Inserted Authors and Borrowed Stories: The “Implant” Thesis in Bhram Ka Pulinda

 

 The case of the missing stones

A bestselling polemic says Panini, Chanakya and Kalidasa never existed. The evidence says otherwise

Few things are as satisfying to a historian as an inscription. Carved in stone, dated by a king’s reign and impossible to quietly edit, it is the nearest the ancient past comes to a signed confession. A Hindi-language book that has found an eager readership, Bhram Ka Pulinda (“A Bundle of Delusions”), by Rajiv Patel, takes this respect for epigraphy and pushes it to an extreme. If a figure is not on a rock, he argues, he was not real.

The test is applied with gusto. No Mauryan edict mentions Chanakya, the wily minister said to have made Chandragupta emperor. No stone records the grammarian Panini, the sage Patanjali or the poet Kalidasa. The surviving manuscripts of their works are on paper, and paper reached India via China and the Arabs. Mr Patel concludes that these men were “implanted” into the Buddhist-era past by a later priestly class, using a three-step recipe. Invent an obscure author. Have him write a book mentioning the desired figure in a line or two. Then cite the book until it becomes textbook fact.

His villains are specific. The Mahavamsa, a Sri Lankan chronicle, and the Mudrarakshasa, a Sanskrit political drama, are accused of seating Chanakya at Chandragupta’s side. The Divyavadana, a Buddhist story collection, is blamed for a dubious succession from Ashoka to the Shungas. Even the epics are charged with theft. The Ghata Jataka, in which a dark-skinned boy (Kanha) kills his uncle Kamsa, is said to be the original of the Krishna story. The Dasaratha Jataka, in which Rama, Lakkhana and Sita appear as siblings, is offered as the seed of the Ramayana.

The author is not entirely wrong. Chanakya’s absence from Ashoka’s edicts and from the surviving fragments of the Greek envoy Megasthenes is a real puzzle, and historians argue over how much of the Chanakya tradition is later legend. The Mudrarakshasa is generally dated to the Gupta period or after, so it is no Mauryan witness. The Divyavadana and Mahavamsa are pious compilations that mix history with miracles, and scholars read them with a pinch of salt. The Jatakas and the epics do share motifs, and the Ghata story does resemble Krishna’s.

But the argument is built on a test that nothing survives. Stone in ancient India was for royal proclamations and donations, not for books. Literature went onto birch bark, palm leaf and cloth, all of which rot, and was recopied every few generations. A paper manuscript therefore dates the copy, not the composition. Apply Mr Patel’s rule consistently and it destroys his own sources: the Pali Buddhist canon was transmitted orally and first written down in Sri Lanka in the first century BCE.

The positive evidence cuts against him too. The Aihole inscription, carved in 634CE, praises Kalidasa and Bharavi by name, which puts the poet on stone. Panini’s grammar mentions Vasudeva and Arjuna, and Patanjali’s commentary refers to dramatic performances of Kamsa’s killing. A pillar at Besnagar, set up around 110BCE by a Greek ambassador, honours Vasudeva. That a Buddhist tale and a Brahmanical epic share a plot is better explained by a common pool of folklore than by one-way larceny; the Dasaratha Jataka, in which Rama marries his sister, is hardly a template Valmiki would have been proud to copy.

The book’s claims about language are weaker still. Mr Patel insists that Brahmi script, which lacks several signs used in Ashoka’s edicts, cannot write Sanskrit. Yet the Junagadh inscription of Rudradaman, from about 150CE, is in Sanskrit, in Brahmi. Ashoka’s edicts omit certain sounds because Prakrit, the language he used, had lost them, not because the script could not represent them. The Arthashastra, found on palm leaf in 1905 and debated ever since, is not a forgery by anyone with a motive to flatter Brahmins; many scholars see an old core with later layers.

Why does such a book find readers? Partly because it asks real questions that official history answers poorly. Indian schoolchildren absorb vast, unsourced chronologies in which epics are history, and a sceptical reader may suspect that the same confidence is applied to everything. Partly, too, it speaks to resentments about caste, which the author blames on a priestly conspiracy that colluded with Mughal rulers. That is an argument about motive, not evidence, and it is delivered with a stream of abuse of an entire community.

The sensible lesson is a modest one. Inscriptions are better at fixing dates and rulers; texts are better at preserving ideas and ritual. History needs both, and each is a check on the other. The temptation to treat silence in one as proof of fabrication in the other is as old as the discipline. It has rarely survived the next excavation.

The author’s argument

Patel uses the word “implant” (pratyāropaṇ) for a method he says was used repeatedly to place a later community’s figures into an earlier, Buddhist-era setting. As he describes it, the method has three steps:

1. Fix on a person or theme to be “established” in a famous age, such as the Mauryas, Shungas or Guptas.
2. Write a book, attributed to an obscure or unknowable author, that mentions that figure in a line or two while borrowing real history or Buddhist stories.
3. Cite that book in later writing, then in newspapers and textbooks, until it becomes accepted fact.

Chanakya

Patel notes that none of the Mauryan inscriptions mentions Chanakya, and that Megasthenes’ account (which he treats as reliable) does not name him either. He argues that the figure was “seated” in Chandragupta’s court through two works:

• Mahavamsa: a Sri Lankan chronicle. Patel says its author and original date are unknown, that it contains miraculous and unverifiable material (Ashoka killing 99 brothers, the Buddha visiting Sri Lanka), and that its Hindi translation (1942, by Bhadant Anand Kaushalyayan) was printed on paper long after the events. He infers it was composed after the Gupta period, likely in the 9th-10th century or later.
• Mudrarakshasa: a Sanskrit play by Vishakhadatta. Patel says the author’s date and place are unknown, no original manuscript has been found, and Bharatendu Harishchandra translated it in 1850, after the British had already excavated Mauryan history. He suggests the play borrowed from British findings and added Chanakya.

He then says the Arthashastra and Chanakya Niti should exist on stone in Brahmi if Chanakya lived in the Mauryan era, and they do not.

Shunga-era figures and the Divyavadana

Patel says the Divyavadana, a collection of Buddhist stories, is the source of the claim that Pushyamitra Shunga was Ashoka’s last successor. It is on paper in Nagari, with unknown author and date. He contrasts this with Bharhut’s Shunga-era inscriptions, which are on stone and show Buddhist patronage. From this he argues that Patanjali, said to have been Pushyamitra’s court priest, is another implant, since no Shunga-era inscription names him and the Yoga Sutra has no stone original.

Panini and Kalidasa

• Panini: The Bharhut slab sometimes linked to Panini carries Brahmi writing, which Patel says cannot be his Sanskrit grammar. He also notes that the Ashtadhyayi has never been excavated, that Panini’s birth date and place are unknown, and that Vasudeva Sharan Agrawal’s book Panini-kalin Bharatvarsha reads caste into a period he says had none.
• Kalidasa: Patel observes that Kalidasa’s date and birthplace are unknown, his works survive on paper in Sanskrit, and his plays mention a Shunga prince (Malavikagnimitram) yet none of the Gupta kings he is supposed to have served. Faxian, Yijing and Xuanzang do not mention him. He sees him as a poet placed at a Gupta court to credit that dynasty to a different tradition.

The Jataka claim

Patel argues that ordinary people in Buddhist society were taught morals through stories, and that Jataka tales, in the Sutta Pitaka’s Khuddaka Nikaya, were the original source of later epics.

• Kanha Jataka (no. 440) and Ghata Jataka (no. 454): In the Ghata story, Kamsa’s sister Devagabbha is married off after a prophecy that her child will kill him. Her son, dark-skinned Kanha, is swapped with a servant’s daughter and grows up to kill Kamsa. Patel reads this as the template for Krishna and Kamsa (Kanha = Krishna = “dark”), with its moral about wealth and arrogance recast as an epic set in the Dvapara age.
• Dasaratha Jataka (no. 461): Its characters include Rama, Lakkhana, Bharata and Sita (all siblings in the Jataka). Patel says it is the “core” that the Ramayana later reworked, and that the Jataka’s characters are still known in Vajrayana monasteries.

He concludes that the Krishna and Rama stories were “stolen” from Buddhist tales and relocated to a vast, vague antiquity, hence the vast yuga dates.

What scholars say

Where he has a point.

• Chanakya is absent from Ashoka’s inscriptions and from Megasthenes’ surviving fragments. This is a recognized issue, and scholars debate how much of the Chanakya tradition is later legend.
• The Mahavamsa and Divyavadana are not contemporary records, and both contain legendary material, such as Ashoka’s fratricide, that historians treat cautiously.
• Mudrarakshasa is dated by many scholars to the Gupta period or later, not to the Mauryas, so it is not a Mauryan source.
• Jataka tales and the epics clearly share motifs. Krishna and Rama appear in Buddhist and Jain versions, and the Ghata Jataka resembles the Krishna story.

Where it breaks down.

• The Jatakas’ own date doesn’t give him priority. The Pali Jatakas were compiled in the early centuries CE, with the verses older. Evidence for the Mahabharata and Ramayana is roughly contemporary or earlier in places: Panini mentions Vasudeva and Arjuna, Patanjali discusses Kamsa-vadha performances, and the Heliodorus pillar (c. 100 BCE) honours Vasudeva. Scholars generally see a shared pool of folklore rather than a one-way theft, and the Jatakas themselves are recasting older Indian stories. Notably, the Dasaratha Jataka has Rama and Sita as siblings who marry, which differs sharply from Valmiki, and there is no consensus that it is the source.
• Panini and Patanjali are not “implants” on this evidence. Patanjali’s Mahabhashya is cited and discussed continuously in Sanskrit grammatical literature. Its internal references place it in the 2nd century BCE, and the work shows no sign of being a Mughal-era creation. Both were transmitted orally and in manuscript, as with other technical literature.
• Kalidasa has an early external attestation. The Aihole inscription (634 CE), on stone, praises Kalidasa and Bharavi. This directly contradicts the claim that he appears only in paper manuscripts. His dating (generally 4th-5th century) remains debated, but his existence is not.
• Chanakya’s absence is explained differently. The Arthashastra was rediscovered in 1905 on palm leaf, and scholars debate its layers, with some placing the core in the Mauryan period and others later. Absence from edicts is expected, since edicts record the king’s messages, not his ministers’ manuals. Some historians do doubt that Kautilya wrote the whole text.
• The “paper means late” inference. A text found on paper was copied onto paper. Manuscripts were recopied every few generations as palm leaf and birch bark decayed, and this explains why very old compositions survive in late copies. The Mahavamsa is a good example: it is a real Sri Lankan chronicle, whose earliest portions are generally dated to about the 5th century CE, and Patel’s date of 9th-10th century for it does not match scholarly consensus.
• The coordinated conspiracy is not demonstrated. The scheme requires many unconnected authors across centuries and regions, writing in different languages and for different religions, all acting as one. Patel offers no documentary evidence of this, only inference from motive.

Summary

The strongest part of this chapter is its caution about legendary sources: the Mahavamsa, Divyavadana and Mudrarakshasa are indeed late, partisan or literary, and historians do not take them at face value. The weakest part is the leap from “late or uncertain source” to “fabricated person,” and from “shared story” to “Buddhist original, Brahmanical theft.” Story motifs circulated freely among Buddhist, Jain and Brahmanical authors, and each tradition retold them for its own purposes. The better question is not who stole from whom, but how a common storytelling culture produced several versions of the same narratives.