If we say the Itihasas – historical scriptures – are not historical, won’t people get reasons to reject scriptures as imaginary?

Podcast:

Question: If we say that the scriptures are not history, won’t people simply dismiss them as “mentally concocted” and therefore not worthy of serious consideration?

Answer: Not necessarily. Every book has a specific purpose. Consider Srila Prabhupada-lilamrta, the elaborate biography of Srila Prabhupada. This book describes his travels across the world, including significant time spent in America. While it contains descriptions of American geography, the primary purpose of Lilamrta is not to provide a geographical treatise; its purpose is to narrate Prabhupada’s life and his mission of spreading Krishna consciousness.

Every book has a particular aim, and no book exists in isolation from other branches of knowledge. However, there are always details that are not the central focus. We shouldn’t get overly caught up in these secondary details. For instance, is it possible that some factual details about American geography in Lilamrta might not be perfectly accurate? While the authors and editors took great care to ensure accuracy, the point is that debating such minor inaccuracies isn’t the primary purpose of the discussion.

I’ve had extensive discussions on this topic of the historicity of scriptures, including a podcast with Radhika Raman Prabhu. Within our tradition, history is viewed as cyclic; ultimately, it’s not progressing linearly towards a final destination. Therefore, the minute specifics within the cyclic movement of history are not considered paramount. What is important is who has exhibited behavior that can transcend history, leading one beyond the material realm. The primary purpose of scripture is this transition from the historical to the trans-historical. We are not claiming that scriptures are entirely devoid of history or that all facts within them are incorrect. Rather, that is not their thrust or their primary purpose.

Someone with a specialization in history could indeed study the scriptures and attempt to trace the trajectories of figures like Lord Rama’s travels during his exile, or the Pandavas’ journeys. Such specialized studies can and have been undertaken. But if we keep the overarching purpose of the scriptures in mind, we don’t need to declare that they are “not history.” Instead, we can clarify that they are not “history in the way modern historical inquiry is conceived.”

This distinction isn’t unique to our scriptures. The very idea of fact-centered information, including fact-centered historical information, is a relatively post-Newtonian development, even within modern historical scholarship. Before this, if you consider ancient Greek historians like Homer, or how Shakespeare depicted historical figures like Julius Caesar, their works were based on history but were not strictly literal historical accounts in the modern sense. We shouldn’t expect books written thousands of years ago to conform to standards of history that were developed only a few hundred years ago. The fact-centered approach to history itself is a recent historical development.

Therefore, rather than stating that scriptures are “not historical,” we can say that they are historical, but in a different sense from how history is focused, analyzed, and described in modern times.