Below is the context of the discussion:
Mrinal Kaul
In this context the perspective of Prof Romila Thapar might also be interesting. I am copying the links of her recent article below: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/romila-thapar-smriti-irani-old-history-baiters-of-bjp/1/370799.html
Best wishes. Yours, Mrinal
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Sunday, July 13, 2014 2:02 PM
In this context the perspective of Prof Romila Thapar might also be interesting. I am copying the links of her recent article below:
Best wishes.
Yours,
Mrinal Kaul
Dipak Bhattacharya
This is not a new phenomenon. Rao is not the first prominent Indian in position of power to entertain such ideas. It is for more than a decade or so that critical historians are on the defensive. Elements of
the Western Indology are partly responsible. Many
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Sunday, July 13, 2014 1:55 PM
This is not a new phenomenon. Rao is not the first prominent Indian in position of power to entertain such ideas.
It is for more than a decade or so that critical historians are on the defensive. Elements of the Western Indology are partly responsible. Many obscurantist elements were encouraged during the final decades of the cold war in the name of research into the true
Indian tradition. The enlightened tradition that saw its beginning in the 1860s in Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, R.G. Bhandarkar and others rapidly waned in the eighties when the cold war was in its peak. The present correspondent
too suffered and was even mocked at for his way of enquiry by friends in the West who hardly saw the danger. Only an insignificant percentage of the Western Indologists has cared to sift the husk fron the grain. As you sow so shall you reap!On Sun, Jul 13, 2014 at 12:43 PM, Walter Slaje <slaje@kabelmail.de> wrote:
Indological expertise is in demand,
FYI,
WS
FYI,
WS
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Steve Farmer saf@safarmer.com [Indo-Eurasian_research] <Indo-Eurasian_research@yahoogroups.com>
Date: 2014-07-13 8:11 GMT+02:00
Subject: [Indo-Eurasia] Interview with the new ICHR Chairman
To: Indo-Eurasian_research@yahoogroups.com
Cc: Steve Farmer <saf@safarmer.com>
Steve
Posted by: Steve Farmer <saf@safarmer.com>
From: Steve Farmer saf@safarmer.com [Indo-Eurasian_research] <Indo-Eurasian_research@yahoogroups.com>
Date: 2014-07-13 8:11 GMT+02:00
Subject: [Indo-Eurasia] Interview with the new ICHR Chairman
To: Indo-Eurasian_research@yahoogroups.com
Cc: Steve Farmer <saf@safarmer.com>
Revealing interview with Yellapragada Sudershan Rao, Modi's new Chairman of the powerful Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), in
today's _Outlook India_:
"Ramayana, Mahabharata Are True Accounts Of The Period...Not Myths"
http://tinyurl.com/qadhsft
Commentary in the same edition by Anuradha Raman:
"Ram, Where Art Thou"?
http://www.outlookindia.com/article/Ram-Where-Art-Thou/291362
Total public silence from Western Indologists so far on Rao's appointment, which is curious.
Typical quotation from the interview with Rao, a colleague of NS Rajaram, responding to questions from the interviewer:
"Ramayana, Mahabharata Are True Accounts Of The Period...Not Myths"
http://tinyurl.com/qadhsft
Commentary in the same edition by Anuradha Raman:
"Ram, Where Art Thou"?
http://www.outlookindia.com/article/Ram-Where-Art-Thou/291362
Total public silence from Western Indologists so far on Rao's appointment, which is curious.
Typical quotation from the interview with Rao, a colleague of NS Rajaram, responding to questions from the interviewer:
You are the author of the Mahabharata project? What is the project about?
There is a certain view that the Mahabharata or the Ramayana are myths. I don’t see them as myths because they were written at a certain point of time in history. They are important sources of information in the way we write history. What we write today may become an important source of information for the future in the future. When analysed, of course, they could be declared to be true or false. History is not static. It belongs to the people, it’s made by the people. Similarly, the Ramayana is true for people...it’s in the collective memory of generations of Indians. We can’t say the Ramayana or the Mahabharata are myths. Myths are from a western perspective.
What does that mean?
For us, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are true accounts of the periods in which they were written.
There is a certain view that the Mahabharata or the Ramayana are myths. I don’t see them as myths because they were written at a certain point of time in history. They are important sources of information in the way we write history. What we write today may become an important source of information for the future in the future. When analysed, of course, they could be declared to be true or false. History is not static. It belongs to the people, it’s made by the people. Similarly, the Ramayana is true for people...it’s in the collective memory of generations of Indians. We can’t say the Ramayana or the Mahabharata are myths. Myths are from a western perspective.
What does that mean?
For us, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are true accounts of the periods in which they were written.
Steve
__._,_.___
Posted by: Steve Farmer <saf@safarmer.com>
From: Dean Michael Anderson [eastwestcultural@yahoo.com]
Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2014 3:16 PM
To: Bijlert, V.A. van
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Interview with the new ICHR Chairman
Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2014 3:16 PM
To: Bijlert, V.A. van
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Interview with the new ICHR Chairman
Interesting points. Was this somehow in the context of an interview that I missed?
Best,
Dean
Dr Dean Anderson
East West Cultural Institute
From: "Bijlert, V.A. van" <v.a.van.bijlert@vu.nl>
To: "indology@list.indology.info" <indology@list.indology.info>
Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2014 5:13 PM
Subject: [INDOLOGY] Interview with the new ICHR Chairman
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
+31613184203
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