Beyond history: The Ramayan and the Mahabharat are too epic in scope to be taught as a single subject

History, said motor magnate Henry Ford, is bunk, thereby consigning history to the dustbin of, well, history.

But if Ford dismissed history as a has-been, NCERT is proposing to treat the study of the past as a never-was.

A panel has recommended that the Ramayan and the Mahabharat should be included in the history curriculum. If the proposal is accepted, history will be taught under four classifications – classical period, medieval period, British era, and modern India.
To seek to encompass what are the two greatest mythological epics of the world within the limiting rubric of a single subject is to do a disservice to both, the sagas and history.

History is, or ought to be, a narration of past events, rooted in time and place, and based in so far as is possible, on facts, taking into account the inevitable colouration of actuality by the refraction caused by the prism of time.

Mythology occupies a dimension beyond the boundaries of time and space. It is, in the true sense of the term, ageless, as pertinent to the present as it was to the millennial past of its creation. It is also not restricted to any space or geographical location, but is of universal relevance.

The Mahabharat and the Ramayan bear teachings not just for India and Indians, but for all humankind. They impart profound insights into the interwoven strands of ethics and morality, the obligation of duty and the imperative of compassion.

Just one small part of the Mahabharat, a later addition to the epic, which has become central to Indic thought, the Bhagwad Gita, has over the centuries inspired libraries of commentaries without exhausting the cornucopia of the significance it holds for both the seeker of enlightenment and the individual confronted by the everyday trials and turmoil of the commonplace.

Both epics demand separate study as literature, moral philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, psychology, and political science.

To bundle them up as a unitary faux-history, to historicise myth and mythicise history, is to make a travesty of both. Or, Henry Ford-like, reduce them both to bunk.

History, said motor magnate Henry Ford, is bunk, thereby consigning history to the dustbin of, well, history.

But if Ford dismissed history as a has-been, NCERT is proposing to treat the study of the past as a never-was.

A panel has recommended that the Ramayan and the Mahabharat should be included in the history curriculum. If the proposal is accepted, history will be taught under four classifications – classical period, medieval period, British era, and modern India.

To seek to encompass what are the two greatest mythological epics of the world within the limiting rubric of a single subject is to do a disservice to both, the sagas and history.

History is, or ought to be, a narration of past events, rooted in time and place, and based in so far as is possible, on facts, taking into account the inevitable colouration of actuality by the refraction caused by the prism of time.

Mythology occupies a dimension beyond the boundaries of time and space. It is, in the true sense of the term, ageless, as pertinent to the present as it was to the millennial past of its creation. It is also not restricted to any space or geographical location, but is of universal relevance.

The Mahabharat and the Ramayan bear teachings not just for India and Indians, but for all humankind. They impart profound insights into the interwoven strands of ethics and morality, the obligation of duty and the imperative of compassion.

Just one small part of the Mahabharat, a later addition to the epic, which has become central to Indic thought, the Bhagwad Gita, has over the centuries inspired libraries of commentaries without exhausting the cornucopia of the significance it holds for both the seeker of enlightenment and the individual confronted by the everyday trials and turmoil of the commonplace.

Both epics demand separate study as literature, moral philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, psychology, and political science.

To bundle them up as a unitary faux-history, to historicise myth and mythicise history, is to make a travesty of both. Or, Henry Ford-like, reduce them both to bunk.

END OF ARTICLE