Puranic chronology

Krishna and Arjun on the chariot, 18th-19th century painting

The Puranic chronology gives a timeline of Hindu history according to the Hindu scriptures. Two central dates are the Mahabharata War, which according to this chronology happened at 3138 BCE, and the start of the Kali Yuga, which according to this chronology started at 3102 BCE. The Puranic chronology is referred to by proponents of Indigenous Aryans to propose an earlier dating of the Vedic period, and the spread of Indo-European languages out of India.

Hindu scriptures

The Puranas contain stories about the creation of the world, and the yugas. Mahabharata, Ramayana and the Puranas also contain genealogies of kings,^[1] which are used for the traditional chronology of India's ancient history. Michael Witzel doubts the reliability of these texts, concluding that they "have clearly lifted (parts of) lineages, fragment by fragment, from the Vedas and have supplied the rest ... —from hypothetical, otherwise unknown traditions—or, as can be seen in the case of the Mahābhārata, from poetical imagination."^[2]

Gavin Flood connects the rise of the written Purana historically with the rise of devotional cults centering upon a particular deity in the Gupta era: the Puranic corpus is a complex body of material that advance the views of various competing sampradayas.^[3] Wendy Doniger, based on the study of indologists, assigns approximate dates to the various Puranas. She dates Markandeya Purana to c. 250 CE (with one portion dated to c. 550 CE), Matsya Purana to c. 250–500 CE, Vayu Purana to c. 350 CE, Harivamsa and Vishnu Purana to c. 450 CE, Brahmanda Purana to c. 350–950 CE, Vamana Purana to c. 450–900 CE, Kurma Purana to c. 550–850 CE, and Linga Purana to c. 600–1000 CE.^[4]

Puranic chronology

The Puranas, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana also contain lists of kings and genealogies,^[1] from which the traditional chronology of India's ancient history are derived. The Vedic Foundation, for example, gives the following chronology of ancient India:^{[web 1][note 1][unreliable source?]}

• 3228 BC – Descension of Krishna^{[note 2]}
• 3138 BC – The Mahabharata War; start of Brihadrath dynasty of Magadha; start of Yudhisthir dynasty of Hastinapur
• 3102 BC – Ascension of Krishna; start of Kali Yuga
• 2139 BC – End of Brihadrath dynasty
• 2139–2001 BC – Pradyota dynasty
• 2001–1641 BC – Shishunaga dynasty
• 1887–1807 BC – Gautama Buddha^{[note 3]}
• 1641–1541 BC – Nandas^{[note 4]}
• 1541–1241 BC – Maurya dynasty^{[note 5]}
• 1541–1507 BC – Chandragupta Maurya^{[note 6]}
• 1507–1479 BC – Bindusara^{[note 7]}
• 1479–1443 BC – Ashokvardhan
• 1241–784 BC – Shunga and Kanau dynasty
• 784–328 BC – Andhra dynasty^{[note 8]}
• 328–83 BC – Gupta dynasty^{[note 9]}
• 328–321 BC – Chandragupta Vijayaditya^{[note 10]}
• 326 BC – Alexander's invasion
• 321–270 BC – Ashoka^{[note 11]}
• 102 BC – AD 15 – Vikramāditya, established Vikram era in 57 BC

Mahabharata War

The historicity of the Mahabharata War is subject to scholarly discussion and dispute.^[6][7] The existing text of the Mahabharata went through many layers of development, and mostly belongs to the period between c. 500 BCE and 400 CE.^[8][9] Within the frame story of the Mahabharata, the historical kings Parikshit and Janamejaya are featured significantly as scions of the Kuru clan,^[10] and Michael Witzel concludes that the general setting of the epic has a historical precedent in Iron Age (Vedic) India, where the Kuru kingdom was the center of political power during roughly 1200 to 800 BCE.^[10] According to Professor Alf Hiltebeitel, the Mahabharata is essentially mythological.^[11] Indian historian Upinder Singh has written that:

Whether a bitter war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas ever happened cannot be proved or disproved. It is possible that there was a small-scale conflict, transformed into a gigantic epic war by bards and poets. Some historians and archaeologists have argued that this conflict may have occurred in about 1000 BCE."^[7]

Despite the inconclusiveness of the data, attempts have been made to assign a historical date to the Kurukshetra War. Popular tradition holds that the war marks the transition to Kaliyuga and thus dates it to 3102 BCE.^{[citation needed]} A number of other proposals have been put forward:^{[citation needed]}

• P. V. Vartak calculates a date of October 16, 5561 BCE using planetary positions.
• P. V. Holey states a date of 13 November 3143 BCE using planetary positions and calendar systems.
• K. Sadananda, based on translation work, states that the Kurukshetra War started on November 22, 3067 BCE.
• B. N. Achar used planetarium software to argue that the Mahabharata War took place in 3067 BCE.^[12]
• S. Balakrishna concluded a date of 2559 BCE using consecutive lunar eclipses.
• R. N. Iyengar concluded a date of 1478 BCE using double eclipses and Saturn+Jupiter conjunctions.
• P. R. Sarkar estimates a date of 1298 BCE for the war of Kurukshetra.
• V. S. Dubey claims that the war happened near 950 BCE^[13]

Yugas

The Puranas contain stories about the creation of the world, and the yugas. There are four yugas in one cycle:

• Satya Yuga, a time of truth and righteousness;
• Treta Yuga
• Dvapara Yuga
• Kali Yuga, a time of darkness and non-virtue.

According to the Manusmriti, one of the earliest known texts describing the yugas, the length is 4800 years + 3600 years + 2400 years + 1200 years, for a total of 12,000 years for one arc, or 24,000 years to complete the cycle, which is one precession of the equinox). These 4 yugas follow a timeline ratio of (4:3:2:1).

According to Bhagavata Purana 3.11.19, which is dated at 500-1000 CE, the yugas are much longer, namely 1,728,000 years, 1,296,000 years, 864,000 years and 432,000 years

Indigenous Aryans - '10,000 years in India'

Indigenous Aryans

The Vedic-Puranic chronology has been referred to by proponents of Indigenous Aryans, putting into question the Indo-Aryan migrations at ca. 1500 BCE and proposing older dates for the Vedic period. According to the "Indigenist position", the Aryans are indigenous to India,^[14] and the Indo-European languages radiated out from a homeland in India into their present locations.^[14] According to them, the Vedas are older than second millennium BCE,^[15] and scriptures like the Mahabaratha reflect historical events which took place before 1500 BCE. Some of them equate the Indus Saraswati Civilisation with the Vedic Civilization,^[14] state that the Indus script was the progenitor of the Brahmi,^[16] and state that there is no difference between the people living in (northern) Indo-European part and the (southern) Dravidian part.^[15]

'10,000 years in India'

The idea of "Indigenous Aryanism" fits into traditional Hindu ideas about their religion, namely that it has timeless origins, with the Vedic Aryans inhabiting India since ancient times.^{[note 12]}

M.S. Golwalkar, in his 1939 publication We or Our Nationhood Defined, famously stated that "Undoubtedly [...] we — Hindus — have been in undisputed and undisturbed possession of this land for over eight or even ten thousand years before the land was invaded by any foreign race."^[17] Golwalkar was inspired by Tilak's^{[note 13]} The Arctic Home in the Vedas (1903), who argued that the Aryan homeland was located at the North Pole, basing this idea on Vedic hymns and Zoroastrian texts.^[18] Gowalkar took over the idea of 10,000 years, arguing that the North Pole at that time was located in India.^{[18][note 14]}

Subhash Kak, a main proponent of the "indigenist position," underwrites the Vedic-Puranic chronology, and uses it to recalculate the dates of the Vedas and the Vedic people.^{[19][20][web 4]} According to Kak, "the Indian 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 BC)."^[19] According to Sudhir Bhargava, the Vedas were composed 10,000 years ago, when Manu supposedly lived, in ashrams at the banks of the Sarasvati river in Brahmavarta, the ancient home-base of the Aryans. According to Sudhir Bhargava, people from Brahmavarta moved out from Brahmavarta into and outside India after 4500 BCE, when seismic activities had changed the course of the Sarasvati and other rivers.^[21][22]

The idea of 10,000 years of Hindu presence in South Asia stands in stark contrast to mainstream scholarship, according to which proto-Vedic culture entered India starting 1500 BCE with the Indo-Aryan migrations, and Hinduism developed as a synthesis of Vedic-Brahmanic and indigenous religious traditions after 500 BCE.

See also

• Brahmanda Purana
• Gandhara § Epic and Puranic traditions
• Hindu cosmology
• Kali Yuga
• Lunar dynasty
• Nasadiya Sukta
• Samudra manthan
• Suryavansha
• Yuga

Notes

References

Sources

Printed sources

Web-sources

Further reading

• Frawley, David (1993), Gods, Sages and Kings: Vedic Secrets of Ancient Civilization, Motilal Banarsidass Publ. 

External links

• Chronological chart of the history of Bharatvarsh since its origination
• Royal Chronology and History of INDIA (Bharat)
• Hindu Timeline
• Reclaiming the chronology of Bharatvam
• Bharatiya Timeline
• The History of Bharata or India According to Indian Astronomy

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