Historical India Podcast

The Late Vedic Age;  sometime  between the 14th  and 7th centuries BC. Or thereabouts. A time when everyone wants to be king, and then has a hard time figuring how to hold on. There are many clans and families all vying for their space in the sun; this is about two such families –  who had illustrious pasts,  had very different ideas about how to rule –  but meet a very similar end.

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Late Vedic Kingdoms

We pick up at the Rajasuya and then watch things go down hill for Yudhishtra and the Pandavas.  After 13 years, things come to a head and it’s all out war. But in the end, it doesn’t feel like a win.

Is the Mahabharata a commentary and appeal against the changes in society that were taking place in Ancient India?  The kings were being questioned but they don’t go away. We end with the last named king who links back to a misty past and maybe also to kings yet to come.

Rajagopalachari – The Mahabharata

Kisari Ganguli

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We look at the other great epic of India;  the Mahabharata. A big, rich and complex  work. The Mahabharata covers a range of subjects from politics, war, society, philosophy, justice, the status of women and everything in between.  But unlike the Ramayana, where the protagonist is divine, the focus here is on very human characters with all their shortcomings.

Earlier dismissed as pure fantasy, recent excavations seem to indicate the remnants of a culture with connections to textual evidence, but it’s not all done and dusted.

This is the first of a two part episode.

C Rajagopalachari – The Mahabharata

Kisari Ganguli

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Taking a breather from the heavier history, this time, we hear the first of the great epics of India; The Ramayana. A classical tale with kings, queens, demons and armies of warring monkeys it is ultimately the triumph of dharma over adharma or righteousness over transgressions.  The epic has become fused as part of the culture and continues to have an impact on the political and cultural life of India even today.

The Ramayana – English translation by C Rajagopalachari

 

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The Indus or Harappa Civilization, a very old and still mysterious civilization that reached a high degree of  urban sophistication and complexity but left very few clues to how it managed to do all that.  It’s divided historians and archaeologists about nearly every aspect of its existence; its language, religion, administration, writing,  where the people came from and where they went. It’s been over 5000 years, and it still has secrets, it just doesn’t want to give up.

 

               

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