Let us stick to the facts, shall we!

By: K Gautam

As expected, there is a furore over the affidavit filed by the ASI (Archeological Survey of India) regarding the Sethusamudram Project. The self-proclaimed political guardians of Hinduism, the same guardians who followed the Hindu Dharma by turning a blind eye while countless innocents were massacred in the Gujarat and Mumbai riots have criticized the government for hurting the feelings of Hindus all over the world.

While we have got used to such backlashes from such political and pseudo-religious maniacs, the same was not expected from Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, a
well-respected seer, both in India and world wide, who has rapped the UPA Government for letting a judicial affidavit pass, which has proclaimed that there is no historical evidence to prove the existence of Lord Ram. He also went onto say "There were unproven miracles in the lives of religious figures of other faiths. If we dismiss Lord Ram as a fictitious character, then we have to dismiss all miracles in the lives of Jesus, Moses and Mohammed as myths." While it was unwise on the part of the government to drag the name of Lord ram revered by Hindus all over the world, there is no need for a moderate spiritual leader like Sri Sri to get unnecessarily involved and drag religious icons of other faiths.

Let us try to understand why it would be difficult to consider Ramayan and Mahabharat as epics and not history. For one, there has not been one single irrefutable piece of evidence by a single archeological agency or archeologist (India or abroad) to concretely prove that Ramayan and Mahabharat actually happened. It might have or it might not have, we might never know. Believing or not believing is the right of the individual. It is not right for non-believers to thump their views on the believers and vice-versa. Personally, though I would like to believe that Lord Ram, Hanuman, Karna, and Lord Krishna and so many other heroes, who have inspired millions all over the world actually existed, I will always remain a skeptic unless some sensational discovery happens. Till that happens, I am afraid we have to stick to the facts.

Secondly some mythologists believe that Ramayan took place in a much previous yuga, almost 1,70,000 years ago. There is however another scientific school of thought that says that Lord Ram was born sometime around 5000 BC based on the planetary positions and zodiac constellations, which from a historical perspective is very, very recent. How is it possible to rely on such contrasting school of thoughts and accept Ramayan as history?

Ramayan and Mahabharat are revered epics, which people all over the world (not necessarily just Hindus and Indians) have enjoyed and learned from all these centuries. Let us not try to sully their image by such bickering.

It was not wise on the part of the ASI and the government to mention the existence or non-existence of Lord Ram, albeit the late withdrawal of the paragraphs after the backlash. They should have just stuck to the conclusion that the Sethu Bridge is a natural formation and not a man-made one and leave it at that. What was the need to mention the non-existence of Lord Ram? It is sometimes such foolish acts of indiscretion that are fodder for insane fundamentalists in this country.