On the historicity of Veda Vyasa, Mahabharata

 One of the more enterprising among the Hindu faithful, who posted this comment as Manjunatha, made a grand claim  that Veda Vyasa  was a scientific thinker and astronomer more than an author of Mahabharata epic.

I queried back asking  What is the source or inference for his  belief that Vedavyasa was a scientific thinker and astronomer more than author of Mahabharata epic?

The reason for my question is that this (astronomy and science) seems to be new feat or accomplishment being attributed to Veda Vyasa

Whether Veda Vyasa was a real person is itself up for debate and those who are not blinkered by religious faith consider this person to be a fiction of Hindu mythology.

The fact that so many scriptures spanning multiple millennia are attributed to one person itself makes the likelihood of the reality and authorship of such a person very remote.

Also there seems to be no work of astrology or astronomy attributed to Vedavyasa.

To which Manjunatha provided this incredulous response:

Vedavyasa is real person according to my analysis.
1) His time is around 5200 BC. No epic fell down to earth from Space. It should have been created by people who existed in earth.
2) His excellence should shut down the mouth of current day so called Brahmins who claim they are intelligent most. Vedavyasa was not a Brahmin.
3) His explanations about position of planets(astronomically) matches to 5200BC by backward interpolation. Indians were good in tracing positions of planets even before telescope was invented. Indians used to predict the days of eclipse in advance no matter whether it is Geocentric or helio centric. Astrology is subtopic born from astronomy. denying astrological prediction does not mean astronomy behind it is wrong.
4) He has explained the places in Asia clearly by position in Mahabharata.
5)I believe Mahabharatha and Ramayana are oldest history than Myth because carbon dating of Adam’s bridge says it is as old as the days of Ramayana.
6) If Rama and Krishna was not born, after 10 laks years people say Jesus and Mohammad was not born. Oldest history does not mean mythology.

Below is my analytical response to the above mish-mash  of pseudo-history and pseudoscience:

In reply to my questions, instead of answers, you seem to be putting out more stupefying and illogical theories of your own.

If your conclusion of Vedavyasa being a real person is based on your own analysis, from a critical thinking perspective it leaves a lot to be desired, since quite a few of your points are lacking in corroboration and a means of verifiability.

If Vedavyasa’s origin is around 5200 BC, that is way before even the Indus-Harappan civilization. So then Vedavyasa belongs to which civilization? Surely not the Vedic civilization then since that is estimated to have begun around 1500-1800 BC

Even if we accept that Mahabharata explains places in Asia correctly, that would make Vedavyasa a good geographer not an astronomer

Whatever your beliefs about the antiquity of Ramayana and Mahabharata may be, you have got your information about the carbon-dating of Adam’s bridge all wrong.

Pls refer to this link regarding NASA’s clarification about Adam’s bridge

It is not stated that no civilization existed prior to 1500-1800 BCE. A known civilization in the Indian sub-continent around 2500 to 2000 BCE is the Indus-Harappan, which is described to be very different from the Vedic/Aryan civilization which again is believed to be of an Indo-European or Proto-Iranian origin (Nothwithstanding the Aryan Invasion theory controversy and debate). 

Archeological findings from the Harappan remains do not support any conclusive cultural/ethnic link with the Vedic civilization.

Most opposition to western evaluation of the historicity of the Vedic civilization and beyond is mostly of a polemical nature and most attempts to re-interpret history of such periods is largely motivated by political and religious considerations (Hindutva-inspired)

Regardless of all this debate about dating history properly, the point you seem to be missing entirely is that the 3 major texts with which Vedavyasa is credited as the author/compiler (Vedas, Puranas, Mahabharata) originated in periods separated from each other by not just centuries but millennia.

Which means that either there had to be 3 Vedavyasas or the one Vedavyasa had to be almost 3000 years old.

Regarding your 2nd para of comment, your questions itself carry some clues about the answers. Before I elaborate on them, let me state that Mahabharata is more a convoluted epic than one with any complexity. 


The core of this epic consists of 24000 stanzas or shlokas. The present size of the epic of almost 100,000 shlokas has been reached by numerous additions and interpolations to the core epic over the span of many centuries continuing till the early CE age.

My information on the Shloka statistics of Mahabharata are sourced from the Wikipedia and Hinduism websites.

Please check out this link with particular reference to the section ‘Accretion and redaction’

It is the aura and halo around this epic fostered by many centuries of evangelism by scores of misguided prophets and thinkers and furthered by religiously inspired myopia that has sustained the belief of so many Indians in the monolithic nature of this epic, that is so far from truth and reality.

With reference to Sanskrit, those with a perspective of history and evolution of culture and society will see that in its complexity, lay the seeds of the eventual downfall and decline of Sanskrit. 

Many easier and practically usable languages like Avadhi, Braj (just to name a few) devolved from the rigid stratified Sanskrit, leaving this language far behind in the linguistic evolutionary race.

The fact that this epic was composed in a hard to follow language which depends on highly contextual and subjective interpretation which is often confused with its concision, cannot be made out to be a crowning achievement of the epic or its author(s)

Intuitive and conventional thinking about these epics is usually divorced from any perspective of the historical, cultural and social reasons underlying their propagation.

Since the dominant Hindu dogma about scriptural origin is that they are all divinely revealed, this itself acts as a big deterrent to any proper investigation of the claims of human or mortal authorship of such texts.

Also it is important to understand that there were many rival rational and non-theistic philosophies and movements challenging dogmas of Vedic tradition intervening between the end of Vedic age and the onset of Islamic invasion of India.

Keeping the true authorship of the epics under wraps serves well in explaining away and rationalizing its inconsistencies and contradictions and preserving the ranks of the faithful against the onslaught of reformist creeds like Buddhism, Caravaka etc.

The two dominant abrahamic faiths of Christianity and Islam have used this tool of the divine origin of their primary scriptures very successfully for their self-preservation and growth. Dogmatic Hindusim is no different.



I don’t know if this is of interest to you, but as per a previous census by Govt. of India, less than 600 persons in India are known to be well-versed in Sanskrit. If this is not the decline of Sanskrit, what more stark proof do you need?

I am not in any way demeaning the beauty and elegance of Sanskrit about which there is no doubt at all, since I am a classical music enthusiast and admire many musical Sanskrit kirtanas. But complexity is also a characteristic of this language, being one of the major reasons why it lost favor as the language of the ‘hoi polloi’ of India.