History repeats itself

The appointment of a historian whose work is unfamiliar to most historians shows scant regard for the impressive scholarship that now characterises the study of Indian History and this disregard may stultify future academic research. Given that the writing of history in India over the last half-century has produced some of the finest historians, recognised both nationally and internationally, one is surprised at the appointment of Professor Y. Sudershan Rao as chairperson of the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR). Professor Rao's work is unfamiliar to most historians, with little visibility of research that he might have carried out. He has published popular articles on the historicity of the Indian epics but not in any peer-reviewed journal, and the latter is now a primary requisite for articles to be taken seriously at the academic level. Rumour has it that since he is working simultaneously on various projects, a recognised monograph has still to emerge. The projects are linked to spiritualism, yoga, the spiritual contacts between India and Southeast Asia, and such like. Whatever connections there may be between these themes and basic historical research, they are at best tenuous, and it would require a mind of extraordinary insight and rigour to interweave such ideas.

According to newspaper reports, Professor Rao has stated that although he is not a member of the RSS, he loves his country and its long culture. Does one have to be a member of the RSS to do so? The two issues that he has highlighted in his statement to the press as the agenda for his chairmanship are also prominent in the Hindutva view of Indian history. One is that of proving the historicity of texts such the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, and establishing the dates of the texts and their central event. This is a subject on which there has been endless research for the last two centuries. Indologists and historians have covered the range of possible investigation discussing philology, linguistics, archaeology, anthropology and even astronomy to try and ascertain a definitive chronology for these texts. But to no avail, as a precise date eludes them.

To go over the ground again in the absence of new hard evidence would merely be repeating familiar scholarship- but it may not be familiar to Professor Rao. Many scholars over recent years have accepted the argument of V.S. Sukthankar of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune, who in 1957, when editing the critical edition of the Mahabharata, stated that the composition of the text had no precise date and lay in the time bracket of 400 BC to AD 400. Subsequent to the initial composition of the text, the many later interpolations incorporated into it, not to mention the later range of recensions, complicate its dating. Much the same argument is made for the Ramayana of Valmiki with its many additions and recensions, not to mention variant versions of the story. It is this that called for critical editions of the epic texts, juxtaposing the variations in the different recensions and attempting to arrive at an early layer of composition, as has been done by Sanskrit scholars at the Bhandarkar Institute and the Oriental Institute in Vadodara..." (Continue reading.)