What is History, how it is different from Literature, their inter-relation and how our Ramayana and Mahabharata are not just part of history but history themselves, and not literature: Explains Abhinav Shankar Anikul_
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What the history terms gruesomely, dismissively & witheringly otherwise; the literature treats in a generous, lenient & commiserative manner. In a way we see a strange paradox between these two here, but perhaps naturally so.
Equally ironic is that today when it is a standard practice to look into literature while caricaturing the history, difficult to say how much of this paradox is acoounted while doing so. The History follows it’s own simple & plain rules for describing things. It is utilitarian in it’s basic purpose. It believes that best action is the one that maximizes utility, which is usually defined as that which produces the greatest well-being of the greatest number of people. While the Literature is ‘individualistic’ in it’s basic approach. It describes things in a ‘psychic-wise’ manner rather than a ‘situation-wise’ one. The questions which the history, due to it’s limitation of having a ‘situation-wise’ approach, could not consider; the literature considers them through a detailed and complex ‘psychic-wise’ perspective, without finding a cause of ‘common good’ for labelling them right or wrong. Summarily the history is sociological in it’s very purpose while the literature is individualistic in it. It is subtle yet the fundamental difference between history & literature.
While determining whether an ancient text qualifies for being a piece of the literature or a part of the history, it is wise to see of what kind it is- utilitarian or individualistic ?? What perspective it aquires while describing things- ‘situation-wise’ or ‘psychic-wise’ ??? Classification of documents based on such scientific parameters only would lead to an authentic tagging of the documents. Unfortunately we rarely see this happening, leading to an erratic estimation of the category of the document.
The biggest example of it we see, is in case of The Ramayana & The Mahabharata. In the light of the fundamental difference & the paradox, the History and the Literature carry with respect to each other, a thoughtful observation would reveal that both of them qualifies for being a part of history rather than of literature. Both works are abjectly utilitarian in their purpose and extremely ‘situation-wise’ in their perspective. The amazing correctness of geographical details with which these works are imbibed with, gives an additional proof of their historical authenticity. But the modern standard of judging historical authencity is too obsessed with the western concept of ‘clarity of period’ . And just on the basis of this ‘technical’ requirement it refuses to acknowledge historical authenticity of these texts and terms them mythology (semi-literature); without considering other intellectual properties like purpose and perspective, which are in fact more fundamental to the question. It is like refusing to consider lead a metal just because it is found in liquid state under room condition, ignoring other more fundamental properties like ductility, malleability etc. Clearly we don’t do this in science but unfortunately doing so in history.
Clearly we are right now in a pitiful state of affairs where we are looking to literature for the history on one hand, while on the another hand, has rejected a plentiful source of the history, terming as literature. Today under the backdrop of ever emerging mutually clashful and contradictory versions of history, it becomes more important than ever, to distinctly classify what is history and what is literature. For that we need to first understand fundamental characteristics of both history & literature and their inter-relation. Further we need to modify the standard with which historical authenticity is being judged right now. Otherwise we will keep terming our history as literature & vice versa, and keep getting confused and thus will keep our understanding of our past intellectually-challenged.