Veracity of Ramayana

 This is an article recently published in Pioneer though interesting but do we actually need to prove veracity of "Ramayana" . Isn't  the teachings in the book sufficient enough to excel it beyond doubt ? deserves veneration from sane mind ?

Ramsevak Kol, a tribe from the Sidhi district of Madhya Pradesh, stands head and shoulders above other Indians.  Genetic studies prove that he is one of the descendants of King Guha of Ramayana.  An international team of researchers consisting of geneticists, anthropologists, archaeologists and historians have found that Ramayana, written 10,000 years ago, is a chronicle of events and characters recorded by Sage Valmiki and not a work of fiction.

The mystery behind the characters in Ramayana has been solved by a team led by Dr Gyaneshwer Chaubey, ace genetic scientist of the Estonian Biocentre in Estonia. A three-year long research by Dr Chaubey and his team drawn out from Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, Delhi University, Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur and Institute of Scientific Research on Vedas has found that the Bhils, Gonds and the Kols, categorised as Scheduled Castes and Tribes by the modern day administrators of India are the true descendants of characters featured in Ramayana. The peer reviewed scientific paper authored by the team has been published by PLOS ONE, a respected scientific portal.

The Kol tribe, found mainly in areas like Mirzapur, Varanasi, Banda and Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh, are the descendants of the Kol mentioned in Ramayana, according to Dr Chaubey and his team. Remember Guha, the chieftain of Sringiverapuram who helped Lord Rama, Sita and Laksmana cross the Ganga during their journey to the forests? “Guha, the Nishad King, is the ancestor of the present day Kol tribe we found in these regions. This ancestry was established by genetic studies. These groups of people carry the basic indigenous genetic traits of India. Ramsevak and thousands like him spread across the States of UP, MP, Odisha, Chhattisgargh are the true descendants of Lord Rama and his contemporaries,” Dr Chaubey told The Pioneer from Tartu in Estonia via video conferencing.

Dr Chaubey and Prof VR Rao, an anthropologist in Delhi University, said that the studies proved that these groups of people have maintained their genetic continuity for more than 10,000 years. “This again sets at rest the Aryan invasion theory. There is no inflow into the genetic traits of these tribes from outside elements,” said Saroj Bala, a specialist in Vedic and Ramayana studies, who shot into fame by calculating the date of birth of Lord Rama based on planetary positions.

Prof Rao said the studies confirmed that the characters mentioned by Valmiki in Ramayana are real life characters. “King Dasaratha, Rama and others were not fictional characters,” he said.  Dr S Kalyanaraman, an Indologist of repute, said the Kols are the iron smelters about whom there are mentions in Indus Script excavated from the banks of Indus as well as River Saraswathi.

“This paper by Gyaneswer Chaube and team is an attempt to explain the roots of Hindu civilisation which has been distorted by creating false ethnic identities by the categorisation of people,” said Dr Kalyanaraman. He said a comprehensive study incorporating all tribes should be undertaken which would prove that the breaking up of essential unity of Bharatiya identity based on caste and ethnicity are academic fiction with no basis and a distortion of the history of ancient India