Question – 107
An ‘Epoch of Arundhati’ has been suggested running for
6000 years within which period the Mahabharata was supposed to have taken place.
How would you prove that it is wrong?
Answer:
Any historical research
on dating has two components – primary and secondary sources of evidence. Primary sources are contemporary to the period
of the event. Secondaries are derived from the primary sources. The Epoch of
Arundhati proposed by Mr. Nilesh Oak, running for 6000 years and forming the
basis for the time of the Mahabharata is laden with issues of admissibility as
a source of evidence. It is neither a primary evidence nor a secondary
evidence.
1. This Epoch is not primary evidence because nowhere it has been stated in the Mahabharata that such an Epoch existed and lasted for 6000 years.
2. The Epoch is not secondary evidence because no literature composed at any time recognizes such an Epoch.
3. It offers a range and choice of the year of Mahabharata that can only be arbitrary with no support from any evidence that can be qualified as primary.
4.
The
Epoch of Arundhati suffers from lack of exactness for being the product of
Hypothetico-deductive method of science having no relevance to the historical
dating of the Mahabharata.
Based on these,
this concept of the Epoch could never pass acceptance among historians. Why
should it in the case of Itihāsa research?
