INTRODUCTION
The Mahabharat has excercised a continuous and pervasive influence on the Indian mind for milleniums. The Mahabharat, orginally written by Sage Ved Vyas in Sanskrit, has been translated and adapted into numerous languages and has been set to a variety of interpretations. Dating back to "remote antiquity", it is still a living force in the life of the Indian masses.
Incidently, the dating of the Mahabharat War has been a matter of challenge and controversy for a century or two. European scholars have maintained that the events described in the ancient Sanskrit texts are imaginary and subsequently, the Mahabharat derived to be a fictitiou tale of a war fought between two rivalries. Starting from the so- called Aryan invasion into Bharat, the current Bharatiya chronology starts from the compilation of the Rigved in 1200 B.C., then come other Ved's, Mahaveer Jain is born, then Gautam Buddha lives around 585 B.C. and the rest follows. In the meantime, the Brahmanas, Samhi- tas, Puranas, etc. are written and the thought contained therein is well-absorbed among the Hindu minds. Where does the Ramayan and Mahabharat fit in ? Some say that the Ramayan follows Mahabharat and some opine otherwise. In all this anarchy of Indian histography, the date of the Mahabharat (the mythical story!) ranges between 1000 B.C.to 300 B.C. Saunskrut epics were academically attacked occasion- ally - an attempt to disprove the authencity of the annals noted therein. For example, the European Indologiest Maxmuller, tried the interpret the astronomical evidences to prove that the observations recorded in the Hindu scriptures are imaginary, probably because it did not match the prevelant views of European historians!
On the contrary, many Bharatiya scholars have vehemently maintained the actual occurance of the Mahabharat War. Astronomical and literary evidences or clues from the Pauranic and Vaidik texts have been deci- phered to provide a conclusive date for the Mahabharat War. The fifth century mathematician, Aryabhatta, calculated the date of the Mahabharat War to be approximately 3100 B.C. from the planetary posi- tions recorded in the Mahabharat. Prof. C.V. Vaidya and Prof. Apte had derived the date to be 3101 B.C. and Shri. Kota Venkatachalam reckoned it to be 3139 B.C. However, the astronomical data used by the above, and many other, scholars contained some errors as examined by a scho- lar from Pune, Dr. P.V. Vartak. Using astronomical references and variety of other sources, Dr. Vartak has derived the date of the ini- tiation of the Mahabharat War to be 16th October 5561 B.C. This pro- posed date has been examined by a few scholars and has been verfied. This may prove to be a break-through in deciding the chronology of the events in the history of Bharat (and probably the World).
In the following few posts, I have made an attempt to provide a glance at the proofs provided by Dr. Vartak in propounding the date of the very important landmark in the history of Bharat (World?), i.e., Mahabharat War. Only major points have been extracted from two sources: Dr.P.V. Vartak's Marathi book "Swayambhu" and "Scientific Dating of the Mahabharat War" in English.
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