With the Real Sheet-Anchor of Indian History established, the time has come to move forward with an exegesis on Bharatiya Itihasas. After all, if foreign sources and foreign histories have been prioritised in order to impose a false chronology and false history on India, then the reassertion of the native Historical Literature of India becomes critical.
History is Itihasa (pronounced Ithihaasa), meaning “So indeed it happened”. Historical illiterates may pretend the term only applied to the epics, but it did not. There are a number of traditional histories in regional languages like Hindi, that use the term Itihasa. Charitra often translated to history, refers to Chronicles and Vamsavalis refers to Vamsa-avalis (Family Lineages or Geneologies).
At present, the modus operandi of our sepoy historians and fraudacharyas has been to prioritise colonial Christian chronologies, foreign histories, and inscriptions. We have already discussed the issues with the previous two. But in case the reader might wonder why epigraphy and numismatics offer problems, here is the logic:
For all the glories sung of Herodotus, forget what Indian sepoys have to sing; here is what his fellow Europeans themselves wrote about him:
[9, 17]
“Manetho, Egyptian Historian and High Priest of the Temple of Isis ate Sebennytus, about 300 B.C.), whose works are unfortunately [or conveniently?] lost, is said to have written a book on purpose to correct the errors of Herodotus, and by Greek and Roman authors alike the titles of ‘fabler’ and ‘legend-writer’ have been freely applied to ‘the father of history’.” [10, xxv] Woods, Henry George. Herodotus. Oxford.1873.p.xxv
G.F.Abbot: “Herodotus has been called the ‘Father of History’; in truth he is only the father of story-telling; the first and most lively of our special correspondents…21: his celebrated Logoi…further vitiated by careless inaccuracy, love of exaggeration, addiction to entertaining anecdote, and indiscriminate acceptance of ancient lore—all of which properly belongs to a rudimentary age” [10,2]
So lore is ok in History when the Greeks do it, but not so much when Indians do it. This is the much-vaunted “Father of History” in the west whose sources we must place unquestioned “scientific” faith in. The real question of course is whether he is the father of history or father of hearsay.
This is not to denigrate historical sources other than our own; but rather to show what it’s like to apply the same standards foreigners apply to Indic Civilization. Scientism advocates and sepoys, of course, have double-standards.
So Homer wrote of a Cyclops and a Scylla, Herodotus of the Sun God’s intervention in the life of the Croesus, but the Mahabharata’s history of a royal family, succession crisis, and war, must be balanced by Pollockian chicken droppings, because “Science”. No wonder this same set became chelas of self-proclaimed cultural Christian Richard Dawkins. They too are almost there…culturally. Enough. Those with unjustifiable egos and sepoy sensibilities are welcome to wallow in their own ignorance, but those with more logical inclinations can understand why the same videshis who dictated false history cannot be credibly expected to construct another. Fool me once shame on you…
As such, upon what historical materials can sincere students of history and cultured members of Indic society rely?
Traditional Historical Literature of India (in order of importance).
1. Puranas
2. Itihasas & Charitras
3. Vamsavalis
4. Textual & Literary Historical references (in non-historical works such as literature & math)
Other sources
5. Tamrapatras, Prasastis, and other inscriptions/epigraphy
6. Coins (and other physical evidence)
7. Foreign Histories and Travelogues
Even an orthodox Brahmin Pandit like Kota Venkatachalam was willing to accept credible and well-written histories like the Chachnama, which, due to the terrible destruction inflicted on Sindh, fills the gap left in native records. But he mentions this only after critical analysis, rather than abject intellectual slavery to all records foreign.
What’s more, the famous and fantastical accounts of Dog-faced men who barked [all very scientific you see] from the “[Western] father of history” are proof of why in this topsy turvy Kali Yuga, we must take their order of precedence and turn it on its head. Foreign sources and foreign opinions are of the least important to us. The accounts, texts, and traditions of our traditional scholars are the most important.
People from all jatis (castes) should have access to our Itihasa-Purana, as they are our own people, and can be trained as traditional and “modern” scholars alike. Foreigners, necessarily, should no longer have such unlimited access or unlimited importance to our primary sources and primary texts given the havoc they have wreaked on Bharat from De Nobili and William Jones down to Doniger and Sheldon Pollock. Only fools trust foreigners more than their own people (just as only casteists support AIT — as they are eager to be adopted by foreigners…).
Sepoys, on the otherhand, have no time for Niti. They exist only to do their masters’ will so as to retain their (undeserved) emoluments.
1. Puranas
The Puranas may strike one as a surprising choice for an historical source, but there is a solid, logical basis for this. The Puranas consist of more than just “legendary” and “divine” aspects. There are in fact a number of distinguishing features (lakshanas) to them.
Puranas, therefore, are highly useful not just for learning history, but understanding Niti contained in it.
2. Itihasas & Charitras
There are numerous histories and charitras composed by our ancients. For far too often, our modernists have insisted that only literature following foreign strictures can be classified as a “history”. But this is preposterous. Different civilizations evolve different styles and philosophies. Due to the dogmatic nature of some traditions, they require a violent separation of church and state to curtail further violence. For others, adherence to the truth was so strong, that no such separation was or is required to apprehend true history.
For this reason, although Kalhana’s magnum opus is often classified as a Chronicle, it should not be reduced to the rank of its grecian and anglo-saxon counterparts. The Rajatarangini is a proper Itihasa of Kashmir.
Kalhana discusses his methodology, expresses hesitance at describing supernatural events, and presents his topic in an informative and poetic manner. Works of history, which frequently analyse events and their significance, are Itihasas. Works that merely collect and present annals are chronicles, which are better referred to as Charitras. The word Charita, as seen in the Buddhacharita and the Harshacharita, is naturally related to Charitra. Jain and Buddhist literature (such as Ashvagosha’s work mentioned above) naturally take their place here as well. Charitras merely describe deeds in chronological order; Itihasas analyse their significance to teach Niti and Dharma.
3. Vamsavalis
Vamsavalis are the Dynastic King lists. These are the Royal Chronologies of Provincial Histories. Nepal is a famous example. Other Provincial Royal Chronologies also exist..
As Pandit Chelam notes, there are Manuscript copies of various dynasties that are available to this day. These involve the traditional names of the ancient provinces (janapadas/desas) of Bharatavarsha, such as Kasi, Panchala, Kalinga, Sindhu, Ujjain, etc. Some are, true to name, dedicated purely to established families of note. The Velugoti Vamsavali in the Telugu region is one such example.
Nevertheless, the historical value of these genealogies are significant. Historical material and detail is available, but must be collected and disseminated.
Another important set of historical sources comes from the records of Traditional Mathas and Agraharas. While not traditional vamsavalis in the strict sense, they are useful to supplement King lists due the repository of information regarding the guru-sishya paramparas in Mathas and families that populated agraharas and their interactions with political authority. Every head of main mathas (and Buddhist/Jain monestaries as seen in the Jaina Pattavalis which record pontiffs) of India is recorded. These lineages are as reliable as king lists and provide a means of authenticating and verifying which king ruled when based on the corresponding spiritual leader.
4. Textual & Literary Evidence
*(historical references in non-historical works such as literature & math)
Others can be various treatises and texts such as Kalidasa’s Jyotirvidabharana.
Nevertheless, these four categories compose the essential historical literature of India. Foreign sources have already been discussed in detail, and the nature of prasastis and tamrasasanas, silpasasanas, and numistmatics is better discussed elsewhere.
The main purpose was to establish that there were and are serious historical literatures within the Indic tradition that can be relied upon. Foreign sources can be used merely to supplement. But it should be obvious to all thinking persons that Bharatiyas need not wax eloquent over Herodotus and Thucydides, when they have ample historians of their own.
In fact, the much-celebrated Thucydides has himself been criticised over the years. First on grounds of style. It seems drab prose tends not to appeal to all scholars of history, which puts to favour Herodotus, and ironically, Kalhana as well. But more importantly, on other grounds as well:
“his style is often very compressed and difficult to understand, so that any translation is necessarily an interpretation.”
“There are big implications here for our modern admiration of Thucydides as a historian. First, the “good” translations of his History (those that are fluent and easy to read) give a very bad idea of the linguistic character of the original Greek. The “better” they are, the less likely they are to reflect the flavor of what Thucydides wrote—rather like Finnegans Wake rewritten in the clear idiom of Jane Austen. Second, many of our favorite “quotations” from Thucydides, those slogans that are taken to reveal his distinctive approach to history, bear a tenuous relationship to his original text. As a general rule, the catchier the slogans sound, the more likely they are to be largely the product of the translator rather than of Thucydides himself. He simply did not write many of the bons mots attributed to him.”
“But however we choose to excuse Thucydides, the fact remains that his History is sometimes made almost incomprehensible by neologisms, awkward abstractions, and linguistic idiosyncrasies of all kinds. These are not only a problem for the modern reader. They infuriated some ancient readers too. In the first century BC, in a long essay devoted to Thucydides’ work, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a literary critic and historian himself, complained—with ample supporting quotations—of the “forced expressions,” “non sequiturs,” “artificialities,” and “riddling obscurity.”
Real historians understand that they have a duty to communicate clearly and logically, and educate their audiences effectively, elite and mass alike. Historians engaging in non-sequiturs and abstractions are hucksters, more often than not . But then again as they say, if you cannot dazzle them with brilliance, the baffle them with…
Judging by bloviating blog ramblings popular on social media among some who think and seem like they’re smart, but not really , it is not surprising why some self-important sections think Thucydides is superior to Kalhana. No wonder they count Ayn Rand fans among their ranks…After all, these are the self-same cognitive defectives who think Indra is superior to Vishnu and believe AIT is the traditional view in India…poor souls.
The truth of the matter is, Kalhana managed to accomplish the best of both Herodotus and Thucydides. He wrote in an engaging and appealing literary style that respected tradition (like Herodotus) but also analysed history carefully using methodology (like Thucydides). He carefully reviewed the scholars that preceded him (Nilamuni, Helaraja, and Padmamihira, with 12 Kashmiri chroniclers in total), truthfully researched and recounted the history of Kashmir’s kings and queens, and engagingly provided his analysis and useful niti for readers in a literary manner.
The Truly Learned write not to amuse themselves and dazzle and baffle their sycophants, but to educate people on the lessons of life and history. That is the true measure of an Acharya.
So let read what a real one had to say.
Here is what Bharata Charitra Bhaskara, Pandit Sri Kota Venkatachalam wrote on the matter [Emphasis and Proofing ours]
The following Post was originally published at True Indian History on August 15, 2009
Historical Literature of India
1. A.Stein writes in his introduction to Rajatarangini Westminister edition Vol. I. P. 3:— “It has often been said of the india of the_Hindus that it possessed no history. The remark is true if we apply it to history as a science and art, such as classical culture in its noblest prose-works has bequeathed it to us. But it is manifestly wrong if by history is meant either historical development or the materials for studying it. India has never known, amongst its Sastras, the study of history such as Greece and Rome cultivated or as modern Europe understands it. Yet the materials for such study are equally at our disposal in India. They are contained not only in such original sources of information as Inscriptions, Coins and Antiquarian remains, generally, advancing research has also proved that written records of events or of traditions concerning them have by no means been wanting in ancient India.”
2. H. Wilson in his admirable introduction to his translation of the Visnu Purana, while dealing with the contents of the Third book observes that a very large portion of the contents of the Itihasas and Puranas is genuine and old and writes:–
“The arrangement of the Vedas and other writings considered by the Hindus–being, in fact, the authorities of their religious rites and beliefs–which is described in the beginning of the Third Book, is of much importance to the history of the Hindu Literature and of the Hindu religion. The sage Vyasa is here represented not as the author but the arranger or the compiler of the Vedas, the Itihasas and the Puranas. His name denotes his character meaning the ‘arranger’ or ‘distributor’; and the recurrence of many Vyasas, many individuals who remodelled the Hindu scriptures, has nothing in it, that is improbable. except the fabulous intervals by which the if labours are separated. The rearranging, the re-fashioning, of old materials is nothing more than the progress of time would be likely to render necessary. The last recognised compilation is that of Krishna Dvaipayana, assisted by Brahmans, who were already conversant with the subjects respectively assigned to them. They were the members of the college or school supposed by the Hindus to have flourished in a period more remote, no doubt, than the truth, but not at all unlikely to have been instituted at some time prior to the accounts of India which we owe to Greek writers and in which we see enough of the system to justify our inferring that it w as then entire.
That there have been other Vyasas and other schools since that date, that Brahmans unknown to fame have remodelled some of the Hindu scriptures, and especially the Puranas, cannot reasonably be counted, after dispassionately weighing the strong internal evidence, which all of them afford, of their intermixture of unauthorized and comparatively modern ingredients. But the same internal testimony furnishes proof equally decisive, of the anterior existence of ancient materials; and it is, therefore, as idle as it is irrational, to dispute the antiquity or the authenticity of the contents of the Puranas, in the face of abundant positive and circumstantial evidence of the prevalence of the doctrines, which they teach, the currency of the legends which they narrate, and the integrity of the institutions which they describe at least three centuries before the Christian Era. But the origin and development of their doctrines, traditions and institutions were not the work of a day; and the testimony that establishes their existence three centuries before Christianity, carries it back to a much more remote antiquity, to an antiquity, that is, probably, not surpassed by any of the prevailing fictions, institutions or beliefs of the ancient world.” (Willson’s Vishnu Purana, London Ed. P.P.LXII and LXIII.)
Again in dealing with the contents of the Fourth Amsa of the Visnu Purana, the Professor remarks:-
“The Fourth Book contains all that the Hindus have of their ancient History. It is a tolerably comprehensive list Of dynasties and individuals; it is a barren record of events. It can scarcely be doubted, however, that much of it is a genuine chronicle of persons, if not of occurrences. That it is discredited by palpable absurdities in regard to the longevity of the princes of the earlier dynasties, must be granted; and the particulars preserved of some of them are trivial and fabulous. Still there is an artificial simplicity and consistency in the succession of persons, and a possibility and probability in some of the transactions, which give to these traditions the semblance of authenticity, and render it likely that these are not altogether without foundation. At any rate,in the absence of all other sources of information the record, such as it is, deserves not to be altogether set aside. It is not essential to its celebrity or its usefulness, that any exact chronological adjustment of the different reigns should be attempted. Their distribution amongst the several Yugas, undertaken by Sir William Jones, or his Pandits, finds no countenance from the original texts, rather than an identical notice of the age in which a particular monarch ruled or the general fact that the dynasties prior to Krishna precede the time of the Great War and the beginning of the Kali Age, both which events are placed five thousand years ago…….This, may or may not, be too remote but it is sufficient, in a subject where precision is impossible, to be satisfied with the general impression, that, in the dynasties of Kings detailed in Puranas, we have a record, which, although it cannot fail to have suffered detriment from age, and may have been injured by careless or injudicious compilation, preserves an account not wholly undeserving of confidence, of the establishment and succession of regular monarchies, amongst the Hindus, from as early an era and for as continuous a duration, as any in the credible annals of mankind.” (Do. Book LXIV, LXV)
And lastly, in discussing the general nature of the Puranas , and of their values as historical records, he_says:-
“After the date of the Great War, the Vishnu Purana, in common with other Puranas, which contain similar lists, specifies Kings and Dynasties with greater precision; and offers political and chronological particulars to which, on the score of probability there is nothing to obiect. In truth, their general accuracy has been incontrovertibly established. Inscriptions on columns of stone, on rocks, on coins deciphered only of late years through the extraordinary ingenuity and perseverence of Mr. James Princep, have verified the names of races and titles of princes – the Gupta and the Andhra Rajas mentioned in the Puranas.” (Wilson’s Vishnu Purana Page LXX.)
3. In his Rajasthan. Col. Tod says :-
“Those who expect from a people like the Hindus a species of composition of precisely the same character as the historical works of Greece and Rome, commit the very egregious error of overlooking the peculiarities which distinguish the natives of india from all other races, and which strongly discriminate their intellectual productions of every kind from those of the West. Their philosophy, their poetry, their architecture are marked with traits of originality; and the same may be expected to pervade their history, which, like the arts enumerated, took a character from its intimate association with the religion of the people.”
“ln the absence of regular and legitimate historical records there are, however, other native works, (they may, indeed, be said to abound) which in the hands of a skilful and patient investigator, would afford no despicable materials for the history of India. The first of these are the Puranas and genealogical legends, of the princes which, obscured as they are by the mythological details, allegory, and improbable circumstances, contain, many facts that serve as beacons to direct, the research of the historian.”
“Another species of historical records is found in the accounts given by the Brahmins of the endowments of the temples their dilapidation and repairs which furnish occasions for the introduction of historical and chronological details In the legends respecting places of pilgrimage and religious resort, profane events are blended with superstitious rites and ordinances local ceremonies and customs. The controversies of the Jains furnish, also, much historical information, especially with reference to Guzerat and Nehrwala during the Chaulac Dynasty. From a close and attentive examination of the Jain records, which embody all that those ancient sectarians knew of science, many chasms in Hindu history might be filled up.”
“Every MATHA or religious college of any importance preserves the succession of its heads. Among the Jains, we have the PATTAVALIS or successions of pontiffs, for a full and lucid notice of some of which we are indebted to Dr. Hoernle: they purport to run back to even the death of the last TIRTHAMKARA Vardhamana-Mahavira.”(528 B. C.)
“The preservation of pedigrees and successions have evidently been a national characteristic for very many centuries. And we cannot doubt that considerable attention was paid to the matter in connection with the royal families and that Vamsavalis or Rajavalis, lists of the lineal successions of kings, were compiled and kept from very early times. We distinctly recognise the use of such VAMSAVALIS, giving the relationships and successions of kings, but no chronological details beyond the record of the total duration of each reign with occasionally a coronation date recorded in an era, in the copper-plate records. We trace them, for instance in the introductory passages, of the grants of the Eastern Chalukya Series ( See SII, I 35; EI, V. 131) which from the period A.D. 918 to 925 onwards, name the successive kings beginning with the founder of the line, who reigned three centuries before that time, but do not put forward more than the length of the reign of each of them; and, from certain differences in the figures for some of the reigns, we recognise that there were varying versions of those VAMSAVALIS. We trace the use of the VAMSAVALIS again in the similar records of the, Eastern Gangas of Kalinga, which, from A.D. 1058 onwards (EI, IV, 183), give the same deta ils about the kings of that line with effect from about A.D. 99O and one of which, issued A.D. 1296 ( JASB, L XV 229), includes a coronation date of A.D. 1141 or 1142. There has been brought to light from Nepal a long Vamsavali (by Pandit Bhagavan Lal Indraji P.H.D. Hon. and M.R.A.S.) which purports to give an_unbroken list of the rulers of that country, with the lengths of their reigns and an occasional landmark in the shape of the date of an accession stated in an era, back from A.D. 1768 to even so fabulous an antiquity as six or seven centuries before the commencement of the Kali age in B.C. 3102.”
(Quoted By M. Krishnamachariar in his History of Classical Sanskrit Literature, Introduction 38 ff.)
4. In his Rajatarangini KALHANA mentions certain previous writers.—”Suvrata, whose work, he says, was made difficult by misplaced learning; Kshemendra who drew up a list of kings, of which, however, he says, no part is free from mistakes; Nilamuni, who wrote the NILAMATAPURANA, Helaraja, who composed a list of kings in twelve thousand verses; and Srimihira or Padmamihira and the author SRI CHCHAVILLAKARA. His own work, he tells us, was based on eleven collections of RAJAKATHAS or stories about kings and on the work of Nilamuni.
“Tamrasasana, or ‘Copper chapters‘ consist sometimes of a single plate but mare usually of_several plates strung together on a large signet—ring_ which bears generally the seal of the authority who issued the particular chapter. The stone records usually describe themselves by the name of Silasasana or ‘Stone-chapters’, Sila-lekha or ‘Stone-writings’,or Prasasti or “Eulogies’. They are found on rocks, on religious columns such as those which bear some of the edicts( inscription recording grants, chiefly of grants and allowances engrossed on copper plates) of Priyadasi and others which were set up in front of temples as “flagstaffs” of the Gods; on battle-columns of victory such as the two at Mandasor, on the walls and beams, sand pillars of caves and temples, on the pedestals of images, and on slabs built into the walls of temples or set up in the courtyards of temples or in conspicuous places in village sites or fields. And they are often accompanied by sculptures which give the seal of authority issuing the. record, or mark its sectarian nature, or illustrate some scene referred to in it.
_ The Chronology of Classical Sanskrit Literature starts with Mahabharata war and Kaliyuga. Kaliyuga commenced on 20th February 3102 B.C., just on the day on which Sri Krishna departed to his divine abode. The Kuru-Pandava war was fought 37 years before Kali, that is in 3139 B.C. Onwards from the commencement of Kaliyuga, Puranas contain accounts of various kingdoms that flourished from time to time and successive dynasties that ruled and fell during the course of about 35 centuries. To an impartial observer the tenor of these accounts warrants their accuracy and to the mind of the Hindu– the Hindus of those bygone ages when scepticism had not called tradition superstition—-life here is evanescent and life’s endeavour must be the attainment of beatitude eternal. Ancient sages (Rishis perceived the divine hymns of the Vedas and passed them on for the edification of posterity. Since the advent of Kali, a prospective crop of vice and folly was predicted and to wean the erring world from such sin and misery, Vyasa formulated Puranas with the object of Vedopabrinha, that is, supplemented the exposition of Vedic teachings, and that in the garb of a language and narrative that would be easily assimilated by the masses. To such philosophical minds, the rise and fall of kings and kingdoms was not worth remembrance, save as another realistic means of illustrating the tenets of philosophy, e.g., the truth of the divine essence, Brahman, the unreality at sensual pleasures, the liberation of individual soul and the attainment of eternity in beatitude or oneness with the Spirit Divine and above all the inevitable occurrence of God’s mandates shortly termed Destiny or otherwise called Kaala or Niyati.
If this is the object of Puranic literature, it is a sacrilege to charge the author or authors of them, whoever it was, with having fabricated scriptural testimony for attributing an antiquity to Indian literature and Indian civilization, which it did not possess; for even if they had been, as many orientalists have said, made up late after the Christian era, the authors would not have anticipated this method of political history of the 18th and 19th centuries A. D. The Puranic lists of dynasties of kings and kingdoms furnish details of dates to an extent that even in days of historical records may be surprising, for they mention even months and days in their computation. Whatever those ancient authors did or wrote, they did it with sincerity and accuracy, ‘truth’ being the basis of accuracy. Our educational institutions are saturated with the teachings of modern scholars on the untruth of these Puranic accounts, but it is still hoped that time will come when truth will triumph and display a real orientation of ancient Indian History.
(P. P. XXXVIII — XLIV History of Classical Sanskrit Lit. By_M,· Krishnnmachariar) (38 to -44 pages)
( F, E. Pargiter has given an admirable summary of Early Indian Traditional History, as recorded in Puranas in JRAS (1914) 267 et seq.) _
Just at the time when Bharatiyas are reasserting ownership of their own heritage, this band of do-nothing dimwits proceeds to emphasise the need for foreign sources to make ours more “scientific”, which is code for secular. Funny how the same cabal of casteists is quick to drop their gotras to assert authority, while doing everything possible to undermine the historical tradition maintained by real brahmanas like Pandit Chelam.
If science is the new religion, and every culture is considered “more scientific” than your own by sepoys and gyaanis, is it any wonder that misguided youth seek to convert to every civilization but your own? Science cannot be religion. Science does not replace tradition.
Contrary to fraudacharyas who seek to undercut and supersede astika Brahmin Pandits like Kota Venkatachalam, traditional Bharat did have “real history”. But history is not science. How could it be? The data is imperfect. Other than some epigragraphy and numismatics, it is not verifiable (unless you have a time-machine). And the results are never the same, but as Mark Twain asserted, they do “rhyme”.
Pandit Chelam himself criticised many of the conclusions of Hieun-tsang as unreliable and poorly informed. As such, foreign histories and observations of travel writers are useful to provide other perspectives and to fill in gaps. But the notion of using them to “balance” our own tradition is absurd as the theories these ahankari-shikandis push (“ait”, “Indra superior to Vishnu”, “Ramana maharishi had mental problems”). Like the vesya of yore, these academics-vaisya sold out to the highest bidder; all they have are sinecures, “sybaritic” nonsense, and (questionable) gotras to salve their egos. Real Brahmanas know better, and recognise the logic of actual Historian Pandit Chelam’s conclusions.
The time for rejecting the colonial histories and their sepoy enforced foreign sources has come. The time to reassert the primary and predominant place of our native historical sources is here. It is time to prove worthy of our inheritance.
References:
- True Indian History. [Various Blog Bosts]
- Kota, Venkatachalam Paakayaji (Pandit). The Age of the Mahabharata War. Vijayawada: Tirumala.1988 (posthumously)
- Kota, Venkatachalam Paakayaji (Pandit). The Plot in Indian Chronology.Vijayawada: Arya Vijnana. 1953
- Kota, Venkatachalam Paakayaji (Pandit). Chronology of Ancient Hindu History Part I. Vijayawada:AVG
- Kota, Venkatachalam Paakayaji (Pandit). The Age of Buddha, Milinda, and Amtiyoko. Guntur: Sri Ajanta Printers.1956
- Kota, Venkatachalam Paakayaji (Pandit). Chronology of Kashmir History Reconstructed. Guntur: Sri Ajanta. 1955
- Kota, Venkatachalam Paakayaji (Pandit). Chronology of Nepal History Reconstructed.Vijayawada: SahiniPress. 1953
- Kota, Venkatachalam Paakayaji (Pandit). Chronology of Ancient Hindu History Part II. Vijayawada:AVG
- Aulus Gellius: Young, Arthur Milton. Echoes of Two Cultures. University of Pittsburgh.1964.p.17
- Foster, Edith & Donald Lateiner. Thucydides and Herodotus. Oxford. 2012. p.2
- Dawkins: I’m a cultural Christian. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7136682.stm
Acknowledgment: Our sincere thanks to Sri G.D. Prasad garu, grandson of Pandit Kota Venkatachalam for his kind permission to reprint these articles and excerpts.
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