Now, confusion over date of Gita’s inception intensifies
NEW DELHI: External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj may have attended a meet to commemorate 5151 years of the Bhagwad Gita, but RSS-related history writing body Akhil Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Yojana puts the age of the Gita at 5153 years.
Current Indian Council for Historical Research chairman YS Rao is an Itihas Sankalan Yojana veteran. The meet — Gita Prerna Diwas — was organized by Jiyo Gita Parivar and other religious organizations with
RSS cooperation. Swaraj attended the closing session on Sunday and called for the Gita to be named the national scripture. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had attended the Bhoomi Pujan five days earlier.
“We do not want to dispute them as they are a cultural body but if they consult us we will tell them that our calculations based on historical facts show the Gita to be 5153 years old,” Itihas Sankalan Yojana national organizing secretary and RSS pracharak Bal Mukund told HT. The Itihas Sankalan Yojana sees itself as a professional historical body. On its website its year of formal registration is shown as 1994 — “5096 years” into Kalyug — though its work began in 1978. Kalyug is the last among four yugs in the Hindu conception of cyclical time. Veteran historian DN Jha, however, disagrees with both dates, saying the Gita cannot be dated like this. “Kalyug began on February 18, 3102 BC,” asserts Mukund.
“The Mahabharat began 36 years before Kalyug near the end of Dwapar, meaning 3139 BC. The sources we have used are the Mahabharat, the Brahmavarta Purana and others. These texts also show the position of the stars (grah-dashaa) and we have been able to locate the exact dates based on these.”
Former Bajrang Dal convenor Prakash Sharma helpfully explains, “One human year equals one day of the gods. One year of the gods is 360 human years. One cycle of four yugs – Sat, treta, Dwapar and Kalyug — is 12000 years of the gods or 43,20,000 human years.” He adds, “Satyuga is 17,28,000 years long, treta 12,96,000 years long, dwapar 8,64,000 years long and Kalyug is 4,32,000 years long.”
DN Jha cautions against these interpretations. He says the Gita is an interpolation within the Mahabharat, which itself developed over centuries as bardic literature grew.
Jha also questions the idea that the Gita was indeed first recited on the battlefield, “It is 700 verses. If it were to be recited with the two armies facing each other, the battle would be over by the time of recitation.”