What Do Indians Need, a History or the Past? A challenge or two to Indian historians, Parts I and II

      What  do  Indians  Need,  A  History  or  the  Past?   A  challenge  or  two  to  Indian  historians     Balagangadhara,  S.N.,  Universiteit  Gent,  Belgium   Balu@UGent.be   Abul  Kalam  Ghulam  Muhiyuddin  was  born  in  Mecca  on  November  11,  1888.  He  is  known  to  us   and  all  school  children  in  India  as  Maulana  Abul  Kalam  Azad.  He  is  a  ‘maulana’  because  he  be-­‐ longed  to  a  lineage  of  Muslim  scholars  or  ‘Maulanas’.  He  is  also  called  ‘azad’,  meaning  free,  be-­‐ cause,   we   are   told,   he   adopted   this   pen   name   as   a   mark   of   his   “mental   emancipation   from   a   nar-­‐ row   view   of   religion   and   life.”   I   am   not   a   Muslim.   Therefore,   I   am   not   a   ‘maulana’   either.   Yet,   I   share  Abul  Kalam’s  lineage,  that  of  an  ‘azadi’.  This  word,  in  Persian,  indicates  a  ‘free  man’,  not  a   slave,   which   is   what   my   shared   lineage   with   him   is.   I   address   you   in   this   spirit,   which   also   re-­‐ flects  the  content  of  my  talk:  think  freely  and  not  as  slaves.  What  does  ‘history’  mean  today  and   how  should  we  think  about  that  subject  as  free  men  and  women?  I  shall  talk  about  the  kind  of   slavery   we   are   living   in   and   also   briefly   indicate   a   possible   direction   for   freedom.   Of   course,   freedom  is  chosen  and  cannot  be  imposed.  I  would  like  to  help  you  discover  that  choice,  that  of   being  an  ‘azadi’.   This  talk  not  only  attempts  a  critical  unravelling  of  categories  or  thought  structures  with  which   we   function,   but   it   also   takes   the   risk   of   offering   an   alternative   path   for   theoretical   reflection.   There   is   hardly   any   serious   theoretical   engagement   in   the   discipline   of   history   in   India.   This   dis-­‐ cipline  is  dominated  by  an  empirical  study  of  the  past  (which  circulates  in  the  guises  of  social,   cultural,   economic,   Marxist,   subaltern,   dalit,   feminist,   ...   history).   Nowhere   does   one   see   any   foundational  critical  interrogation  of  conceptual  categories.   Consequently,  the  talk  aims  at  advancing  a  critical  thesis  by  taking  into  account  the  sediment  of   intellectual   proclivities   of   Indian   academics   and   institutions.   It   is   not   a   conventional   historical   reflection   that   concerns   gathering   facts   about   a   demarcated   period.     I   focus   on   the   categories   through  which  we  think  and  practice  our  disciplines  and  discourses  in  our  institutions.    In  this   sense,  this  is  a  novel  initiative  by  ICHR.    The  talk  (a)  unravels  the  dominant  conceptual  frames   and   (b)   advances   a   theoretically   viable   alternative.   Thus,   it   has   far   reaching   institutional   and   discursive  implications.  However,  I  do  not  spell  these  out  in  the  course  of  this  talk.   I  largely  focus  on  what  is  today  called  the  “documentary”  paradigm  of  history,  i.e.  historiography   that   emphasizes   ‘evidence’:   document,   inscription,   fossil,   artefact   etc.   as   the   sources   of   truth.   This  approach  has  come  under  critique  in  the  name  of  the  “interpretive”  turn.    This  turn  claims   to   move   beyond   the   fixation   on   facts   and   embrace   the   hermeneutical   tropics   (from   the   word   ‘tropes’).  For  reasons  of  length  and  space,  I  will  ignore  this  ‘hermeneutic’  approach  here.   This  talk  has  two  parts.  In  the  first  part,  I  talk  of  our  enslavement  to  a  set  of  religious  concep-­‐ tions.   In   the   second,   I   share   with   you   some   of   my   reflections   about   the   directions   we   could   1     choose   to   take,   if   we   intend   being   free   or   azadi’s.   In   the   conclusion,   I   think   aloud   about   what   has   been  accomplished.   I   Today,  both  in  India  and  abroad,  we  see  the  emergence  of  a  new  intellectual  trend:  to  write  an   accurate  history  of  India  based  on  painstaking  research.  What  is  new  about  this?  In  one  sense,  as   I   shall   explain   later,   this   attempt   is   not   novel;   in   another   sense,   which   too   shall   be   explained,   there  is  something  very  new  in  it.  I  will  talk  about  both  in  the  course  of  answering  the  question   raised  in  the  title  of  the  talk,  which  contrasts  ‘the  past’  with  ‘a  history’.  This  contrast  needs  expli-­‐ cation  because  historiography  is  seen  as  a  ‘factual  recording  of  the  past’.  Yet,  I  am  going  to  con-­‐ trast  the  product  of  historiography,  ‘a  history’,  with  something  called  ‘the  past’.     However,   this   story   is   complicated:   it   has   at   least   two   beginnings,   two   middle   points   and   one   common  end.  There  are  many  branches  to  this  story  and,  as  though  this  is  not  enough,  I  will  even   talk  of  an  alternative.  In  a  way,  to  an  Indian  audience,  this  should  not  pose  a  problem:  the  story   of   Mahabharata   is   not   unitary;   there   are   stories   within   stories   with   multiple   narrators   and   voic-­‐ es,  and  many  synchronous  and  asynchronous  events.  I  am  not  a  Vyasa  to  keep  you  captivated  by   my  narration,  even  though  I  wish  I  were.  Unlike  his  epic,  this  article  is  shorter  even  though  it  is   rather   long.   Its   scope   too   is   narrower.   However,   these   are   my   failings.   I   hope   you   are   still   Indian   enough   to   find   the   time   to   give   me   a   hearing   and   have   not   become   all   hustle   and   bustle   like   ‘modern’  society.   A  first  beginning   A   few   thousand   years   ago,   two   intellectual   movements   existed   simultaneously   in   the   Ancient   Greek  society.  The  first,  with  a  venerable  past,  was  exemplified  by  the  bards:  these  were  the  sto-­‐ ry-­‐tellers,   who   moved   from   town   to   town   recounting   Greek   legends   and   mythologies.  The  bards   drew  reasonably  large  crowds  wherever  they  went;  they  did  not  merely  entertain  the  audience   by   recounting   Homer   and   other   respected   poets   but   also,   through   the   act   of   story-­‐telling,   ad-­‐ dressed   the   actual   problems   of   their   society.   They   told   stories   of   long   ago:   Ulysses   and   the   Si-­‐ rens,  Cyclops  and  Zeus,  and  about  Jason  and  the  Argonauts.  The  characters  in  such  stories  were   both  human  and  divine;  some  among  them  faced  insurmountable  challenges;  their  deeds  were,   therefore,  considered  heroic.  The  poets,  it  was  said,  rightly  immortalized  them.  The  bards  cher-­‐ ished  telling  such  stories  and  the  crowds  loved  hearing  them.   And  then,  there  was  another  group  as  well.  For  the  sake  of  convenience,  let  us  call  them  philoso-­‐ phers  (those  who  loved  wisdom).  We  know  the  names  of  many  such;  one  of  them,  the  most  well-­‐ 2     known,  is  Plato.  This  philosopher  was  not  happy,  either  with  the  bards  or  with  what  they  did.  He   felt  that  they  incited  the  crowd  to  unsavoury  behaviour  based  on  irrational  feelings.  Instead  of   inculcating  reasonableness,  Plato  thought,  these  bards  pandered  to  the  emotions  of  people.  Emo-­‐ tions  were  always  bad  advisors,  especially  if  it  concerned  matters  of  polity.  He  opposed  educat-­‐ ing   the   children   (who   would   be   the   future   Athenians)   by   teaching   legends   and   mythologies   to   them  because  such  stories,  according  to  Plato,  always  exaggerated,  distorted  and  lied  about  the   past.   In   fact,   Plato   envisioned   an   ideal   state   that   would   ban   all   the   poets   and   bards   into   exile;   such   a   state,   ruled   by   a   philosopher-­‐king,   would   be   the   polis   to   live   in   because   it   alone   cultivated   reason   among   its   citizens.   He   opposed   ‘myth’   to   ‘history’,   and   ‘emotions’   to   ‘reason’.   He   believed   that   not   myths   but   history   should   guide   the   behaviour   of   the   civilized   Athenians.   He   saw   the   bards  as  ‘orators’  and  counterposed  ‘rhetoric’  (the  art  of  speech)  of  his  time  to  ‘reason’.  Oration   cultivated   demagogy   (that   which   appealed   to   the   irrationality   and   the   emotions   of   the   crowd)   and  thus  poisoned  the  youth,  whereas  philosophy  cultivated  reason.   These  two  tendencies  were  apparently  each  other’s  rivals  in  the  Athens  of  so-­‐long-­‐ago.  However,   before   either   of   the   tendencies   could   gain   dominance,   the   Greek   civilization   collapsed.   In   the   future,  the  torch  lit  in  Athens  would  be  carried  only  partially  by  the  Roman  Empire.   A  second  beginning   We   now   move   the   tale   forward   by   a   few   centuries.   At   that   time,   the   Roman   Empire   included   many  parts  of  what  we  now  call  the  Middle-­‐East.  Romans  had  also  conquered  Judea,  a  nation  of   people  called  the  ‘Jews’.  Like  all  other  nations  of  the  world,  the  Jews  too  had  a  story  about  their   own  past.  Their  story  told  them  of  the  travails  of  the  Jews  comprising  of  twelve  tribes,  who  were   scattered   among   other   nations   as   a   punishment.   The   punisher   is   the   entity   ‘God’   and   He   pun-­‐ ished  the  Jews  for  forgetting  Him,  the  ‘God  of  Israel’.  He  is  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob.   He  is  the  creator  and  sovereign  of  the  Universe,  and  the  Jews  were  instructed  to  keep  the  Law  He   gave   them.   He   instructed   them   too   in   the   difference   between   Himself   (the   ‘True’   God)   and   ‘gods’   of  other  nations  and  peoples,  and  revealed  Himself  in  Mount  Sinai.  Being  the  merciful  God  that   He   is,   He   also   promised   the   children   of   Israel   that   He   would   send   down   to   earth   a   messenger,   who  would  unite  the  Jews  together  again.   This   caricature   of   a   story   about   the   Jewish   past   will   do   for   the   moment   because   what   is   interest-­‐ ing  here  is  not  the  story  itself  but  the  attitude  of  the  Jews  towards  it.  Unlike  the  Greeks  of  yester-­‐ years,  most  Jews  believe  that  theirs  is   a  true  story.  In  fact,  they  do  not  consider  this  as  a  story  at   all:   to   them,   it   is   the   factual   chronicle   of   events   on   earth.   In   other   words,   their   account   of   their   past,  these  Jews  believe,  is  history.  God  –  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob  –  did  punish  the   3     Jews;  God  did  promise  to  send  His  own  messenger  (‘the  promised  one’,  Christos  is  a  Greek  word)   to   earth,   and   that   this   messenger   will   come   because   God   is   Righteous   and   thus   always   keeps   His   promises.   In  the  course  of  time,   some   Jews   began   to   proclaim   the   arrival   of  such   messengers   of   God.   Many   said  that  the  Messiah  had  come  to  earth  at  God’s  behest  to  save  the  children  of  Israel.  The  most   well-­‐known   group   among   them   crystallized   around   the   person   and   acts   of   Jesus   of   Nazareth.   Believing  that  Jesus  was  the  Christ  (the  announced,  the  messiah,  the  anointed),  this  group  tried   to  persuade  the  Jews  about  his  arrival.  Most  of  the  Jews  did  not  buy  the  idea  that  Jesus  was  the   Christ.  Largely  rejected  by  the  Jews,  this  group  then  proclaimed  that  Jesus  had  come  to  earth  not   just  to  save  the  Jews  but  to  save  the  entire  Humankind.  The  Jewish  accounts  of  their  past,  their   history,  had  already  spoken  of  the  Original  Sin,  Eternal  Damnation,  Hell  and  Heaven.  The  Chris-­‐ tians  (i.e.,  those  who  believed  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  the  Christ)  took  most  of  it  over  but  ac-­‐ cused   the   Jews   of   heresy   and   of   a   signal   failure   to   understand   their   own   scriptures.   They   be-­‐ lieved  that  Judaism  was  dead  and  would  soon  be  replaced  by  Christianity,  a  creed  professed  by   the   Christians,   i.e.   those   who   proclaimed   the   arrival   of   the   messenger   of   God,   his   death   on   the   cross   for   the   sins   of   mankind   and   his   resurrection   three   days   later.   This   was   the   ‘Good   News’   that  the  Christians  proclaimed  to  the  world  at  large.   This  too  is  a  caricature  of  Christianity  but,  again,  I  want  to  draw  your  attention  to  not  only  how   the   Christians   looked   at   these   chronicles   but   also   to   how   they   were   and   are  compelled   to   look   at   it.     The  early  Christians  believed  that  their  story  about  the  Jewish  past  was  not  just  their  history  but   also   the   history   of   mankind.   Every   event   that   was   chronicled   in   the   Old   Testament   Bible,   from   Adam  and  Eve  through  the  Garden  of  Eden  and  the  Flood  to  Noah’s  ark,  they  believed,  narrated   the   facts   and   events   on   earth.   Adam   did   commit   the   Original   Sin   (as   it   is   narrated   in   the   Old   Tes-­‐ tament  Bible)  by  thirsting  after  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  and  the  children  and  descend-­‐ ants  of  Adam  (the  entire  humankind)  do  carry  this  burden.  The  Christians  claimed  that  Jesus  of   Nazareth  was  the  Christ;  he  was  crucified  by  the  Romans;  he  did  rise  from  death  three  days  later   and   promised   humankind   ‘salvation’,   if   they   followed   him.   Those   who   did   not,   the   disciples   of   Jesus  maintained,  would  be  eternally  damned  to  Hell,  the  Biblical  Hell,  ruled  by  the  Devil.   Apart   from   the   Jews,   who   were   sceptical   and   dismissive   of   the   claims   of   Jesus   to   Christhood,   the   Christians   also   confronted   the   intellectuals   of   the   Roman   Empire.   Among   other   things,   these   intellectuals   found   that   the   Christians   were   making   ridiculous   claims   about   ‘God’,   ‘the   Devil’   and   Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Though  they  tolerated  the  Jewish  customs  and  traditions,  they  never  accepted   4     that  the  story  of  the  Jews  could  be  seen  as  the  history  of  humankind,  the  way  Christians  did.  In   Christians,  they  not  only  found  a  silly  sect  that  claimed  that  some  entity  called  ‘God’  could  create   whatever   He   wanted   just   by   ‘willing’   it   into   existence  but   also   a   new   group   that   made   ridiculous   assertions  about  resurrection  after  death.  Jesus  must  have  been  a  magician,  they  thought,  who   merely   pretended   to   die   while   convincing   the   gullible   that   he   was   ‘really   dead’.   Who   had   ever   heard  of  someone  coming  to  life  after  death?  Among  other  things,  they  thought  that  Christians   were  simple  minded  fools,  who  ran  away  from  all  discussions  on  these  matters  and  tried  to  ‘con-­‐ vert’  only  the  children,  slaves  and  women.  (None  of  these  three,  the  Romans  thought,  was  able  to   ‘reason’  the  way  a  mature  citizen  could.)   Caught  between  the  hammer  and  the  anvil,  the  Christians  had  to  insist  more  and  more  vigorous-­‐ ly   that   they   were   telling   the   truth.   Theirs   was   not   a   story   or   a   myth   but   the   history   instead.   It   was   not  just  the  past  of  the  Jewish  nation  without  it  being  the  history  of  the  whole  of  humankind.  The   Christian  God  was  not  merely  the  ‘God  of  Israel’,  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob  and  their   descendants,  but  also  ‘the  God’  of  the  whole  of  humankind.  He  became  the  generic  ‘God’:  singu-­‐ lar,  unqualified,  and  unique.  He  was  ‘God’.  He  created  the  Cosmos;  He  is  the  Lord  and  Master  of   the  World;  He  is  the  Sovereign  and  the  fountainhead  of  all  morality.  His  Will  was  the  Law  and,  as   His  creatures,  we  have  to  obey  Him.   Why,  then,  do  different  nations  have  and  worship  different  ‘gods’?  This  was  easily  explained:  all   these   ‘gods’   were   ‘false’;   as   followers   and   lieutenants   of   the   Devil,   these   false   gods   lead   mankind   towards   destruction.   They   were   vagrant   ‘spirits’,   the   daimones   of   the   Greeks   from   which   the   English   word   ‘Demons’   is   derived.   The   Greeks,   of   course,   did   not   think   of   their   gods   either   as   vagrant   spirits   or   as   the   followers   of   the   Biblical   Satan   or   the   Devil.   Neither   did   the   Romans.   However,  the  Christians  added  their  own  spin  to  the  Greco-­‐Roman  thought  and,  with  the  conver-­‐ sion  of  the  Emperor  Constantine,  they  also  gained  political  power.   In   other   words,  according   to  Christianity,  the   Biblical   story  is  the   ‘true’  history  of  the  whole  of   humankind.   Jesus   of   Nazareth   had   to   be   a   real,   historical   person   crucified   by   the   Romans.   The   Christians  believed  furthermore  that  the  stories  that  other  peoples  and  nations  told  about  their   multiple  pasts  were  just  that:  myths  and  legends  but  not  history.  Bible  was   the  History.  It  was   the  history  of  the  humankind.  Period.   The  first  middle  point   There   are   two   middle   points   I   want   to   talk   about.   The   first   is   the   cognitive   attitude   one   assumes   with   respect   to   looking   at   the   past   of   a   group.   The   second   is   about   the   attitude   one   has   to   the   5     multiple  ways  in  which  human  groups  have,  in  fact,  looked  at  their  own  pasts.  Let  me  begin  with   the  first.   Consider  what  happens  when  you  look  at  actions  and  events  in  the  world  as  expressions  of  God’s   will.   Assume   too   that   this   will   intends   something   with   such   actions   and   events   and   that   this   ‘something’  also  pertains  to  the  future  of  human  kind.  Because,  as  human  beings,  our  perspective   about   the   present   is   more  limited   than   our  ability   to   gather  records   about   the  past,  we  can  write   fuller   chronicles   about   the   past.   Furthermore,   these   narratives   are   important   for   discerning   God’s   plan   in   the   events   of   the   past.   Such   knowledge   is   extremely   crucial   to   determining   the   course   of   actions   in   the   future,   as   far   as   we   human   beings   are   concerned.   The   Early   Christians   discovered  very  soon  that  the  world  was  not  going  to  come  to  an  immediate  end,  an  end  which   they  hoped  to  see.  Consequently,  their  problem  became:  what  did  God  (and  Christ)  intend  with   human  ‘history’?  In  the  events  of  the  past,  which  was  Christ  acting  in  human  history,  they  were   provided  with  signs  that  required  interpretation.  In  so  far  as  God’s  will  is  revealed  in  the  world   (including   in   human   history),   it   became   the   task   of   men   to   study   the   world   to   find   out   what   God   intends.  God’s  will  is  also  revealed  in  the  chronicles  of  the  human  past.  However,  it  is  imperative   to  studying  God’s  revelation  that  one  studies  what  actually  happened  in  the  past.  Only  when  we   study   the   past   as   it   actually   occurred,   only   then   could   we   hope   to   decipher   what   God   intends   for   the  human  kind.  An  imaginary  past  is  no  substitute  for  an  accurate  rendering  of  the  same.  Not   merely   is   such   a   past   no   substitute;   the   situation   is   even   worse:   by   studying   false   chronicles   about  the  past  as  though  they  were  true,  one  endangers  the  very  possibility  of  the  salvation  of   the  human  soul.   The   Bible,   however,   had   already   chronicled   the   human   past.   What   was   new,   after   Jesus   Christ,   was  the  emergence  of  the  Christian  Church.  Consequently,  one  needed  to  chronicle  the  history  of   this  institution  as  something  that  fulfilled  God’s  plan  on  earth  in  much  the  same  way  one  chroni-­‐ cled  the  coming  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  as  the  culmination  of  the  strivings  of  the  nations.  Eusebius,   the  famous  Church  historian,  accomplished  both:  one  in  his  writings  on  the  history  of  the  Church   and   the   other   by   showing   how   the   ‘wise’   and   ‘noble’   of   the   pagans   from   other   cultures   had   actu-­‐ ally,  if  only  implicitly,  anticipated  the  arrival  of  the  Messiah.   It  was  left  to  St.  Augustine  to  come  up  with  the  definitive  framework   from  within  which  to  study   the  human  past.  This  philosophy  of  history  suggested  looking  at  the  growth  of  the  Christian  ec-­‐ clesia  as  the  historical  expression  of  God’s  plan.  This  community  of  believers  (the  Christian  eccle-­‐ sia,  the  community  of  Saints  and  Sinners  that  is),  to  Augustine  and  his  followers,  was  bigger  than   any   empirical   society   of   Christians   at   any   given   moment   of   time.   It   incorporated   the  entire   set   of   believers,  past,  present  and  future.  It  was  a  grand  philosophy  of  history  that  once  and  for  all  set   6     the   foundations   for   answering   the   question:   how   ‘ought’   one   to   study   the   past?   Even   more   im-­‐ portant  than  this  fact  is  the  following:  he  would  transform  a  very  counter-­‐intuitive  attitude  into   a  trivial  ‘but,  of  course!’  The  last  sentence  needs  some  explication.   Consider  the  following  question:  why  talk  about  the  past  at  all?  Or,  why  do  human  communities   feel   the   need   to   talk   about   the   past   of   their   communities?   These   and   analogous   questions   are   raised   in   order   to   make   the   human   situation   representable   to   those   who   live.   Why   represent   the   past   and   present   it   to   ourselves   at   all?   An   answer   to   this   question   requires   appealing   to   some   kind  of  an  idea  about  what  it  is  to  live  as  a  human  being,  what  we  aim  at  in  life  and  why.  Because   we  are  interested  in  human  flourishing  (“live  a  good  life”,  whatever  ‘good’  means  in  this  context),   we  need  to  think  about  ourselves  as  beings  with  some  kind  of  a  past.  In  other  words,  one  looks  at   the   past   for   the   sake   of   living   well   and   flourishing   in   the   present.   In   most   groups   that   have   evolved   into   cultures,   some   kind   of   an   implicit   consensus   is   present   regarding   what   human   flourishing  is,  that  is,  what  it  means  to  live  a  good  life.  This  consensus  is  as  general  and  as  ab-­‐ stract  as  the  question  itself  (‘human  flourishing  means  to  be  happy’).  In  this  sense,  each  human   group  has  some  kind  of  story  about  its  past.   However,   St.   Augustine   formulated   questions   about   the   past   within   a   Christian   theological   framework.   That   is   to   say,   he   formulated   a   theological   question   as   though   the   query   about   the   past  was  indissolubly  connected  with  the  ‘truth’  of  a  story  about  the  past.  As  I  have  outlined  ear-­‐ lier   on,   to   the   Jews   and   the   Christians,   it   was   imperative   that   their   claims   about   the   past   are   ‘true’.   If   such   claims   were   false   and   the   humankind   acted   in   the   present   on   the   basis   of   these   falsehoods,   its   future   was   eternal   damnation.   Thus,   to   St.   Augustine,   it   was   very   obvious   that   there  was  only  one  attitude  possible  with  respect  to  the  past.  Such  an  attitude  sought  the  ‘true’   past:   it   was   an   attitude   that   answered   the   question   “how   ‘ought’   one   to   study   the   past”?   One   ‘ought’  to  study  the  past  in  such  a  way  as  to  find  the  true  past.  This  ‘true’  past  had  to  be  found   through   a   painstaking   study   (of   scriptures   and   the   writings   of   the   early   church   fathers),   said   Au-­‐ gustine,  because  mankind  has  been  deceived  into  believing  the  lies  told  by  the  Devil  about  the   human  past.  In  short,  because  lies  about  the  past  abound  in  human  communities  (these  ‘lies’  are,   of   course,   the   stories   that   human   groups   have   about   their   own   multiple   pasts),   one   needs   ‘the   truth’.  The  Bible  was  the  only  repository  of  this  ‘truth’,  as  far  as  Augustine  was  concerned.     The  ‘truth’  that  St.  Augustine  sought  can  never  be  proved  or  disproved  by  any  kind  of  research  in   the   ‘archives’.   His   ‘truth’   was   about   the   Christ   nature   of   Jesus   of   Nazareth   and   about   the   Bible.   His   predecessors   had   established   that   Jesus   of   Nazareth   existed   and   their   theologies   had   proved   that   he   was   The   Messiah.   Therefore,   he   claimed   that   one   ‘ought’   to   study   the   past   on   the   basis   of   7     this  knowledge.  Now  the  question  is  this:  What  sense  does  it  make  to  take  over  his  theological   question  and  try  to  garnish  it  with  ‘secular’  sounding  dogmas?   Because   ‘truth’   is   what   all   human   beings   like   to   seek,   today   it   has   become   obvious   to   talk   as   though  one  seeks  truth  while  one  studies  the  past.  Two  important  issues  need  to  be  understood   here.  There  is,  first,  the  question  why  study  the  past  at  all?  There  is,  second,  the  problem  of  what   ‘truth’  means  in  this  context.   Consider  the  first  issue.  Why  ‘study’  the  past  instead  of  recounting  your  community’s  story  about   the  past?  I  mean,  why  are  we  not  satisfied  in  recounting  Ramayana,  Mahabharata,  puranas,  etc.   as  our  stories  about  our  past?  What  do  we  need  to  study  and  why?  To  these  questions,  there  is  a   plausible   sounding   answer:   ‘we   need   to   know   whether   these   stories   are   true’.   Ask   again   why:   Why  do  we  need  to  know  whether  these  stories  are  true?  After  all,  as  we  believe,  these  stories   have   been   in   circulation   for   millennia   and   they   have   adequately   and   admirably   met   the   needs   of   our   ancestors   (and   most   of   our   contemporaries   as   well)   in   their   quest   for   human   flourishing.  So,   what  extra  reasons  exist  to  ‘study’  the  past?   Here  is  the  first  possible  answer,  which  takes  the  form  of  a  question:  what  if  our  stories  about   the  past  turn  out  to  be  false?  Let  me  answer  it  with  a  counter-­‐question:  so  what?  What  does  it   matter  whether  what  we  believe  about  our  past  is  true  or  false  as  long  as  it  helps  us  in  human   flourishing?   One   can   choose   truth   above   falsehood   if   (a)   truth   about   the   past   helps   us   live   better   as   human   beings   and   (b)   falsehood   damages   us.   Is   this   the   case?   Has   it   been   shown   to   be   the   case?  Without  answering  these  questions,  one  cannot  provide  good  reasons  to  study  the  past.   Here  is  a  second  possible  answer  that  attempts  to  sidestep  the  issue:  “we  need  to  know  the  truth   about  the  past  because  only  as  such  do  we  have  knowledge  about  the  past.   We  do  not  need  to   justify   this   knowledge   about   the   past   any   further   because,   surely,   knowledge   is   its   own   justifica-­‐ tion.”  However,  this  answer  too  does  not  work.  Why?     Answering   this   question   brings   us   to   the   second   issue.   You   see,   the   only   intelligible   notion   of   truth   we   have   today   makes   ‘truth’   into   a   property   of   sentences,   that   is,   into   a   linguistic   property.   (That  is  to  say,  it  is  only  of  sentences  that  we  can  say  whether  they  are  true  or  false.)  Even  though   we   do   use   the   notion   of   truth   in   multiple   other   ways   (when   we   say   of   someone   that   ‘he   is   a   true   friend’   or   when   we   say   ‘only   truth   is   the   real’   and   such   like),   these   are   not   adequately   fleshed   out.   In   this   sense,   we   can   say   that   there   are   such   repositories   of   truth   in   existence   today:     the   multiple  telephone  directories  in  the  world.  Such  books  are  embodiments  of  ‘the  truth’  about  the   world.   Consequently,   ‘the   truth’   which   the   historians   seek   could   only   be   the   analogues   of   the   8     current  telephone  directories.  While  one  does  not  have  any  objection  to  collecting  factoids  about   the  past,  what  have  these  to  do  with  ‘knowledge’,  except  in  a  trivial  sense  of  that  word?   One  might  disagree  by  pointing  to  ‘historical  explanations’.  Do  these  not  constitute  knowledge?   No,   they   do   not.   In   the   first   place,   all   such   explanations   are   ad   hoc:   one   does   not   generate   knowledge   by   sucking   some   explanation   out   of   one’s   thumb   to   ‘account’   for   the   facts   already   collected,   no   matter   how   large   that   set   of   facts   might   be.   Second,   such   explanations   do   not   ex-­‐ plain:   they   merely   insinuate   some   kind   of   connection   between   facts   and   some   implicit   thesis.   Third,  invariably,  such  a  thesis  is  some  or  another  commonsense  variant  of  (or  a  garden  variety)   psychological   or   sociological   ‘explanation’.   Fourth,   the   assembled   facts   cannot,   in   any   way,   testi-­‐ fy  to  ‘the  truth’  of  the  implicit  thesis.  As  a  consequence,  except  for  being  ad  hoc  stories  about  the   past,  such  ‘explanations’  do  not  even  clarify  the  nature  of  ‘historical  explanations’.   In  fact,  there  is  a  radical  disjunction  between  what  the  historians  think  they  are  doing  (‘seeking   explanations   about   the   past’)   and   what   they   do   (collect   factoids).   When   he   seeks   ‘the   truth’   about  the  past,  neither  the  historian  nor  his  reader  knows  whether  he  has  found  it  or  even  why   it  has  to  be  ‘found’.  The  ‘archives’  of  the  historian  is  not  some  kind  of  ‘collective  memory’  of  the   humankind.   It   is   what   it   always   was:   a   collection   of   records   that   sits   in   a   library   shelf   slowly   gathering  dust.   The  second  middle  point   In   1160,   Peter   Comestor   –   the   then   chancellor   of   Notre   Dame   of   Paris   –   wrote   Historia   Scholasti-­‐ ca,  a  book  that  enjoyed  tremendous  popularity  in  all  parts  of  Europe.  As  an  appendix  to  his  sa-­‐ cred   history,   Peter   condenses   some   of   the   ‘mythological’   material   into   a   series   of   short   chapters,   or  incidentiae.  In  these,  he  looks  at  some  of  the   ‘mythological’  figures  in  the  following  way:  Zoro-­‐ aster,  for  instance,  invented  magic  and  inscribed  the  seven  arts  on  four  columns;  Isis  taught  the   Egyptians   the   letters   of   the   Alphabet   and   showed   them   how   to   write;   Minerva   taught   several   arts,  in  particular  weaving;  Prometheus  probably  instructed  the  ignorant  or  fabricated  automa-­‐ ta.  All  these  mighty  spirits,  suggests  Peter  Comestor,  are  worthy  of  veneration,  as  are  the  patri-­‐ archs,  and  for  the  same  reason:  they  have  been  the  guides  and  teachers  of  humanity,  and  togeth-­‐ er  stand  as  the  common  ancestors  of  civilization.     This  way  of  looking  at  stories  about  other  people’s  past  represents  one  end  of  the  spectrum.  At   the  other  end  stands  a  disparaging  attitude  towards  all  such  narratives.  For  instance,  this  is  ex-­‐ emplified  by  Sir  Babbington  Macaulay,  in  his  famous  minutes  concerning  the  need  for  a  British   education  system  in  India:     9      It  is,  I  believe,  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  all  the  historical  information  that  has  been  collect-­‐ ed  to  form  all  the  books  written  in  the  Sanskrit  language  is  less  valuable  than  what  may  be   found  in  the  most  paltry  abridgements  used  at  preparatory  schools  in  England...   The  question  before  us  is  merely  whether  when  we  can  patronize  ...  sound  history,  (or)  we   shall  countenance,  at  the  public  expense,  ...  history,  abounding  with  kings  thirty  feet  high,   and  reigns  thirty  thousand  years  long  –  and  geography,  made  up  of  seas  of  treacle  and  butter   (cited  in  Keay,  John,  1981,  India  Discovered.  London:  Collins,  1988:  p.  77,  my  emphasis).   In  the  spectrum  that  I  am  constructing  for  the  purposes  of  this  piece,  these  two  attitudes  reveal   two  faces  of  the  same  coin.  One  face  looks  at  the  tales  of  the  past  of  peoples  and  their  cultures  as   disguised   historical   narrations   but   discovers   some   ‘kernel’   of   truth   in   such   narrations.   It   as-­‐ sumes,  in  a  manner  of  speaking,  that  other  people  somehow  did  not  know  how  to  compose  his-­‐ torical  narratives  (or  did  not  care  to  do  so)  and  that  one  has  to  ‘interpret’  these  stories  to  extract   the  ‘truth’  from  such  stories.  This  is  how,  for  example,  the  European  intellectuals  looked  at  the   Greek   myths   during   the   Italian   Renaissance.   The   Greek   legends   talked   of   human   virtues   but   that   these  narratives  represented  such  virtues  (like  courage,  bravery,  generosity,  justice,  etc)  in  the   form  of  ‘heroes’  and  ‘gods’.  So,  one  had  to  ‘sympathetically’  read  the  myths  and  the  legends  of  the   Ancient  Greek  society  to  really  understand  what  they  are  trying  to  say.   The  ‘heroes’  of  the  European  Enlightenment,  by  contrast,  exemplify  the  second  face  of  the  coin.   In  their  ‘Quarrel  with  the  Ancients’,  they  were  vitriolic  in  their  assessment  of  the  achievements  of   the  Ancient  Greek  society,  especially  their  myths  and  legends.  Opposed  to  these  myths  and  leg-­‐ ends,   which   were   mere   stories   and   products   of   wild   human   imagination,   stand   ‘facts’   and   ‘histo-­‐ ry’.  One  merely  reads  these  stories  for  ‘entertainment’;  to  ascribe  to  them  any  other  status  is  to   live  under  an  illusion.  They  were  lies  about  the  past  which  the  poets  constructed.  The  Ancients,   with   the   exception   of   historians   like   Thucydides   for   instance,   really   produced   myths   and   leg-­‐ ends.  Instead  of  enlightening  us  about  ‘what  the  past  was  really  like’,  these  stories  deceive  us.   Common   to   both   these   attitudes   is   the   idea   that   we   ‘ought   not’   to   take   these   stories   about   the   past  seriously.  Such  stories  are  not  about  the  past;  these  are  merely  products  of  the  human  imag-­‐ ination.  Only  historiography  can  teach  us  about  the  past  and,  if  we  care  about  the  past  at  all,  we   should  care  about  ‘history’.  In  other  words,  what  these  two  attitudes  say  is  the  following:  they   claim  that  our  stories  about  the  past  are  not   about  anything  real.  They  do  not  speak  about  ob-­‐ jects  or  events  in  the  world.  If  we  are  perceptive  enough,  these  stories  tell  us  something  about   the  world  of  the  authors  indirectly;  they  do  also  tell  us  about  the  nature  of  human  imagination.  In   and  of  themselves,  these  stories  are  really  about  nothing.  If  this  is  true,  huge  questions  open  up   10     which  they  never  even  address:  why  did  people  from  earlier  generations  produce  all  those  sto-­‐ ries?   Why,   instead   of   talking   about   the   world,   did   they   write   only   fiction?   If   Thucydides   could   write  empirical  history,  why  would  Valmiki  or  Vyasa  not  be  able  to  do  the  same?  And  so  on.   There   is   something   else   too   that   unites   them:   the   belief   that   they   hold   the   key   to   the   past   and   that  they  know  how  the  past  ‘ought  to’  be  studied.  To  Comestor,  his  theology  had  given  him  the   certainty;  to  people  like  Macaulay  (and  the  enlightenment  thinkers),  it  was  equally  obvious  that   they   knew   how   to   study   the   past,   whereas   the   earlier   generations   did   not.   Do   not   read   them   amiss:  the  ‘heroes’  of  the  enlightenment  were  not  defending  some  or  another  scientific  orienta-­‐ tion  for  appreciating  the  human  past.  Much  like  that  of  Peter  Comestor,  theirs  too  was  a  theologi-­‐ cal  attitude.  In  which  way?   One  of  the  bones  of  contention  between  the  Catholics  and  the  Protestants  was  about  ‘miracles’.   The  Catholic  Church  believed  that  miracles  occurred  in  the  world:  in  fact,  to  this  day,  the  Catho-­‐ lics  believe  that  transubstantiation  occurs  during  the  Holy  Mass,  where  bread  and  wine  are  tran-­‐ substantiated  into  the  flesh  and  blood  of  Christ.  They  further  believe  in  the  intervention  of  de-­‐ ceased  saints  in  the  world:  in  fact,  they  attribute  miraculous  powers  to  some  shrines  and  relics   as   well.   Arraigned   against   them   and   this   attitude   towards   miracles   were   the   Protestants:   they   denied  any  such  interventions,  attributed  miracles  only  to  Godhead  and  had  withering  contempt   for   the   beliefs   about   the   powers   of   shrines   and   relics.   In   short,   their   theologies   persuaded   the   Protestants  to  look  at  the  human  past  as  something  that  required  a  different  kind  of  study  than   even   those   which  the   Catholics   engaged   in.   At   best,   human   past   consisted   of  merely   those   deeds   which   human   beings   could   perform.   Nothing   ‘supernatural’   occurs   in   human   history;   after   all,   the   death   and   resurrection   of   Jesus   Christ   (and   the   miracles   he   performed)   had   nothing   to   do   with   human   beings.   The   Bible   records   all   the   interventions   of   God   (these,   after   all,   are   the   ‘mira-­‐ cles’)  and  anything  else  is  a  mere  human  addition  to  the  human  past.  Any  talk  of  miracles  outside   of   what   is   recorded   in   the   Bible   reflects   the   disease   of   the   human   mind.   If   anything   at   all,   the   history  of  humanity  chronicles  their  corruption;  it  is  a  story  of  their  fall,  foibles  and  follies.  Hu-­‐ man  past  is  and  ‘ought  to  be’  a  mere  record  of  what  human  beings  could  do  and,  ‘in  truth’,  have   achieved.  Human  history  does  not  edify;  at  best,  it  disappoints.  Any  human  flourishing  that  we   might  want  is  not  provided  by  stories  about  the  past.  Such  stories  merely  lie  and  mislead.  ‘Histo-­‐ ry’  of  the  human  past  is  merely  a  chronicle  of  the  kind  of  creatures  we  are.  To  think  that  narra-­‐ tives  about  the  human  past  can  teach  us  how  to  live  or  how  to  be  happy  or  how  to  flourish  as  hu-­‐ man  beings  is  to  assign  to  historiography  a  power  that  it  does  not  possess  and  could  never  hope  to   possess.     11     Only  God’s  Grace,  which  is  what  ‘true  religion’  is,  can  pull  us  out  of  the  misery  that  the  human   past,  present  and  future  is.  It  is  the  task  of  the  ‘true  religion’  to  tell  us  what  happiness  is  and  how   to  reach  it.  To  think  differently  is  to  arrogate  the  status  and  power  of  God  to  human  beings.  The   enlightenment  thinkers  merely  reproduced  (garbed,  of  course,  in  the  ‘secular’  fashion  appropri-­‐ ate   to   their   times)   this   theological   stance   towards   the   human   past.   Macaulay   is   a   child   of   this   Protestant   attitude   to   the   human   past.   What   we   call   today   as   a   ‘historical   attitude’;   our   ideas   about   why   study   the   human   past;   how   we   ‘ought   to’   do   that;   these   are   all   solidly   rooted   in   Protestant  Christianity.  That  is,  it  is  both  Christian  (thus  partially  shared  by  the  Catholics  and  the   Protestants  alike)  and  Protestant.   The  common  end   Under   the   colonial   rule,   the   British   aggressively   pushed   their   beliefs   onto   us.   They   quizzed   us   about  our  past  in  ways  we  were  not  used  to  before.  Taking  our  multiple  stories,  epics  and  pura-­‐ nas  as  though  they  were  historiographies,  they  derided  us  for  believing  in  their  ‘truth’.  Our  intel-­‐ lectuals,  whose  story  under  the  colonial  rules  is  a  sad  story  of  succumbing  to  what  they  did  not   understand,   broadly   took   the   only   two   paths   available   to   them:   either   deny   the   truth   of   such   stories  or  try  and  show  that  these  stories  were  ‘true’  chronicles  of  the  past.  It  did  not  occur  to   these  intellectuals  to  study  the  culture  of  these  colonizers  and  figure  out  what  kinds  of  questions   the  colonizers  were  asking.  They  merely  assumed  that  the  attitudes  of  the  colonial  masters  were   exemplifications   of   reason,   rationality   and   scientificity.   In   the   first   phase,   our   intellectuals   ac-­‐ cepted  the  absence  of  historiography  in  the  Indian  traditions  and  set  out  to  solve  that  lacuna  by   writing   histories   of   India.   Of   course,   these   were   based   completely   and   totally   on   the   ‘philosophy   of  history’  that  the  Europeans  sold  at  steeply  discounted  prices  on  the  Indian  continent.  In  the   second   phase,   they   joined   the   Europeans   in   deriding   the   Indian   traditions   and   their   stock   of   sto-­‐ ries   about   the   past.   In   the   third   phase,   they   simply   took   over   the   European   historiography   of   India  and  went  on  to  garnish  it  with  Indian  spices,  which  merely  meant  adding  new  ‘empirical   details’,  as  and  when  one  ‘discovered’  them.  In  this  sense,  the  attitude  of  writing  a  history  of  In-­‐ dian  culture  and  civilization,  based  on  a  meticulous  ‘study’  of  the  past  is  not  anything  new.  It  is  an   old  knee-­‐jerk  reaction  to  the  Protestant  critique  of  the  Indian  culture  and  traditions.   What  do  these  historiographies  accomplish?  They  teach  us,  for  instance,  that  the  Mahabharata   war   could   have   taken   place,   except,   of   course,   it   was   probably   a   war   between   a   collection   of   tribes.  It  is  merely  the  poetic  exaggeration  that  has  provided  us  with  a  description  of  epic  pro-­‐ portions.  So,  in  all  probability,  these  historians  assure  us,  there  was  some  kind  of  a  war,  some-­‐ where  in  the  north  of  India  about  a  few  thousand  years  ago.  As  far  as  Krishna  lifting  the  moun-­‐ tain  with  his  little  finger  or  about  Ghatotkacha  fighting  the  war  with  ‘the  magic’  of  the  Rakshasas,   12     they   do   not   even   bother   to   hide   the   snigger:   of   course,   it   is   all   either   nonsense   or   mere   poetic   exaggeration.  Surely,  we  know  that  no  human  individual  can  lift  the  mountain  with  his  little  fin-­‐ ger   and,   in   all   probability,   the   ‘Rakshasas’   was   the   name   of   another   tribe,   which,   perhaps,   was   neutral  in  this  tribal  war.    In  other  words,  Mahabharata  and  Ramayana  (and  all  our  stories  about   the   past)   are   merely   disguised   historiographies   or   lies   and   exaggerations   of   our   incompetent   ancestors  (‘incompetent’  because  they  could  not  even  do  what  Thucydides  did  or  the  Chinese  did   so  many  thousands  of  years  ago)  which  only  the  current  generation  of  historians  can  decipher.   In  one  sense,  until  recently,  the  damage  was  limited.  It  was  limited  because  this  group  of  histori-­‐ ans   shared   the   deep,   Nehruvian   contempt  for   Indian   culture   and   her   traditions.   They   strutted   in   the  enclaves  of  elite  universities,  flew  to  international  conferences  to  present  their  papers  there   and,  generally  speaking,  felt  much  above  the  rest  of  the  Indian  ‘masses’  steeped  in  ignorance  and   superstition.  Not  knowing  about  their  own  profound  ignorance  of  the  origin,  nature  and  mean-­‐ ing   of   these   ‘scientific’   questions,   these   historians   were   content   to   reproduce   whatever   their   Metropolitan  masters  wanted.  They  had  built  a  wall  of  separation  between  their  ‘secularism’  and   the  ‘religiosity’  of  the  Indian  masses.   Today,   especially   in   the   last   decades,   the   picture   has   changed   drastically   and   alarmingly.   It   is   important  for  us  to  understand  this  latest  development.   Both  British  ‘liberalism’  and  the  Nehruvian  ‘secularism’  brought  another  reaction  into  existence   in  India.  We  are  familiar  with  one  kind:  the  kind  that  derides  Indian  culture,  her  traditions  and   holds  the  West  as  the  picture  of  perfection.  These  people  have  been  dominant  in  the  press  and   the   universities   for   over   a   century.   But,   I   want   to   talk   about   its   antipode:   a   tendency   that   too   is   a   child  of  British  Protestantism,  Christian  to  the  core,  but  one  which  borrows  from  other  strands   available  in  European  Christianity.   This  tendency  goes  the  other  way:  it  claims  that  our  stories  about  the  past  are  literally  our  histo-­‐ ries.  We  too  have  historiographers  from  the  past,  we  too  know  ‘the  truth’  about  our  past,  what   we  say  about  our  past  is  the  literal  ‘truth’  and  they  are  not  poetic  lies  or  exaggerations.   Enter  the   Sangh  Parivar.   The  Sangh  Parivar,  actually,  is  a  confluence  of  at  least  two  orientations.  On  the  one  hand,  it  intui-­‐ tively  reacts  to  the  Christian  descriptions  of  Indian  culture.  It  senses  that  there  is  something  pro-­‐ found  about  Indian  culture,  her  traditions,  her  multiple  stories  about  the  past,  and  so  on.  It  sens-­‐ es   too   that   there   are   various   ways   of   being   on   earth   and   that   the   Christian   and   the   Muslim   ways   of  ‘being-­‐in-­‐the-­‐world’  are  but  two  out  of  many  different  ways.  And  it  reacts  with  incomprehen-­‐ sion   as   well,   while   listening   to   the   criticisms   of   the   religiously   founded   ‘secular’   criticisms   of   eve-­‐ 13     rything  Indian.  It  cannot  accept  selling  Christian  ideology  as  the  best  exemplar  of  ‘scientific’  ap-­‐ proach  to  the  past.  But,  it  too  is  profoundly  and  deeply  ignorant  of  western  culture.   On   the   other   hand,   for   reasons   I   am   not  fully  clear  about,   the  Sangh  Parivar   does   not   have  many   intellectuals   in   its   midst.   It   has   many   ideologues   instead.   Lacking   the   ability   to   do   intellectual   research,   these   ideologues   pick   up   whatever   is   readily   available.   Two   such   things   are   readily   available:  nationalism  and  the  Christian  stories  about  history.  The  ideologues  of  the  Sangh  Pari-­‐ var  have  picked  them  both.   These  two  things,  when  mixed  together,  are  catastrophic  in  nature.  The  ideologues  of  the  Sangh   Parivar   might   do   what   centuries   of   colonialism   tried   but   could   not   accomplish:   destroy   the   Indi-­‐ an  culture  and  her  traditions  irreplaceably  and  irrevocably.  They  might  do  that  while  truly  be-­‐ lieving  that  they  are  ‘saving’  the  Indian  culture  and  her  traditions.  Let  me  explain  why.   Our  multiple  stories  about  the  past,  among  other  things,  provide  us  with  a  deep  connection  to  a   collective   past.   We   read   or   hear   the   Mahabharata   and   the   Ramayana   and   we   feel   that   Rama,   Duryodhana,  Dharmaraja,  etc  were  our  kings.  When  we  participate  in  the  festival  of  Deepavali,   we   open   our   doors   to   Bali,   a   rakshasa,   as   the   greatest   king   we   ever   had.   We   feel   connected   to   Sita,   Draupadi   and   Abhimanyu.   We   have   wept   when   we   heard   the   story   of   Ekalavya;   we   feel   touched  by  Karna’s  fate;  we  get  angry  at  Shakuni  and  Dushyasana.  We  want  brothers  to  be  like   Rama   and   Lakshmana.   We   feel   connected   to   all   these   people   in   a   myriad   of   ways   and   our   connec-­‐ tion  is  deeper  than  our  connections  to  great  grandfathers,  whom  we  have  never  met  (in  all  prob-­‐ ability).  In  short,  we  feel  part  of  that  genealogy  which  these  multiple  stories  present  as  our  col-­‐ lective  past.   As  children,  we  have  often  wondered  where  these  people  lived  and  what  languages  they  spoke   in.  Did  Krishna  speak  in  a  local  language,  Sanskrit  or  something  else  totally?  In  which  language   did   Yaksha   ask   questions   to   Dharmaraja?   How   did   Sita   or   Hanumantha   speak   to   Ravana?   How   did   the   rishis   and   the   kings   from   Kambhoja   communicate   with   those   from   Jambudwipa?   Are   the   nagas  of  today  the  descendents  of  Arjuna,  is  the  Mathura  near  Delhi  also  the  place  where  Krishna   lived?  Are  the  vanaras  that  helped  Rama,  the  ancestors  of  those  monkeys  that  we  see  today?  And   the  Yugas;  what  are  they  actually?  Is  the  treta  and  the  dwapara  yuga  merely  how  the  earth  was   so  many  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years  ago?  And  so  on  and  so  forth.   As  we  grew  up  and  learnt  our  geographies  and  sciences,  we  did  try  to  combine  both:  how  could   there  be  treta  yuga  when  our  species  is  hardly  50,000  years  old?  How  could  Bhima  really  have   the  strength  of  10,000  elephants  and  Duryodhana  merely  9999?  How  could  Dharmaraja  ‘walk’  to   Swarga  and,  if  he  did,  why  could  Trishanku  not  do  the  same?  And  so  on  as  well.  We  went  to  our   14     elders  with  these  questions  seeking  answers,  which  were  no  answers  at  all.  Yet,  they  satisfied  us.   Over  a  period  of  time,  we  stopped  asking  these  questions.  Not  because  we  knew  the  answers  or   that   they   were   unanswerable.   But   we   stopped   asking   such   questions   because   we   learnt,   in   whichever  way  we  did  so,  that  these  were  not  the  right  questions  to  ask.  To  grow  up  as  an  Indian   is  to  learn  that  these  stories  should  be  treated  differently  than  claims  from  our  geography  lessons.   That   is   to   say,   we   learnt   that   ‘the   truth’   of   these   stories   are   independent   of   our   acceptance   of   these   stories  as  our  stories  and  as  stories  about  ‘our  collective  past’.  Whether  or  not  some  story  about   our  past  took  place  on  earth  or  not,  such  a  ‘fact’  is  utterly  irrelevant  to  accepting  these  stories.   This  attitude  works  as  long  as  we  are  not  brought  up  with  the  idea  that  the  ground  for  accepting   such  stories  is  their  ‘historical  truth’.   What   happens   when   people   make   claims   that   ‘rama   sethu’   exists,   Ayodhya   is   situated   some-­‐ where  in  northern  India  and  such  like?  What  happens  when  such  ‘historical’  claims  begin  to  find   their  way  into  people’s  consciousness?   In  the  early  phases,  there  is  happiness  and  euphoria.  Not  because  we  can  now  say,  “ah,  after  all,   everything  that  the  Ramayana  says  is  true”.  But  because  we  feel  our  connections  to  the  past  have   taken   on   tangible   presence.   We   feel   that   we   recognize   these   empirical   markers   because   we   have   always   been   familiar   with   them.   Dwaraka,   Brindavana,   Kurukshetra,   Ayhodhya...   these   are   our   cities  and  our  past.  Suddenly,  there  is  exhilaration:  it  merely  requires  a  few  days  journey  to  go  to   Kurukshetra!  We  can  go  to  Mathura  and  walk  around  in  Brindavana!  However,  this  is  merely  the   first   phase.   What   happens   in   the   subsequent   phase   when   this   claim   is   pushed   further,   as   it   is   invariably  going  to  be?   Consider   the   following   scenario.   It   becomes   common   ‘knowledge’   that   the   war   between   the   Kauravas  and  the  Pandavas  was  a  tribal  war,  fought  somewhere  in  the  north  of  India  some  three   thousand  years  ago.  And  that  ‘rakshasa’,  ‘vanara’  merely  named  some  or  another  tribe  in  India.   Krishna   was   a   dark-­‐skinned   upstart   from   some   tribe;   Rama   was   a   king   somewhere   up   north;   Draupadi  was  a  daughter  from  yet  another  tribe  that  practiced  polygamy,  and  so  on.  In  short,  we   discover  that  our  epics  and  puranas  are  badly  written  historiographies  that  chronicle  the  lives  of   ordinary  human  beings  like  you  and  me.  We  discover  what  we  knew  all  along:  it  is  not  possible   to  train  the  monkeys  that  swing  from  tree  to  tree  to  build  a  bridge  between  India  and  Sri  Lanka.   Then  the  ‘Dalit’  and  progressive  intellectuals  turn  up.  They  tell  us  that  some  or  another  Brahmin   poet   merely   described   the   work   of   the   ‘slaves’   of   a   human   king   called   ‘Rama’   as   the   work   of   ‘monkeys’.  By  calling  these  slaves  as  ‘monkeys’,  they  add,  the  ‘upper-­‐caste’  proves  yet  again  its   disdain  and  contempt  for  and  the  oppression  of  ‘the  Dalits’.  As  has  been  typical  of  the  ‘Aryans’,   15     the  Brahmin  priests  were  not  even  willing  to  consider  such  ‘slaves’  as  human  beings.  The  same   argument   would   then   get   applied   to   the   Danavas   and   Rakshasas:   we   ‘discover’   that   the   ‘Dravidi-­‐ ans’  were  the  Rakshasas  and  the  Danavas  of  our  epics.   Do   not   mistake   the   point   I   am   making   here.   No   factoid   or   even   a   set   of   factoids   will   ever   lend   truth-­‐value   to   these   claims.   They   would   be   mere   surmises   and   guesses.   But   they   will   get   pushed   across   as   ‘scientific’   and   ‘historical’   hypotheses   that   very   soon   end   up   becoming   ‘facts’   about   the   Indian   past.   They   will   acquire   the   same   status   that   the   ‘Indological’   truths   have   today.   For   in-­‐ stance,   which   intellectual   in   the   world   challenges   the   claim   that   ‘Buddhism’   battled   against   ‘Brahmanism’?   Almost   none.   How   many   know   of   the   circumstances   that   produced   this   ‘guess-­‐ work’  or  even  about  the  amount  of  Christian  theological  baggage  required  to  sustain  this  claim?   Alas,  hardly  any.   In   exactly   the   same   way,   with   such   stories   accompanying   the   growth   of   a   new   generation,   which   one  of  them  will  ever  want  to  become  a  Bhakta  of  Rama,  Krishna  or  Anjaneya?  How  many  will  go   to   their   temples   or   even   build   them?   When   they   grow   up   in   the   knowledge   that   ‘kurukshetra’   names   a   place   somewhere   in   North   India   where   the   local   tribes   from   the   region   fought   a   war   fought  during  500  B.C.E;  when  they  grow  up  in  the  knowledge  that  a  tribe  called  ‘Nagas’,  from   some  remote  part  of  India,  also  figure  in  an  imaginary  epic  whose  authoritative  critical  edition  is   published   by   some   or   another   University   Press   in   the   US;   when   they   ‘know’   that   the   local   events   in  some  remote  city  (Bikaner,  Ayodhya...)  were  presented  to  their  credulous  forefathers  as  ‘the   history’  of  India;  when  they  know  all  these  and  more,  what  would  be  their  connection  to  what   we  consider  as  our  past  today?   Perhaps,  they  would  even  end  up  being  ashamed  of  their  past  and  of  their  stories  about  the  past:   such  stories  confirm  the  worst  that  the  world  has  told  about  India.  Indian  culture  and  her  ‘reli-­‐ gions’   were   created   to   inflict   massive   injustice   on   fellow-­‐human   beings.   ‘Hinduism’   would,   of   course,  be  the  main  culprit.   We  are  almost  past  the  first  phase  in  this  development.  The  ideologues  of  the  Sangh  Parivar  are   beginning  to  initiate  the  subsequent  phase.  Instead  of  asking  questions  about  the  nature  of  ‘his-­‐ torical  truth’;  instead  of  studying  the  religious  culture  where  such  questions  originate  from;  in-­‐ stead,   that   is,   of   understanding   the   relationship   between   stories   about   the   past   and   human   communities,  the  ideologues  of  the  Sangh  Parivar  want  to  establish  the  ‘historicity’  of  our  epics   and   stories.   In   the   process   of   pushing   this   Christian   theme,   these   ideologues   might   end   up   achieving  what  Islam  and  Christianity  have  always  desired:  destruction  of  the  ‘pagan’  and  ‘hea-­‐ then’   culture   that   India   is.   What   the   Muslim   kings   and   the   Evangelical   Protestants   could   not   16     achieve  over  centuries,  the  ideologues  from  the  Sangh  Parivar  might  achieve  in  a  matter  of  dec-­‐ ades.   In  order  to  destroy  the  past  of  a  people,  all  you  need  to  do  is  to  give  them  history.  What  is  called   ‘history’   today   is   a   secularization   of   the   Christian   religion.   Christianity,   Islam   and   Judaism   are   hostile  to  anything  different  from  themselves,  especially,  to  the  ‘Pagan  and  heathen’.  This  hostili-­‐ ty  persists  in  its  secularized  varieties  as  well.  Hence  the  hostility  of  the  so-­‐called  ‘scientific’  his-­‐ torians   of   the   last   so   many   decades   to   Indian   culture   and   her   traditions.   The   ideologues   of   the   Sangh  Parivar  too,  in  their  utter  and  total  ignorance  of  the  western  culture,  are  pushing  a  Chris-­‐ tian  religious  theme  on  to  the  Indian  culture.  Where  explicitly  Christian  and  Islamic  attacks  on   the   heathen   culture   of   India   failed,   there,   if   not   thought   through,   this   attack   might   end   up   suc-­‐ ceeding.  The  saddest  thing  of  it  all  is  this:  the  Sangh  Parivar  genuinely  believes  that  it  is  helping   the  Indian  culture.  Its  ideologues  are  not  doing  that;  they  might  contribute  to  the  destruction  of   Indian  culture.   So,  it  appears,  the  questions  facing  us  are  these:  do  we  need  a  history  that  Christianity  has  written,   or  do  we  need  to  retain  our  past?  What  do  Indians  need?  Before  answering  these  two  questions,   we  need  to  understand  what  we  have,  which  is  ‘itihasa’.  But  what  is  that  exactly?  What  does  it   mean  to  speak  of  the  Ramayana,  the  Mahabharata  and  the  puranas  as  ‘our  past’  or  as  our  ‘itiha-­‐ sa’?  How  do  they  relate  to  Indian  culture?  I  take  up  these  questions  now.   II   Let  me  begin  the  second  part  with  the  following  dialogue  between  a  Swiss-­‐German  and  a  young   Balinese   (from   Bichsel,   Peter,   Der   Leser,   Das   Erzählen:   Frankfurter   Poetik-­‐Vorlesungen,   1982,   Darmstadt  und  Neuwied:  Hermann  Luchterhand  Verlag.  Pp.  13-­‐14,  my  translation  and  italics):   When  I  discovered,  or  when  it  was  explained  to  me,  that  Hinduism  is  a  pedagogical  religion,   namely,  that  in  so  far  as  the  best  “good  deed”  of  a  Hindu  consisted  of  explaining  something   or  the  other,  I  lost  my  inhibitions  and  began  with  questions...   A  young  Balinese  became  my  primary  teacher.  One  day  I  asked  him  if  he  believed  that  the   history  of  Prince  Rama  –  one  of  the  holy  books  of  the  Hindus  –  is  true.   Without  hesitation,  he  answered  it  with  “Yes”.   “So  you  believe  that  the  Prince  Rama  lived  somewhere  and  somewhen?”   “I  do  not  know  if  he  lived”,  he  said.   17      “Then  it  is  a  story?”   “Yes,  it  is  a  story.”   “Then  someone  wrote  this  story  –  I  mean:  a  human  being  wrote  it?”   “Certainly  some  human  being  wrote  it”,  he  said.   “Then  some  human  being  could  have  also  invented  it”,  I  answered  and  felt  triumphant,  when   I  thought  that  I  had  convinced  him.   But  he  said:  “It  is  quite  possible  that  somebody  invented  this  story.  But  true  it  is,  in  any  case.”   “Then  it  is  the  case  that  Prince  Rama  did  not  live  on  this  earth?”   “What  is  it  that  you  want  to  know?”  he  asked.  “Do  you  want  to  know  whether  the  story  is   true,  or  merely  whether  it  occurred?”   “The  Christians  believe  that  their  God  Jesus  Christ  was  also  on  earth”,  I  said,  “In  the  New  Tes-­‐ tament,  it  has  been  described  by  human  beings.  But  the  Christians  believe  that  this  is  the  de-­‐ scription  of  the  reality.  Their  God  was  also  really  on  Earth.”   My  Balinese  friend  thought  it  over  and  said:  “I  had  been  already  so  informed.  I  do  not  under-­‐ stand  why  it  is  important  that  your  God  was  on  earth,  but  it  does  strike  me  that  the  Euro-­‐ peans  are  not  pious.  Is  that  correct?”       “Yes,  it  is”,  I  said.     Consider   carefully   the   claims   of   this   young   Balinese.   (A)   Even   though   the   narrative   of   events   could   have   been   invented   and   written   by   a   human   being,   his   ‘holy   book’   remains   true.   (B)   He   does  not  know,  or  even  interested  in  knowing,  whether  Rama  really  lived  but  that  does  not  affect   the  truth  of  the  Ramayana.  (C)  He  draws  a  distinction  between  a  true  story  (not  just  any  story,   nota  bene,  but  his  ‘holy  book’)  and  a  chronicle  of  events  on  earth.  (D)  Finally,  it  remains  his  ‘holy’   book  despite  the  above  or  precisely  because  of  it.   That  is  to  say,  he  is  indifferent  to  historical  truth  and  suggests,  in  the  italicized  parts  of  the  dia-­‐ logue,  that  it  is  not  a  proper  question  to  ask;  even  if  it  is  the  invention  of  a  human  being  and  even   if  it  is  historically  unfounded,  the  story  retains  its  truth.  He  correlates  impiety  with  believing  in   the  truth  of  the  Biblical  narrative.  As  I  would  like  to  formulate  it,  not  only  is  the  young  Indone-­‐ sian   drawing   a   distinction   between   a   story   and   a   history   but   is   also   suggesting   that   the   historici-­‐ 18     ty  of  the  Ramayana  is  irrelevant  to  its  truth.  His  stance,  I  would  like  to  add,  is  also  the  stance  of   many,  many  Indians,  even  if  subject  to  some  changes  during  the  last  few  decades.   In   a   way,   in   the   West   and   elsewhere,   we   do   talk   about   stories   in   an   analogous   fashion.   When   the   Sherlock   Holmes   Society   disputes   whether   the   famed   detective   ever   really   said   “Elementary,   my   dear  Watson”,  the  dispute  is  not  whether  Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle  ever  wrote  such  a  sentence  but   whether   Sherlock   Holmes   ever   said   such   a   thing.   In   this   sense,   we   do   talk   about   the   ‘truth’   or   ‘falsity’   of   stories   (the   way   the   Indonesian   does),   even   where   we   know   that   there   is   no   historical   truth  to  them.  In  the  case  of  this  Indonesian,  or  the  Asian,  who  believes  in  his  ‘holy  books’,  the   situation   is   more   complicated:   in   his   culture,   the   Ramayana   is   ‘true’   even   when   it   is   not   clear   what  the  status  of  the  book  is.  Perhaps  it  is  fiction;  perhaps  it  is  not.  He  neither  knows  nor  cares.   To  know  that  the  Bible  is  historical,  suggests  this  Balinese,  makes  the  Europeans  impious.  Impie-­‐ ty   is   to   believe   that   one’s   ‘religion’   is   historically   true!   Many   questions   emerge,   if   we   read   this   dia-­‐ logue   carefully:   how   does   the   Balinese   understand   the   “historical”?   Does   the   notion   make   any   sense  in  his  mode  of  going  about  in  the  world?  Or,  is  he  inferring  the  “value”  of  this  term  from  his   interlocutor’s  account  of  the  Christians?   We  can  say  that  Sherlock  Holmes  did  not  exist,  and  still  argue  that  it  is  true  that  he  lived  in  221B   Baker  Street.  When  we  discuss  the  truth  of  fictional  objects,  we  know  that  we  are  talking  about   fictions.   The   “truth”   here   is   unverifiable   but   experientially   accessible;   “fiction”   can   “touch”   us   The  question  about  how  we  can  analyse  our  disputations  about  the  truth  of  an  object  or  an  event   in  fiction  is  different  from  expressing  indifference  regarding  the  status  of  the  narrative  itself.  The   first  is  familiar  to  us;  there  are  interesting  attempts  in  both  literature  studies  and  philosophy  of   logics  to  analyse  them.  I  want  to  draw  attention  to  the  second:  it  does  not  seem  to  matter  wheth-­‐ er  the  Ramayana  is  true  or  not;  whether  it  is  fiction  or  fact.  The  ‘ontological’  status  of  the  content   of  the  text  is  irrelevant  to  its  truth.   To  understand  this  situation  properly,  we  need  a  contrast.  Let  me,  therefore,  ask  the  question:   How   similar   is   the   stance   of   the   Indonesian   regarding   the   Ramayana   when   compared   to   the   atti-­‐ tudes   with   respect   to   the  Bible?   In   the   last   decades,   a   “narrative   criticism”   is   observable   in   theo-­‐ logical  circles.  Many  advocate  that  we  look  at  the  Bible  in  its  entirety  as  a  series  of  stories;  yet   others   focus   on   the   New   Testament   in   an   analogous   fashion.   Especially   under   the   influence   of   the  ‘deconstruction’  movement  and  ‘post-­‐modern  theology’,  the  Greek  distinction  between   my-­‐ thos  and  logos  has  come  under  attack  and  criticism.  Are  the  problems  I  am  trying  to  formulate   comparable  to  these  and  allied  tendencies?   19     Because   much   more   requires   to   be   said   in   this   context   than   I   can   possibly   do   now,   let   me   rest   content  with  making  just  two  points.   Whatever  the  intellectual  fashion  in  Biblical  scholarship  (or  in  New  Testament  studies),  we  must   not   forget   that   they   are   responses   to   the   historical   problems   posed   by   Biblical   exegesis.   The   ‘narrative  turn’  is  one  answer  to  the  problem  of  the  historicity  of  Jesus  and  the  truth  of  the  Gos-­‐ pels.  Even  these  narrativists,  today  in  any  case,  would  not  dream  of  taking  the  stance  (as  Chris-­‐ tians,  nota  bene)  that  the  existence  of  Jesus  on  earth  is  irrelevant  to  the  truth  of  the  Bible.  In  fact,   this  turn  is  predicated  on  the  historical  veracity  of  the  New  Testament  Bible.   Suppose   someone   says   the   following:   Jesus   might   or   might   not   have   existed;   he   might   be   The   Saviour  or  he  might  not  be;  he  might  have  asked  Peter  to  found  the  Church  or  he  might  not  have;   the  Gospels  might  be  the  fictitious  invention  of  some  four  people  or  it  might  not  be.  As  far  as  he   is  concerned,  any  of  the  above  possibilities  could  be  true,  and  the  truth  or  falsity  of  none  of  the   above   affects   his   belief   in   the   truth   of   the   Gospels.   How   could   we   understand   such   a   person?   Probably,   The   Holy   Bible   is   not   ‘holy’   to   him;   perhaps,   he   sees   the   Bible   as   a   moral   tract   or   a   sto-­‐ ry-­‐based  philosophical  treatise  on  the  human  condition.  Whether  or  not  such  an  attitude  is  justi-­‐ fied,  we  know  that  he  cannot  really  be  a  Christian.   There  is  a  second  point.  Even  where  the  Gospel  is  seen  as  a  story,  it  becomes  an  object  of  investi-­‐ gation   as   a   text.   Only   as   a   text   can   the   Bible   provide   ‘knowledge’   (of   whatever   kind).   Such   an   attitude  suggests  that  knowledge  is  primarily  textual  in  nature.  Consequently,  even  the  narrative   turn  –  if  and  where  it  does  turn  radical  –  requires  knowledge  of  the  text.  Further,  it  will  look  at   the  text  of  the  Bible  as  a  story,  and  will  talk  about  the  way  the  Gospels  talk  about  the  world,  man   and  society  without,  however,  being  able  to  look  at  stories  in  other  ways.  That  is  to  say,  stories   are  treated  as  knowledge-­‐claims  about  the  world.   The   difference,   with   respect   to   the   Indonesian,   lies   along   these   two   lines:   to   him,   the   story   of   Rama   does   impart   knowledge   but   without   it   being   a   knowledge-­‐claim   about   the   world.   And   to   him,   stories   are   ‘true’   not   because   they   are   ‘fictions’   and   even   less   because   they   are   historical   facts.  In  that  case,  what  is  the  nature  of  such  stories  and  what  is  the  attitude  of  those  who  make   these   stories   their   own?   In   simple   terms,   how   do   we   make   sense   of   this   Young   Balinese   or   those   many  Indians  who  would  agree  with  him?  What  is  the  nature  of  “truth”  involved  in  the  Indone-­‐ sian’s  claim  about  Rama?   On  a  metaphor  and  ‘truths’     20     To   begin   answering   these   questions,   a   metaphor   could   prove   useful.   Consider   a   dominant   meta-­‐ phor   in   Indian   culture.   Used   by   the   literate   and   the   illiterate   alike,   it   is   about   ten   blind   men:   while   touching   and   feeling   ten   different   parts   of   an   elephant   (tusk,   tail,   snout,   ear,   trunk,   leg,   toenails,   skin,   back   and   underbelly),   they   carry   on   maintaining   that   an   elephant   is   that   part   which  he  happens  to  be  touching.  Such,  the  wise  tell  us,  is  the  nature  of  our  disputation.  Disputa-­‐ tion  about  what?  I  will  keep  the  answer  in  abeyance  for  the  time  being  but  let  us  say  for  now  that   it  is  about  ‘the  world’.  Coming  to  grips  with  this  metaphor,  however,  requires  a  short  philosophi-­‐ cal  detour  through  discussions  about  the  nature  of  ‘truth’  in  Indian  intellectual  traditions.   Only   for   the   sake   of   keeping   this   detour   short,   simple   and   accessible,   let   me   draw   on   the   current   claims  of  Indology  and  Hinduism  studies.  These  claims  postulate  rivalry,  competition  and  strife   between  multiple  Indian  traditions.  Let  me  create  an  anachronistic  spectrum  of  Indian  traditions   where  the  Advaitic  tradition  stands  at  one  end  of  the  spectrum  with  the  Buddhist  traditions  at   the   other   end.   Both   operate   with   the   idea   that   there   are   two   kinds   of   truths   (Satyadvaya):   the   ‘Conventional’  (Vyaavahaarika,  or  Laukika  or  Praapanchika)  and  the  ‘Ultimate’  (Paaramaaarthi-­‐ ka).   The  conventional  truths  are  true  claims  about  the  entities  that  exist  in  the  world.  In  some  senses,   this   notion   of   truth   dovetails   with   what   is   called   the   ‘semantic   conception’   of   truth   or,   equally   often,   the   ‘Aristotelean   conception’   of   truth.   The   conventional   truth   further   includes   the   ‘prag-­‐ matic  conception’  of  truth.  In  other  words,  the  semantic  and  pragmatic  conceptions  of  truth  are   parts  of  the  conventional  conception  of  truth.  This  truth  is  always  and  only  about  existing  enti-­‐ ties  (which  include  objects,  events,  situations  or  whatever  else)  in  the  world.   However,  what  is  the  world  and  what  exists  there?  The  world  is  everything  that  was,  is  and  shall   be.   It   includes   everything:   from   primordial   matter   to   ghosts   and   spirits,   if   they   exist.   The   ‘world’   is  the  most  inclusive  concept  we  have  to  accommodate  entities  that  existed,  that  exist  now  and   shall   exist   in   the   future.   What   exists   though?   The   answer   to   this   question   cannot   be   provided   by   a  philosophical  fiat,  but  only  by  knowledge.  Only  knowledge  tells  us  what  there  is  in  the  world,   and   this   knowledge   is   always   limited,   ‘perspectival’   and   hypothetical.   Knowledge   is,   in   some   senses,   about   empirical   properties   of   the   world,   as   we   sometimes   use   that   term.   Also,   what   con-­‐ stitutes   knowledge   is   itself   a   question   in   knowledge   and   both   the   question   and   the   answers   to   it   are  human.  As  our  knowledge  of  the  world  evolves,  so  does  our  understanding  of  what  human   knowledge   is.   This   human   knowledge   tells   us   that   the   world   itself   is   subject   to   all   kinds   of   changes.   Our   conventional   truths   are   contextual   and   evolving:   what   we   believe   to   be   true   at   some  time  might  turn  out  to  be  false  later.  These  truths,  like  the  world  about  which  they  are  true,   are  in  flux,  to  use  a  well-­‐known  metaphor.  In  simple  terms,  the  conventional  truths  are  context   21     dependent   and   conditional   in   nature.   This   is   how   we   must   understand   our   present   day   claims   about  such  entities  as  ‘super  strings’,  ‘dark  matter’  and  such  like.  We  hypothesize  the  existence   of   such   entities   currently;   they   might   or   might   not   exist,   but   that   is   something   we   shall   know   only  as  knowledge  evolves.   Here   is   the   first   sense   in   which   the   dominant   metaphor   is   suggestive.   It   tells   us   that   our   knowledge   of   the   word   is   always   partial   and   while   partial   descriptions   are   true,   they   remain   partial.  They  are  true  of  those  parts  that  our  knowledge  describes  but  none  of  these  parts  tells  us   what  ‘the  elephant’  is.  However,  what  is  this  ‘elephant’,  if  not  a  sum  of  the  parts?  A  knowledge  of   systems   theory   of   today   tells   us   that   the   previous   question   is   not   proper:   the   relationship   be-­‐ tween  an  elephant  and  the  organs  is  a  part-­‐whole  relationship,  i.e.  that  it  is  a  mereological  rela-­‐ tion.  A  description  of  the  parts  of  a  system,  even  when  such  descriptions  are  true,  does  not  give   us  a  description  of  the  system  itself.     Consider   now   the   fact   that   while   the   blind   men   do   have   tactile   access   to   parts   of   an   elephant,   they  have  access  to  the  elephant  as  a  creature.  Thus,  we  have  access  to  ‘something’,  whose  na-­‐ ture  we  do  not  know  yet.  But,  in  terms  of  the  metaphor,  we  do  not  know  what  the  ‘elephant’  is   except  for  the  parts  about  which  we  have  some  true  descriptions.  In  and  of  itself,  that  need  not   create  any  problem  because  we  can  generate  hypotheses  about  that  entity  which  has  these  parts.   However,   this   requires   that   we   know   that   these   partial   descriptions,   and   only   these   partial   de-­‐ scriptions,  are  descriptions  of  one  and  the  same  entity.  However,  as  blind  men,  we  do  not  know   that:  what  if  there  are  more  than  ten  blind  men  some  of  whom  are  touching  parts  of  a  cat,  others   parts  of  a  table  and  yet  some  others  the  parts  of  an  automobile  and  so  on?  Are  we  to  assume  that   they  are  touching  one  and  the  same  entity  or  different  entities?  How  can  we  know  that?   One   possibility   is   to   appeal   to   human   reason.  That   is   to   say,   if   the   hypothesis   is   logical   and   it   ex-­‐ plains  in  a  consistent  fashion  that  which  we  access,  then  this  hypothesis  can  be  considered  pos-­‐ sibly  true.  (In  this  sense,  I  think  there  is  also  the  syntactic  conception  of  truth  in  the  Indian  tradi-­‐ tions.)   If   there   are   many   such   hypotheses   then   that   does   not   show   that   only   one   of   them   is   ‘true’   (even   though   each   adherent   to   a   particular   hypothesis   thinks   that   way)   because   we   have   no   knowledge   about   the   nature   of   the   objects   but   only   some   ill-­‐understood   access   to   them.   If   we   confine  the  debate  to  the  metaphor,  that  is,  agree  that  the  discussion  is  about  what  the  ‘elephant’   is,   we   can   recognize   that   a   similar   debate   has   taken   place   in   the   western   intellectual   tradition.   This  is  the  discussion  between  the  nominalists  and  the  realists  (to  use  one  set  of  labels)  about   the  nature  of  Universals:  what  is  the  ontological  status  of  terms  like  ‘elephant’,  ‘Green’,  etc.?  Does   ‘green’  refer  to  a  world  of  ‘colour’  or  are  green  objects  merely  similar  with  respect  to  their  prop-­‐ erty  of  having  a  colour?  Here,  given  that  the  proponents  in  the  debate  are  trying  to  answer  the   22     same  question,  we  can  assume  that  their  theories  or  hypotheses  are  rival  and  competing  theo-­‐ ries.   Consider  now  the  possibility  that  this  discussion  about  the  elephant  and  other  objects  have  been   going   on   for   some   time   and   that   these   groups   of   blind   men   have   evolved   criteria   to   arrive   at   some   kind   of   consensus   about   the   criteria   they   use   to   settle   their   disagreements.   Now,   there   arrives  another  group  of  blind  men,  who  have  managed  to  use  knives  but  without  having  a  tac-­‐ tile  access  to  the  surfaces  of  the  objects  they  have  dissected  or  cut  through.  Some  have  dissected   an  elephant,  yet  others  have  failed  to  saw  through  its  tusk,  some  have  skinned  a  cat  and  some   others  have  tried  to  cut  through  the  table  or  the  automobile  and  so  on.  These  two  groups  meet  to   discuss  about  the  nature  of  the  items  they  have  access  to.  To  keep  the  discussion  simple,  let  us   assume   that   both   groups   have   reached   a   consensus   about   the   separateness   of   these   objects.   However,  their  hypotheses  about  the  nature  of  the  objects  that  the  second  group  has  access  to   diverge   radically   from   the   hypotheses   that   the   first   group   has.   To   the   first   group,   it   is   obvious   that  the  entities  they  have  tactile  access  to  are  neither  soft  (tissues)  nor  mushy  (internal  organs)   and  definitely  not  like  liquids  (blood).  That  is  to  say,  the  second  group  of  hypotheses  goes  in  a   direction  that  is  antithetical  to  what  their  knowledge  tells  them  about  their  access.  To  the  second   group,  the  hypotheses  of  the  first  group  also  contravenes  their  knowledge.  How  should  they  de-­‐ cide   what   their   debate   is   now   about?   Is   it   about   the   ontological   status   of   the   ‘elephant’   (or   about   the   ontological   status   of   the   ‘cat’   or   ‘the   automobile’)?   Are   they   rival   hypotheses   and   competitor   theories  or  merely  true  descriptions  of  different  levels  of  what  they  access?   They   agree   that   their   hypotheses   about   the   accessible   but   ill-­‐understood   objects   are   different.   They  could  then  either  agree  that  all  their  different  hypotheses  are  true  because  they  are  merely   different   true   descriptions   of   the   different   ‘levels’   of   the   objects   they   have   access   to.   Or,   they   might   believe   in   the   opposite:   that   these   are   rival   or   competitor   theories.   No   matter   how   they   decide  at  a  later  date,  how  could  they  linguistically  indicate  their  current  situation?  That  is,  how   to  indicate  that  the  conflict  they  now  have  is  also  about  ‘the  domain’  these  objects  inhabit?   In  a  sense,  this  problem  is  easily  solved.  They  make  a  distinction  between  object  and  meta-­‐level   discussions.   Let   us   say   that   they   agree   that   the   discussion   about   ‘the   world’   is   at   a   meta-­‐level,   whereas  their  disputes  about  ‘elephants’  and  such  like  are  at  an  object-­‐level.   Let   us   now   say   that   in   both   these   groups   of   blind   men,   some   people   discover   that   next   to   the   objects  and  their  properties  they  access  tactilely,  they  can  also  access  some  properties  that  are   not  accessible  through  their  sense  organs.  That  is,  they  discover  that  the  presence  of  properties   that,   using   our   language,   can   be   called   emergent   properties.   Now,   suddenly,   huge   questions   open   23     up  that  have  to  do  with  the  status  of  these:  (a)  Are  there  emergent  properties  in  the  world?  (b)   Do   they   have   effects   on   objects   and   events   in   the   world?   (c)   If   objects   in   the   world   have   such   properties,  does  ‘the  world’  itself  manifest  one  or  more  emergent  properties?   Some  of  these  blind  men  also  devise  many  practical  ways  to  access  these  properties.  Any  blind   man,  if  he  is  willing  to  follow  one  of  these  ways,  can  testify  to  accessing  these  emergent  proper-­‐ ties.  Many  people  describe  their  access  and,  even  if  they  do  not  call  them  ‘emergent’,  they  devel-­‐ op  hypotheses  to  account  for  their  manifestation.  These  hypotheses,  though  each  is  consistent,   contravene  every  object  and  meta-­‐level  consensus,  both  about  the  objects  in  the  world  and  the   nature  of  such  a  world.  How  is  this  discussion  to  be  identified  and  separated  from  the  earlier  dis-­‐ cussions?  That  is,  how  do  these  people  now  indicate  that  (a)  the  newly  proposed  hypotheses  are   consistent;  (b)  what  these  hypotheses  postulate  are  accessible  to  human  experience;  (c)  these   hypotheses,  at  the  same  time,  speak  about  properties  that  contravene  everything  they  individu-­‐ ally  or  as  a  group  know  about  the  world  and  the  objects  therein?   Indian  traditions  identify  and  separate  such  discussions  from  disagreements  about  both  the  ob-­‐ jects  in  the  world  and  about  the  world.  They  call  the  latter  as  disagreements  regarding  conven-­‐ tional   truth.   They   separate   these   from   debates   about   ‘the   emergent   properties’   by   speaking   about   Ultimate   Truth.   This   domain   of   the   ultimate   truth   is   the   domain   of   ‘Adhyatma’,   to   use   a   Sanskrit  word.  (For  the  time  being,  and  only  for  the  time  being,  I  will  use  the  word  ‘adhyatma’   without   explicating   its   meaning.   However,   I   will   come   back   to   this   issue   soon.)   Are   we   or   are   we   not  accessing  this  domain  of  Adhyatma  too  when  we  access  the  world?     Herein,  then,  lies  the  peculiarity  of  the  adhyatmic  domain.  As  human  beings,  we  can  experiential-­‐ ly   access   it.   Conceptually,   when   one   attempts   to   describe   such   experiences,   it   contravenes   our   knowledge   of   the   world.   It   is   practically   accessible   in   the   sense   that   one   can   devise   different   practical   methods   to   access   it   and   even   experiment   with   ways   of   accessing   it.   One   could   even   identify,  in  a  variety  of  ways,  the  different  degrees  of  access  that  one  has  to  this  domain.  We  face   but  two  choices  to  understand  this:  either  dismiss  Adhyatmic  domain  as  delusional  and  confused   or   attempt   to   make   sense   of   this   domain   and   our   purported   access   to   it.   The   first   approach   makes  the  entire  Asian  culture  into  a  delusional  culture.  I  prefer  the  second  option.   Taking  the  second  option  requires  introducing  a  philosophical  distinction  that  I  cannot  argue  for   in   the   course   of   this   talk.   Let   me   say   objects   that   populate   the   world   exist.   Here,   all   and   only   those   objects   exist   that   have   material   or   energetic   substratum.   Our   natural   and   social   sciences   study  existing  objects  and  formulate  hypotheses  about  them.  Let  me  call  the  adhyatmic  domain   24     as  the  domain  of  the  real.  In  so  doing,  I  am  introducing  the  distinction  between  ‘existence’  and   the  ‘real’:  what  is  real  does  not  exist  and  what  exists  is  not  real.     About  the  distinction   Two  issues  need  tackling  when  distinctions  in  natural  languages  are  made:  (a)  one  has  to  show   that  the  distinction  is  cognitively  fruitful  and  that  (b)  it  has  some  linguistic  plausibility.  Let  me   begin  with  the  second  issue  first.   The  distinction  between  the  real  and  existence  is  not  as  artificial  as  it  looks  at  first  sight.  Often,   even  in  English,  we  ask  whether  something  ‘really’  exists  or  not,  where  the  word  ‘real’  qualifies   existence.  Mirages  exist  but  they  are  not  considered  real,  the  Lyle-­‐Müller  illusion  exists  but  the   uneven  lengths  of  the  lines  are  not  real,  the  Sun’s  revolution  around  earth  is  observed  to  exist   but  it  is  not  real  etc.  That  is  to  say,  we  often  make  the  distinction  (in  our  daily  language)  between   the  ‘Real’  and  ‘Existence’,  even  if  we,  equally  often,  run  these  two  words  together.  I  am  making   this  point  not  to  suggest  that  Adhyatma  is  akin  to  earth’s  revolution  round  the  sun  or  whatever   but  merely  to  indicate  that  there  is  some  kind  of  linguistic  plausibility  in  this  case.   Is  the  distinction  between  the  real  and  existence  also  made  elsewhere  in  western  thought?  In  a   sense,  yes.  God  is  the  real  in  Christianity.  Human  beings,  according  to  this  religion,  cannot  talk   about  God  using  only  human  reason.  God  has  to  reveal  Himself  to  us  and  aid  us  further  in  our   search  for  Him.  He  is  the  Truth  we  are  searching  for  but  this  truth  cannot  be  described  using   only  human  knowledge.  That  is  the  real,  as  such.  However,  the  relation  between  the  Real  and   Existence  is  a  matter  of  discussion,  even  if  it  occurs  within  the  framework  of  the  Bible:  that  issue   is  about  the  transcendence  and  the  immanence  of  God  or  the  Real.  In  all  the  three  Semitic  reli-­‐ gions,  the  Real  is  sometimes  drawn  into  existence.  It  is  about  the  reality  of  existence  that  western   thought  and  religion  is  preoccupied  with,  at  times.  Consequently,  their  concerns  are  different   from  those  of  the  Indian  traditions.   Of  course,  to  make  the  distinction  between  the  real  and  the  existence  coherent,  we  need  to  speak   about  many  other  things  as  well:  (a)  the  relationship  between  the  entities  that  could  exist  but  do   not  (e.g.  leprechauns,  witches  and  flying  pigs)  and  the  real,  (b)  the  relationship  between  the  Uni-­‐ versals   and   the   domain   of   existence   and   so   on.   However,   this   task   need   not   detain   us   for   the   moment.   All   I   am   suggesting   for   the   moment   is   that   the   Indian   traditions   also   make   the   distinction   be-­‐ tween  real  and  existence  and  my  proposal  is  merely  to  keep  this  distinction  stable  for  the  time   being.  Henceforth,  I  shall  use  the  word  ‘adhyatmic  truth’  instead  of  ‘Ultimate  truth’.  Thus  there   25     are  two  kinds  of  truth:  the  Adhyatmic  truth  and  the  conventional  truth.  When  used  with  respect   to  sentences,  this  distinction  suggests  that  the  sentences  about  the  real  and  existence   differ  with   respect  to  their  property  of  being  truth-­‐or-­‐falsity-­‐bearers  (or  as  bearers  of  truth  values).   This  is  just  about  the  only  philosophical  apparatus  we  need  in  order  to  begin  making  sense  of  the   young  Balinese,  of  some  aspects  of  Indian  culture  and  the  Indian  notion  of  ‘Itihasa’,  which  is  of-­‐ ten  translated  inaccurately  as  ‘history’.   On  Itihasa   ‘Itihasa’,  a  compound  Sanskrit  word,  is  normally  split  as  iti+ha+aasa.  It  is  also  translated  as  ‘so-­‐ it-­‐happened’  or  ‘thus-­‐it-­‐verily  happened’.  From  such  translations,  it  is  easy  to  jump  to  the  con-­‐ clusion  that  ‘Itihasa’,  as  a  word,  picks  out  literature  that  chronicles  the  past  or  that  it  is  history  of   the  ‘bygone  era’.  Equally  often,  Amarakosha  (sort  of  Sanskrit  lexicon)  is  trotted  out  in  order  to   provide   a   definition   that   confirms   this   translation.   I   do   not   want   to   discuss   how   Amara   brings   in   the  discourse  on  Itihasa  in  his  lexicon  because  I  am  not  interested  in  definitions  and  etymologies   at  the  moment,  even  though  they  have  to  be  tackled  at  some  stage,  but  would  like  to  begin  in-­‐ stead  with  some  oft  noticed  facts  and  a  question  that  is  rarely  raised.     The  facts:  the  Chandogya  Upanishad  speaks  about  itihasa  as  the  fifth  Veda,  placing  it  next  to  the   four  Veda’s;  Shankaracharya  mentions  that  recitations  of  itihasa  was  part  of  certain  major  ritu-­‐ als;  the  classical  Indian  poetics  lay  down  the  rule  that   Mahaakaavays  (‘ornate  poetry’,  as  the  Ori-­‐ entalists  term  it)  and   Naatakas  (drama)  draw  on  itihasa  to  work  out  their  themes;  to  this  day,   performing  arts  in  parts  of  India  (Talamaddale,  Yakshagana,  etc.)  follow  this  rule…  And  so  on.     The  question  is  very  simple:  why  should  any  of  these  foregoing  facts  be  the  case?  That  is,  how  do   we   explain   or   even   understand   the   above   facts?   Why   should   Indians   find   a   recitation   of   their   own   history   as   important   as   the   Vedas   or   so   important   that   they   make   it   a   part   of   major   rituals?   Simply  referring  to  such  practices  elsewhere  in  the  world,  where  people  recite  lore  and  legends   in  the  performance  of  some  rituals  (usually,  such  references  are  either  to  ‘primitive’  people  or  to   ‘archaic’  practices  that  survive  even  in  the  ‘modern’  world),  does  not  suffice.  The  problem  simply   becomes  both  huge  and  distasteful.  If  we  do  not  do  this,  then  the  answer  should  comfort  Indian   historians:   their   books   on   Indian   history   will   surely   be   sold   in   millions,   if   not   in   billions.   All   they   have   to   do,   in   order   to   eke   out   a   comfortable   living,   is   to   negotiate   fat   royalty   contracts   with   book   publishers!   Indians   would   then   recite   ‘history’   while   performing   their   rituals.   However,   jests  apart,  how  to  answer  the  question  I  raised?   26     Let  us  begin  with  the  translation  of  the  word:  let  us  accept  the  conventional  translation  of  itihasa   as  ‘thus  it  happened’.  Now  the  question  is  this:  what  is  being  picked  out  by  the  referential  word   ‘thus’   or   ‘iti’?   If   you   look   at,   say,   the   Mahabharata   as   a   standalone   text   and   make   use   of   the   west-­‐ ern   conventions   of   telling   a   story,   the   conclusion   is   obvious:   ‘thus’   picks   out   a   story   that   is   yet   to   be  narrated.  Under  these  conditions,  that  the  Mahabharata  is  considered  as  ‘Itihasa’  and  that  this   word  picks  out  the  story  narrated  in  the  text  become  obvious.   However,  Sanskrit  is  not  English  and  India  is  a  culture  that  is  different  from  the  West.  ‘Iti’  in  San-­‐ skrit   is   a   meta-­‐linguistic   word   that   picks   out   what   has   already   been   linguistically   spoken.   This   word  does  the  work  in  Sanskrit  what  a  “disquotational”  marks  (also  called  ‘scare  quotes’)  do  in   English.  In  this  language,  it  is  a  typographical  mark;  in  Sanskrit,  it  is  a  word  in  language.  ‘Iti’  is  a   meta-­‐level   linguistic   reference   to   an   object-­‐level   discourse.   Even   to   this   day,   this   convention   oper-­‐ ates  in  Indian  languages:  often  letters  end  with  ‘iti’  where  the  word  picks  out  what  has  been  al-­‐ ready   written.   Itihasa   compositions   are   detours   through   which   access   to   what   has   preceded   them   is   made   possible.   From   this,   it   follows   that   ‘itihasa’   texts   are   not   standalone   texts;   they   have  never  been  that.  When  we  call  the  Mahabharata  an  itihasa  text,  we  are  actually  saying  that   it   refers   back   to   something   else   that   has   been   already   said   and   that   its   discourse   is   at   a   meta-­‐ level  regarding  what  has  already  been  said  at  an  object-­‐level.   When  compounded  by  other  words  (ahaasa)  or  by  a  name,  the  word  also  identifies  what  follows.   The   stories   of   Mahabharata   are   called   itihasa   because   the   iti   prefix   refers   also   to   something   oth-­‐ er  than  the  story.    Iti  does  not  refer  to  the  conclusion  or  the  moral  purport  of  the  story.  Iti  is  at   the  beginning  of  the  story;  the  story  merely  illustrates  what  has  preceded  it.  Therefore,  unless   we  figure  out  what  this  ‘iti’  is,  we  cannot  understand  the  itihasa  tradition.  Here  is  my  hypothesis:   Adhyatma   is   the   only   possible   reference   of   iti.   That   means   itihasa   is   a   story   that   illustrates   Adhyatma  or  imparts  Adhyatma  through  an  elucidation.  That  is  why  it  has  such  an  exalted  place   in   the   Indian   intellectual   traditions   and   not   because   Indians   are   narcissists,   who   revel   in   repeat-­‐ ing  constantly  their  own  histories  to  themselves.   When  people  from  other  cultures  came  to  India  and  studied  her  culture,  they  brought  together   some   native   cultural   elements   and   categories   in   a   different   way.   They   split   things   apart,   as   it   suited  their  way  of  describing  the  world,  which  are  united  in  India.  They  could  not  understand   that  Mahabharata  and  Itihasa  had  to  be  situated  in  a  particular  context,  namely  the  Adhyatmic   context.  Itihasa  was  compared  with  a  genre  familiar  to  the  Western  culture;  they  could  be  seen   as  mythologies  or  histories.  As  a  result,  Itihasa  became  ‘history’;  the  whole  of  Mahabharata  and   Ramayana   stood   for   the   ancient   Indian   historiographical   traditions.   ‘Absurd   and   fantastic’   sto-­‐ ries  of  the  itihasa  traditions  led  them  to  search  for  a  factual/historical  core  of  these  traditions.   27     These   efforts   also   strengthened   the   Western   notions   of   a   heathen   India,   which   was   described   using  different  frameworks:  the  theological,  the  empirical,  the  philological,  the  romantic,  and  so   on.  Western  scholarship  has  tried  to  come  to  grips  with  Itihasa  as  literature,  religious  text,  histo-­‐ ry,  so  on,  but  none  of  these  fits  Mahabharata.     As  a  result,  Adhyatma  was  split  apart  from  itihasa:  one  was  the  domain  of  religion  and  another   became  the  domain  of  history.  Educated  Indians  inherited  such  discourses.  Thus,  Itihasa  stopped   making  sense  to  the  western  educated  Indians,  who  were  informed  only  by  the  Western  inter-­‐ pretations.   They   see   Mahabharata   as   an   epic   written   by   someone   called   Vyasa,   or   by   multiple   authors   over   millennia,   with   interpolations   and   interpretations   by   different   Brahmin   groups   with   vested   interests.   It   thus   acquires   a   loose   structure   of   katha   (story)   and   upakathas   (sub-­‐ stories)   knitted   together   to   oppress   the   ‘Dalits’   in   India.   This   book,   however,   is   anything   but   em-­‐ pirical  history.  No  one  has  attempted  to  explain  the  function  of  this  book  in  a  culture  that  pro-­‐ duced  it,  except  in  terms  of  intellectual  weakness  that  produces  fantastic  stories  guided  by  the   malefic   desire   to   oppress   the   ‘Dalits’.   At   best,   it   exhibits   the   naïve   historical   consciousness   of   Indians,  or  functions  as  a  source  for  the  reconstruction  of  life  and  thought  of  ancient  Indians,  or   providing  ideals  and  morals  for  our  life.  As  far  as  the  latter  is  concerned,  no  one  has  been  able  to   provide  a  coherent  picture  of  the  morals  of  this  book  as  a  whole  At  worst,  it  embodies  Brahmini-­‐ cal  conspiracy.   If  we  are  not  prepared  to  consider  Itihasa  as  one  more  example  for  the  heathendom  of  the  Indi-­‐ ans,  we  have  to  explain  why  Vyasa  or  Valmiki  or  other  authors  composed  these  books  the  way   they  are  today.    It  is  generally  held  by  philologists  and  Indologists  that  Mahabharata  contains  a   bunch   of   interpolations   made   by   totally   unrelated   authors   from   different   ages   rendering   its   structure  loose  and  chaotic.  Such  understanding  has  led  to  the  critical  editions  of  the  Mahabha-­‐ rata  text.    But  these  critical  editions  will  not  solve  our  problem.     To   proceed   fruitfully,   we   have   to   begin   with   the   fact   that   itihasa   tradition   survives   in   multiple   forms   among   Indians.   Mahabharata,   in   whatever   form   it   exists   today,   is   itihasa   because   it   is   structured   for   a   particular   purpose.   It   prepares   the   ground   carefully   and   knits   the   stories   and   upakhyanas   (discourses)   systematically   together   into   a   structure.   The   stories   become   itihasa   when  they  find  place  within  this  structure.  Thus,  Mahabharata  as  it  is  today  is  a  product  of  the   creativity  of  itihasa  tradition  over  millennia.  Creativity  has  to  work  under  certain  cognitive  and   epistemological  conditions,  if  it  has  to  be  productive.  Otherwise,  creativity  does  not  distinguish   itself   from   delusional   expressions,   whether   oral   or   written.   Mahabharata   works   under   con-­‐ straints   laid   down   by   Adhyatmic   reflections.   It   works   within   that   structure.   That   is   why   it   is   crea-­‐ tive.   People   just   did   not   add   new   stories   randomly.   If   Indians   did   that,   why   did   they   not   interpo-­‐ 28     late   pornographic   pieces,   or   any   such   irrelevant   parts   into   Mahabharata?   Of   course,   Mahabhara-­‐ ta   had   enormous   scope   for   pornography;   yet,   there   is   not   a   single   description   of   Draupadi’s   body,  whereas,  in  Kumarasambhava,  Kalidasa  describes  the  body  of  none  other  than  Siva’s  con-­‐ sort   Parvati.     That   must   be   because   pornography   obviously   violated   some   cognitive   condition   that   Mahabharata   was   working   with.   That   condition   can   be   identified   by   my   hypothesis   without   appealing   to   the   Victorian   moral   values   that   dominate   the   universe   of   educated   Indians   today:   Adhyatma  is  not  concerned  with  a  description  of  the  empirical  world  of  existence.  That  is  why  Por-­‐ nography  is  irrelevant  to  Mahabharata.  One  could  ask  whether  or  not  the  war  is  empirical.  The   answer   is   simple:   Mahabharata   does   not   describe   war   but   merely   identifies   it   as   a   reference   point  for  what  requires  saying.   We  can  now  begin  to  see  the  purpose  of  these  books  in  our  culture,  their  popularity  in  the  sub-­‐ continent  and  elsewhere,  the  reasons  for  their  survival  and  how  they  get  reproduced  in  multiple   languages   and   forms   to   this   day.   Talamaddale   and   Yakshagana,   to   take   two   extant   performing   arts   as   examples,   are   two   such   forms   reproducing   Itihasa   as   living   experience.   Why   would   it   seep  so  deep  in  Indian  culture,  unless  it  is  intimately  connected  to  something  that  said  how  one   should   live   in   this   earth?   Talamaddale   uses   the   Mahabharata   stories   as   a   discourse   about   adhyatma.  Thus,  the  itihasa  tradition  is  still  alive  in  daily  life.  Why  illustrate  adhyatma  through  a   story   unless   adhyatma   is   deeply   intertwined   with   these   stories?   Each   must   be   supporting   the   other.  The  stories  must  embody  adhyatma.  Adhyatma  is  not  a  moral  of  the  story  that  comes  at   the  end.  Adhyatma  comes  before,  not  after  the  stories.  What  is  the  story  then?  Story  is  an  illus-­‐ tration.  That  is  why  itihasa  is  ‘Thus  it  happened’  or,  even,  ‘thus  it  is  imparted  generationally’.   Itihasa  as  a  site  of  learning     Talamaddale,   a   performing   art,   does   precisely   this.   How   can   people   listen   to   intellectual   dis-­‐ courses  for  hours  and  be  fascinated  by  it  when  it  takes  the  form  of  performing  arts?  Mahabhara-­‐ ta  is  simply  a  background  for  this  performance;  as  a  story,  it  hardly  plays  a  role.  It  simply  sets   the  context  to  a  learning  process.  If  such  is  the  case,  itihasa  has  nothing  to  do  with  a  past  event,   either  in  the  sense  of  ‘past’  as  a  time  period  or  as  a  temporal  domain  separated  from  the  present.   It   has   no   references   to   the   facts   of   the   past   and   plays   no   function   in   preserving   the   memories   about   past   events.   The   reference   is   to   something   else.   It   is   a   learning   process   through   stories   about   adhyatma.   If   one   sees   this,   one   will   realize   the   unity   that   itihasa   and   adhyatma   are.   The   scholarship  of  the  last  four  hundred  years  has  pulled  them  apart  to  make  this  division  a  fact  of   the  commonsense  today.  There  appears  to  be  no  connection  between  the  Mahabharata  and  what   Shankara   has   written,   say   Brahmasutrabhashya.   One   appears   as   philosophy   and   the   other   as   kavya  (poetry)  or  as  a  story  or  as  an  expression  of  our  primitive  sense  of  history.       29       How   does   Itihasa   help   adhyatmic   learning?   What   the   Mahabharata   does   is   to   put   the   latter   in   the  form  of  a  story.  Instead  of  developing  a  theory,  it  puts  that  in  the  form  of  a  story.  So  you  must   know  how  to  read  (and  listen  and  see)  this  story,  you  must  know  how  to  understand  the  story.   You  must  know  how  to  practice  the  story.  And  you  must  know  how  to  perform  the  story.   When   you  are  following  a  story  of  Mahabharata,  watching  a  talamaddale  or  yakshagana  performance,   you   are   actually   thinking.   Talamaddale   teaches   you   how   to   think.   It   does   that   by   transforming   adhyatma  into  anubhava  (translated  as  ‘experience’  in  English).       Two  groups  of  people  defend  Mahabharata  as  a  true  story  about  the  world.  One  group  in  Indian   society   talks   of   the   historical   truths   of   Mahabharata.   These   are   our   modern   historians,   who   fight   about  whether  or  not  Itihasa  is  true.  However,  there  is  another  section  in  Indian  society,  which,   much  like  our  young  Balinese,  is  not  bothered  about  historical  truth  of  Ramayana  or  Mahabhara-­‐ ta.  Yet,  they  defend  the  idea  that  Itihasa  is  ‘true’  nonetheless.  How  do  we  make  sense  of  this  se-­‐ cond  group?   The  Real  and  the  Existence  again   Perhaps,  the  best  way  of  making  sense  of  these  people  is  to  introduce  a  problem.  Consider  the   following  well-­‐known  shloka  (verse)  from  the  Brihadaranyaka  Upanishad:   Asato  Ma  Sat  Gamaya;  Tamaso  Ma  Jyotir  Gamaya;  Mrityor  Ma  Amritam  Gamaya…   Here  are  the  usual  translations  of  this:  Lead  Us  (me)  From  the  Unreal  (ignorance)  To  Real  (truth);   Lead  Us  (me)  From  Darkness  To  Light;  Lead  Us  (me)  From  Death  To  Immortality…   Let  us  focus  only  on  grammar  in  this  case  and  forget  what  ‘Sat’,  ‘asat’,  etc.  mean.  That  is  to  say,  let   us  discuss  how  to  ‘translate’  the  Vibhakti’s  in  this  case.   Should  we  translate  the  above  as  ‘From  X  to  Y’  or  ‘Through  X  to  Y’?  That  is,  why  cannot  the  verse   be  translated  as:   Lead  Us  Through  the  Unreal  To  Real,     Lead  Us  Through  Darkness  To  Light,     Lead  Us  Through  Death  To  Immortality…?   30     There  are  two  issues  that  we  need  to  answer  here:  (a)  Is  the  second  a  grammatically  defensible   translation  (given  that  ‘from’  and  ‘through’  are  also  different  vibhakti’s  in  Sanskrit)?  (b)  What  is   involved  in  this  translation  issue?   Consider  the  sentences  of  the  following  type:  ‘I  came  from  Delhi’;  ‘The  boon  came  from  Shiva’,   etc.  Both  can  also  be  said  to  presuppose  (or  imply,  depending  upon  the  precise  nature  of  the   question  and  answer)  that  I  came  ‘through’  Delhi  or  that  the  boon  came  ‘through’  Shiva.  Coming   ‘through’  Delhi  could  be  implied  in  coming  ‘from’  Delhi,  if  the  train  passed  ‘though’  the  city  of   Delhi;  or  ‘from’  Delhi  could  be  implied  if  I  was  coming  from  elsewhere  other  than  Delhi.  The   same  applies  to  the  boon  ‘from’  Shiva  and  so  on.  In  other  words,  how  we  translate  the  vibhakti’s   depend  upon  something  else  other  than  the  grammatical  rules,  in  the  sense  that  one  could  trans-­‐ late  it  either  way  without  violating  the  rules  of  grammar.  Thus,  if  grammar  is  neutral  with  re-­‐ spect  to  either  of  the  two  translations,  why  have  generations  of  sanskritists  consistently  trans-­‐ lated  the  vibhakti’s  only  as  ‘from’  and  not  as  ‘through’?   In  Christian  and  Western  thought,  these  terms  are  opposites:  real  vs  unreal;  truth  vs  ignorance   and  so  on.  “Even  though  one  walks  the  valley  of  death,  one  does  not  fear  death”,  because  the   Lord  is  our  Shepard,  as  the  Bible  puts  it.  God  leads  us  away  from  Death  towards  immortality.  God   leads  us  away  from  Darkness  into  light.  And  so  on.  Is  this  also  the  case  in  Indian  culture?   Consider  this:  it  is  only  through  and  in  Samsara  (Worldly  life)  that  we  can  hope  to  achieve  ‘mok-­‐ sha’  (liberation).  If  we  are  not  in  worldly  life,  we  cannot  achieve  liberation.  Each  of  us,  in  worldly   life,  is  afflicted  by  avidya  (ignorance)  and  only  though  this  ignorance  (i.e.  realizing  that  we  are   afflicted  by  ignorance  is  how  we  arrive  at  knowledge)  can  we  hope  to  reach  vidya  (knowledge);   only  through  this  world,  which  is  asat,  (the  Unreal)  can  we  reach  Sat  (the  Real).  Therefore,  there   is  no  break  or  opposition  between  these  realms;  one  is  needed  to  reach  the  other,  i.e.,  only   through  the  one  can  we  reach  the  other.  Therefore,  ‘through’  is  a  better  translation  of  the   vibhakti  than  the  ‘from’,  even  though  our  English  books  on  Sanskrit  grammar  tell  us  the  oppo-­‐ site,  reserving  them  for  separate  vibhakti’s.   Mahabharata   clothes   Adhyatmic   truth   as   conventional   truth.   It   is   through   the   conventions   of   the   daily  life  that  you  get  access  to  Adhyatma.  In  fact,  the  latter  is  realizable  only  in  worldly  life.  That   is  what  these  stories  do:  help  reach  the  adhyatma  through  convention.  The  whole  of  Mahabhara-­‐ ta  is  only  about  our  lives  but  it  is  telling  us  about  adhyatma  and  is  a  passage  way.  That  is  why  it   is  of  sat  or  the  Real.  That  statement  about  sat  is  satya  (truth).  Daily  life  is  transient  and  not  real   but  part  of  existence,  the  intransient  is  real  or  sat.   31     Take  the  example  of  the  Balinese  about  the  truth  and  historicity  of  Ramayana.  What  is  ‘truth’  in   this  context?  Ramayana  is  about  the  Real.  There  cannot  be  true  or  false  descriptions  of  the  Real;   one  can  only  have  such  descriptions  about  the  domain  of  existence.  Yet,  itihasa  talks  of  the  Real.   The  itihasa  stories  do  so  disguised  as  descriptions  of  the  world.  That  is  to  say,  stories  talk  of   Adhyatma  by  using  some  recognizable  reference  points,  which  only  help  in  understanding  the   story.  They  are  not  providing  true  or  false  descriptions  of  these  recognizable  figures  and  places,   they  are  cognitive  aids  to  understanding.  There  might  have  been  a  Rama  and  Ayodhya  in  India,   but  the  Ramayana  does  not  describe  either  Rama  (an  empirical  figure)  or  Ayodhya  (an  empirical   place).  That  does  not  mean  that  these  two  are  fictional  entities  either.  They  are  real.  In  so  far  as   these  were  empirical  entities,  one  could  ‘localize’  Ayodhya  in  some  region  in  India.  At  the  same   time,  Rama  and  Ayodhya  (as  the  Real)  are  everywhere  and,  thus,  also  nowhere.  Any  discourse   about  the  Real  (‘sat’)  is  the  Truth  (Satya).  Thus,  the  Balinese  and  the  Indian  tradition  suggest   Ramayana  is  True  because  it  is  of  the  Real  (about  the  Sat  therefore,  it  is  Satya  or  truth).  But  it   does  not  matter  to  this  Balinese  whether  Rama  lived  somewhere  and  somewhen,  whether   someone  invented  the  story  and  wrote  the  book  or  not.  Ramayana  is  true,  in  any  case.   Of  Adhyatma   Finally,  the  time  has  come  to  speak  a  bit  about  Adhyatma.  However,  keep  in  mind  the  earlier   metaphor  about  the  blind  men  and  the  elephant.  As  one  such  blind  man,  I  am  only  advancing  one   hypothesis  about  Adhyatma  even  though  I  believe  that  it  is  able  to  account  for  the  multiple  de-­‐ scriptions  of  adhyatmic  experiences  and  incorporate  several  other  extant  hypotheses.   In  the  first  part  of  this  talk,  I  said  that  stories  of  human  pasts  are  required  for  the  sake  of  human   flourishing  in  the  present.  Here,  I  have  brought  itihasa  in  connection  with  adhyatma.  This  sug-­‐ gests  that  adhyatma  is  very  closely  linked  to  human  flourishing.  Indeed  so.   The  simplest  understanding  of  adhyatma  is  this.  Its  concern  is  human  happiness.  As  Indian  tradi-­‐ tions  see  it,  happiness  (or  Eudemonia,  to  use  the  Aristotelean  term;  ‘Ananda’  to  use  a  Sanskrit   term)  belongs  to  a  realm  that  is  different  from  the  ‘pleasure’  and  ‘pain’  that  we  experience.  The   latter  have  to  do  with  the  kind  of  creatures  we  are.  ‘Happiness’,  the  Indian  traditions  claim,   transcends  the  duality  of  pleasure  and  pain.  Unlike  these  feelings,  which  are  transient  by  nature,   happiness  is  not  fleeting.  After  all,  when  we  ‘search’  for  happiness  or  we  wish  our  loved  ones   ‘happiness  in  life’  we  are  not  seeking  something  fleeting  or  transient.  Putting  a  duration  on  hap-­‐ piness  is  linguistically  absurd:  imagine  wishing  your  loved  one  that  s/he  be  happy  for  ‘one  hour,   thirteen  minutes  and  twenty  three  seconds’.  Instead,  you  wish  that  they  be  happy  all  their  lives.   In  other  words,  happiness  cannot  be  a  transient  state  of  affairs.   32     However,  everything  in  this  world  of  ours  is  transient.  There  is  no  human  trait,  property,  feeling   or  achievement  that  is  not  transient.  In  that  case,  happiness  cannot  be  a  human  trait,  property,   feeling  or  achievement.  Yet,  we  want  to  be  happy  in  this  life  and  we  wish  people  happiness  in   their  lives.  From  this,  it  follows,  unless  the  entire  human  kind  lives  under  delusion,  that  happi-­‐ ness  is  ‘attainable’  or  ‘reachable’  in  the  course  of  our  lives.  Human  beings  can  ‘search’  for  happi-­‐ ness  and  ‘find’  it  as  well.  But  that  does  not  entail  that  happiness  is  an  object  in  the  world  because   objects  too  are  transient  and  subject  to  decay  and  disintegration.   The  Semitic  religions  take  one  route,  whereas  the  Indian  traditions  have  taken  a  second  route.   Both  agree  that  happiness  cannot  be  an  object  in  the  world,  but  they  alter  their  courses  thereaf-­‐ ter.  The  Semitic  religions  claim  that  happiness  is  unlike  any  object  in  the  world  and,  therefore,  it   is  outside  this  world.  It  is  God,  the  real,  and  we  seek  Him,  when  we  seek  happiness  on  earth.  Be-­‐ cause  He  is  happiness,  only  a  union  with  Him  can  make  us  happy.  We  are  indeed  deluded,  say   these  religions,  when  we  seek  happiness  on  earth.  It  is  the  devil  who  seduces  us  into  believing   that  one  can  attain  happiness  on  earth.  Such  a  wrong  belief  makes  us  confuse  happiness  with   attaining  objects  in  the  world  and  the  devil  induces  such  beliefs  in  us.  It  is  thus  that  we  believe  in   money,  status,  power,  sex,  etc.  as  providers  of  happiness.   The  Indian  traditions  accept  the  fact  that  each  one  of  us  has  a  different  idea  of  what  happiness  is   and  that  only  the  individual  under  question  can  judge  whether  or  not  s/he  is  happy.  For  them   too,  happiness  belongs  to  the  real,  but  the  real  can  be  accessed  only  through  existence.  Happi-­‐ ness  does  not  exist,  but  is  real  (unlike  ‘God’  who  is  real  but  also  exists).  Even  though  there  are   difficulties  in  accessing  the  real,  it  can  be  accessed.  Consequently,  the  Indian  traditions  focus  on   identifying  the  difficulties  we  face  and  attempt  to  teach  us  how  to  overcome  those  difficulties.   They  do  not  define  either  factually  or  normatively  what  ‘happiness’  is,  which  is  what  the  Semitic   religions  do.  Both,  however,  agree  that  you  access  happiness  when  you  access  the  real.   Adhyatma  is  the  real.  Adhyatmic  statements  are  true  because  of  this.  Only  stories  can  talk  about   it  in  a  disguised  form.  Through  life  you  reach  adhyatmic  truth.  Itihasa  is  a  way  of  talking  about   the  real  by  illustrating  adhyatma.  ‘Iti’  refers  to  adhyatma  as  that  which  goes  before  the  story  is   told.  What  goes  before  is  illustrated  and  disguised  as  a  description  of  the  world.  That  is,  itihasa   provides  the  possibility  of  access  to  adhyatma  by  disguising  the  latter  as  a  description  of  the   worldly  being.  This  hypothesis  explains  why  one  confuses  itihasa  with  the  description  of  the   world  (because  itihasa  is  so  disguised).  Adhyatma  is  conventionally  neither  true  nor  false;  there-­‐ fore,  only  stories  can  talk  about  adhyatma  because,  as  I  have  argued  elsewhere  about  the  role  of   stories  in  India,  they  are  neither  true  nor  false.  They  are  learning  units  in  a  specific  culture  or   within  a  specific  configuration  of  learning.  Because  they  are  disguised  as  descriptions  of  the   33     world,  one  can  learn  how  to  go-­‐about  in  the  world.  Thus,  the  world  is  the  medium  through  which   to  reach  the  adhyatmic  truth  or  the  real.   Unlike  the  discourse  of  history,  which  makes  the  past  completely  external  to  a  human  being,   Indian  stories  can  be  taken  up  by  any  individual  from  any  context  and  can  use  them  to  reflect   upon  their  own  lives  and  experiences.  Any  context  can  be  transformed  into  any  other  context.   One  uses  talamaddale  to  shed  light  upon  anything  human,  be  it  power,  money,  status,  etc.  It  is   thus  that  these  stories  become  the  story  of  the  person  using  it.  However,  as  I  have  said  repeated-­‐ ly,  to  go  to  Adhyatma  we  need  to  go  through  the  worldly  life.   Though  much  more  needs  to  be  said  than  what  I  have,  the  length  of  this  talk  forces  me  to  confine   myself  to  making  just  one  more  point.  Let  us  look  at  the  consequence  of  the  above  paragraph  to   the  relationship  between  the  real  and  the  existence.  According  to  the  Indian  traditions,  existence   undergirds  the  real;  to  the  Semitic  religions,  by  contrast,  the  Real  (God)  is  the  foundation  of  exist-­‐ ence.  In  one  case,  a  proper  understanding  of  the  nature  of  human  beings  would  help  us  reach  the   Adhyatmic;  in  the  other  case,  God,  the  Real,  who  is  inaccessible  to  unaided  human  reason,  is  the   foundation  for  understanding  human  beings.  In  this  sense,  there  can  be  no  science  of  happiness   (i.e.  there  can  be  no  science  of  Adhyatma)  because  there  can  only  be  sciences  of  existence  and   adhyatma  is  real.  Theology,  by  contrast,  is  the  only  ‘science’  of  religion  we  have,  where  we  speak   in  analogies  about  the  real.  In  India,  the  variety  of  adhyatmic  practices  requires  to  have  generat-­‐ ed  sustained  reflections  and  experimentations  about  human  beings,  which  they  have,  even   though  we  are  unable  to  recognize  them  because  we  have  grouped  such  reflections  as  ‘religious’   or  ‘spiritual’.  However,  when  theology  generates  such  reflections,  Indians  have  no  problems  in   recognizing  ‘sciences’,  including  the  so-­‐called  ‘scientific  history’.  Such  an  attitude  has  huge  impli-­‐ cations  for  understanding  knowledge  and  cultures.  The  so-­‐called  ‘progressive’,  ‘secularist’  and   ‘Dalit’  intellectuals  peddle  that  attitude  in  India  today.  To  grasp  the  resulting  tragedy  properly,   we  need  to  formulate  it  in  more  general  terms  and  in  the  form  of  a  contrast.   What  were  European  intellectuals  engaged  in  during  the  last  two  thousand  years?  It  is  almost   impossible  to  answer  this  question  without  relating  the  history  of  Europe;  still,  we  can  say  that   they  produced  theologies,  philosophies,  fine  arts,  and  natural  and  social  sciences.  The  list  is  so   varied,  so  diverse  and  so  long,  that  one  does  not  know  where  to  begin  or  how  to  end.  Perhaps   the  most  interesting  theories  about  human  beings,  their  cultures  and  societies,  which  we  use   today,  are  products  of  European  intellectuals.  So,  too,  are  the  institutions  and  practices  that  we   find  desirable:  democratic  institutions  and  courts  of  law,  for  instance.  The  sheer  scope,  variety,   and  quality  of  European  contribution  to  humanity  are  overwhelming.   34     What  were  Indian  thinkers  doing  during  the  same  period?  The  standard  text-­‐book  story—which   has  schooled  multiple  generations,  including  mine—goes  as  follows:  the  caste  system  has  domi-­‐ nated  India;  women  have  been  discriminated  against;  the  practice  of  widow-­‐burning  still  exists;   corruption  is  rampant;  most  people  believe  in  astrology,  karma,  and  reincarnation.  If  these   properties  characterize  the  India  of  today  and  yesterday,  the  question  about  what  the  earlier   generation  of  Indian  thinkers  was  doing  gives  rise  to  a  very  painful  realization:  these  thinkers   were  busy  instituting  and  defending  atrocious  practices.  Of  course,  there  is  our  Buddha  and   there  is  our  Gandhi,  but  that,  apparently,  is  all  we  have:  exactly  one  Buddha  and  one  Gandhi.   When  the  intellectuals  of  one  culture—the  European  culture—were  challenging  and  changing   the  world,  most  thinkers  from  another  culture—the  Indian—were,  to  all  purposes,  sustaining   and  defending  undesirable  and  immoral  practices.  If  that  portrayal  is  true,  the  Indians  of  today   have  but  one  task,  which  is  to  modernize  India;  and  Indian  culture  has  but  one  goal:  to  become   like  the  West  as  quickly  as  possible.   This  is  what  the  tragedy  is  about.  This  is  the  ‘history’  narrated  by  ‘progressive’,  ‘secular’,  ‘Dalit’,   ‘subaltern’  historiographers  and  intellectuals.  But,  to  follow  this  strand  any  further  would  take   us  away  very  far.  Let  me,  therefore,  return  to  my  theme  and  sum  up  the  difference  between  his-­‐ tory  and  itihasa  this  way:  all  that  human  beings  learn  from  history,  as  has  been  said,  is  that  we   do  not  learn  from  history.  However,  itihasa  is  the  past  and  we  learn  to  behave  in  the  present  only   because  of  the  past.  One  is  external  to  you  and  it  is  about  ‘others’,  the  other  is  internal  to  you,   and  it  is  about  you.  From  history,  you  learn  almost  nothing.  And  you  can  live  without  it.  But  you   cannot  have  the  same  relationship  to  the  past.   Hence  my  reading  of  ‘Asatoma  sadgamaya  …’  as  ‘through  darkness  lead  me  to  light….’  The  classi-­‐ cal   reading   puts   it   as   ‘away   from   darkness…’   Either   of   these   two   possible   meanings   changes   one’s   relationship   to   the   world   accordingly.   Therefore,   it   is   not   a   question   of   grammar,   but   a   question   about   modes   of   being   in   the   world.   The   classical   reading   of   the   above   verse   is   a   biblical   story,  where  darkness  and  light  are  separate,  where  one  cannot  lead  to  the  other,  where  the  Dev-­‐ il   hinders   human   beings   from   reaching   God.   The   Bible   speaks   of   opposition   between   these.   In   Indian  culture,  by  contrast,  without  worldly  life  there  is  no  liberation.  There  is  no  Semitic  Devil   in  India,  thus  also  no  Semitic  God  either.  In  that  case,  why  are  Indian  ‘thinkers’  so  enamoured  by   a   notion   of   ‘history’   that   secularizes   Christian   thought   that   they   end   up   selling   it   as   ‘scientific   history’?   III   35     In  Christian  historiography,  there  is  little  or  no  connection  between  us  and  our  past.  This  separa-­‐ tion   is   not   ‘modern’,   as   many   historiographers   claim.   It   dates   back   all   the   way   to   the   Semitic   sto-­‐ ry   about   the   burden   called   the   ‘past’   that   we   carry   on   our   shoulders   even   before   we   are   born.   Our   empirical   past   is   like   a   book   to   be   read   that   reveals   God’s   plan.   Humans   have   no   other   busi-­‐ ness  with  this  past.  Thus,  what  a  Christian  has  to  do  is  to  read  theological  truths  in  the  human   past.  The  ‘modern’  historiography  is  the  bastard  child  of  this  theology.   After   the   age   of   enlightenment,   which   further   continued   to   secularize   Christianity   (albeit   the   Protestant  version),  even  though  the  historians  claimed  to  have  come  out  of  the  religious  histo-­‐ riography,  the  ultimate  aim  of  history  writing  remained  a  quest  for  historical  truth,  which  was   only   possible   through   a   factual   account.   Thus   historical   facts,   objectivity,   historical   laws   were   considered   to   be   the   defining   properties   of   historical   knowledge.   Therefore,   they   are   hotly   de-­‐ bated  as  philosophical  questions.  The  objective  separation  of  the  past  from  the  present,  a  sense   of   time   and   chronology,   continued   to   govern   the   sense   of   history.   Indian   traditions   were   criti-­‐ cized  for  lacking  the  sense  of  history  precisely  because  they  did  not  countenance  these  elements.   Attempts   were   made   in   India   to   cull   out   ‘facts’   from   the   so-­‐called   Indian   mythologies   (Mahabha-­‐ rata,  Ramayana  etc.)  to  know  the  true  history  of  India  through  the  method  of  historical  criticism.   The   histories   of   enlightenment,   romanticists,   utilitarians,   Marxists,   post-­‐colonials   and   so   on   pro-­‐ vided  the  exemplary  texts  for  this  practice.     However,   when   it   came   to   practice,   as   the   post-­‐modern   thinkers   rightly   point   out,   the   modern   historiography   presents   different   contemporary   ideological   trends   in   the   guise   of   facts   of   the   past  or  as  objective  descriptions  of  the  past.  What,  in  fact,  we  witness  in  such  attempts  are  re-­‐ descriptions  of  the  Western  world  view  in  the  name  of  facts  of  the  past.  Such  descriptions  have   made  inroads  into  the  traditional  Indian  modes  of  relating  with  the  past.  Thus,  the  Indian  past   was   recast   in   the   Western   frameworks   and   concepts   like   religion,   self,   ethnicity,   nation,   etc.     The   Westerners   tried   to   understand   India’s   past   through   categories   like   religion,   mythology,   history,   literature,   etc.   as   a   result   of   which   most   of   the   Indian   literal   and   oral   traditions,   which   looked   overwhelmingly   mythological,   were   investigated   for   historical   facts.     These   traditional   stories   could  occupy  only  two  places:  either  they  could  be  historical  facts  or  myths.  This  caused  a  dis-­‐ torted  understanding  of  the  traditional  texts  like  Mahabharata.  The  organic  role  of  Indian  stories   in  the  living  process  of  people,  their  multiple  ways  of  making  sense  were  no  more  accessible  to   the  historians  and  new  generation  of  educated  Indians  who  were  informed  by  this  history.     What   happened   is   that   when   Westerners   started   studying   Mahabharata   or   Ramayana,   they   re-­‐ cast  the  story  of  these  epics  by  putting  them  in  the  genre  of  traditional  historical  account.  In  that   process,  they  severed  these  from  their  adhyatmic  context  or  content.  These  stories  are  basically   36     crafted  to  illustrate  the  adhyatmic  truths.  The  adhyatmic  content  of  the  epics  was  severed  and   cut   off   from   these   stories   and   put   in   the   category   of   religion;   therefore   even   Adhyatma   ceased   making  sense.  The  traditional  Indians  related  with  the  Itihasa  tradition  that  these  epics  basically   are   through   a   unifying   experience   of   these   two.   However,   the   educated   Indians   ceased   making   sense  of  either  of  the  two,  therefore  lost  their  memory  of  how  to  relate  with  itihasa.  To  the  ‘mod-­‐ ern’  mind,  Adhyatmic  Gurus  became  the  ‘god-­‐men’  of  India,  figures  of  ridicule  or  leaders  of  ‘cults’   or  ‘sects’.  The  only  possible  intellectual  engagement  they  could  now  have  to  these  texts  is  to  ei-­‐ ther  fight  for  establishing  the  historicity  of  these  epics  or  relegate  them  to  the  status  of  myths  or   strive  for  some  convenient  hybrid  of  the  two.   Conclusion   What   have   I   done   in   the   course   of   this   talk?   I   have   explicated   a   theoretical   alternative   by   talking   about  itihasa  and  adhyatmic  sources.  This  is  a  significant  counterpoint  to  the  theological  framing   of  history  and  historiography  that  I  foreground  in  the  first  part  of  the  talk.  Precisely  because  of   this,   there   is   a   danger   that   the   talk   becomes   inaccessible   or   misunderstood.     The   Indian   sources,   since   they   are   not   familiar   to   some   people,   could   be   easily   targeted   by   the   same   people   as   an   expression   of   ‘Brahminism’.   In   some   milieus   in   India,   the   intellectual   poverty   is   so   enormous   that  any  use  of  Indian  language-­‐terms  is  seen  as  both  dangerous  and  evil.  However,  this  possibil-­‐ ity  does  not  bother  me.   The   talk   has   tried   to   develop   a   theoretical   account   by   focusing   on   just   two   critical   terms:   past   and   truth.     It   shows   how   these   two   terms   are   looked   at   by   two   different   cultural   traditions.     Thus,  a  space  for  comparative  science  of  cultures  is  cleared.  I  now  leave  it  to  the  learned  public   to  engage  critically  with  this  talk  further.   37