Historical enquiries of Purāṇas

History is the study of the human past as it is described in the written documents left by human beings. History is not a fictional or imaginary story. History is the past which come to pass. The word “history” comes ultimately from ancient Greek word meaning ‘inquiry’, ‘knowledge from inquiry’ or ‘judge’. Events occurring before written record are considered pre-history. It is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about this events. It was in that sense that Aristotle used the word in his book–Inquiries about animals. The ancestor word “ïoTwp” is attested early on in Homeric Hymns, Heraclitus, the Athenia ephebes oath, and in Boiotic inscriptions (in a legal sense, either “judge” or “witness”, or similar). The Greek word was borrowed into classical Latin as historia. History was borrowed from Latin possibly via old Irish or old Welsh into old English, but this word fell out of use in the late old English period. Meanwhile as Latin become old French (and Anglo-Norman) historia developed into forms such as istorie, estorie and historie, with new developments in the meaning “account of the events of a person’s life (beginning of the 12th century), chronicle, account of events as relevant to a group of people or people in general (1155), dramatic or pictorial representation of historical events body of knowledge relative to human evolution, science narrative of real or imaginary events, story.” According to R.G. Collingwood history is “a kind of research or enquiry” into “actions that have been done in the past”, conducted “by the interpretation of evidence”–evidence being further defined as documents. British historian E.H. Carr (1892–1982) has advised that history is not a single, well-defined narrative or bundle of facts that can be memorized, but a terrain of contestation between completing and evolving interpretations whose influence is as much shaped by time and place as by any given set of facts.

History is the lessons of life in society in the past, in all its aspect, in relation to present developments and the future hopes. History is the story of some past civilization, society and people that is proven. Actually the evidence in which the past based on, is the raw material which helps us to teach and learn the history. It is an investigation or exploration into what happened in the past, when it happened and how it happened. It is a query into the imminent changes in human past affairs, and the ways these changes affect, influence or determine the patterns of the social life. History is or should be an effort to re-think about the past. Collingwood (1945) is particularly interested in this concept of history.

History has been defined differently by the different scholars. According to Burckhardt

“History is the record of what one age finds worthy of note in another.”

Henry Johnson said “History, in its broadest sense, is everything that ever happened.”

On the other side according to the great historian Smith, V. S.–

“The value and interest of history depend largely on the degree in which the present is illuminated by the past.”

According to Rapson–

“History is a connected account of the course of events or progress of ideas.”

Not only the European scholar but also the great Indian political figure Jawaharlal Nehru said:

“History is the story of man’s struggle through the ages against Nature and the elements; against wild beasts and the jungle and some of his own kind who have tried to keep him down and to exploit him for their own beneeift.”^[1]

The NCERT also has been defined history “History is the scientific study of past happenings in all their aspects, in the life of a social group, in the light of present happenings.” All the aforesaid definitions explain that the History is a significant record of events of the past, a relevant story of mankind delineating the details of what happened to human and why it happened. Basically it deals with the human world. In modern concept history is not just a story of a king or queen, battles or generals. It has gone beyond the tradition of antiquarian and leisure time pursuit to a very useful and indispensable part of a man’s education. Modern history is very wide. The area of modern history has expanded in all directions and it becomes more attractive. Modern history has explained about the common human being, their life style, believes, their struggle to protect their home and society, their profession and also their rulership. Modern history not only just explain the past of common man but also it helps to link up the situations, problems whatever of the past with the present day. It has thus become a future-oriented study related to contemporary problems. For all the reasons, history has occupied the role of a human history.

History is the story of the past, a reflection of the consciousness and feeling that is created in the mind of the historian about the past. In Sanskrit the etymology of ‘Itihāsa’ (history) is Iti + ha + āsa that is (It was like this) ‘Iti’ means ‘as such’, ‘ha’ means ‘was’ and ‘Āsa’ means (was present), i.e. in ancient times the definite event was specified by ‘Itihāsa’ or History.

Many Sanskrit literary works give definition of history such as–

nidālabhūtaḥ ‘iti ha evamāsīt ’iti ya ucyate sa itihāsaḥ | (Nirukta 2/3/1).

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Definition of History and Historiography by Dr. Aghalya, Page–16