[INDOLOGY] Interview with the new ICHR Chairman

[Howard Resnick]

Thank you for these observations. I will add this:

1. In his Dhvany-aloka, Ananda-vardhana uses the term aucitya, “fitness, suitableness” in this sense: in order to inspire the proper rasa or sentiment in an audience, reader, hearer etc, one may adjust or change some “historical” details of a story. One good example: the story of Shakuntala, found in Mahabharata and then “adjusted” for rasika effect by Kalidasa. 

2. Apart from the license accorded by aucitya, acaryas and other commentators may ‘correct’ shastric passages on theological, i.e. siddhantic grounds, as in the case of Madhva “correcting” the Mahabharata. Similarly, the Bhagavata Purana “corrects” various stories of the Mahabharata, such as the death of the great King Pariksit. (It seems like everyone corrects the Mahabharata!) 

3. At least to some extent Vedic/Hindu belief in the cyclical, repetitive nature of time certainly plays a role here. Imagine a poet who has observed many times the passing of four seasons. The poet then writes an ode to spring, or winter, etc. On the one hand, the poem does not seek to give a “scientific” metereological description of a specific spring or winter, with hard numbers for every day and hour. On the other hand, the poem is a poeticized, synthesized depiction of a real, objective phenomenon in the world: seasons. Ditto of course for Vivaldi’s classic Four Seasons. I suggest that sages, including shastra-krits, who believe in, or (from a faithful standpoint) experience, endless yuga cycles, including endless manvantaras, avataras, etc, give at times what they take to be a poeticized, synthesized picture of yugas, manvantaras, avataras, divya-lila etc. But like poets or composers who speak of seasons, these sages generally, perhaps not always, believe that they are speaking of real things, as much as Vivaldi certainly believed that four seasons exist.

4. It seems the truth of this matter thus lies somewhere between two extremes:
	First extreme: Vedic and Hindu thinkers believed that Shastras are historical in exactly the same sense that modern academic historians believe that a well researched, well written history book basically tells an objective story.
	Second extreme: Vedic and Hindu thinkers had no sense of history, and no sense that itihasa-purana is objective history.

Thanks for your patience!
Best
Howard
	

On Jul 14, 2014, at 12:54 AM, Nagaraj Paturi <nagarajpaturi at gmail.com> wrote:

> That was my hunch. I do not think that there was a purva-paksha that itihasa is not history and I also think that such a position was of general concern at his time.
> You might want to reconsider your claim "Yet he accepts the basic Mahabharata story as real history, in all its supernatural abundance" then.
>  
> At a time when the category of 'history' itself is being interrogated , 'history' as a 'modern' category is being intensely scrutinized through 'post-modern' tools, elevation of 'history' to a higher value vis-à-vis myth and other narrative accounts of past is more and more being viewed as a product of enlightenment age fascination for logical positivist understandings, the tendency of an office to hang on to the obsolete tendency of claiming the assumed superior status of 'history' to certain narratives is what comes of the reported words of the new ICHR Chairman.
>  
> Warm regards,
>  
> Nagaraj 
>  
> 
> 
> On Mon, Jul 14, 2014 at 5:07 AM, Howard Resnick <hr at ivs.edu> wrote:
> Again, I think we need to first find evidence that Madhva engaged a purva-paksa notion that itihasa is not history, or that such a position was of general concern at his time.
> 
> Best,
> Howard
> 
> On Jul 13, 2014, at 2:09 PM, Nagaraj Paturi <nagarajpaturi at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > "Yet he accepts the basic Mahabharata story as real history, in all its supernatural abundance"
> >
> >                                                                                                                                        -Howard Resnick
> >
> > This is really interesting. May I know the exact words used by Sri Madhvacharya with the meaning 'real history' ? That citation will help in tracing the history of the notion of 'real history' among pre-modern Indian writers.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Nagaraj
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Prof.Nagaraj Paturi
> > Hyderabad-500044
> > _______________________________________________
> > INDOLOGY mailing list
> > INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> > http://listinfo.indology.info
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Prof.Nagaraj Paturi
> Hyderabad-500044



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