APPRECIATION - by “ Arsha Vidyabhushana" JATAVALLABHULA PURUSHOTTAM, M. A.

Arsha Vidyabhushana" JATAVALLABHULA PURUSHOTTAM, M. A.
Lecturer in Sans/crit , S. R. R. & C. V. R. COLLEGE, VIJAYAWADA

The venerable author of this book, Sri Kota Venkata  Chelam Garu, has been working with single-minded devotion to salvage the ancient history of   India from the ravages of modern Indologists, both European and Indian. He has shown, in this and in his sixteen volumes preceding this, that a   fairly accurate history of our country can be constructed from the material available in the Puranas and other ancient literature and that the  innumerable errors and deliberate distortions of facts in what now passes for Indian history are due to the prejudice of foreign Indologists against our Puranic and other indigenous literature and the consequent neglect of the historical material contained therein, during their attempts to construct Indian history.

The author and many others that are critical of these Indologists should have bowed at their feet if they had achieved the little bit that they have done in constructing our genuine history without the aid of the Puranas. All that is worth anything in the history they have written is drawn from the Puranas. Sir William Jones, who laid the foundation of Indian history, openly acknowledged his      indebtedness to the Puranas.  It is no exaggeration to say that without the aid of the Puranas even the outlines of Indian history could not be drawn.

It is a pity that all old records in the world, except the Indian, were ransacked and given credence to, by our Indologists and it is this misplaced hope and trust that were responsible for the imperfectness and incorrectness of Indian history as it now obtains.   If the Indologists had shown to Indian literature at least half the respect that they have shown to foreign records, their labours would have been a thousand times more successful.


 Why, then, should the Indologists discard the Puranic accounts generally? The reason is not far to seek. The European scholars who were accustomed to the Biblical idea of the age of the world and the chronology of Greek and Roman histories that are matters of less than three thousand years were stunned at the Puranic chronology that dealt with lakhs and crores of years, which sounded more astronomical than historical, to their ears.   It is this that was mainly responsible for their attempt to cut down our chronology without any compunction.   Crores of years were all of a sudden reduced to thousands and hundreds and dire historical facts were represented as primitive myths. Not a few of the early European  Indologists were influenced by imperialistic motives in their attempt to minimise the hoary antiquity and greatness of India which was just then  becoming a subject nation. A superiority complex in the subject nation might one day lead to a rebellion against its masters and an attempt to    regain its greatness.

The logic with which Sri Venkatachelam Garu has proved the genuineness of the three post-Mahabharata eras is irrefutable. The Yudhishtira Era, the Kali Era and the Saptarshi Era have been continuously and consistently followed in our country and the author asks what prevents the historians from pursuing the history of Bharat along these Eras. By summarily repudiating these Eras, the historians could effect a cut of 1200  years in the post-Mahabharata chronology. The author, in a closely reasoned discourse exposes the hollowness of the theories of our Indologists   in this regard.

Equally admirable is the author’s attack (in his work on Kashmir history) on the date of birth of Buddha so boldly asserted in our text-books on  history. He unfolds to us evidence from a number of ancient sources which carries Buddha so far back as the 19th Century B.C.

By disproving the identity of Chandragupta Maurya with the Sandrokottas of the Greeks and by carrying back Chandragupta Maurya to the 16th century B.C., the author has cut at the sheet-anchor of the Indian chronology of European Indologists.

 The author proves with incisive logic and glaring illustrations the hollowness of the common charge that Indians sadly lack historical literature. He shows that Magadha, Kashmir and Nepal have got historical records, which are as reliable as any other historical material in the   world.

The author has shown that the Yavanas, Sakas and some others, that were supposed to be nations or tribes outside India, were the original  inhabitants of India in the provinces bearing the respective names of these peoples and that the so-called Yavana and Saka lands etc., outside India took their names from their inhabitants that migrated from India and occupied those lands. This is one of the original theories of the author.


 The author has devoted a special chapter to correlate the evidence of the astronomical works with the Puranic accounts in order to support the   chronology he has established in the place of that propounded by Indologists.  The author holds that the Mahabharata war took place in the 3138 B.C., and the Andhra dynasty reigned from 833 B.C.  In both these dates he deviates from the lndologists’ view to the extent of some thousands and  hundreds of years. So he feels it his duty to show strong evidence to support himself. He shows that the Brihat Samhita and Garga Samhita agree with the Puranas in the statement that the Saptarshi Mandala was in the constellation of Magha when Yudhishtira was reigning. He tells that the Puranas are definite that Andhra dynasty began 2300 years after the commencement of the Yudhishtira Era (i.e. in the beginning of the 24th century from the war of 3138 B.C.) and that the Saptarshi Mandala again came to Magha during the reign of the Andhra dynasty.  The Great Bear takes 2700 years to make one cycle of the 27 stars.

 It is thus clear that the scientific works on Astronomy as well as the Puranic accounts are in favour of the author in his bold deviation from    the dates established on the vague theories of the Indologists. This is all the more noteworthy when we remember that Sir William Jones pledged   his word to revise his views if astronomical evidence could be found to contradict them.

Many students of Indian history might have never dreamt that there was an ancient inscription--the Aihole inscription--of the Ist century B.C.,  which supports the author’s view that the Mahahharata war took place in 3138 B.C, and that Kalidasa existed in the Ist century B.C.  The author shows that those scholars who would not accept these dates chose to read "Saptabda" in the place of "Sahabda" in the original inscription.

The author’s challenge in the fifth chapter not merely bristles with emotional fervour but is backed by intellectual strength and seasoned with a sense of responsibility.

The author may appear to be too critical towards the Indologists, here and there. But we should remember that in such contexts, he is only defending our ancient authors'  historical literature which was most unsympathetically and disrepectfully dubbed by them as a forgery or concoction or interpolation, simply because it was not to their liking. The author, in most cases, has turned the tables against these Indologists and has shown that there were forgeries, concoctions, misrepresentations and misinterpretations by these very scholars. After all, the historian's duty is to present the truth and expose the falsehood, as Kalhana, our ancient historian, has said in his Rajatarangani Sloka:

" శ్లాఘ్యః  సఏవ  గుణవాన్  రాగద్వేష   బహిష్కృతా
  భూతార్థకథనేయస్య  స్ధేయస్యేవ  సరస్వతీః   "   (Rajatarangini I-6)

 The present volume is a mine of information which may benefit all sorts of readers, particularly those in the field of Indological research.      There is a common notion among our research scholars in Indian history that it is a sacrilege to question the chronology determined by the  European Indologists. These scholars forget that the early European Indologists themselves were conscious of the weakness of their theories and   most of the dates that they assigned were, in their own opinion, tentative. The subsequent scholars, with superstitious loyalty to their  predecessors, accepted the latters’ theories as gospel truths. Thus what were once guesses or tentative hypotheses were later
 considered to be sacred gospels. Sri Venkatachelam Garu’s works cannot deter those students and scholars of our ancient history who bear in mind  the following memorable words of the late justice Kasinath Triyambak Telang, who is noted for his sobriety and openmindedness in Indological      research. "It appears to me, I confess, that it is these ‘likings’ and ‘satisfactions’ and ‘foregone conclusions’ lying in the back of most of    the logical artillery which European scholars have brought to bear upon the chronology of our ancient literature, it is this that is temporarily  doing damage to its antiquity...Not only hypotheses were formed on the weakest possible collection of facts, but upon such hypotheses further  superstructures of speculation are raised. And when it is done, the essential weakness of the base is often effectually kept out of view."

JATAVALLABHULA PURUSHOTTAM

11-7-1954