Physical Evidence of Hindu Epics

A lot of detractors of Hindu epics ask why there is a distinct lack of physical evidence from the time of Ramayan and the Mahabharata.  If we have evidence of dinosaurs, who lived long before Rama and Krushna, why aren't there bones, swords, crowns from that period?  This article, will explore some of those points and offer an answer as to WHY?

Dinosaur remains are rare and found in remote areas, away from human habitation or deep in places where they have remained undisturbed for millions of years. 
Egyptians temples and tombs that were remote, buried under scalding sand or too big to be broken up remained - rest were recycled for stone or destroyed by Christian and Islamic zealots.
Same about Roman remains - useful buildings - such as aqueducts remained. Rest were recycled for stone and wood.  Only what was buried survived to modern time.

Unlike dinosaur bones, events of Ramayan and Mahabharata happened in areas of heavy human traffic and habitation.  Wood and stone remains were recycled or decayed by weather.  Animal bones crumbled to dust under heavy agriculture and building works.  Hindus burn their dead and remains are left in rivers.  Gold and silver has been recycled many thousands of times.  Our weather (very hot, very wet, very dry) is disastrous for physical remains.  Termites have eaten wooden buildings, palm leaf documents have crumbled to dust and painted murals have faded and flaked off walls.

Over 5000 of years, wars, floods, earthquakes, neglect and desire to recycle whatever is salvageable has meant many antique stones and artifacts no longer exist in the same way as they would have during ancient times. eg - bricks from Harrapa are used as ballast in railway between Karachi and Lahore during the British rule.  Despite knowing there history, no attempt has been made to recover them.  Stone pillars from 27 Hindu and Jain temples are used to make the Quwwat-uk-Islam mosque (near Qutb Minar).  Yet nothing will ever be done to recover or re-create the older temples.

Islam has wiped out histories and religions across Asia, Europe and Africa.  Wherever Islam has ruled, local population has converted to Islam and they have wilfully forgotten their history within 3 generations.  India is the only country where they have ruled for 800 years and not succeeded in wiping out native culture and religion.  Not that they didn’t try.  You will rarely find an ancient temple in North India because iconoclastic muslim armies systematically destroyed every single temple they came across.  They forcefully killed, raped, enslaved and converted as many priests and teachers they could.  Millions perished under Islamic misrule of India.  When people were dying in such huge numbers, how could we preserve our antiques?

Christianity has been equally disastrous for native cultures and religions across Asia, Americas, Europe, Africa and Australasia.  They ruled India for 150 years, denying Hindus any scholarly legitimacy.  Every Hindu ideal and principle were ridiculed.  Where possible, Hindu practices were outlawed or pushed aside as ‘regressive’ and ‘outdated’.  ‘Educated Hindus’ were embarrassed to be publically supportive of their religious beliefs.  This has impacted our educational institutions till date.  As a result, even now it is fine to study Islam or Christianity at India university, but not Hinduism.  Sadly, as a result, their ancient history from the Epics isn’t much studied or discussed or discovered - despite India being independent for 70 years.  Any attempt by scholars to ‘discover Hindu history’ is immediately seen as political and ridiculed by avowed ‘secular, socialist’ government of India.

Remains of Ramayan and MahaBharata -
Despite all these challenges, physical remains exist in India.

Physical remains exist in the form of Ramar bridge between India and Shri Lanka.  It is a narrow land link that was made for the Indian army to cross over.  Over the millenniums, coral and other sea creatures have grown over the stone boulders that were thrown in the sea. Sea has risen and battered the bridge over the 1000s of years it has been here.  But, the majority still remains and can still be seen - even from space!  Government and scholars are scared to carry out proper research or dig up evidence of Ramar bridge or Ayodhya temple because they don’t want to upset muslims and left leaning atheists.

Physical remains of Dwarka exists just off the current city.  Lots of evidence has been found - walls, fortification, docks, pots, coins etc.  But once again, due to the anti-Hindu bias of our government and it's institutions, very little has been done to investigate these remains.  They are afraid of confirming anything that may give credence to 'Hindu history'.

Remains of Ramayan and Mahabharata exist in the form of towns, cities, mountains, rivers that were mentioned in the epic.  Those landmarks are still here.  Himalayas, Vindhya, Ayodhya, Hastinapur, Varanasi, Prayag, Chitrakut, Dwarka, Mathura etc.  The entire subcontinent is called Bharat - surely that tells you how strongly this history is embedded in the soil of India!  We ignore such living evidence out of western bias, academic arrogance and anti-Hindu prejudice of many western scholars.

There is one place where irrefutable evidence still exists of Ramayan and Mahabharata.  Space!!
Our Itihas - Ramayan and Mahabharata - recorded important dates by citing astrological and astronomical information.  Births, deaths, wars were recorded with accurate info about which star / constellation was rising or setting.  The position of stars, planets, sun, moon was in which place in the heavens at the time of special events was recorded with great accuracy.  Scientists have used these records to date events in the Ramayan and the Mahabharata.

The evidence is out there. We just have to go find it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qutb_complex

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam's_Bridge

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1369715-is-this-a-1-7-million-year-old-man-made-bridge/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarka

http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/ancient/ramayan/rama_vartak.html

http://indiafacts.org/the-scientific-dating-of-the-ramayana/

There are other videos and documentaries on the internet.

© Bhagwat Shah
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