[INDOLOGY] Interview with the new ICHR Chairman

[Bijlert, V.A. van]

That is very interesting. But does this mean that the whole text of the Valmiki Ramayana or the Mahabharata should be treated as a more or less faithful representation of facts. Is that the main function of the epics? I do not question the idea that the epics constitute some kind of meaningful sacred narrative with some historically accurate details worked into it. The same is true of the Old Testament. But can one use the Mahabharata and the Ramayana to 'rewrite' the history of ancient India in such a way that the latter is 'purged' of western influences. I think this is the burden of the initial part of this discussion. My contribution to it was to point out that the epics stand in need of more refined hermeneutics, in order to avoid rewritings of ancient Indian history.
Yours truly
Victor van Bijlert


________________________________

Dr. Victor A. van Bijlert
Associate professor Religious Studies
Department of Philosophy of Religion and Comparative Study of Religions
Faculty of Theology, VU University
De Boelelaan 1105, NL-1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
v.a.van.bijlert at vu.nl<mailto:v.a.van.bijlert at vu.nl>
+31613184203
________________________________
From: Madhav Deshpande [mmdesh at umich.edu]
Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2014 5:28 PM
To: Bijlert, V.A. van
Cc: Howard Resnick; Indology
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Interview with the new ICHR Chairman

While there was no historical awareness in pre-modern India in the modern sense of history, many genealogies of medieval kings (including the Bhosales of Maharashtra) begin with the coronation of Yudhishthira, and so they are treating the epic and puranic lists as historical in their own understanding of history.

Madhav Deshpande


On Sun, Jul 13, 2014 at 11:22 AM, Bijlert, V.A. van <v.a.van.bijlert at vu.nl<mailto:v.a.van.bijlert at vu.nl>> wrote:
Do you know of any other source in the nineteenth and early twentieth century that Hindu propagandists could have used? Is there any early pre-modern or even pre-islamic discussion in Indian thought about the Mahabharata and Ramayana as accurate depictions of historical facts?


________________________________

Dr. Victor A. van Bijlert
Associate professor Religious Studies
Department of Philosophy of Religion and Comparative Study of Religions
Faculty of Theology, VU University
De Boelelaan 1105, NL-1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
v.a.van.bijlert at vu.nl<mailto:v.a.van.bijlert at vu.nl>
+31613184203<tel:%2B31613184203>
________________________________
From: Howard Resnick [hr at ivs.edu<mailto:hr at ivs.edu>]
Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2014 1:49 PM
To: Bijlert, V.A. van
Cc: Indology List
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Interview with the new ICHR Chairman

Can we really attribute to modern Christian influence the Hindu belief in Mahabharata and Ramayana as sacred history, apart from the many other meanings of the texts?


On Jul 13, 2014, at 7:43 AM, Bijlert, V.A. van <v.a.van.bijlert at vu.nl<mailto:v.a.van.bijlert at vu.nl>> wrote:

It seems to me there is a task for hermeneutics rather than pure philological indology. We are dealing with rather simplistic views of what the Mahabharata and Ramayana (and other puranas as well?) represent. The idea that these texts are historical seems to derive from the rather fundamentalist evangelical christian view of the Bible as containing undiluted historical truth. Hindus since the nineteenth century were confronted with this view propounded by missionaries and as a reaction claimed that their own Sanskrit texts were also historical. In christian hermeneutics and Biblical philology as indeed in theology such simplistic historical views have long been discarded. But apparently not so among some Hindus with regard to epics and the puranas.
Victor van Bijlert



________________________________

Dr. Victor A. van Bijlert
Associate professor Religious Studies
Department of Philosophy of Religion and Comparative Study of Religions
Faculty of Theology, VU University
De Boelelaan 1105, NL-1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
v.a.van.bijlert at vu.nl<mailto:v.a.van.bijlert at vu.nl>
+31613184203<tel:%2B31613184203>
_______________________________________________
INDOLOGY mailing list
INDOLOGY at list.indology.info<mailto:INDOLOGY at list.indology.info>
http://listinfo.indology.info<http://listinfo.indology.info/>


_______________________________________________
INDOLOGY mailing list
INDOLOGY at list.indology.info<mailto:INDOLOGY at list.indology.info>
http://listinfo.indology.info



--
Madhav M. Deshpande
Professor of Sanskrit and Linguistics
Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
202 South Thayer Street, Suite 6111
The University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1608, USA


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20140713/28569500/attachment.htm>