The Date of The Mahabharata War

 

The Date of The Mahabharata War

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

Someone sent me a request to give my estimated date for the Mahabharata war. Apparently this issue (i.e. the date of the Mahabharata war, not my date for it) is being discussed on the internet (though he did not tell me what exactly the discussion was). I have already given my estimated date for the war in various books and articles (right from my first book). However, perhaps it would be too much to expect people to search through my books and articles for my date. So, just for the record (and since I just wrote two articles connected with the Ramayana), here (in an extremely brief article whose title itself makes the subject clear, so that no reader has to go searching in my books and blogs for it) is my dating, quoting from my very first book in 1993:

“However, the historical core of the Puranas can be confirmed by subjecting the Puranic material to a comparative study. The information given in the Puranas can be divided into four eras on the basis of degrees of broad agreement among scholars: I. The post-Buddha Era (6th century BC, or so, onwards). 2. The post-Mahabharata Era (mid-2nd millennium BC to 6th cen-tury BC). 3. The post-Manu-Vaivasvata Era (3l00 BC, or so, to mid-2nd millennium BC)” (TALAGERI 1993:87).

“However, today, it is generally accepted that the Mahabharata war took place in the mid-2nd millennium BC (around 1500 BC). This is based on the following points:

1. The various Puranas state that a period of 1015 to 1050 years had elapsed between the birth of Parikshita, (Arjuna's grandson who was born during the I8-day Mahabharata war) and the coronation of Mahapadma Nanda (of the Nanda dynasty). Elsewhere, again, they state that 10 naksatras (each naksatra being equivalent to a hundred years) had elapsed between the two events. Now, Mahapadma Nanda's coronation date has been confirmed, through Greek records, as 378 BC or 382 BC. Adding 1015 or 1050 years to this, we get a date in the 15th century BC.

2. This date, according to A.D. Pusalker, is also confirmed by a consideration of the vaidavoli which gives a successive list of Gurus or teachers in chronological order.

3. The eminent astronomers, S.B. Roy and K.C. Verma, have demonstrated that the astronomical details, mentioned in the Mahabharata, at the time of the war, indicate that it took place in the 15th century BC.

4. The recent archaeological discovery of underwater Dwarka, and excavations at the site, by the "Marine Archaeology" unit of the National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, led by the eminent archaeologist Dr. S.R. Rao, has provided a major archaeological landmark in the dating of the Mahabharata. According to the Mahabharata, Sri Krsna's Dwarka was submerged by the sea some years after the Mahabharata war. The pottery found at the excavated underwater site has been dated by the latest, and most accurate, scientific method known as the "thermo-luminescence" or IL dating method; and the dates arrived at fall in the mid-2nd millennium BC. Therefore, the date of the Mahabharata now stands confirmed as the 15th century BC.” (TALAGERI 1993:89).

 

This date (not precisely 1500 BCE or the fifteenth century BCE in particular, but at some time around the mid second millennium BCE, give or take a century or two around 1500 BCE) is the date I have been specifying ever since, to this very day.

 

More recent developments:

Prof. Dr. R.N.Iyengar has dated the war around 1500 BCE (i.e. at 1478 BCE on astronomical grounds.

And after the discovery and analysis of the Sanauli site in Baghpat district of UP bordering Haryana, senior archaeologist Dr. Sanjay Manjul has revised the earlier suggested datings for the archaeology of the Mahabharata era from 1000-900 BCE to 2000-1500 BCE. 

Additionally:

1. This dating has been more than amply proved by the evidence of spoked wheels (and the later invention of chariot warfare which is so central to the Mahabharata), which I have been highlighting in every relevant article written by me after my book “The Rigveda and the Avesta - The Final Evidence” (2008): spoked-wheels were invented around 2300-2200 BCE.

While spoked-wheels are totally absent in the Old Rigveda (Books 6,3.7,4,2), they are found in the New Rigveda (Books 5,1,8,9,10) right from Book 5.

The military atmosphere of the Mahabharata is a very “spoked-wheel-chariot-filled” one, indicating a clearly post 2300-2200 BCE date.

2. A close ancestor of the heroes (and villains) of the Mahabharata War, Śantanu, is mentioned in a hymn (X.98) composed by his brother Devāpi , and included in the Rigveda at the very fag end of the New Rigveda, again indicating that the war took place towards the end of the period of composition of the New Rigveda. [As I have repeatedly pointed out, the Rigveda was almost complete by 1900 BCE at least, but it attained its final form as it is today, with a few final additions into Book 10) around the mid-second millennium BCE.

 

I need hardly add that the actual war took place in the 2^nd millennium BCE, but the text of the Mahabharata as we have it today was first set down in writing in the Mauryan era (post 300 BCE), so this dating of the war to around the mid-2^nd millennium BCE does not automatically apply to the correctness of any historical, quasi-historical, pseudo-historical or mythical detail, personality, incident or story contained in the actual text of the Mahabharata since the text contains countless interpolations pertaining to the culture and state of knowledge of the Mauryan period.