Tulsi Prajna 1993 02

SR No.: 524574
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Parmeshwar Solanki
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati
Publication Year: 1993
Total Pages: 166
Language: Hindi
Classification: Magazine, India_Tulsi Prajna, & India
File Size: 7 MB

Page 144

SUMMARY OF THE TWO PAPERS
(1) On the basic blunder in the reconstrution of Indian Chronology by orientalists or the Greek Synchronisms Reviewed.
Introductory-The great and good work done by western orientalists and their Indian followers since the time of Sir William Jones. The difficulties of earlier orientalists. Europeans public opinion against assigning any great antiquity to India beyond that of Greece. Hopeless exaggeration, to the European mind, of Indian traditions. The Purāṇas thus totally ignored by earlier orientalists. Lack of indigenous historical materials assumed by them and explained away by reference to the supposed philosophic indifference of the Hindus to mundane affairs. The attempts made "to reduce to proper limits" the Purāṇic accounts. The work, however, marred by serious limitations of the investigators, by complexity of subject-matter, and by defective methods of investigation arising from racial prejudices and prepossessions, superficial knowledge, undue-disregard of tradition recorded in native literature, reckless distortion of original texts, and over-whelming self-confidence. The most typical instance furnished by the false synchronism of Alexander the Great and Chandragupta Maurya which has been called and made the SheetAnchor of Indian Coronology.
Origin and application of the hypothesis-Sir William Jones vaguely started the theory in 1793. Colone Witford and prof. Lassen put it on firmer basis. Prof. Max Muller's staunch support-plausibility of the theory. The familiarity of the Europeans with Greek and Roman accounts of India. Sandracottos of the Greeks undeniably contemporaneous with Alexander the Great and Seluecus Nikator. identifieation of Sandracottos with chandragupta. Chandragupta assumed to be the Maurya, who was the only Chandragupta known to the earlier orientalists. The theory welcomed as furnishing one certain starting-point in investigating a huge field of uncertainties. The bypothesis by sheer repetition now passed off as a proved fact "no longer open to doubt". Reconstrution of Indian Chronology by counting backward and forwards and applying averages and approximations, all starting from the "fixed point" of 322 B.C., to eg, the Saiśunāga and Nanda pre-Maurya dynasties, and the Sunga, Kanva, Andhra and Gupta post-Maurya dynasties.