Originally posted by: Wistfulness
Mahabharata has always been deemed a text on Dharma and Itihaasa.
While a considerable portion of the epic is definitely an exaggeration due to the fact that the epic evolved with times, the core portion did take place.
The discovery of Dwarka is one major evidence.
Several references from the Mahabharata, the Bhagvata Purana and the Vishnu Purana have been used to suggest the city's exact location.
The remains of what has been described as a huge lost city, found by researchers not long ago, may force historians and archaeologists to radically reconsider their view of ancient human history.
Around 1500 BC the whole western coast of India mysteriously disappeared along with Dwarka - the great city of gold. The deluge came and the submergence took place immediately after Sri Krishna departed from the world.
This catastrophic event is confirmed by the sacred texts of the Vishnu Purana stating that "on the same day that Krishna departed from the earth the powerful dark-bodied Kali Age descended. The ocean rose and submerged the whole of Dwarka."
The Age of Kali thus ushered in turns out to be none other than the present epoch of the earth - our own. According to the Hindu sages it began just over 5000 years ago at a date in the Indian calendar corresponding to 3102 BC.
The Age of Kali thus ushered in turns out to be none other than the present epoch of the earth - our own. According to the Hindu sages it began just over 5000 years ago at a date in the Indian calendar corresponding to 3102 BC.
Also in the Mahabharata, there is a specific account given by Krishna’s main disciple Arjuna about the submerging of Dwaraka, by the sea which reads as follows:
"The sea, which has been beating against the shores, suddenly broke the boundary that was imposed on it by nature. It rushed into the city, coursing through the beautiful city streets, and covered up everything in the city. I saw the beautiful buildings becoming submerged on by one. In a matter of a few moments, it was all over. The sea had now become as placid as a lake. There was no trace of the city. Dwaraka was just a name; just a memory..." -
For more than 5,000 years Dwaraka was treated only like a myth, handed over from one generation to another.
"However, sceptics insist that Mahabharat is nothing more than a figment of someone’s imagination. All the sites associated with the mythological epic continue to have the same nomenclature even till this day.”
BB Lal
Can't really compare it to either HP or GOT because it has shaped the Indian cultural ethos and thrived despite its existence going back to thousands of years. Mahabharata has everything you witness in the real world. 😁
Dwaraka's excavation is known to me too. But I would like to raise one point here.
I don't believe the Krishna of rhe Vishnu Purana or Harivamsa is the same as Krishna of Dwaraka. Yes you may raise the question of how Balaram is a common link in both. I think Vishnu Purana or Bhagwat Purana was written much later and it was carefully drafted to give Krishna a more divine nature than he already has and prove he is an avatar of Vishnu. This may not be Completely reliable.
Quoting an article by Devdutt Pattanaik on the same:
Krishna appears in the Mahabharata as the wise, some might say cunning, counsellor of the Pandavas, whose timely and much-debated interventions in the great war lead the Pandavas to victory; even more memorably, perhaps, he appears as the charioteer of the Pandava prince, Arjuna, passing down those teachings that got enshrined in the part of the Mahabharata that came to be known as the Bhagavad Gita.
However, for a great many Hindus, the pre-eminent text of Krishna worship is the Bhagavata Purana, and most particularly its Tenth Book, which recounts the childhood exploits of Krishna, his adolescence, and his life in Vrindavan and the Vraj area amidst cowherds and milkmaids, the gopas and gopis. The Mahabharata, composed between the 3rd century BC and 3rd century AD, is based on stories that were known at least a thousand years earlier. This epic focuses on Krishna’s relationship with the Pandavas. The Harivamsa which is the first book to describe Krishna’s earlier life as a cowherd was added as an appendix to the Mahabharata only around the 5th century AD. Tales from the Mahabharata and the Harivamsa were incorporated in the Vishnu Purana which later metamorphosed into the Bhagavata Purana around the 12th century AD.
Krishna of the Bhagavata is the adorable prankster with a butter-smeared face. Krishna of the Mahabharata is a shrewd strategist covered in blood. One is the winsome cowherd. The other a wise charioteer. One lives in the village, surrounded by cows, cowherds and milkmaids. The other lives in the city, surrounded by horses, elephants, kings and queens. One is admonished by his mother and seeks adventure. The other gives advice to friends and family and goes on missions. One submits to the demands of Radha and 16,100 gopis, a relationship bursting with clandestine eroticism. The other fulfils his husbandly obligations to his eight senior and 16,100 junior queens. One can be seen playing the flute on the banks of the Yamuna, surrounded by women dancing in joyous abandon. The other can be seen in the middle of Kuru-kshetra on a chariot, whip in hand, blowing the conch-shell war trumpet, surrounded by the dead bodies of hundreds and thousands of warriors. The two Krishnas could not be more different from each other.
How do you explain the two Krishnas? How do you distinguish the butter-smeared Krishna from the blood-smeared Krishna? How do you reconcile the Krishna who romances Radha and the Krishna who comforts Draupadi? Are they the same? Can they be the same?
Many mythographers are of the opinion that the two Krishnas are two different folk-heroes forcibly put together. The Krishna of the Mahabharata was Vasudeva, leader of a tribal oligarchy while Krishna of the Bhagavata was Gopala, an adventurous herdsman who the Greek traveller, Magesthenes, identified with Hercules. Both Krishnas were then identified with Vishnu, God, as Hinduism moved increasingly towards theism.
https://devdutt.com/articles/butter-or-blood/
You might want to read more here.
Hence, it maybe possible that the Krishna of Mathura is not real but Krishna the political strategist was real and did exist. However there isn't much proof that what constitutes the Geeta today is his words alone.
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