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Chapter 01 · Tradition track

Itihasa and Purana

इतिहास और पुराण

tradition3 eventsMarkdown version
A View of Part of the City of Oud
A View of Part of the City of Oud. William Hodges, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Before the dated record there is the told one. The Puranas describe four ages, the yugas, lasting from 432,000 to 1,728,000 years each. Tradition places Rama's Ayodhya in the Treta Yuga, and the Mahabharata sets the war at Kurukshetra at the junction of the Dvapara and the Kali.

This track pins that geography on the same map as the archaeological record, labelled plainly as tradition. It is not dated on the year axis, and the two tracks never share a scale. Toggle it off if you only want the evidence.

Events in this chapter

  1. Treta Yuga (Ramayana) · Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh

    Ayodhya, city of Rama

    The Ramayana's capital of Kosala, Rama's birthplace and seat, on the Sarayu.

  2. Dvapara Yuga (Harivamsa, Mahabharata) · Dwarka, Gujarat

    Dwarka, Krishna's western city

    Krishna's capital on the Saurashtra coast, which the Mahabharata says the sea swallowed after his death.

  3. End of the Dvapara Yuga (Mahabharata) · Kurukshetra, Haryana

    Kurukshetra, field of the Mahabharata war

    The eighteen-day war between the Pandavas and Kauravas, and the setting of the Bhagavad Gita.