Dating of Puranas?

[Guest guest]

I read that modern scholars believe the Puranas to have been written in the first century AD. Of course we believe they were written at the end of the Dwapara Yuga. Where are these modern scholars getting this 1st century AD date?

 

 

The Puranas (Sanskrit पुराण, purāṇá "ancient", since they focus on ancient history of the universe) are part of Hindu Smriti; these religious scriptures discuss varied topics like devotion to God in his various aspects, traditional sciences like Ayurveda, Jyotish, cosmology, concepts like dharma, karma, reincarnation and many others.

 

Sage Vyasa is credited with compilation of Puranas from age Yuga to age, and for the current age, he has been identified and named Krishna Dvaipayana, the son of sage Parashara. According to tradition they were written by Vyasa at the end of Dvapara Yuga, while modern scholarship dates them to the latter half of the first millennium AD.

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

Everything should be after Christ, so their religion is superior.

[Guest guest]

ahh, so it's just more Christian biased scholarship, like the Aryan invasion theory, and so on..

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

The early indologists were all Christians, and their sole aim in studying Hinduism's roots was to disprove it so that they could convert the Hindus to Christianity.

[Guest guest]

Yes, the indologists did very biased research, if one could even call it research. Sadly, their biased conclusions continue to be taught in school textbooks in the west. And because most people do not do their own independent research, their theories on the origin and evolution of the Hindu religion and Indian history are taken as fact.

 

Did you know that the Christian researchers also teach that the Bhagavad Gita was written after Christ? See this:

 

www[dot]geocities.com/athens/parthenon/2104/gita.html

 

 

Chaudhuri in his book on Hinduism points out that 'the Gita is written in good classical Sanskrit, and epigraphic evidence clearly shows that the Gita could not have been written before the second century A.D.'

 

'The earliest epigraphic evidence on languages employed in India comes from the inscriptions of Asoka inscribed in third century B.C. Asoka took care that his messages were intelligible to all and he used a particular kind of Prakrit. He even translated his messages to Greek and Aramaic. But, there are no inscriptions in Sanskrit. The first evidence of Sanskrit is seen around A.D.150 and from the fifth century A.D. classical Sanskrit is seen to be the dominant language in the inscriptions.'

 

I pointed this out to my Brahmin friend and concluded that the doctrines of God coming into the world in the form of a man, He being our sacrifice, salvation by faith in Him, and our response of total surrender to God as a living sacrifice are the doctrines of Christ and these have influenced the writer of the Bhagavad Gita.

 

 

What kind of Brahmin would teach that the Bhagavad Gita is written after Christ? Unbelievable eh? This is certainly a sign of how these so called scholars have confused even some Hindus.

[Guest guest]

the bhaghavad gita is believed to be dated my modern scholariship to a little after Buddha (6th cen BC) --- so late 4th cen BC is what is said.......

 

What this means is that the earliest form of the Gita that is in possession is from this time. It is also strongly believed by most of the intellectual community that the Gita was orally passed down for hundreds of years before that. It, and the mahabharata, represent a historical story that had a major social impact upon the people of india. Both were probably passed down orally since the actual occurrance, which modern scholarship dates to the 2nd millenium BC.

 

 

THe Purana stories are believed to be stories of history and events that happened in India between the time of Buddha till 1000 AD. Not every major event or not in order or not in the same detailed realistic aspect as was done in Europe. Because of this, many people, mostly europeans and those fed the European version of world history or European influenced institutions, take them as mere stories or myth or fables.

 

Many are more than that and reflect real history. Others are not KNOWN to be actual history, but that doesnt mean it is not. It just means there is no european or accepted Indian documentation.

 

Many of the Puranas were probably WRITTEn during the late 1st millunium BC till the mid 1st millenium AD. It was during this time that documented history (or at least in the Indian way) was thriving all over India. Prior to that, it was the Buddhist and prior to that the epics......

 

 

The Puranas probably reflect a social movement towards the tellling of various places histories as a reaction to the telling of a specific area's history in the form of Buddhist tales. THe Puranas thus offer the Hindus a history also.

 

 

 

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I would say there is alot of "modern scholariship" that is as false as the aryan invasion stories but that doesnt mean that any aspect of history that does not fit what is traditionally belived to be history in the Indian sense must automatically be labeled and categorized as secular corruption with European foundations.