QUESTION & ANSWER WITH GURUDEV

 QUESTION & ANSWER WITH GURUDEV

POSTED ON: MONDAY, JULY 20, 2026

 

Q: Dear Gurudev, recent scientific discoveries in India and elsewhere have shown that what we thought was myth are actual historical occurrences, like the discovery of Dwaraka, the ancient city under the sea. How can we decipher mythology and symbolism from factual history in these sacred texts?

 

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

 

Yes. (Opens a bottle of water and gives it to the plants on the left of him.) They were a little thirsty.

You know, the ancient style of writing history was very poetic, and it was all in couplets. None of the history of ancient time was written in prose form. They were all in poetries. In poetry, you need rhythm, so to keep the rhythm there is exaggeration, and there is beautification - all these things happen. Poetry is not poetry if it is flat. There needs to be a little elevation in it. But because of the exaggeration you cannot discard it as myth, because there is also fact in it.

 

Ayurveda is also written in poetry form. No medicine anywhere in the world is taught in the form of poetry except in Ayurveda. In the world, this is the only medicinal system which is all in poems so that you can remember them by heart. Poetry is easy to remember. In those days, there were not many books, so people made it all into poetry. Even the healthy things, the healthy habits were all in poetry.

 

If one bears this in mind, then there is no difficulty in identifying the real facts of history. Today, we have what is called Astrophysics. In Astrophysics, they really find out the exact dates of historical events. And this is being done today. There are softwares available for that.

 

Some of our AOL members, Dr D.K. Hari and Hema Hari, they have made web pages on the historic facts of Ramayana and Mahabharata. If you’re interested, you go and look into those web pages.

 

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar