Early Giithaa sculptures

[Robert Zydenbos]

Narayan S. Raja wrote:
>
> On Wed, 30 Dec 1998, Robert Zydenbos wrote:
>
> > Right here, on the Indology List, and in this thread, there was a list
> > member who claimed that the Bhagavadgiitaa was written at the beginning
> > of the Kaliyuga. On the basis of what? This is the kind of
> > antihistorical attitude I was referring to.
>
> Anyone can say anything.  But did anyone
> take her/him seriously?

Well, one doesn't know. :-) We have quite a mixed bag here on the List.

> 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.

(Right away, we must realise that an expression like 'traditional
Indian' is already quite crude. For instance, Jainas and Buddhists
had a partly different view of the significance of chronology;
hence the importance of the date of the Buddha for ancient Indian
history).

> (In a mythological sense, of course,
> the Bhagavad Gita was indeed written
> at the beginning of the Kaliyuga.
> It's true in the same sense that "Siva
> rides on a bull called Nandi").

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.

> But if we discuss the origin of elephants, quite possibly
> the mahout will tell us that they all descended from
> Indra's elephant, Airavata.  The mahout is not a reliable
> source of information about the origin of elephants.
> A pity, of course.  But it merely means we should talk to
> a zoologist instead.

Very nice illustration. And the belief that the elephant is a descendent
of Airavata might help the mahout to be a good mahout.

> We face a serious problem only if zoology
> professors teach that elephants were descended
> from Indra's elephant, Airavata.

And this is, unfortunately, how it has _become_ an issue in India (also
among teachers). I suspect that the coming of the British, and the
increased social prestige of their kind of religiosity, has a lot to do
with this. I am sure we have all heard the (in my personal view
incomprehensible) missionary argument that "Christianity represents the
truth because Jesus was a historical person." So many things are
historical; but this does not mean that all of them are equally
meaningful for everyone. There resulted a clash of value systems: the
Western preoccupation with history on the one hand, and on the other
hand the traditional Indian ahistoricalness which does, however,
indicate the value of matters (religious or otherwise cultural) by
attributing a mythological ancientness to them. "The BhG is from the
beginning of the Kaliyuga" etc. _cannot_ be compared with modern
historical statements, because the presuppositions and intentions of
such statements are radically different.

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