Mahabharata as a Source of Histriography of Ancient South Asia

Historiography refers either to the study of the methodology and development of "history" (as a discipline), or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic. Exploring the purpose, means, methods, tools and process of the writing of South Asian history or historiography in ancient time is the objective of this paper. The sources of ancient historiography of South Asia are mostly religious literature. Though non religious literature is also found, then stamps and coins, Archeological remains, foreign travelers and historians can be considered as source of historiography of ancient south Asia. However non-religious is not of good quality to be qualifying as historical record. Therefore we mostly rely on religious books to understand ancient historiography of south Asia. Through the study of these religious literatures it is revealed that ancient historiography of south Asia was mostly story telling of wars as described in Mahabharata and Ramayan. Though in Mahabharata Besides its epic narrative of the Kurukshetra War and the fates of the Kaurava and the Pandava princes, the Mahabharata contains much philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion of the four "goals of life" or purusharthas ds of new generation of Indians, Hindus as well as Muslims. In this paper an attempt is made to describe that Mahabharata is a source of Ancient south Asian historiography.