Distortion of Bharat history by the British

There are ‘five characteristics’ or ‘five signs’ of a Purana. These are called the Pancha Lakshana.

1.   Sarga : Cosmogony or the creation of the world

2.   Pratisarga : Cosmogony and cosmology

3.   Vamsa : Genealogy of the Gods, Sages and kings

4.   Manvantara : Cosmic cycles, the history of the world during the time of one patriarch

5.   Vamsanucaritam : Accounts of royal dynasties, including the Suryavamsha and Chandravamsha kings.

Therefore, there is a historical element that is part of Puranas. The history of the civilization may be reconstructed from ancient texts, geological evidence, archaeological evidence, coins and inscriptions. Of these, the ancient texts are usually considered the primary evidence, whereas the other sources are considered as corroborative evidence.

According to Hinduism, the present Yuga is Kali Yuga. As per the Puranic sources, Krishna’s departure marks the end of Dvapara Yuga and the start of Kali Yuga, which is dated to 17/18 February 3102 BCE, thirty six years after the Maha Bharata War (i.e., 3138 BCE).

Interpretation of the  Aihole inscription of Pulikeshi II, dated to Saka 556 = 634 CE by eminent Hindu historians reveals that after the Mahabharata war, by the year Saka 556 (= 634 A.D.) 3772 years and after Kali 3735 years had elapsed, i.e., the year of the Mahabharata war is 3772-634 = 3138 B.C. and the 1st year of the Kali era is 3735-634 = 3101 B.C.

The Puranas start with the list of the Barhadradha Dynasty only from Marjari, son of Sahadeva and grandson of Jarasandha, and counts from him 22 kings, as all of them evidently give the dynasties of kings only from the time of the Mahabharata war, from which date our regular history commences as under :

•     Barhardradha dynasty started in 3138 BC and ended in 2132 BC, which means Barhardradha dynasty ruled for 1006 years.

•     5 Kings of Pradyota dynasty started in 2132 BC and ended in 1994 BC, who ruled for 138 years

•     10 Kings of Sisunaga dynasty started in 1994 BC and ended in 1634 BC after ruling for 360 years.

•     9 Kings of Nanda dynasty started in 1634 BC and ended in 1534 BC, who ruled for 100 years.

•     12 Kings of Mourya dynasty started in 1534 BC and ended in 1218 BC, after ruling for 316 years.

•     10 Kings of Sunga dynasty started in 1218 BC and ended in 918 BC after ruling for 300 years.

•     4 Kings of Kanva dynasty started in 918 BC and ended in 833 BC, who ruled for 85 years.

•     32 Kings of Andhra dynasty started in 833 BC and ended in 327 BC, after ruling for 506 years.

•     7 Kings of Gupta dynasty started in 327 BC and ended in 82 BC, after ruling for 245 years.

Other important historical events :

•     Coronation of Vikramaditya at Ujjain in 82 BC

•     Vikrama era up to 57 BC (Nine eminent poets known as Navaratnas were in this period)

•     Coronation of Salivahana (great grandson of Vikramaditya of 57 BC) in AD 78

•     Bhattotpala, Astronomer AD 338

•     Bhaskaracharya great mathematician and Astronomer AD 486

•     Coronation of Bhoja Raja in AD 638

•     Birth of Ramanujacharya in AD 1017

•     Birth of Madhwacharya in AD 1119

•     Battle of Kurukshetra with Md. Gori in AD 1193

•     Independent Bharat in 1947

•     Birth year of eminent people like Vardhamana Maha Vira (599 BC), Adi Shankara (509 BC), Establishment of the four Mutts by Adi Shankara – Dwaraka (491 BC), Jyotrimutt (486 BC), Govardhan Mutt, Puri (485 BC), Sringeri (484 BC), Nriyana of Adi Shankara (477 BC).

Distortion of Hindu history by the British

Eminent historian Kota Venkatachalam (1885-1959) established with authenticity the distortion of Hindu history by the British through an extensive study of Puranas and other prominent works like – Rajatarangini of Kalhana which describes the history of Kashmir Kings, Nepala Raja Vamsavali which chronicles the history of Nepali Kings, Jyotirvidabharana, etc. In his preface to Kota Venkatachalam’s book, ‘The Plot in Indian Chronology’, Kavisamrat and Jnanapeet Awardee Sri Viswanatha Satyanarayana says, ‘Long before Sri Venkatachalam garu, a great western scholar Prof. M Troyer had raised his voice of protest against the modern historians. Many other oriental scholars have written many books disproving the accounts of the western historians’.

Hindu history had to fit within the Biblical timeline

For the westerners, Hindu history had to fit within the Biblical timeline. According to the Old Testament, the world was created in six days during October 4004 BCE. Due to this, the European Indologists rejected the Puranas and other ancient texts as fiction and began to look for European evidence to develop the history of India.  William Jones, in consultation with Warren Hastings, the then Governor General of India, began doctoring dates to fit within this Time-frame and he rejected everything before the Kaliyuga as fictional. The only event that connected the West with the East was Alexander’s sojourn to the East. Kota Venkatachalam argues that Jones had to connect Alexander to some event in India, so he and others did the following :

•     Discarded Hindu texts as fictional and unreliable

•     Relied on vague accounts of foreign travelers (Megasthenes, Fa Hien, Hiuen Tsang)

•     Decided that ‘Xandrames, Sandrocottus and Sandrocyptus’ from Megasthenes’ Indica, were referring to Mahapadmananda, Chandragupta and Bindusara of the Maurya dynasty, even though they were clearly referring to Chandramas (Chandrasri), Chandragupta and Samudragupta of the Gupta dynasty.

•     Doctored coins to falsify history, and used these as confirmatory sources of dates

•     Tampered with some inscriptions (eg, Aihole), while ignoring others

•     Tampered with Kalhana’s Rajatarangini and others

•     Declared Raja Vikramaditya of Ujjain and Salivahana were fictional characters and removed the dynasty of Agni Vamsa from 101 BCE to 1193 CE (~1300 years) to make the timeline of Hindu history fit within the western biblical constraints.

The results of this distortion were :

•     Buddha got pushed from 1887 BCE to the 6^th Century BCE

•     Chandragupta Maurya got pushed from 1534 BCE to 327 BCE

•     Adi Sankaracharya got pushed from 509 BCE to 788 CE

• Gupta dynasty got pushed from 327 BCE well into CE

• Raja Vikramaditya of Ujjain, Salivahana and the Agni Vamsa kings were entirely removed from History.

Kota Venkatachalam spent close to five decades of his life researching the the Rig Veda, Surya Siddhanta, the Puranas (Brahmanda, Vishnu, Bhavishya, Bhagavat), Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, Nepal Rajavamsavali and Buddhist writings among many others. With his astounding hard work, Kota Venkatachalam prepared a re-constructed chronology, from which we can develop the history of Bharat post Mahabharat war.

The Hindu civilization must be viewed as an unbroken tradition that goes back to the earliest period of the Sindhu-Sarasvati (or Indus) tradition (7000 or 8000 BCE). The mystery of the Indus Script, an enigmatic writing system dating back to 3500 BCE, reveals the script’s evolution over 1500 years, showcasing a striking similarity between Indus symbols and later Brahmi script symbols.

The study also observes that there are select Rigvedic references related to long inscriptions. The ancient Harappan genome was compared to the DNA of modern South Asians, revealing that the people of the IVC were the primary ancestors of most living Hindus. Both modern South Asian DNA and the Harappan genome have a telltale mixture of ancient Iranian DNA and a smattering of Southeast Asian hunter-gatherer lineages. This finding ties people in South Asia today directly to the IVC.

But Steppe pastoralist DNA is absent in the ancient Indus Valley individual, suggesting similarities between these nomadic herders and modern populations arose from migrations after the IVC’s decline.

Archaeological cultures, genetic ancestry and linguistic connections to be further explored and the interrelationship between them to be analised to understand the human history in its right perspective and there is still a long way to go.

While Kota Venkatachalam’s works highlight the continuity of Hindu history post Mahabharat war, Yajnadevam’s recent cryptanalytic decipherment of IVC indicates that the Indus inscriptions are in post-vedic Sanskrit. Yajandevam’s study also indicates that there is continuity in linguistic and cultural features post-Indus phase.

The decipherment, coupled with DNA evidence, supports the idea of the Hindu subcontinent as the Indo-European homeland, opening doors to a deeper understanding of the region’s ancient roots.

There is a need to remove the distortions created by the Britishers who wrote our history to fit into their scheme of things and let us hope that the Government would constitute a committee of experts to objectively analyse the historically acceptable evidence and rewrite our history (particularly covering the period from 3138 BC). Once the current studies on IVC arrive at conclusions that are historically acceptable, then the same can be linked to the Hindu history so that there is continuity in our history from IVC to the modern era.

(Courtesy : Excerpts from an Article by Dr BNV Parthasarathi on hindupost.in;  12.11.2024)

(Dr BNV Parthasarathi is a former senior banker, financial and management consultant and visiting faculty at Premier B Schools and Universities.)

European Indologists rejected the Puranas as fiction & began to look for European evidence to develop the history of India !