HIS STORY in his own words: Thoughts on a chronology of Indian history and on western bias in Indological studies
Banwari Lal Sharma of the Epic India Group sent me this link today. It leads to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet file on what seems to be the Kent University, UK, website.
http://www.cs.kent.edu/~jchitali/history/Royal_Chronology_of_India.xls
The spreadsheet presents a chronology of major persona and events in Indian history, starting from the earliest times down to the present time-period.
If I understand it correctly, it depicts historical personages, based on archaelogical and anecdotal evidence, including characters from the epics.
There’s even a listing of kings in the Solar (Ikswaku/Suryavansha) Dynasty and Lunar (Chandravansha) Dynasty.
Now, I’m no expert on the subject.
But in the course of my research into the Ramayana, Mahabharata and other Indian myths and legends, as well as actual historical records, I’ve grown a bit weary and tired of all the western indophile assumptions that underlie most historical writings: Like the assumption that since eastern civilization could not possibly have developed before western civilization, therefore any timeline of Indian history must start after the western timeline…
An assumption, like so many others by western scholars and historians, that has no basis in fact.
Like the Aryan invasion myth.
In case you aren’t aware of this, there is no hard evidence supporting the assumption that the Aryans were a North European race that invaded these parts of the world.
In fact, the available facts can as well be interpreted to prove that the Aryans were merely our ancestors some of whom later migrated to Northern Europe, accounting for the similarities in language, mythology, culture, etc.
Now, I’m neither a Hindutva supporter nor a leftist reactionary.
I’m just an Indian who asks that Indian history and mythology be studied without bias or prejudice, something that even modern British historians like John Keay and Charles Allen have admitted their predecessors did not do.
In fact, Keay has written some brilliant books showing how wrong some of his Brit predecessors were and correcting major errors while revealing other facts that were hitherto hidden or deliberately ignored.
So when I come across something like this XL file, gathering together in a single spreadsheet file ten thousand years of Indian history, arranged in a marvelous comparitive chronological scheme, I’m left breathless.
I’m overwhelmed.
From what I can tell, this is the single most comprehensive and well-researched chronology of India, especially ancient India, I’ve ever seen. It’s brilliant and invaluable.
I’ve already thanked Banwari Lal Sharma for pointing me (and all of us EpicIndians) to this excellent piece of research.
And I thought I must share it with anyone and everyone who’s interested in India or history in general as well.
I am completely in agreement, and in awe, of the chronology of the Ikswaku/Solar Dynasty and Ramayana events shown here.
As with all else. The cross-referencing in particular is fantastic.
I have some reservations about whether the Ravana shown in the Tamil timeline is the same as the Ravana of the Ramayana (just as there were several Ramas in history, even in the Solar Dynasty, so also there were several Vyasas, Vashishtas, Ravanas, etc) as I don’t buy the whole European Indophile argument that the Ramayana saga was a war between the Aryans and Dasas.
But I have no argument with the overall historical timelines and the entire work is amazing.
I recommend it highly to everyone. I’m going to refer to this extensively from now on.
I had in mind a series of appendices listing the major dynasties (Solar and Lunar) and other chronologies, to be published with the hardcover collector’s edition of my Ramayana series which Penguin India will publish next year.
I’m definitely going to refer to this chart in preparing those appendices now.
And as always, I welcome all comment, including dissent, on this file as well as the underlying facts.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 17th, 2005 at 1:01 pm. It is filed under Ashok.
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