05-27-2007, 07:23 AM
Interesting article K Ram
The author contrasts narrative with chronological history.
I would like to draw a medical parallel to make a point. Often, the process of disease, its spread, and possible cures filter down to doctors as narratives. A narrative is often an anecdote - and many anecdotal references to various things in medicine are well known,
Anecdotal "evidence" in medicine is never taken as proof, but is nevertheless recorded as a possibility that need further investigation - to be proved or disproved on the basis of solid evidence.
The important thing here is that the anecdote, the narrative is not thrown away.
That may be true for medicine, but historians are a different bunch from medical researchers. Historians are not driven by the ethical considerations of doctors. As individuals, doctors have everything to gain - professional satisfaction, respect and monetary gain by sticking to the truth and using that route to fame and fortune. For that reason, they tend not to throw away others' narratives/anecdotes - in case it is useful to them.
Historians on the other hand often don't give a damn. Historians as a profession are typically funded by someone else, and may be under pressure to write history for someone else. It is in the nature of a historian's job that he can choose to trash and kill all narrative as wrong and choose to stick to certain chronological, numismatic and archaeological artefacts to write history.
Once again I stress that Indians, particularly Hindus do not have a tradition of physical record keeping. Hindus records have - for a great part of history, been in the form of a narrative, and for that reason alone Hindus narrative must be recorded and given an indelible place before egregious bitches like Nussbaum add to the forces choosing to delete all references to any kind of Hindu narrative.
The author contrasts narrative with chronological history.
I would like to draw a medical parallel to make a point. Often, the process of disease, its spread, and possible cures filter down to doctors as narratives. A narrative is often an anecdote - and many anecdotal references to various things in medicine are well known,
Anecdotal "evidence" in medicine is never taken as proof, but is nevertheless recorded as a possibility that need further investigation - to be proved or disproved on the basis of solid evidence.
The important thing here is that the anecdote, the narrative is not thrown away.
That may be true for medicine, but historians are a different bunch from medical researchers. Historians are not driven by the ethical considerations of doctors. As individuals, doctors have everything to gain - professional satisfaction, respect and monetary gain by sticking to the truth and using that route to fame and fortune. For that reason, they tend not to throw away others' narratives/anecdotes - in case it is useful to them.
Historians on the other hand often don't give a damn. Historians as a profession are typically funded by someone else, and may be under pressure to write history for someone else. It is in the nature of a historian's job that he can choose to trash and kill all narrative as wrong and choose to stick to certain chronological, numismatic and archaeological artefacts to write history.
Once again I stress that Indians, particularly Hindus do not have a tradition of physical record keeping. Hindus records have - for a great part of history, been in the form of a narrative, and for that reason alone Hindus narrative must be recorded and given an indelible place before egregious bitches like Nussbaum add to the forces choosing to delete all references to any kind of Hindu narrative.