title in good taste or sense, or accept that my intentions in choosing such a title were friendly ones?
I have myself written an article entitled "A Detailed Reply to a Joker’ (Arnaud Fournet)'s 'Review' of my Book" (see it on my blogspot), but this was about a totally third-grade writer like Arnaud Fournet who wrote a most disgusting and insulting, and extremely cheap, review of my book in inexcusable circumstances. Such a title could never have been given to an article intended to be friendly to or laudatory of someone.
Although both amused and irritated by the title of the above article, I never referred to it before this. I am doing so now only because I am replying to Nilesh Oak's views on my work, and because this is the article which immediately pops up when you "search [his] blogspot (WordPress) with the keyword 'Talageri'" as suggested by him in his above tweet.
Let us turn to the most "revolutionary" element in Nilesh Oak's dating in general: the one revolutionary discovery he claims to have made and which is the key to his dating (at least for the Mahabharata war) is apparently based on a reference to Arundhati in the thirty-first verse of the second adhyaya of the Bhishma Parva (i.e. in the Mahabharata V.2.31).
The verse is as follows:
yā caiṣā viśrutā rājaṁstrailokye sādhusammatā
arundhatī tathāpyeṣa vasiṣṭhaḥ pṛṣṭhataḥ kṛtaḥ
P.C. Roy as well as K.M. Ganguli translate the verse as follows: "She, O king, who is celebrated over the three worlds and is applauded by the righteous, even that (constellation) Arundhatī keepeth (her lord) Vasiṣṭha on her back".
Oak picks up this one verse, and finds in it a revolutionary clue for the absolute dating of the Mahabharata: he decides that this verse represents an astronomical observation showing that, at the point of time of this observation, the star Vasiṣṭha (Mizar) was "behind" or "to the west of" the star Arundhatī (Alcor). Then, on the basis of the astronomical positions of the two stars at various points of time, he notes that the two stars crossed the meridian side by side in the years 11091 BCE and the year 4508 BCE. Between the two dates (i.e. between 11091 BCE and 4508 BCE), the star Arundhatī moved ahead of the star Vasiṣṭha — Oak calls this period the "Epoch of Arundhatī" — and after 4508 BCE, it was the star Vasiṣṭha which was moving ahead of the star Arundhatī. Since this "astronomical observation" shows that, at the time of the commencement of the Mahabharata war, it was Arundhatī which was moving ahead, the war can only have taken place at some point of time between 11091 BCE and 4508 BCE. After combining this with some other astronomical "data" and "observations" from the text, Oak arrives at the precise date for the war: 5561 BCE.
I will not go into all the rest of the arguments. Just this one basic argument about Arundhatī will illustrate the level of Oak's logic. From this single verse, Oak not only decided that the Mahabharata war took place between 11091 BCE and 4508 BCE (precisely in 5561 BCE during this "Epoch of Arundhatī"), but he wrote a book "When Did The Mahabharata War Happen - The Mystery of Arundhatī" in 2011 to establish his revolutionary discovery, this book became a super-hit and, on the basis of his subsequent books, articles, videos and lectures, he acquired a huge and devoted fan-following of millions (or at least several lakhs) of Hindus, and became a star of international Hindu conferences and seminars.
All this is of course good for him, and I wish him and his followers a happy time spent in wishful fantasies. After all, long before him, another Oak, P.N. Oak, with his similarly extravagant claims, had acquired an equally massive fan following among Hindus. As a fellow Hindu, I had full sympathy with P.N. Oak and his intentions, but I could never take his writings seriously. In fact, when I first wrote to Sita Ram Goel in 1990 asking him if he would be willing to publish a book on the AIT, he wrote to me (his letter dated 26-6-1990: I have preserved all his important letters to this day) as follows:
"Personally I feel that the issue is very complex and should best be left to the scholars. They will do justice in due course. But if you think you know all the arguments, for and against, and can write a scholarly study, I will consider it for publication. I make no promise. I will decide only when I have the write-up before me. And I should make it clear that I will not touch anything in the P.N. Oak style. He makes me hang my head in shame at the degradation of Hindu scholarship".
[After I sent him the manuscript of the first three chapters, he wrote back on 26-2-1991: "I received your letter of the 20th and the typescript yesterday afternoon. I finished reading it in the evening. Hats off. It is excellent. You have a mind which contemplates a situation (or a problem) with calmness before using your razor-sharp logic to analyse it for whatever it is worth. This is rare. I very much liked your turning the tables on the Dravid movement, which shows your grasp over the Aryan invasion theory. So also your synopsis. You are the man I was looking for. Go ahead and finish the work. I will publish it." Yes, I could not resist adding this. I am genuinely proud of such praise from an intellectual giant like Sita Ram Goel, and it makes me quite indifferent to criticism from half-baked critics].
But to return to the "Epoch of Arundhatī". It is not just a case of making a mountain out of a molehill: the fact is that the molehill itself is non-existent here. There is no "astronomical observation" anywhere in the Mahabharata showing that the star Arundhatī was walking ahead of the star Vasiṣṭha. The reference that Oak refers to is in the second adhyaya of the Bhishma Parva of the Mahabharata, where Vyāsa is supposed to be warning Dhṛtarāṣṭra that the war will bring destruction and doom, and giving a list of all the omens that he (being a seer) can see which portend this holocaust. He starts out with the warning: "Great will the slaughter be, O monarch, in this battle. I see here also numerous omens indicative of terror", and, after listing out the omens, he ends with "A great terror is indicated" (by the omens). The omens seen by him, which clearly he alone can see, show all kinds of weird, unnatural and topsy-turvy (ulta-pulta) phenomena taking place:
1. The sun, when rising and setting, is covered with the headless trunks of corpses, and clouds shaped like maces envelop the sun.
2. The sun, moon and stars all appear to be blazing with fire even in the late evenings.
3. Even on the brightest fifteenth night of the lighted fortnight, the moon becomes invisible.
4. The sky looks as if it is full of battling boars and cats, and the cloudless skies emit roars (of thunder).
5. The images of Gods and Goddesses alternately start laughing, or trembling, or vomiting blood through their mouths, or start sweating profusely before collapsing.
6. Drums start emitting sounds without being beaten, chariots start moving without being pulled by animals, and all kinds of birds utter terrible cries.
7. Huge swarms of insects rise in the air, and the clouds rain dust and flesh.
8. Arundhatī, known for her righteousness, keeps her lord Vasiṣṭha on her back, the planet Śanī appears to be afflicting the constellation Rohiṇī, and the sign of the deer on the moon deviates from its normal position.
In short, far from showing that this is an astronomical "observation" being made during the "Epoch of Arundhatī", the reference in fact shows that the normal position is that Vasiṣṭha is "ahead" of Arundhatī: it is only as an omen (where everything is appearing to be the opposite of the normal) that Vyāsa sees Arundhatī moving ahead of Vasiṣṭha. Oak's revolutionary discovery could have been made even more revolutionary by actually locating an Epoch when the moon became invisible on full moon night, and images of Gods and Goddesses came to life in the ways described in the text.
It is testimony to the level to which Hindu scholarship has fallen that this kind of reference has become such a "revolutionary" ingredient in the rewriting of history and the dating of historical events. One need not go further into the rest of the arguments and evidence, although Nilesh Oak does indeed claim not only further "astronomical" evidence for his dates, but names a long list of sciences which apparently corroborate his conclusions: archaeo-astronomy, geology, hydrology, paleo-climatology, etc.
When scholars or writers tend to give long lists of sciences which they claim to be corroborating their conclusions regarding historical questions related to the Indo-European problem, I usually find that their claims have to be taken with a heavy pinch of salt. In my second book, "The Rigveda - A historical Analysis" (2000), I cited the example of Victor H. Mair of the University of Pennsylvania who tells us pompously that his story of the Indo-European migrations, depicted on a series of maps, is "intended isochronously to take into account the following types of evidence: linguistic, historical, archaeological, technological, cultural, ethnological, geographical, climatological, chronological and genetic-morpho-metric - roughly in the order of precision with which I am able to control the data, from greatest to least. I have also endeavoured to take into consideration types of data which subsume or bridge two or more basic categories of evidence (eg. glotto-chronology, dendrochronology, and linguistic paleontology)". And his map for the year 1500 BCE, based apparently on the evidence from this long list of sciences, shows the undifferentiated Indo-Iranians still located, at that point of time, to the north and west of the Caspian Sea on their alleged journey from the Steppes to India!
Basically, I have no objection to people believing in extravagant dates and theories (or religious beliefs) if it makes them happy. The problem arises when they start criticizing, disparaging, attacking and trying to pull down those who prefer to be more rational. A failure to accept the "evidence" of the "Epoch of Arundhatī" variety makes me "illogical+unscientific" in the eyes of Nilesh Oak, and indicates to him that my logic "becomes paralyzed and comes to a halt" when "critiquing claims from areas of science" I am "clueless about"! But to any rational person it should be immediately clear as to whose claims are "ridiculous".
It is an extremely sad thing that Hindu scholarship has become hostage to all kinds of weird obsessions. It is not only the "scholars" but their multitudes of devout and devoted fans who become experts when criticizing those who fail to pander to their obsessions, and there is a long range of foolish accusations or judgments made by these experts, e.g.:
Now what for example is "present day timeline"?
These judgmental experts belong to different categories (even apart from the AIT-supporting casteist-racist Hindus like Manasataramgini and Kalavai Venkat):
1. There are those who believe that the Vedas are apaurusheya, which they interpret as timeless and "revealed" scriptures not composed by human beings, and therefore not capable of providing historical clues. Searching for history in the Vedas amounts to some kind of blasphemy to them.
2. There are those who want every mythological story, myth, identity and relationship, mentioned in the Puranas and Epics, to be incorporated into the ancient Indian historical narrative. A failure to do so enrages them.
3. There are those who want only those whom they believe to be having "adhikāra" (authority as per some orthodox criterion or the other) to pronounce on matters pertaining to the Vedas or Hindu history and philosophy, and are ever ready to attack those whom they feel are "outsiders" to what they have decided is the tradition. and they have a long line of accusations against and epithets for them.
4. There are similarly those (certainly in my own experience) who feel that using modern academic "tools" (such as Linguistics, etc.) to analyze the Vedas and Vedic history, or to use any system or criteria or science not used in the analysis of the Vedas by ancient Indian scholars, is also a kind of blasphemy. Again, they have a long line of accusations against and epithets for people who use these "modern" and "western" academic tools in their analyses.
5. There are those who feel the Vedas and Vedic culture and civilization are the root and fountainhead of the whole of Indian culture (and for the more extreme among them, of all the cultures and civilizations of the whole world). All things in Hinduism not found in the Vedas are either corruptions or later developments or deviations to these people. And other non-Vedic cultures of India (Naga, Santali, Andamanese) are either to be ignored or to be Sanskritized, or to be treated as non-entities in the Indian cultural spectrum, or to be considered as ultimately derived (by whatever "logic") from Vedic culture and civilization.
6. There are those who reject all sciences and paradigms which they feel go against their idea of Indian culture: thus they deny Linguistics itself as a science, or reject the concept of an Indo-European language family as distinct from, say, a Dravidian language family, or reject the idea of an original Proto-Indo-European language other than and different from Vedic Sanskrit.
There are many more categories of "Hindus" with their pet obsessions, their troll armies and their choice epithets. I try as far as possible to ignore the bile and venom emitted by these half-illiterates.
In the context of the present article, this was (or at least I intend it to be) a one-time reply to the "scholars" who want to take Indian history (or the Rigveda or the Mahabharata war or the Ramayana events) back by millenniums into "ridiculous" periods. The only purpose achieved by all the above categories of objectors and their kindergarten obsessions is to sabotage rational inquiry into the Truth about ancient history, and (however massive, and however militant and devoted, their fan followings) to expose serious Hindu and pro-Hindu historians to reflected ridicule.
APPENDIX added 20/3/2021:
I expected rage, abuse or contemptuous dismissal from the "Hindu" troll armies, and will in general ignore the bile and venom as unworthy of response.
But one "NO ji" admirer's response today merits a reply, since it raises a corollary point:
So does the date of 5561 BCE stand, even without the AV
(Arundhatī-Vasiṣṭha) reference, on the basis of other "astronomical
observations" in the Mahabharata? On the contrary, this very
AV reference itself proves conclusively that the Mahabharata cannot
be dated at 5561 BCE.
To quote from the above article: "on the basis of the astronomical positions of the two stars at various points of time, he notes that the two stars crossed the meridian side by side in the years 11091 BCE and the year 4508 BCE. Between the two dates (i.e. between 11091 BCE and 4508 BCE), the star Arundhatī moved ahead of the star Vasiṣṭha — Oak calls this period the "Epoch of Arundhatī" — and after 4508 BCE, it was the star Vasiṣṭha which was moving ahead of the star Arundhatī."
There is nothing particularly wrong about describing a period between two dates, based on the relative positions between any two stars during that period, by a particular name. So, if it is indeed a fact that between 11091 BCE and 4508 BCE the star Arundhatī moved ahead of the star Vasiṣṭha, and after that point it was the other way around, then Nilesh Oak has a perfect right to name that period as the "Arundhatī Epoch" if he wants to. There can thus be numerous "Epochs" based on which positions of the stars you take as the criteria for naming such Epochs.
The question is not about whether he is right or wrong in giving that period the name "Arundhatī Epoch": the question is about whether the Mahabharata presents us with an "observation" showing the position of the two stars at the time fell within this Epoch.
Nilesh Oak claims there is such a reference. But on examination, as we saw earlier, this reference in fact shows that the normal (non-hallucinatory) position at the time of the reference was the opposite of what it would be during this "Arundhatī Epoch", and that the Mahabharata very definitely did not take place within this Epoch. In this sense, Oak's "Arundhatī Epoch" theory is certainly "revolutionary" in a way, in definitely negating other alleged "astronomical" interpretations supposedly showing this date.
I do not of course expect "push-back-the dates-by-millenniums" enthusiasts to accept all this. But as I wrote earlier, basically, I have no objection to people believing in extravagant dates and theories (or religious beliefs) if it makes them happy. The problem arises when they start criticizing, disparaging, attacking and trying to pull down those who prefer to be more rational.
PLUS: One more semi-illiterate comment (the person, who considers himself some kind of scholar, cannot even read, apparently) that I could not resist adding into this article (it will be the last one, I promise. The trolls can continue to have a field day abusing after that):
If this "scholar" had spent his time reading the above article
or the original reference in the Mahabharata, instead of reading the
"Baibal" or peering inside peoples' chaddis or trying to get
inside ancient writers' minds, he would have seen that the omens described in
the Mahabharata passage are all "exact opposite of normal". One does
not need a definition of the word "omen" to know that none of the
signs (of which the "revolutionary Arundhatī astronomical observation"
is one) represent the "normal", and indeed the passage itself clearly
says that "the sign of the deer on the moon deviates from its normal
position".
Sita Ram Goel was right: such a gaggle of scholars sporting the title "Hindu" should indeed make any Hindu hang his head in shame at the degradation of Hindu scholarship.
POSTSCRIPT 26-3-2021: THE "ORIGINAL RESEARCH" BY THE NEO-OAK SCHOOL OF HISTORY-WRITING BASED ON "DIFFERENT FIELDS OF SCIENCE":
After promising not to make any more additions on the basis of troll-tweets from followers of the Neo-Oak school of history writing, here I am breaking that promise within one week!
The trolls can of course, continue to have a field day abusing me, since that is all they can do. But it is funny that many of them are apparently accusing me of indulging in "ad-hominem" and giving my "opinions", rather than presenting rational "counter-evidence" (to Oak's claims) from different "other fields of science".
In short, writing a whole revolutionary book, and building up an entire edifice of chronological dating, on the basis of a deliberate misinterpretation of a verse from an ancient text is perfectly valid. Writing that someone is "a confused clown" and that his logical faculties are "paralyzed" and "have come to a halt" because he does not accept your dates is not ad hominem. But exposing that deliberate misinterpretation is "ad hominem" unless accompanied by "counter-evidence" from other fields of science!
I am sorry, the patent for this type of deriving of dates from such "clues" and "evidence" from irrelevant and unconnected "different fields of science" lies with the scholars from the neo-Oak school of history-writing (whom Oak, in his reply to his fans, describes as "original researchers" equipped with "scientific acumen" and "logical reasoning", which apparently I lack), and I cannot do it.
Here are two more such types of evidence (from the fields, I assume, of zoology and anthropology), similar to the Arundhatī "evidence" from the field of astronomy, showing that the Rigveda goes back beyond 22000 BCE and has memories reaching as far back as 60000 BCE:
ABSOLUTELY FINAL NOTE ADDED 27-3-2021: SCIENTIFIC DATING VS. WISHFUL DATING:
I am adding this final note to my article. I see that the word
"idiot" is being freely bandied around on twitter now, and it was the
use of this word by Manasataramgini for a long list of people ("S.
Talageri, S. Kak, N.S. Rajaram, V. Agrawal, B.B. Lal, S. Kalyanaraman, D.
Frawley, R. Malhotra, M. Danino, K. Elst, N. Kazanas and so on") which
provoked my first blog on historical subjects (the four blogs before that were
on the subject of Jhap taal and Roopak taal in Hindi and Marathi songs). But I
will not drag it on since I have said everything I had to say, and will ignore
further abuse unless some material point is raised. A material point about
dating in general has been raised (see comments to my blog and my reply to it).
I am adding this note to clarify the difference between scientific
dating and wishful dating. I am a Hindu and would love the dates of our Hindu
historical concerns being pushed back to the distant past as far as possible as
much as any other Hindu. In fact, my interest in the subject, and desire to
become a historian, first arose in my school days in the early seventies when I
read an article in a small journal called "Mirror" (unfortunately I
have not preserved the details) which raised this "Sandracottus/Xandramese"
issue, and I was as excited with the dates of the Buddha and the Mauryas being
pushed back by a millennium as anyone else. However, I later saw the flaws in
this, and concentrated on a more rational stance.
There is such a thing as scientific procedures for dating material
objects: carbon dating, Thermo luminescence dating, etc. However much one may
or may not like the dates provided by such processes, they must be respected
until more scientific procedures are discovered. And there must be a logical
way of applying these datings to the events etc. recorded in historical
traditions and records.
The problem arises when writers and historians fail to distinguish between scientific dating and wishful dating. Certain dates (unless newer data emerges) are extremely difficult to challenge such as the dates for the invention and widespread use of wheeled vehicles, and later of spoked-wheel vehicles, or of the separation from each other of the different branches of IE languages. These show us, at the present state of the data, that the IE branches separated from each other around or after 3500 BCE or so.
The problem is that both the AIT writers (including the
"scholars" and "scientists" among them) as well as the
various extreme Hindu groups who oppose them choose to ignore the scientific
datings and to concoct their own theories and dates in blatant
violation of the scientific dates.
The AIT writers treat their theories (of the location of the PIE
Homeland, the date of the Rigveda, etc.) as sacrosanct and try to force fit
Indian history into their purely theoretical timeline of an
"Aryan" movement from South Russia into India. In this they ignore
the scientific dating which shows that the Mitanni/Kassite culture (scientifically
dated after 1750 BCE in West Asia) represents an offshoot of the culture
of the New Rigveda, and that the Old Rigveda is
geographically located in Haryana and further east within India. This disproves
the theory that the IEs ("Aryans") could have entered India from
outside after 1500 BCE or even after 2000 BCE, and ultimately
proves that the IE languages originated in and spread out from India. This is
in keeping with all the scientifically established dates which the AIT writers
are deliberately ignoring.
At the same time, the Hindu writers reject all the scientific datings and establish their own wishful timelines. As I have written in reply to a comment to my article:
"Anyone can have disagreements with anyone else. But you are right, I generally accept what you call the 'present day timeline' for those dates. But you are wrong in calling this wrong.
They are not dates 'linked to Egyptian and Babylonian', they are dates linked to scientific procedures for dating like carbon dating and thermonuclear luminescence dating, etc. Until more accurate scientific processes for dating material cultures come up, they have to be respected.
The mistakes arise when oral texts (or oral tape-recordings as Witzel correctly describes them) like the Rigveda and Avesta are given dates based on assumed theories (like the AIT) rather than on the correspondences with scientifically dated cultures related to them (like the Mitanni), or when archaeological cultures and genetic features are assigned linguistic identities based on extraneous historical theories which have no connections with the correctness or otherwise of scientific dating procedures.
To disagree with force-fitted theories, it is not necessary to disagree with scientifically established dates. The dates of Mitanni and Kassites are scientifically established (like the dates of Egyptian and Mesopotamian history) and cannot be summarily rejected based on wishful thinking and ideological preferences."
The scientifically established dates remain scientifically established dates. No one (from either camp) can wish them away, and no amount of political rallying, trolling and abusing can change the facts. I know the hatred and abuse against me (from both camps) will only increase. So be it. A united Hindu paradigm could have been constructed keeping in mind all the scientific facts, but that is not to be.
