Chronology of India

Introduction

Extensive study of Sanskrit inscriptions and literature in the original always throws up a few historical or factual inconsistencies; the puzzlement led me to further reading and research to unravel these obvious mismatches. As a simple example, let us take the period of Kalidasa’s life: how are we to reconcile the fact that Kalidasa who claims to be the court poet of king Vikramaditya of Ujjain is the court poet of the king Chandragupta II Vikramaditya of Pataliputra. A further inconsistency: Kalidasa refers to Varahamihira as his senior contemporary but the modern textbooks of history teach us that Kalidasa lived in the 5th century CE whereas Varahamihira was supposed to have lived in the 6th century CE. Seemingly simple inconsistencies but requiring an extraordinary amount of erudition, a command over Sanskrit and amateur astronomical knowledge to be able to validate the celestial events recorded in the wealth of epigraphic records in this country.

There are many such anomalies in the modern chronological history of ancient India that need dedication, erudition and patience but unfortunately for us, ‘eminent historians’ preferred to brush such inconsistencies aside rather than promoting honest, unbiased research to resolve them. Western historians nurtured a bias towards the traditional chronology of ancient India to further their own political and academic interests and the majority of the historians of independent India carried forward the same legacy, patronised by the certain sections of political establishment.

The entire edifice of the chronology of ancient India was erected on false foundations during the colonial period. While many scholars attempted to expose the fallacy of the distorted Indian chronology with reference to the Puranic chronology, unfortunately none studied the chronological content of the inscriptions comprehensively to reconcile with Puranic and astronomical inputs. The present research work is completely based on the comprehensive study of the chronological content of the inscriptions. During the course of my research, I have discovered the exact epochs of various ancient Indian eras that conclusively uphold the authenticity of the Puranic chronology and expose the fallacy of the chronology given in the modern textbooks of Indian history. There is a serious need to re-write the entire history of ancient India with reference to the newly discovered epochs of the ancient Indian eras.