Historians Today Serve the Prophet in the Pursuit of Liberty

In academic circles, historians continue to be positioned as truth-seekers.

- Devdutt Pattanaik

This grants them immense power in determining what is true and what is false. This has huge implications on our understanding of the past, which influences our understanding of the present, which shapes our future.

It was in the 19th century that European historians were the first to tell the world that Buddha and Ashoka were South Asian historical figures: the first lived two centuries before Alexander’s invasion of South Asia, and the second came a century later. Today, in the 21st century, historians reluctantly accept that Gautama Buddha is a mythological figure, the last of a line of Buddhas, herald of future Buddhas, and that very little of what we know about Ashoka is historical (from his own proclamations) and most of what we know about Ashoka is mythology (from Buddhist lore composed in Sri Lanka over 500 years after his death).

Historians are not scientists. Social science is not pure science. Their outputs are theories and arguments. They are not verifiable natural laws that can be used to predict the future. Behaviour of kings, priests, merchants cannot be equated with behaviour of plants, animals, minerals and planets. Human behaviour is shaped by belief. Belief is not measurable, so outside the scope of science.