What Romila Thapar said in her lecture, ‘Our history, their history, whose history’ at Delhi’s India International Centre (IIC), was that the real, historical Emperor Ashoka’s renunciation and its celebration, which happened c.260BCE seems to have inspired a similar act by the fictional character of Yudhishthira in the Mahabharata, an epic Sanskrit poem which reached its final form in 300CE, over 5 centuries later.
Meaning: The Mahabharata was in continuous compilation from 400BCE to 300CE (the early Gupta period) approximately, and it is quite possible that the various contributors and authors of this magnum opus (‘Mahakaavya’) took inspiration from the various historical characters and events happening around them at the time to tell stories and propound philosophies that were relevant to them. There is nothing unusual about it too. It has happened throughout human history and continues to happen today.
She (Ms Thapar) was making a point that in Indian society, historically, renouncers and ascetics have had more power than those who have proclaimed themselves as rulers and kings, and that the fundamental discourse in Buddhism is about the conflict between power and renunciation.
The RW trolls, of course, are laughing at her asking how a king that lived in 3,000BCE/5,000BCE/make up your own large number, Yudhishthira, could be influenced by Ashoka, who lived in 300BCE.
And there are sane people trying to reason with them, trying to explain how the story of Mahabharata (originally, Jaya) is mythology, and should be seen as great literature & poetry, indeed one of the most brilliant pieces of storytelling by our ancestors, and as such containing references topical to those times and discussions on ideologies and philosophical points that mattered to the then storytellers, many of which are, no doubt, relevant to us today too, but that there is nothing divine or historical about it. It is an exercise in futility.
Do you know why? Because it is impossible to reason with idiots. They think that if it is written, it must be true.
At this rate, archaeologists 2,000 years from now might be right if they end up claiming that Harry Potter, Hercule Poirot, Jason Bourne, Spiderman, and Ganesh Gaitonde were real because they are in books and films from the time and, obviously, no one could make them up.
Indeed, if this world keeps going in the direction these idiots are taking it in, it is quite possible that those future historians and archaeologists will.
So, might as well put it out there:
…and then, in 1972 was born from the loins of the God Anil and the womb of the Goddess Kavita, a beautiful, chubby child whose future was foretold by sages and soothsayers. This lovely genius of a child would, they said, conquer all the multi-universes and bring under his benevolent control, all the known and unknown realms, where he, along with the Avengers (who are very real, by the way), would rule with an iron fist, clad in the Infinity Gauntlet (which is real too). And so it was written, and so it was done. Kedar grew up to be an extremely handsome, virile, intelligent, well-spoken, well-dressed, and empathetic young man, and took over the small kingdom bequeathed to him by his father. In his childhood, he befriended crocodiles and led his bunch of young, passionate, and energetic friends to many an adventure. He later graduated from MIT and eventually Harvard (also Yale, Princeton, Oxford, and all other universities, except JU, AMU, and JNU) and earned a doctorate in ‘Entire Life’, a degree that did not exist until he acquired it. This was, in itself, a world record, because he did it in the middle of worldwide turmoil, while moving from place to place in disguise to escape the law, renouncing the world and taking ‘sanyaas’ on the dark side of the moon (which are just like Himalayas, just darker), and using electronic cameras and services from the future while travelling around the world posing in front of various monuments, a habit he sustained by begging for alms from strangers for his entire youth. Simultaneously. He then created and was one half part of the world’s first Schrödinger’s marriage, at once existing and not existing. It was on the far side of the moon that he befriended the Transformers (which are, as you know already, real) and when they arrived on Earth, introduced them to the Avengers, who were his fans and followers by the time. This was the army he then used to launch several attacks on his universe and other parallel universes, remaining undefeated in battle, and eventually being crowned the Eternally Undisputed Universal Very Real Not Kidding Emperor of the Entire World, including Middle Earth, Earendel, Scotland, and Wakanda, as well as President,. Generalissimo, Field Marshal, Admiral, and Capt of the USS Enterprise for Life, a position he held for 1,000 years before renouncing it suddenly and disappearing, never to be found, taking with him all the technology, knowhow, science, and wealth of his great kingdom, after which the bad people (the ‘pissfulls’, nudge, nudge, wink, wink) led by Jaish-e-Nehruddin came and plundered everything, becoming responsible for the state of the world as we find it now. The end.
Now, kneel before me, you puny, insignificant mortals.
