Kurukshetra War - Historical Context

Historical Context

The historicity of the Kurukshetra War is unclear. Some historians like A. L. Basham estimate the date of the Kurukshetra war to Iron Age India of the 10th century BCE. In discussing the dating question, historian A. L. Basham says: "According to the most popular later tradition the Mahabharata War took place in 3102 BCE, which in the light of all evidence, is quite impossible. More reasonable is another tradition, placing it in the 15th century BCE, but this is also several centuries too early in the light of our archaeological knowledge. Probably the war took place around the beginning of the 9th century BCE; such a date seems to fit well with the scanty archaeological remains of the period, and there is some evidence in the Brahmana literature itself to show that it cannot have been much earlier."

Other historians like M. Witzel have corroborated that the general setting of the epic has a historical precedent in Iron Age (Vedic) India, where the Kuru kingdom was the center of political power during roughly 1200 to 800 BCE. A dynastic conflict of the period could have been the inspiration for the Jaya, the foundation on which the Mahabharata corpus was built, with a climactic battle eventually coming to be viewed as an epochal event.

Puranic literature presents genealogical lists associated with the Mahabharata narrative. The evidence of the Puranas is of two kinds. Of the first kind, there is the direct statement that there were 1015 (or 1050) years between the birth of Parikshit (Arjuna's grandson) and the accession of Mahapadma Nanda, commonly dated to 382 BCE, which would yield an estimate of about 1400 BCE for the Bharata battle. However, this would imply improbably long reigns on average for the kings listed in the genealogies. Of the second kind are analyses of parallel genealogies in the Puranas between the times of Adhisimakrishna (Parikshit's great-grandson) and Mahapadma Nanda. Pargiter accordingly estimated 26 generations by averaging 10 different dynastic lists and, assuming 18 years for the average duration of a reign, arrived at an estimate of 850 BCE for Adhisimakrishna, and thus approximately 950 BCE for the Bharata battle.

B. B. Lal used the same approach with a more conservative assumption of the average reign to estimate a date of 836 BCE, and correlated this with archaeological evidence from Painted Grey Ware sites, the association being strong between PGW artifacts and places mentioned in the epic.

There have been a number of theories put forward:

• Most widely accepted date is 10th century BCE or 950 BCE, according to archeological evidences.
• S. Balakrishna concluded a date of 2559 BCE using consecutive lunar eclipses.
• R. N. Iyengar concluded a date of 1478 BCE using double eclipses and Saturn+Jupiter conjunctions.
• B. N. Achar states a date of 3067 BCE using planetary positions listed in the Mahābhārata.
• P. V. Holey states a date of November 13, 3143 BCE using planetary positions and calendar systems.
• P. V. Vartak calculates a date of October 16, 5561 BCE using planetary positions.
• Based on translation work by K. Sadananda, on November 22 3067 BCE, Kurukshetra War started.
• "The findings in Dwarka and archeological evidence found are compatible with the Mahabharata tradition and removes the lingering doubt about the historicity and positions the Mahabharata war date to around 1500 BCE also see

The reconstruction of the history of Vedic India is based on text-internal details. Linguistically, the Vedic texts could be classified in five chronological strata as Rigvedic, Mantra, Samhita, Brahmana, Sutra, and Epic and Pāṇinian. The Mantra language period includes both the mantra and prose language of the Atharvaveda (Paippalada and Shaunakiya), the Rigveda Khilani, the Samaveda Samhita (containing some 75 mantras not in the Rigveda), and the mantras of the Yajurveda. Many of these texts are largely derived from the Rigveda, but have undergone certain changes, both by linguistic change and by reinterpretation. Conspicuous changes include change of vishva "all" by sarva, and the spread of the kuru- verbal stem (for Rigvedic krno-). This is the time of the early Iron Age in north-western India, corresponding to the Black and Red Ware (BRW) culture, and the kingdom of the Kurus, dating from ca. the 10th century BCE. The Samhita prose period marks the beginning of the collection and codification of a Vedic canon. An important linguistic change is the complete loss of the injunctive. The Brahmana part ('commentary' on mantras and ritual) of the Black Yajurveda (MS, KS, TS) belongs to this period. Archaeologically, the Painted Grey Ware (PGW) culture from ca. 900 BCE corresponds, and the shift of the political center from the Kurus to the Pancalas on the Ganges.

According to When Did The Mahabharata War Happen?: The Mystery of Arundhati, written by Nilesh Nilkanth Oak, the Kurukshetra War occurred about 7,500 years ago in 7573 Year before present, as per astronomy observations mentioned in Mahabharata.