Historians consider several elements when they analyse texts. They examine the language, whether texts were written in Prakrit, Pali or Tamil.
- They consider the kinds of text. Were these mantras, learnt and chanted by ritual specialists, or stories that people could have read, or heard, and then retold.
- Besides, they try to find out about the author(s) whose perspectives and ideas shaped the text, as well as the intended audience, as, very often, authors keep the interests of their audience in mind while composing their work. And they try and ascertain the possible date of the composition or compilation of the texts as well as the place where they may have been composed.
- One of the most ambitious projects of scholarship began in 1919, under the leadership of a noted Indian Sanskritist, V.S. Sukthankar. A team comprising dozens of scholars initiated the task of preparing a critical edition of the Mahabharata.
- Initially, it meant collecting Sanskrit manuscripts of the text, written in a variety of scripts, from different parts of the country. The team worked out a method of comparing verses from each manuscript.
- Two things became apparent: there were several common elements in the Sanskrit versions of the story, evident in manuscripts found all over the subcontinent, from Kashmir and Nepal in the north to Kerala and Tamil Nadu in the south.
- Also evident were enormous regional variations in the ways in which the text had been transmitted over the centuries. These variations were documented in footnotes and appendices to the main text. Taken together, more than half the 13,000 pages are devoted to these variations.
In a sense, these variations are reflective of the complex processes that shaped early (and later) social histories –It is important to keep this in mind as we examine how historians reconstruct social histories.
