In response to a posting of mine on my Facebook Page yesterday July 6. 2024 on the subject
https://www.facebook.com/share/RFMkifU5LDErYQQX/?mibextid=WC7FNe,
a reader Sri. Para Saran commented as below ⬇️
“Dear Swami, I agree with the overall theme you have written. However Sri Rangarajan is not stirring a storm. If this was said by Nastikas, it is a different story. This is mentioned by Sri Dushyant who is a reputed spiritual speaker. There are many followers especially younger gen. Our Acharyas and RIshis have always taken care not to mislead Astikas. That’s why Sri Desikan and Sri Mamunigal always said “We follow our precetors”. Andal mentioned the same as well. We are parrots, repeat what our Acharyas said. In this case, Sri Dushyant has ventured outside and said many controversial statements below.
1. Rama’s Birth date is 5118 BCE, Jan 9.
- Hanuman, Vaali, Sugreeva and all monkeys are humans acting as monkeys
- Sukla Yajur Veda came only after a certain King.
- When asked how Rama’s birth is Jan 9, said Equinoxes pushed the date by 100 days in last 7000 years. Then how come other festivals have not been pushed. They say every 76 years, Equinoxes push by 1 day.
- Another argument presented is 1 day of King is equal to 1 year. Same person says 1 year of good King rule is equal to 100 years or 1000 years of common people.
- Whichever calculation one takes, the dates are not adding up. One such calculation was invalidated by Sri Velukudi swami and another calculation invalidated by Sri APN swami.
To the above comment very pertinently made, my response was this below 👇
Dear Sri Para Saran …
Swamin , you’re making very good arguments indeed . However, I remind you once again as I did in my posting yesterday that I’m not going to argue for this side or the other without having read Dushyanth Sridhar’s book .
Yesterday , on TV Channel Pesu Tamizha I watched the more than 1 hour long interview with Smt. Jayashree Saranathan whose research on the dating of Rama avatara is what Dushyant Sridhar’s book wholly commends and also accepts.
She gave very detailed explanations on her different scholarly perspectives on the matter with copious references and justifications drawn from Astronomy, Astrology, Epigraphy, Purana and Achaeology. It was impressive indeed but then hers were nonetheless just perspectives which to me at least seemed credible but far from conclusive . But I thought one still must give her respect for the thesis she puts forward with a great deal of evidence. The evidence is verifiable but cannot of course be said to be clinching at all.
The problem with researchers like Saranathan and Dushyant Sridhar is that while they argue persuasively with facts and findings , they forget that still that the itihaasa can never be regarded as just History . It is much more than History … as I have pointed out in my posting.
History and all the other weighty arguments and evidence put forth by Saranathan & Dushyant all fall into the realm of “vyavahaarika” inquiry. Whereas the itihaasa is not just about “vyavahaarika” but also very much more about “adhyaatmikam”. (The two Sanskrit terms are untranslatable. Rough English equivalent could perhaps be “mundane” and “supra-mundane”). The two are inseparably intertwined and cannot be treated discretely in the manner of a historian’s clinical or academic methodology. The subject-matter of the Ramayana cannot be studied with reference to “vyavahaarika” alone without at the same time also studying its “adhyaatmika” aspects. The former leads to the other . It is in fact the precursor to the latter.
We can try to appreciate this subtle fact through a somewhat analogous though not accurate parallel .
We all do know that Newtonian and Einsteinian physics are either a mechanistic or relative view of the universe but then both are neither definitive nor conclusive. Both however do lead onto the more conceptually refined , evolved and profoundly more mysterious and fascinating view of interstellar and inter-galactic views of quantum physics. It would be a mistake and an impossibility perhaps to even attempt to study any one without an understanding of the others for then that would only give us an incomplete and deformed picture of the universe.
It’s the same situation with the “vyavahaarika” and “adhyaatmika” aspects of the itihaasa called Ramayana.
Just to make it easier on you to understand what I’m saying … think of all the historian’s research such as Saranathan’s as being findings of mechanistic Newtonian physics divorced from the more essential and more evolved realms of thought in which “adhyaatmikam” of the itihaasa lies inside the Sargas of Ramayana.
Going about dating the Rama avatara as Saranathan & Dushyanth have done using astrology, archaeology , Purana legend etc. is in my own view an exercise in “vyavahaarikam”. It probably does have its uses as academic pursuit but to me it serves limited purpose only. It is old world Newtonian physics, to put it metaphorically. The “adhyaatmika” dimension of the dating of Rama avatara to me is what is the greater physics of Quantum which is a higher effort to delve deeper into the universe.
When the dating of Rama avatara is contemplated against the backdrop of the quantum scale of Time ….i.e. in terms of mind-boggling Vedic yuga theory … my consciousness itself expands and my mind then begins to transcend “vyavahaarika” and reach for the realms of “adhyaatmikam”. And that to me is precisely where the study of the Ramayana begins. Dating of the itihaasa to me is a rather mundane academic exercise in futility because while it may be very exciting indeed for young minds fixated on the mechanics of Historical study, it is not capable of achieving quantum ends of the mind.
Sudarshan Madabushi