Thread by @AudreyTruschke

In response to questions, a brief #THREAD on the Mahabharata and whether it is myth or history.

#Mahabharata #history #myth #itihasa

Basics -- The #Mahabharata is an epic narrative that centers around two sets of cousins who both want a specific throne in northern India and fight over it in a cataclysmic war, with lots of side stories thrown it.

It was first written down in Sanskrit ~2,000 years ago.

When asking questions about historicity, whether something is true, some basics-

Onus is on proving it is true, not that it is false.

The answer doesn't have to be either-or; it can be fuzzy.

Historians care about beliefs & myth because they tell us what people think and value

The Mahabharata documents aspects of a moment in time, when a society based on clans was beginning to move to one based on states. Scholars agree on this.

Many scholars also think that the kernel of the epic, a dynastic battle, reflects some real event. This remains unclear.

Certain aspects of the Mahabharata, such as the gods walking and acting on earth, remain beyond the bounds of what historians admit in terms of causality.

But we can and do care very much about how people crafted these stories, what ideas they embed and communicate, etc.

The Mahabharata calls itself itihasa, which many think means history but really doesn't in the modern-sense of 'history.' Itihasa is more accurately translated as lore (I'm borrowing this from another Sanskritist).

Some people believe in the Mahabharata as a matter of faith. That's great. It is also stepping beyond the bounds of history, so I have nothing further to say on it.

Key point -- Something being not-literally-true doesn't mean it's worthless. That's an insane equivalence.

Moreover, the Mahabharata doesn't like to be constrained. So we should stop trying. It has historical insights, but it is so much more than that also.

The #Mahabharata is a fluid text, meaning that people could add or subtract (although, really, they added) over the centuries. So, the work as we have it today is full of accretions over time. This practice let to significant regional variations. This complicates historicity.

Later additions to the Mahabharata can be very useful for historians. They can signal what parts of the text readers found difficult or in need of reworking. They can signal social changes.

That said, if someone added something ~1000 CE, it doesn't reflect life ~300 BCE.

So the #Mahabharata is a historical work in the sense that you have to understand the text as a product of a few millennia of retellings. But the epic is not a straightforward, literal record of real events.

alam ativistarena. Forgive typos.