Mahabharata date. Was: Iron Age in India

Anand M. Sharan asharan at ENGR.MUN.CA
Mon Sep 18 10:14:14 UTC 2000


If you go by the dates when they were written , which you correctly assign
a range between 400 BCE and some others ( Radhakrishnan -AROUND 200 bce )
when Brahmi script came into use , nothing can be established for any of
the epics . If this is so, how can one assign any date for the Vedas  such
as mention of iron ( ayas etc ) in them ?

I had stated in  two parts, how the Mahabharat could be thought to have
taken place on or before 1700 BCE because the Saraswati river dried out at
that time. Mahabharat mentions about Balram 's pilgrimage along the
Saraswati river .  Fitzgerald mentions about the process used in making
steel, a high quality steel in the descriptions of Mahabharat .
Fitzgerald's finding appears very reasonable to me .

Pl note that , to this date, no script has been found  where the events in
India could have been written even around 800 BCE . Does it mean nothing
very eventful happened in India before say, 1000 BCE ?

Regards,

Anand M. Sharan

So, how can one verify the authenticity of the dates ?





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