Talk:Historicity of the Mahabharata
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 | This is the talk page of a redirect that targets the page: • Mahabharata Because this page is not frequently watched, present and future discussions, edit requests and requested moves should take place at: • Talk:Mahabharata |
Notability
editIn 21st century Indology, no scholar (excludes Hindutva aligned people, by definition) bothers to interrogate the historicity of events in MBh - it has been a long established consensus that from the POV of a historian, the text provides some fragmentary glimpses about polities in iron-age India, at best. I can add a list of sources but don't think it will be necessary. That being said, Witzel and a few others have speculated on links with Battle of the Ten Kings—an article drafted by me—but that's all.
So, why do we need this article? About 90% of the information is irrelevant:-
- Lead: The second paragraph of the lead describes the evolution of the text, authorship etc. - this is irrelevant to historicity.
- First section: Synopsis of the epic. Irrelevant.
- Second section: A copy of Battle of the Ten Kings.
- Third section: Yet another irrelevant section about the production of a critical edition.
- Fourth section: More irrelevant discussions about layers, evolution of text, manuscripts etc. Hardly a single decent source.
- Fifth section: On Kurukshetra War
- First sub-section: Not sure what is the end-goal. Irrelevant.
- Second sub-section: Decent and relevant; duplicate to Battle of the Ten Kings, at large.
- Third sub-section: A bunch of crazies peddling nonsense. I am hearing some of them for the first time.
- Fourth sub-section: Hindutva aligned academics.
- Sixth section: On Bhagavad Gita
- First sub-section: Issues of authorship. Irrelevant.
- Second sub-section: Details of variant manuscripts. Irrelevant.
- Third sub-section: Dating of the text. Irrelevant.
- Fourth sub-section: Whether a historical Krishna existed. Relevant but this belongs at Krishna.
Just redirect this to the main article on MbH. The historicity can be discussed in two/three paragraphs including the thrust of Hindutva arguments and a rebut. TrangaBellam (talk) 15:51, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
- Redirected by me. I don't think this subject needs any further coverage anywhere though. The main article already got enough details about it. Dear Debasish (talk) 17:02, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Note: redirection and deletion are controversial, as user:Nadiallah has contested this. If people here want to delete or redirect, please open an AFD discussion on the topic. My opinion is that the topic is notable, as I see there are books and academic writings on this topic. That does not mean that the content here is suitable though. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:59, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
OCP
editWhile these carts are dated to 1800–1500 BCE (± 150), Gupta and Mani state that "in the present state of archaeological evidence OCP seems to be a stronger contender for the Mahabharata association," dating the Mahabharata War to the 4th millennium BCE.
does this sentence make any sense? OCP doesn’t belong to 4th millennium BCE. Then what is this connection being made to such antiquity? 117.206.0.84 (talk) 20:00, 19 July 2022 (UTC)