Romila Thapar Pitches In

09.29.07 | 7 Comments | Filed Under Commentary, Indian Politics, War on Communism

The High Priestess of Indian history pitches in to besmear Rama. Remember her role during the Ayodhya days? As usual, her defence is long winded and she hacks the same lines ad nauseam. At first glance I didn’t think this was blog-worthy till this caught my attention:

These other versions might be objected to or dismissed by the person who has faith in the Valmiki version since the other versions differ. What is of interest to the historian is not the number of variant versions, which is impressively large, but why major changes were introduced into these.

This does not happen with the biographies of those who were known to be historical figures and who founded belief systems: the Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohammad. Their biographies adhere largely to a single story-line and this helps to endorse the ‘official’ narrative of their life. Their existence is recorded in other sources as well that are not just narratives of their lives but have diverse associations.

Offered without comment.

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