Sri Rama And Sri Krishha Were Historical Personalities: An Interview with Jijith Nadumuri Ravi
Photo courtesy: Notion Press
Former ISRO space scientist, and now prolific writer/researcher, Jijith Nadumuri Ravi has been quietly reshaping our understanding of ancient India. His meticulous research on the rivers mentioned in the Rigveda and the geography embedded in the Ramayana and Mahabharata has yielded findings that challenge long-held assumptions.
These insights are captured in his trilogy: Geography of the Rivers of the Rigveda (2022), Geography of the Ramayana (2023), and Geography of the Mahabharata (2024). In the first of the trilogy, Jijith guides readers through the Rigveda’s vast landscape using its rivers as cartographic signposts. The second, based on Valmiki’s text, reconstructs the geography of Bharatavarṣa as known to Rama, Valmiki, Agastya, and their contemporaries, uncovering several surprising dimensions of the Ramayana world. In the final volume, Jijith takes on the colossal task of analyzing the entire Mahabharata — all 1,995 chapters and 18 parvas — mapping events, timelines, and places of the Pandava era.
An electronics and communication engineer with an MBA in IT Management, Jijith served at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), contributing to the Chandrayaan-1 GSO-LTO orbit design and GSLV launches D2, F01, and F02. His passion for ancient history led him to found AncientVoice (ancientvoice.wikidot.com), a digital repository with over 25,000 pages on the Mahabharata, Ramayana, Vedas, Puranas, Upanishads, and classical Tamil literature. He has presented papers at international conferences, mediated debates on dating the Kurukshetra War, and now runs Dharma Digital (dharmadigital.in), a platform promoting dharma through emerging technologies like Virtual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
For those seeking authentic geographical data in the Rigveda and the epics/itihāsas, Jijith’s books are an essential starting point. He invites scrutiny of his work, quoting the Vedic maxim: “Let noble thoughts come to us from every side.” But, he warns, “to counter my contentions, one must read the book.” However, in these matters of historical data, scholars continue to contend over each other’s claims, and debates can get cantankerous and testy.
My interest in his work began with his spirited rebuttal to Devdutt Pattanaik in the article No, Mr. Devdutt Pattanaik, Krishna Was Not a Negligent Father, and extended to his philosophical dialogue The Human Soul: A Dialogue Between East and West with American poet and composer Lawrence David Moon, and his interview with Shrikant Talageri on the Aryan Invasion (AIT) and Out of India (OIT) theories.
Jijith’s scholarship matters because it addresses a longstanding criticism — that Hindus lack historical consciousness, that their past can be reconstructed only from foreign travelers’ accounts, and that their epics are unreliable as historical sources. In an age of noisy debates about Arya vs. Dravida, oppressors vs. the oppressed, and Brahmins vs. Shudras, voices like his are reclaiming an evidence-based view of India’s civilizational past.
This intellectual renaissance is not being led solely by professional historians, but by independent scholars like Shrikant Talageri, Michel Danino, Vishwa Adluri, Joydeep Bagchi, and Jijith himself — thinkers who combine deep reading of primary texts with data-driven analysis. Their work helps us separate interpolations from original texts, map ancient landscapes, and reframe the question – “In the Indian context, what is history, what is myth, what is itihāsa, and how do we tell one from the other?”
Here are excerpts from an exclusive interview with Jijith Nadumuri Ravi:
How did your journey from ISRO scientist to researcher of the Vedas, Itihāsas, and Purāṇas — particularly their geography — begin?
My fascination with the Vedas, Itihāsas, Purāṇas, and also with space exploration, the solar system, and planets began when I was just 10 years old. In the 6th standard, I would take blank maps of India — borrowed from my senior cousins — and trace the routes of the Pāṇḍavas across them. Later, after joining ISRO, I came across books on the discovery of the Sarasvati River in the office library, which reignited my passion for Vedic studies.
In 2004, I began contributing to Wikipedia, writing articles on each Janapada (kingdom) mentioned in the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa. But when I realized that Wikipedia entries could be altered by anyone, I decided to create my own dedicated platform — AncientVoice. Today, it hosts over 25,000 pages covering the four Vedas, the Itihāsas, and the Viṣṇu Purāṇa.
What inspired you to write your first book, Rivers of the Ṛgveda? Could you also give us a brief introduction to it?
My original plan was to write a book on the geography of the Mahābhārata. I began work on it in 2020, but soon realized that to do justice to the subject, I first needed to study the Ṛgveda — our oldest text — as well as the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa. The evolution of Vedic–Aitihāsic–Purāṇic culture begins with the Ṛgveda, which records the earliest settlements along rivers such as the Gaṅgā, Yamunā, Sarasvatī, Śutudrī (Sutlej), Vipāśā (Beas), Paruṣṇī (Ravi), Asiknī (Chenab), Vitastā (Jhelum), Sindhu (Indus), Gomatī (Gomal), Sarayu (Haro), and Kubhā (Kabul River).
The geography described in the Ṛgveda matches that of the Indus Valley–Harappan civilization of northwest India, stretching from western Uttar Pradesh to eastern Afghanistan, and from Kashmir to eastern Maharashtra. This Ṛgvedic landscape eventually gave rise to the Aitihāsic geography of the Rāma and Pāṇḍava eras. Understanding this continuity is what led me to write Rivers of the Ṛgveda as my first book.
Many Left-leaning historians dismiss our Itihāsas as mere mythology. Yet, you have meticulously mapped the geography of the Rāmāyaṇa. How do you respond to such claims?
I strongly disagree with the Leftist narrative. That said, without grounding the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa in the Ṛgveda, its occasional exaggerations and magical episodes can make it appear like mere fiction. The Ṛgveda, though poetic, is far more anchored in reality. For instance, in the Dāśarājña battle, it records the participation of 6,000 warriors — a figure that feels historically plausible. This realism provides a solid foundation for analyzing the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa alongside the Ṛgveda and distilling the core historical truths from an Itihāsa-Kāvya.
The results are remarkably concrete. Evidence suggests that Rāma and Śaṃtanu — the great-grandfather of the Pāṇḍavas — both appear in the 10th maṇḍala of the Ṛgveda and were contemporaries living toward the end of the late Ṛgvedic period. Likewise, the data points to Rāvaṇa as a Harappan king who ruled along the Narmada River, with his Laṅkā being a Harappan seaport at the river’s mouth. This is consistent with accounts that Rāvaṇa’s grandfathers married daughters of the Narmada (Gandharvis), one of whom, Mālyavat, hailed from the Mālyavat Range of the northern Vindhyas near the Yamuna.
It is fascinating that every state in India claims some connection to the Rāmāyaṇa. In fact, wherever one travels, there seems to be a site linked to either the Rāmāyaṇa or the Mahābhārata. How do you view this pan-Indian presence of the epics?
The Rāmāyaṇa is so deeply woven into the cultural DNA of India that almost every region has claimed a connection to it. Over time, this has led to numerous popular identifications of places mentioned in the epic — Nasik and Parṇaśāla near Bhadrāchalam as Pañcavatī, Hampi and a hill near Tirumala as Kiṣkindhā, Lepakshi as the site linked to Jaṭāyu, and southern Kanyakumari and present-day Sri Lanka as Laṅkā.
What are your findings on ‘Sarasvatī-Sindhu-Narmadā’ Civilization?
One of the earliest labels for what we now call the Sarasvatī–Sindhu–Narmadā Civilization was “Harappan Civilization.” This name arose when the only known site was Harappa, near the Ravi River in present-day Pakistan. As excavations continued, other major settlements such as Mohenjo-daro along the Indus were discovered, prompting a rebranding as the “Indus Valley Civilization.”
Subsequent findings revealed that the largest concentration of sites lay along the Sarasvatī River, leading to the term “Sarasvatī–Sindhu Civilization.” Later still, archaeologists uncovered settlements along the Narmadā River in the south, extending as far as Daimabad in Maharashtra. Given this expanded geographical scope, the most accurate name for this vast civilization spanning the north-western Indian subcontinent is the Sarasvatī–Sindhu–Narmadā Civilization (SSNC).
Within this framework, the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa can be reinterpreted as the story of an expedition undertaken by a prince of Ayodhyā, on the banks of the Sarayū River in present-day Uttar Pradesh, to a Harappan port city at the mouth of the Narmadā River — from where he rescued his abducted wife.
Please tell me about your website, Ancientvoice.com
The website, similar to Wikipedia, with 25,000 plus pages, was established in 2009 to focus on the Ṛg, Yajur, Sama, and Atharva Vedas. It also contains articles on the Rāmāyaṇa, the Mahābhārata, and the Viṣṇu Purāṇa. One can browse through the site to read any of the texts from start to finish or their subsections (Maṇḍalas, Sūktas, Kaṇḍas, Sargas, Parvas, and Adhyāyas). The site can also be used as a research tool. It also contains my analytical articles, charts, maps, and my illustrative paintings of the Pāṇḍavas, Indraprastha, etc.
What about your platform ‘Dharmadigital’?
Ten years after the establishment of “AncientVoice,” a textual website to promote Sanātana Dharma and research, Dharma Digital was established in 2019. It uses the latest information technologies like Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, and Artificial Intelligence to digitally create Devata holograms – of Krishna, Balarama, Pāṇḍavas, Pāncālī, Sītā, Rāma, Hanumat/Hanumān, and other divine personalities — capable of virtually interacting with the viewer using the medium of a mobile phone or a head-mounted VR device. These devatas, while interacting, instruct the viewer on various aspects of Sanātana Dharma.
Do you regard Śrī Rāma and Śrī Kṛṣṇa as figures of history rather than mythology?
One of the key conclusions of my trilogy is that Śrī Rāma and Śrī Kṛṣṇa were indeed historical figures. Their actions, as directly described by Vālmīki and Vyāsa, reflect human experiences and realities. At the same time, from the perspective of Advaita Vedānta, they are divine, since this philosophy holds that every individual is inherently divine and unified with Brahman. Those who attain full self-awareness and express this Brahman consciousness most clearly are revered as divinities.
Over time, later poets and storytellers added numerous magical and supernatural elements to the Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata, which shaped the evolved versions we know today. These embellishments have led to perceptions of Śrī Rāma and Śrī Kṛṣṇa as mythical or fictional, obscuring their historical foundations.
What are your findings on the link between Veda-Itihāsa-Purāna chronology and archeology?
There are clear correlations between the literary culture of the Early and Middle Ṛgveda periods and the archaeological Early Harappan Period (3300–2600 BCE). Both the Ṛgveda and the Harappan material culture reflect the humble beginnings of a pastoral and agrarian society, characterized by small settlements along riverbanks.
The Late Ṛgveda period corresponds closely with the Mature Harappan Period (2600–1900 BCE), a time marked by increased urbanization and more extensive settlements. This period also sees the mention of over 210 kings and more than 420 sages in the Ṛgveda.
During the composition of the 8th Maṇḍala in the Late Ṛgveda, the world experienced the 4.2-kiloyear event (~2200 BCE), a severe drought lasting over 12 years that impacted many ancient civilizations, including the Ṛgvedic and Harappan cultures. This environmental crisis led to a gradual shift in settlement and cultural focus from the drying of the Sarasvatī River to the Yamunā and Gaṅgā rivers in the east.
This migration is reflected in the Late Ṛgveda, Rāmāyaṇa, and Mahābhārata through the movements of the Ikṣvāku and Kuru lineages, respectively. The Ikṣvāku lineage includes figures such as Sagara, Asamañja, Aṃśumat, Dilīpa, Bhagīratha, Raghu, Aja, Daśaratha, and Rāma, while the Kuru lineage traces back to Kuru, Pradīpa, and Śaṃtanu.
The Aitihāsic period of Rāma and the Pāṇḍavas aligns with the declining Late Harappan Period (1900–1300 BCE), itself divided into the Rāma Era (1950–1850 BCE) and the Pāṇḍava Era (1850–1750 BCE). This explains why, in the traditional Yuga system, the Treta and Dvāpara Yugas are described as times of decline.
Following the Aitihāsic period began the Purāṇic Edit Period, corresponding to the Kali Yuga. The era before the Aitihāsic period — the Ṛgvedic Composition Period — is associated with the Ṛta Yuga, also known as the Krita or Satya Yuga.
There is a common claim that Indians lack historical consciousness and that their understanding of the past relies mainly on foreign travelers’ accounts. Moreover, the epics and traditional texts are often dismissed as unreliable mixtures of myth, legend, and social biases perpetuated by Brahminical narratives. How do you respond to these criticisms?
These allegations are unfounded. Our texts reflect a balanced interplay of masculine and feminine principles and are intended for all individuals who seek their wisdom, regardless of social status or classification. Given the great antiquity of our civilization, systematic record-keeping was far more challenging than in Western cultures that arose two to four thousand years later. As a result, some historical details became obscured over time.
Through my research and writings, I have demonstrated that a reasonable reconstruction of India’s distant past is indeed possible by deeply studying the Vedas, Itihāsas, and Purāṇas. My work extends the historicity of Indian kings well beyond the Mauryan era of Chandragupta to include figures like Parikṣit, Yudhiṣṭhira, Śaṃtanu, Rāma, Sudās, Divodāsa, Bharata, and even his ancestors up to Manu as genuine historical leaders.
Cross-referencing these texts is essential to establishing a coherent chronological sequence of events. Treating each text as an isolated source risks producing exaggerated or inconsistent dates that disrupt the historical narrative. For example, considering the Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata separately and relying solely on archaeoastronomy yields inaccurate dates such as Rāma living in 12,209 BCE and the Kurukṣetra War taking place in 5561 BCE. This conflicts with the historical continuity, as characters like Parashurama, Hanumat, Markandeya, Dūrvasa, Jāmbavat, Mainda, Dvivida, Vibhishana, and Vaisravana interact with both Rāma and the Pāṇḍavas. Their presence in both narratives indicates that the eras of Rāma and the Pāṇḍavas followed one another closely, without a gap of several decades, let alone centuries.
What advice or message would you like to share with aspiring researchers?
Always begin any chronological and geographical study of the Itihāsas and Purāṇas with a solid understanding of the Ṛgveda’s chronology and geography. This grounding helps anchor your research in reality, preventing it from being swept away by the poetic imagination that often characterizes the later texts. Such an approach is essential for reconstructing pre-history beyond well-established historical kings like Chandragupta Maurya and Mahāpadma Nanda.
One of the greatest challenges for researchers studying the Itihāsas and Purāṇas is distinguishing fact from fiction woven into these narratives. The assumption that everything in these texts is equally real, or conversely, entirely mythical, is a false premise. A balanced, discerning approach is necessary, along with an openness to surprises.
Researchers should also have a strong background in related disciplines such as archaeology, the evolution of ancient technologies, and archaeoastronomy to properly interpret the data.
I encourage readers to support and amplify these Dharmic efforts by engaging with my books. Readers’ support helps sustain projects like these geochronology studies, the Dharma Digital platform, and the AncientVoice website. More importantly, I urge everyone to contribute to Dharma in whatever way possible — regardless of your profession or social background, as every effort counts.
