Glued to a Historian !

Ever since I came across this fantastic study of Indian history, http://www.bharathgyan.com/ , I was waiting to meet Dr. D. K. Hari. And today I had a privilege to attend his talk arranged by Hindi Samiti and YES!+ Team at IISc !

He and his team have studied and compiled literature and evidences on 64 topics ranging from ancient civilization, art and science to Ganga- a man made river and Vimana shastra. And upon the request of organizers he spoke on the debated topic of historicity of Rama.I was pleased to see the new use of Astronomical information – for dating the events in the history. The Huge variety of combinations of positions of planets and stars gives rise to uniqueness in the way they are placed in the sky, as observed from a particular location. Such an observation is unlikely to repeat to its fullest agreement.

Further question answer session was even more interesting. I got to know that Indian Government led by Jawaharlal Nehru had appointed a committee for setting up a calender  that would be scientifically correct, under the leadership of great Indian Astrophysicist Meghnath Saha. He and his team studied 7300 different dating systems in India alone, and came up with a universal way of keeping track of time, which involved a correction for “precession of equinoxes”, a minute but important correction of one day in 72 years, which is also noted in the ancient scriptures.

He clearly segregated the scriptures between puranas- moral stories, and Itihasa-the history. Mahabharata and Ramayana are Itihasa. Even many versions of Ramayana are not itihasa, they are Kavya- poetic, glorified versions. So we need to refer to original scripts to get the correct historical details.

Further came the only historical monument of the time of Rama that is still present – the Rama Setu between India and Srilanka. He presented the details about the construction, its location and many more facts about the Setu, including the families that preserved it for centuries, keeping it a walking bridge till CE 1400. After the Tsunami in 15th century, the bridge got depilated and could not be used for further travel. He presented the travelogues of historicians from all over the world who used that bridge till then.

He was so polite and humble in his presentations and findings, and quoted Gautam Budhha that none of his presentations should be taken as conclusive and invited the youth to come and verify and explore further details.

A Scientist from Germany is going to come to Ashram tomorrow (friday) and present his studies on Dark Matter, Dark Energy. We would have a great glimpse of a western scientific investigation coinciding with ancient Indian observations and studies.

Looking forward for more such illuminating events! Cheers to IISc team…!