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Indian history

Mr. DarcyMr. Darcy
edited 2013-05-22 18:44:45 in Talk

You know, Indian history is weird. Western historians are skeptical of the Puranas and Jain chronicles, which are full of supernatural elements, as a source of chronology. They prefer to date by count backwards from a synchronism with Greek history in the rock edicts of Piyadasi. Then you can calculate back to Gautama Buddha's death by adding 110 (Mahayana sources) or 218 (Mahavamsa chronicle of Theravada Sri Lanka). So, uh, things are starting to get slippery and mysterious...

... and holy cow, did the king just say there are sightings of UFOs and "auspicious elephants" for the first time in centuries because he cracked down on animal slaughter and disrespecting parents?

Comments

  • Justice4243Justice4243
    READ MY CROSS SHIPPING-FANFICTION, DAMMIT!

    i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
    Historians sort of have to live with the fact that many ancient books of potential historical record have supernatural elements if they even want a guide to check against. The alternative is often nothing.
  • Mr. DarcyMr. Darcy
    "It is a matter of grave importance that Fairy tales should be respected.... Whosoever alters them to suit his own opinions, whatever they are, is guilty, to our thinking, of an act of presumption, and appropriates to himself what does not belong to him." -- Charles Dickens

    ^ Man you're not kidding.

    So, I was starting to talk about Gautama! You might think that the earliest sources depict him as a mortal sage and the more mystical material accumulated later. Well you'd be wrong! According to the Sri Lankan Mahavamsa chronicle, nothing was written down until the Fourth Buddhist Council, ~250 yeats after Ashoka/Piyadassi. And a biography of Gautama isn't eve in the Pali Canon. It contains more important things, like sermons where he says things like "I am the teacher of gods and me, and am neither" or "I could live for a kalpa if asked to" and Aesop-style stories of his previous incarnations as animals and men.

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