Wednesday, 3 June 2015

Hindu Epics- Myth or real?



I keep wondering about so many things when i am free,much to my parents' irritation because obviously thinking is the brain's job and the rest of my body just sits idle,so I look like a lazy person who has got nothing to do.How do I tell my parents that while my body might appear idle my brain is actually running at a really high speed? True story right?I know!

Anyways, recently I've been thinking more and more about our hindu epics,Mahabharata and Ramayan ,thanks to the many attempts of various creative minds that try to recreate these stories on television.The point is these are all incredible stories with some great lessons and morals,sure,but did they actually happen? Did sage Valmiki really write ramayan? Did Maharishi Ved Vyasa actually witness Mahabharata? A part of me knew it's just not possible for anybody to imagine and write a story with such accuracy(Topology,Locations,Astronomy almost every possible thing has been mentioned in both the epics) and that part was totally willing to believe in the occurrence of these epics.But the logical part of me could' nt believe in the very existence of pandavas and events occurred in a major part of mahabharata,about Hanuman carrying a mountain and flying,Ravan having 10 heads and the list continues.

So i did a bit of research.I googled,visited various sites,saw quite a many videos and people's views.Boy did i find some mind blowing stuff.Although there was not much i could find about ramayana there was loads of stuff about mahabharata.So many passionate people-astrologers,researchers,commoners discussing about these epics.

Apart from the archaeological evidences about which most of us know( ruins have been found underwater in gujarat similar to Dwarka also verified to be around the time of mahabharata,the bridge of stones from India to Sri lanka,etc ),there are astronomical evidences too.Researchers such as Subhash Kak have been researching on Mahabharata and Vedic civilization. They dated Mahabharata to the same period and verified the astronomical references.The astronomical references Mahabharata mentions have been verified to have happened.,but some researchers feel that this verification is biased.

Again some argue that all places mentioned in Mahabharata are all identified as real places,For instance, Hastinapur is in UP. Indraprastha is the present day Delhi. Dwarka is located in Gujarat coast.But a few disagree with the Indraprastha part of the story.Some question on how anyone can create such a massively complex, detailed and vivid descriptions that are so accurate. Their argument- The hindu books in fact even give a chronology of kings extending 150 generations, and all of this cant be fiction given that a few in the lists are real.

While i was going through all this i found a really interesting comment.According to the girl these are just stories and it is very much possible to be able to imagine to such an extent because J.K Rowling has clearly done so! A few centuries from now Harry Potter might end up being an epic and there might be people who would be arguing about whether magic existed and whether people actually traveled via brooms if they failed their apparition test! All I could think then ,about the girl who wrote this was- way to go girl.It opened up an entirely new viewpoint.

I really could' nt bring myself to believe it all to be a myth blindly the way that girl did,what with so many facts proving otherwise but all the proof,arguments still could' nt exactly convince the logical part of me.Although all this research did manage to convince it that it would be unfair to rule out the possibility of its occurrence and declare it a myth,unavailability of substantial evidence was dissatisfying..So the conclusion that i have drawn is instead of mulling over the existence/non-existence of the characters and the stories maybe we should just learn all that they teach us which is – Everything! What if they turn out to be just stories? All stories are based on some facts.Maybe all of it actually happened,but not at such a large scale.Maybe ramayana or Mahabharata was a story of a small family of brothers ,sisters ,wives and neighbors exaggerated with imaginative additions and changed over centuries by oral transfer of the story.None of us know what exactly happened,but we do know the stories and the morals and the lessons they teach.We do know that our people created a masterpiece that we should be proud of!So we probably should just learn from them and try to be a better human being.The world could do with some what do you think?