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When Kurus Fought Pandavas. That the Great War Between the Kurus When Kurus Fought Pandavas. B y H a r it K r is h n a D e b . That the Great War between the Kurus and the Pandavas which forms the central theme o£ the Hindu Epic, the MahS- bharata, was an actual historical event is acknowledged by most earnest students of Indian history. Attempts have, from time to time, been made by a number of scholars to arrive at a pre­ cise date for this event. But these attempts have only resulted in the development of views so divergent from each other that even an approximate date conforming to the different data can­ not be deduced. Nor is this difficulty an incident of modern scholarship. Erudite scholars from at least the fiftli century A.D. have found reasons for variance on the point. Never­ theless, these ancient estimates furnish some chronological clues which it would seem to be w'orth w'litle to investigate. Broadly speaking, there were current, in the 5th-6th century A.D., three views concerning the date of the Great War. Aryabha^ (b. 476 A.D.) places the event in the 32nd century B.C. Varaha Mihira (d. 587 A.D.) assigns it to the 25th century B C. The Puranas which contain an account down, as we shall see, to 425 A.D., date the War in the 15th century B.C. We observe here a ver}’ large cleavage of opinion on the question already in the 5th-6th century when, we should think, the Indians had more reliable data to go upon than M'hat we possess to-day. Whence this cleavage ? One thing that strikes us at a first glance is that, while Aryabhata and Varaha Mihira give the dating in their astronomical treatises, reckoning apparently by astronomical data, the Puranas claim to derive the date from the reign-periods of successive monarchs. Why, then, do A ryabha^ and Varaha Mihira differ between them­ selves ? To answer this question, w’e shall have to see what astronomical data they possessed for working out the dates. To begin with Aryabhata. Research has sho^vn that the so-called Kaliyuga era of B.C. 3102 has a purely astro­ nomical origin and, originally, had nothing to do ^ith any actual historicat event.^ Nor is it of very ancient descent. It was devised by Hindu astronomers not long before A.D. 400 when, as a result of Grecian influence, they realiZed that they required a definite date from which to reckon the movements of the sun, the moon and the planets. In the earlier period, they had been content to calculate, for the purposes of astronomy as 1 JRAS, 1911, pp. 479-96, 675-98. A\’e]l as of astrology, the moveinents of only the sun and the moon, and were not interested in the movements of the planets. Now, however, by calculating backwards upon the basis of the then known mean values of planetary periods, with slight adjustments, they arrived at a certain date, namely, the 18th February, Friday, in B.C. 3102, when, according to these cal­ culations, the sun, the moon and the five planets w^ould have been in conjunction at the beginning of Mesa. Aryabha^ designates the day preceding this day as “ the Bharata Thurs­ day ” which is explained by his commentator as meaning the day on which Yudhisthira and the others laid aside their sover­ eignty and went on theii’ great journej". The underlying assumption is that Yudhisthira laid aside his sovereignt}" just before the sun. the moon and the five planets were believed to have come together on a particular day in B.C. 3102. Such an assumption could only have been made after the advent of Grecian astrology and astronomy. The planetary periods, the signs of the zodiac, the week-days, all of which enter into the calculations, are demonstrably of Grecian origin. The fact that, on the given date B.C. 3102, there was actually no such conjunction, nor even a near approach to such a conjunction, proves the date to have been derived by back- calculation. It is no wonder that such an artificial reckoning did not commend itself even to an astronomer like Varaha Mihira who, coming shortly afterwards, assigned a different date to Yudhis­ thira. Kalhana, writing in the 12th century A.D.,, definitely rejects Aryabhata's dating and avows adherence to the dating favoured by Varaha. We however can have no such confidence in Varaha's dating. He places Yudhisthira 2,526 years before the Saka era.^ But the begmning of the Saka era does not correspond to the gauge-year of Varaha. His gauge-year is 427 Saka and is taken over from the Romaka Siddhanta.^ There is thus an interval of 2,953 years between Varaha’s date for Yudhisthira and the gauge-year of the Romaka which is also his own gauge-year. The number 2,953 is suggestive: it is exactly 100 times the number of days (29 o3) in a lunar synodic month. The author of the Romaka, belonging as he did to the Alexandrian school of astronomy, may be presumed to have knowTi the Hipparchian (and also, Ptolemaic) estimate of precession which works out to 1 daj" in 100 years. Consequently, if there was reason to believe that the equinoxes and the solstices had been occurring in Yudhisthira’s time exactly one lunar month (Or 29’53 days) later than in 427 Saka, it might be inferred that a period of 2,953 years had intervened between Yudhisthira and 427 Saka. It will be show'n that there was reason for such a belief. 1 Brhat-Samhita 13,3. 2 JASB, 1884, p. 288. Vaiaha Mihira gives, in his Pancasiddhantika, rules for the calculation of aharganas, according to the Romaka Siddhanta, and states that the initial point for the calculations is Caitra sukla 1 of 427 Saka, ‘‘ when the sun had half set in Yavanapura ” (Alexandria). The last detail shoM's that Alexandrian astrono­ my was at the basis of the fixation of Caitra sukla 1 of 427 Saka as the starting-point of Varaha Mihira as well as of the Komaka. And, as this fixation was bound up with a new determination of the vernal equinox rendered necessary by observed deflection in the equinoctial position, it is legitimate to connect, as I have proposed to do above, this fixation ^^ith the Alexandrian estimate of precession. The statement in the Pancasiddhantika shows further that the spring equinox wa^< held to be occurring on Caitra sukla 1 in 427 Saka. Let us turn now to the state of affairs exhibited in the Mahabharata.^ Bhisma is lying on his bed of arrows, waiting for death. Being a virtuous man, he cannot die except in uttarayan a, that is, the half-year following the winter solstice. He has to wait till the 8th day after the winter solstice—a particularly auspicious day still celebrated in India as BhismastamI and marked as such in Hindu almanacs. On that day, BliTsma perceives that, the lunar month Magha being already on, uttarSyana had arrived, and it was already the eighth day of the lunar month. This stor^% according to WinternitZ,“ formed no part of the original account. But he recognizes that the philosopher SaAkara speaks of Bhisma’s death in uttarayana, so that the story of Bhvsma's death as described in our present Mahabharata must have found place there already in the 8th century A.D. The fact that Sankara takes it as part of established tradition, and not as a recent incorporation, shows that it was found in the Maha­ bharata which lay before Varaha Mihira as well as the author of the Romaka Siddhanta (6th century). And the story must have indicated to them that, in the days of Bhisma—in the year of the Bharata War—the winter solstice coincided with Magha sukla 1. Comparing the two positions—vernal equinox on Caitra sukla 1 in 427 Saka, and winter solstice on Magha sukla 1 in the year of the battle of Kuruksetra—the inference was drawn that the equinoxes and the solstices had been occurring in Yudhisthira’s time exactly one lunar month (29‘53 days) later than in 427 Saka; and the Hipparcho-Ptolemaic rate of preces­ sion being availed of, the interval was calculated as one of 2,953 years. A dating derived in this way, on the basis of what we know to-day to be a wrong value of precession, can have no claim to oui- acceptance. ^ AnuSasana-parva, ch. 67. “ Geschichte der Indischen Literatur, vol. I, p. 307, There now remains for our consideration the Puranic dating which has the effect of placing the Great War in the 15th cen­ tury B.C. To be more exact, the Puranas posit a period of 1,015 or 1,050 years between the birth of Pariksit and the coronation-year of Mahapadma, I have elsewhere ^ given reasons for assigning this latter event to B.C 413. Briefly, my argument is as follows. The dynastic account in the Matsya, Vayu and Brahmanda Puranas is brought down just to the end of the 836th year after Mahapadma’s coronation ; and, im­ mediately afterwards is added an exposition of the Saptarshi reckoning. It is reasonable to suppose that the object of this juxtaposition was'to indicate that the Saptarshi era had been used here—that, in fact, the 836th j^ear after Mahapadma’s coronation fell in, or coincided with, the last year of a Saptarshi centennium. That the use of some era was necessary to make the Puranic chronology intelligible could not fail to have been recognized by the Puranic compilers who mention the Andhra dynasty as having gone by and allude to eighteen successive Saka rulers, thus betraying their late age.
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