THE DIVINE KNOWLEDGE GOT LOST
John Dowson, who has done a great deal of study on the Vedas has this to say about the origin of Vedas: “The Vedas are the holy books which are the foundation of the Hindu religion. They consist of hymns written in an old form of Sanskrit, and according to the most generally received opinion they were composed between 1500 and 1000 B.C. But there is no direct evidence as to their age, and opinions about it vary considerably. Some scholars have thought that the oldest of the hymns may be carried back a thousand years farther. It seems likely that some of the hymns were composed before the arrival of the Aryan immigrants in India, and there is no doubt that the hymns vary greatly in age and spread over a very considerable period.”
Even as per most conservative estimates, more than three thousand years have elapsed since the last of the Vedic hymns was revealed to man. It cannot be said with certainty when Rama went to the southern shores of India to conquer Lanka, but in all likelihood, it was 200-300 years after the last of the Vedic hymns. However, some scholars show that Rama lived about 5000 years Before Christ. If this is true, then the Vedas were revealed even prior to that. Then there is another long gap between Rama and Krishna. We do not know the dates but a passage in Matsya Purana has helped us come to a conclusion. It lists the names of Rama’s progeny one after another and then describe how the last of them was present to fight agaisnt Krishna in the battle of Mahabharata. Eventually, he was killed. From this, it can be easily concluded that Krishna’s period was several centuries later than that of Rama. From that time onwards, when the fateful battle of Mahabharata was fought, about 2600-2800 years have already passed.
The original Gita was composed in and around third century B.C. But its relevance grew with time and, as Nataraj Guru writes, it was brought to its present form by some follower of the Vedanta in the second century A.D. Later, the commentaries by Sankara (788-826 A.D) followed by Ramanuja (1017-1137 A.D.) and Madhava (1199-1317 A.D.), led to the building of what is known as the Gita literature today.
During the post-Vedic period and till the time of Krishna, there must have been a difference of a few hundred years. Yet this period was enough to corrupt the beliefs of the people to such an extent that Paramatma felt the need to send another Avatar. Krishna was the greatest champion of Vedic teachings, yet he had to fight those people who called themselves as believers of the Vedas. Corruption had prevailed so much so that the original Vedic teachings had become corrupted. Dogmas and rituals were common and reason had gone altogether missing. The difference between Krishna’s teachings and the beliefs of Dronas and Bhishmas of the time had become such enormous that Krishna was seen as preaching a religion that was different from what they believed, and also different from the generally accepted meanings of Vedas. Even now, there are several scholars who believe Krishna’s teachings were in contrast to those of Vedas, but the truth is that Krishna totally agreed to everything that had been mentioned in the Vedas, and all he was trying to do was to remove the misunderstandings, misinterpretations and changes that had been made to Vedic knowledge during intervening centuries since the Vedas were revealed.
We have already mentioned earlier while talking about the reasons for the fight of Mahabharata how the social and religious face had changed completely during the period that had elapsed between the last of the Vedic hymns and Mahabharata. Similarly, within a few hundred years after Rama, as per Matsya Purana, his direct descendants themselves deviated so much that one of them stood up to fight against Krishna in the battle of Mahabharata and was consequently killed.
This is much smaller time duration in comparison to the huge time gap of at least 2500 years since the time of Krishna and us. Even if we discount the 2500 years, and just take last 250 years of Indian history, we will find a great many turbulent changes occurring several times over in all fields of life. Revolutionary changes have occurred in the lifestyle, social conditions, religious beliefs and political life of the people. Kingdom passed from Mughal to British to a democratic set-up. For some, it passed from Mughal to British to an intermittent dictatorial rule of the Muslims (in present-Pakistan). Huge migrations took place, attacks by invading armies were witnessed on the Indian soil, drought, famine, floods and earthquakes ravaged the society, and language of the court changed from Persian to Urdu to English and to Hindi. A little earlier, it was Sanskrit that we all spoke, yet not even 1% of population today knows Sanskrit, not even half per cent know Persian and only about 5-10% know Urdu.
When we talk of the 2500 years, we also find that for nearly 1000 years Buddhism reigned supreme and for another 1000 years, the Muslims ruled India, before British came from across the seven seas. These periods were followed by long phases of degradation and during these intervals lawlessness and at times irreligiosity reigned supreme. In spite of so many visible changes happening, we are naïve enough to think that no change has taken place in religious beliefs during the long period of over 2500 years. We claim that we have understood each and every scripture correctly and our complacency is such that there is no ongoing attempt to study our scriptures and reach out for the truth.
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