Ashoka's date is clearly known beyond doubt by his inscriptions. He was in contact with most of the big empires of his time and his inscriptions mention their names. The inscriptions also say that his coronation was 200+ years after the Buddha's death. This gives the Buddha's date beyond doubt too.
Some Indian guys try to push Indian dates as far back as possible, having been inspired by the fancy dates that have been handed down in India by the older generations. They believe that the western scholars who dated ancient India were biased and their conclusions were incorrect and all this is based on stories from Puranas. Nothing could be more wrong, for the westerners have dated most of the famous old Indian personalities well before christ.
These self-styled scholars now are treating the Bhagavatam etc as historic records and trying to rewrite Indian history. They do this by writing articles and putting them on web pages on web sites like wwwdotswordoftruthdotcom. They seem to think that the older, the better. Why, I don't know. They are so taken up with such an idea that the stories of the Puranas override all kinds of evidences. Any evidence to show otherwise will be rejected as false.
The 3102 BC date itself is highly dubious for it was not recorded anywhere until the time of Arya bhatta in 400 AD. That is not until 3400 years later! Add to it, the fact that there is no archaeological evidence whatsoever to show that there were people living in these areas at that time as described in the mahabharata.
The truth is, our Indian people had no sense of chronology at all. For them 'very old' and 'long ago' were good enough. How old, was something that they never bothered with. A lot of stuff was attributed to Vyasa to make it look authoritative. And any popular personality was connected to Vyasa or Suka. Gaudapada was Suka's disciple, Shankara debated with Vyasa, Madhva met Vyasa and is in fact serving him in person right now, according to his biography.
This should give people an idea of how the people in India viewed history. Read "Studies in Indian literature and philosophy" by Ludo Rocher and any history textbook of India.
Cheers
This is exactly what i mean by altering the mind set of the Indic people. It is clear that Macaulay has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. The interesting aspect of this post is that no evidence is offered other than Ludi Rocher who (and his wife Roseanne) are members of the history establishment in the west that is to put it mildly very eurocentric. I wil give examples on request. The notion that any Occidental can make a better determination of Indian history than the most scholarly Indian themselves is part of the change that Macaulay has wrought. This is the reason why i wrote the South Asia file
the charge has been made that 'Some Indian guys try to push Indian dates as far back as possible,' Since when is that a federal crime ? The issue has niothing to do with wishes, it has to do with the integrity of the author who is making the claim.The real issue is whether such an author is making a valid claim. But to make such a determination, requires a lot of reading and thought. Far easier to dismiss the Indian author , with a flourish, as someone who wishes to push the dates back. My observation is that what a person wishes has nothing to do with history and is irrelevant to the argument. If every person on the planet was punished for having wishes, the entire population of the planet would be behind bars.
I am not making a moral judgement on those who exhibit such a high degree of Macaulayism, merely that the existence of such people in large numbers among indians simply makes my point. I am reminded of Napioleons dictum 'Attribute not to malice that which can be attributed to incompetence
the quote
Ashoka's date is clearly known beyond doubt by his inscriptions.
Oh yeah ! says who. Remember that the entire chronology as enunciated is wrong. when read carefully, the inscriptions say nothing about an absolute date which other inscriptions like the Aihole inscription in karnataka do. I woulsd like exact quotes that establish the date of Asoka to be in the 2ns/3rd century BCE.
I am in the process of writing a monograph on 'The Greek synchronism and its pernicious effects on Indian History' and how it has effected the Indic mind I am willing to serialize the draft copy of this forthcoming book in this site , should there be an interest in doing so.
In the meantime i strongly recommend getting The south asia file at the link above (sorry guys i am not allowed to post a link but do a Google on my name and you will see the citation . I will have several copies of the book on sale at ICIH2009 on January 9-11 at the India International centre which i am convening. I wihs i had more time to respond, but i am frightfully busy until the end of the conference. The book is available in black and white and in color. The B & W runs around 30$. It has plenty of reference material that is not easily available elsewhere.
The dating of Chandragupta Maurya
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This is exactly what i mean by altering the mind set of the Indic people. It is clear that Macaulay has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. The interesting aspect of this post is that no evidence is offered other than Ludi Rocher who (and his wife Roseanne) are members of the history establishment in the west that is to put it mildly very eurocentric. I wil give examples on request. The notion that any Occidental can make a better determination of Indian history than the most scholarly Indian themselves is part of the change that Macaulay has wrought. This is the reason why i wrote the South Asia file
the charge has been made that 'Some Indian guys try to push Indian dates as far back as possible,' Since when is that a federal crime ? The issue has niothing to do with wishes, it has to do with the integrity of the author who is making the claim.The real issue is whether such an author is making a valid claim. But to make such a determination, requires a lot of reading and thought. Far easier to dismiss the Indian author , with a flourish, as someone who wishes to push the dates back. My observation is that what a person wishes has nothing to do with history and is irrelevant to the argument. If every person on the planet was punished for having wishes, the entire population of the planet would be behind bars.
I am not making a moral judgement on those who exhibit such a high degree of Macaulayism, merely that the existence of such people in large numbers among indians simply makes my point. I am reminded of Napioleons dictum 'Attribute not to malice that which can be attributed to incompetence
the quote
Ashoka's date is clearly known beyond doubt by his inscriptions.
Oh yeah ! says who. Remember that the entire chronology as enunciated is wrong. when read carefully, the inscriptions say nothing about an absolute date which other inscriptions like the Aihole inscription in karnataka do. I woulsd like exact quotes that establish the date of Asoka to be in the 2ns/3rd century BCE.
I am in the process of writing a monograph on 'The Greek synchronism and its pernicious effects on Indian History' and how it has effected the Indic mind I am willing to serialize the draft copy of this forthcoming book in this site , should there be an interest in doing so.
In the meantime i strongly recommend getting The south asia file at the link above (sorry guys i am not allowed to post a link but do a Google on my name and you will see the citation . I will have several copies of the book on sale at ICIH2009 on January 9-11 at the India International centre which i am convening. I wihs i had more time to respond, but i am frightfully busy until the end of the conference. The book is available in black and white and in color. The B & W runs around 30$. It has plenty of reference material that is not easily available elsewhere.