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'Mahabharata' (Pt. 2)

Part 2: Philosophy and Contexts

By Annie KapurPublished 5 years ago 7 min read
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Now we're going to look at the perspective of philosophy and how this suggests at the historical accuracy of the narrative. This is still working inside the text; we're looking and what happened, how do we know when it happened in terms of a time frame —and how historical sources support or oppose this. Philosophy is one of the ways in which we can gage a time frame. For example, we know that if a text was written in the ancient times and iterates Socratic philosophy that it was probably written in the times just after the death of Socrates when his philosophical views were at their most famous and important. We're going to do the same for the Mahabharata, we're going to place it in a philosophical time frame.

We're going to look at what it covers and why it covers that particular aspect of ancient philosophy and then, we'll look at the context of this ancient philosophy, put them together and we should get a fair time frame.

In terms of philosophy, we need to look at the ancient Indian sector of the subject. In ancient Indian philosophy, there are known to be six different sects or systems and these are the most popular parts of Hindu Philosophy as well as ancient Indian philosophy. The Mahabharata covers all these six systems and exemplifies them in order to study, suggest and of course, tell the story. These are:

  • consciousness and matter
  • meditation and contemplation
  • logic and knowledge
  • atomism
  • ethics and orthopraxy
  • knowledge of the Vedas

In Hindu philosophy, we place the ideas of these six systems during the time of the Rig Veda, therefore preceding the Mahabharata. The reason being is that the very first attributed author of the book, Angiras, has a knowledge of the divine and is a silencer between man and the Gods. His hymns show Vedic knowledge and the ability to recite these is the entire point of the book. The Rig Veda is known as the only book we cannot possibly assume the date of because it probably existed far before it was written down. But, the date of the fame of the narrative is accepted to be the Late Bronze Age—putting this date at about 1500-1200 BC.

Since it precedes the Mahabharata in terms of the philosophy of being and the Mahabharata is known for its expansion of these ideas, we can suggest that there is a definite correlation between the time in which the Rig Veda is written, with its Ancient Indian Philosophy being very prominent and the time in which the Mahabharata takes place according to the historical rise of the Kuru Kingdom from 1200BC to 800BC.

This doesn't only show that the Mahabharata is using philosophies from before its time, but at the time in which the war is said to have taken place and the time in which the Rig Veda is suggested to have been first written there is practically no time difference. Thus, the philosophy found in the Rig Veda regarding the six systems and the six systems of the Mahabharata must be the same six systems because of the fact the Rig Veda immediately precedes the Mahabharata in terms of time period.

The Rig Veda being 1500 to 1200BCE and the Mahabharata is 1200 to 800BCE.

According to our brief look at the contexts of philosophy, the Mahabharata is correct in terms of date and time. It matches up perfectly with the timeline of Ancient Indian literature and probably suggests that this war did happen after all.

But now, we're going to look at where the Mahabharata is mentioned elsewhere and what contextual knowledge we have of inside the text outside in the open world. We're going to have a brief look at how the history of when the Mahabharata is mentioned lines up with the way in which we see the narrative and what this means for the story.

It is said to date in terms of reference to the 4th Century BCE - as the narrative Bharata is known back then. Bharata is the core 24'000 verses of the entire text that cover a small portion of the war. A Greek writer from about 100CE reports Homer's poetry being told to the Ancient Indians and seems to suggest translation. The way in which the Ancient Indians would've identified with Homer's narrative is generally taken as a quasi-credible source to show that the Mahabharata existed. But whether this was in its full form or just the 24'000 Verse segment is unknown.

The most credible source we have for the Mahabharata predating the common era and being a part of the Late Bronze or Early Iron Age is the Copper Plate from a Maharaja that lived during the 6th Century CE that describes the text on an inscription as "a collection/story of 100'000 verses"—and by this, we can tell that the Mahabharata must have existed in its full form before the common era. But we can also tell that, if 100'000 verses had already been known at this time, when oral tradition was still ripe and when scribes were still inscribing the text, it must have been told over the course of a few centuries to be known so well to the sub-cultures of Ancient and Late Antiquity India.

I think the most fascinating historical fact within the text and outside of it is the dice game that is played between Shakuni and Yudhishthira. The fact that the dice are loaded means that the text must have been in circulation in either oral or written form before the age of 400 BCE and therefore, must've taken place in the Late Bronze to Early Iron Ages if it were to be orally told to many people to make the idea of dice famed.

Dice got their height of fame after the year 400BC and could've been in circulation as far back as 2000-3000BC. They were initially games for the aristocracy and looked less like what we'd expect them to. The fact that dice are so old and that the dice game is part of the original Bharata narrative, must mean that not only the text existed long before some dates suggest, but also that the text may have even preceded the dates at which some believe the battle took place.

But to have dice in circulation, we could assume that they were around in India during the time of the war suggested by historical evidence. It is a completely open field and seems to make the text look older than it may actually be.

Even though dice may have come into play in India around the years of 2000-3000 BCE, archaeological evidence places them as far back in other countries as 6000 BCE, showing that the very idea of a dice game in terms of gambling would have been very popular amongst the wealthy during the time in which the text was said to have taken place, probably even more commonplace than if we were to suggest that it was older.

So, if we were to make suggestions —there's many signs showing us that the text may be more towards the beginning of the Kuru Kingdom's fame than towards the middle or end, placing it more towards the beginning of 1200 BCE. But, there is also suggestion that to allow certain commonplaces to become commonplace, we need to give a few hundred years and so we take the lowest quartile, 800 BCE. This fits in perfectly with the political height of the Kuru Kingdom and may actually infer that the war happened after all.

Now that we've had a brief look at what happens within the text in terms of contextual evidence for its very existence. We're going to look at the structure of the narrative as separate stories in order to determine a time period over which it may have been written. This will be continued in the next part to this series.

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About the Creator

Annie Kapur

190K+ Reads on Vocal.

English Lecturer

🎓Literature & Writing (B.A)

🎓Film & Writing (M.A)

🎓Secondary English Education (PgDipEd)

📍Birmingham, UK

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