Early Giithaa sculptures

[Narahari Achar]

Splendid, I could not agree more. Greetings and regards
-Narahari Achar
Robert Zydenbos wrote:

> > Has it ever been an issue in India?
>
> This is actually a question with more implications than one is likely to
> suspect at first sight. The traditional Indian lack of concern for
> chronology and dating is rooted in a particular world-view, viz. one in
> which historicalness (in the usual Western sense: a strict serial dating
> of one event after the other) was considered relatively unimportant.
> Ancient Indians were perfectly capable of being strict in their
> chronology of religious texts etc., if they had wanted to (cf. their
> knowledge of astronomy and mathematics); they were apparently just not
> interested.
>
> And these are precisely the things that mattered much more than strict
> chronological dating. What mattered was what the individual believer
> could do with an idea: what it meant for him / her, and not for some
> detached, objective historian
>
> Returning to the Indology List: all these fierce quasi-historical
> debates we have had here (the indigenous Aryans; Indus Valley things;
> meat-eating in the Vedas; etc.) are largely a waste of time, because
> they tend to be a conflation of two kinds of discussion which can
> perfectly well, and should, be kept apart.
>
> > In actual life, there do exist traditional pandits
> > who are also capable of a historical discussion.
> > These are like modern zoo veterinarians.  They can
> > handle the elephant and also discuss its comparative
> > anatomy.  But I think that's a bonus.
>
> Absolutely right. And I consider myself fortunate that I know a few such
> persons.
>
> --
>
> Dr. Robert J. Zydenbos
> Mysore (India)
> e-mail zydenbos at bigfoot.com