History and Hindu Mythology: The Thinning Lines with References to Ashwin Sanghi’s Bharat Series and Related Literature

Poumita Paul

India is a country enriched with a diverse past of discovery, altering social order, invasions, battles and heroism reflected keenly by the historians with a linear chronological structur eon the basis of relevant investigations and enquiries. Hinduism is one of the widely practised religion in this part of the world and holds its own version of widely propagated past which includes a circular notion of time, rebirth and characters like Shiva, Ram, Krishna and the tales associated with it which is supposed to have paved the socio-political structure of the present sub-continent. However, due to the lack of proper evidences, these tales do not find any place in the documentation of a rational historian and are only confined as mere literary creations getting its shape in the Vedic period (c. 1500- c. 500 BCE) meant to set morals and mould the human behavior likewise. These tales find their places only in the realm of Mythology. But, with the advent of the Postmodernity and  its zeal of seeking the unsought, several notions related to the Hindu Mythological tales had obtained a material form through the discovery of various associated relics and texts tending to locate such circulations as a part of the documented history. Such re-establishment of past and the thinning line between these cultural mythologies and the documented history has become a widely popular and highly accepted phenomenon in 21^st  century India and there are ample amount of contributions from authors like Ashwin Sanghi and Christopher. C. Doyle to the domain of Indian English literature to correspond to the same. This paper tries to focus on the tangible variations on the status of popular tales and characters of Hindu Mythology with time and try to analyze the associated rationale acting upon the Indian society causing to thin down of the line previously barring it from the realm of history. It also aims to seek the purpose of such histography from the Indian authors and hence, inspect the presence of any socio-cultural or political wave within the process.