Mahabharata date. Was: Iron Age in India

[Rajarshi Banerjee]

This relates to a thread of discussion which took place a few weeks ago on
another list.

According to the following article a unique event (2 eclipses in a month
containing a 13 day waning moon period ) was observed before the mahabharata
war in 3067 BC. It also claims that all other astrnomical observations in
the epic are consistant and give a unique timestamp to the mahabharata.
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/datemb1.PDF

If this is verified then it would mean that the mahabharata has preserved
one of the oldest astronomical observations in india. The calculations in
the article are performed in 1969. Is there an algorithmic error? There is
downloadable share ware which lets you observe the night sky and eclipses in
ancient times. Some of them go beyond 3000 BC. error inclreases for older
events. But its claimed that they are negligible for solar system objects.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/homeplanet/

and others found at

http://www.stargazing.net/AstroTips/english/index.html

I personally dont have timeto verify the events right now

I dont see how all this would relate to the iron age though. Chariots use
started around 1700 BC. iron use even later.
One could think that the core of the mahabharata story consists of a massive
tribal war fought with arrows and clubs and a series of astronomical
observatons.

chariots, advanced weapons iron and many other details could be later
insertions.

If the epic is analyzed for authenticity we should consider the the
following order indicates increeasing degrees of freedom for modification.

anecdote >> phrase/description >> word.

To convey a sense of the hardness of bhimas statue and dhritarashtras
strength in crushing it, an iron age story teller would   would naturally
say it was made of iron.
But balaramas journey along the saraswati would be less prone to colouring
and embellishment. Also geographical descriptions would be described more
dispassionately than feats of strength.

regards RB