Date of the Buddha and RV

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

"N. Ganesan" <naga_ganesan at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

>P. Olivelle, upaniSads, OUP, p. xxxvi
>[footnote 21]
>"Much of the chronology of the upani.sads and of other ancient
>texts depends on the date of the Buddha's death. ...."
>

>I just extended this reasoning to RV date.
>

This is not sound. Leaving aside the argument that the Vedas are timeless
and apaurusheya, it is clearly accepted that there are many layers to these
texts. The dates of the Upanishads are related in some way to that of the
Buddha, but there is no hard rule that fixes the number of centuries between
the oldest strata of RV and the death of Buddha.

There are those who extend such reasoning about relative dates in the
opposite direction. For example, they argue that Buddha lived in 1800 BCE,
so that Sankara should have lived around 500 BCE. They are clearly wrong,
and so is the attempt to fix the interval between RV and Buddha.

Vidyasankar

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com