Makaranda Madhukar Anand Mahendale Festshrift

Author(s): M A Dhaky, Jitendra B Shah
Publisher: Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre

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Krishna S. Arjunwadkar
Makaranda
offered of other characters in the celebrated epic. This point leads us to the general question how far can we rely on theories of the nature of possibilities based on interpretations of ancient literature as means of reconstructing ancient history, and prefer one to another ? For, all talk of possibility is inherently tied with the claims of other credible possibilities and even impossibility. This naturally lends them an utterly subjective character, and no scientific discussion can afford to allow a subjective element to colour an evidence. Viewed from this angle, one can reasonably maintain that all attempts at culling information of definite, specific facts from ancient literature, not produced as history, which are based on interpretations, are open to challenge and doubt as to their acceptability as proven conclusions.
Ancient literature as a source of history
Again, if ancient literature is viewed as a source of social history, what prevents its use as a source of the history of technology ? There are magical formulas for every imaginable purpose in the Atharvaveda. We find innumerable references to extra-sensory perception and supernatural powers. arising from penance and illustrated by curses and boons. There are references in the Rāmāyana to aerial carriers (vimānas) used by gods and gandharvas. Vālmīki employs a huge aerial carrier, Puspaka (said to be in the service of Kubera before Rāvana robbed him of it), spacious enough to accommodate an entire army (even Jumbo Jets of our own times of technological advancement cannot hope to perform this feat), to fetch Rāma and his army to Ayodhyā after the conquest of Rāvana. Rāma's army of monkeys is credited with building of a stone bridge across the sea to reach Lankā to wage a war against Rāvana. Equally challenging is the episode of the touch of Rāma's foot restoring Ahalyā to her human form from the state of a stone she was reduced to as a result of her husband's curse. The great Mahābhārata (really great!) speaks of an artificial nourishment of Gāndhāri's foetus, cut into a hundred pieces, finally producing a hundred sons called Kauravas. (Some scholars see in this episode an evidence of the practice of 'cloning' being known in those times !) Savitri is said to have restored her dead husband to life after negotiations with the god of death. Krsna, when in danger of being attacked by Duryodhana's guards in an open court where he was pleading for Pāndavas, is said to have assumed myriad forms to confuse them. Hidimbā,