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> The oldest surviving manuscripts have been discovered in Nepal and date to c. 1040 CE Wikipedia is out of date here. It is quite possible some editor in Wiki

> The oldest surviving manuscripts have been discovered in Nepal and date to c. 1040 CE Wikipedia is out of date here. It is quite possible some editor in Wikipedia forgot to update the date. > Where did you suddenly get manuscripts ~2800 years older? When was this big news published? I already provided the link in the explanation itself. It was published in multiple news outlets. Here is another from Financial Express: https://www.financialexpress.com/archive/rig-veda-manuscripts-make-it-to-heritage-list/207564/ https://www.financialexpress.com/archive/rig-veda-manuscript... "UNESCOs Heritage Register list items of literary heritage with exceptional value identified by International Advisory Committee and endorsed by Director General of UNESCO. This year it selected 38 such items, of which 30 are Rigveda scriptures kept in BORI. The Institute gets grant from New Delhi-based government department for conserving manuscripts, National Manuscript Mission (NMM). It had arranged an exhibition in Germany recently. UNSECO persons visiting this exhibition, selected 30 manuscripts of Rigveda, Dhadphale said over telephone from Pune. The manuscripts are dated from 1800-1500 BC and it is the first and perhaps oldest book in literature, Dhadphale said."

jhgb 5y ago
From what I understand, the texts are perhaps from 1800-1500 BCE but the manuscripts aren't. That ancient and medieval manuscripts are almost universally younger copies of older texts is common knowledge. The oldest manuscript in the set of "30 Rigveda scriptures kept in BORI" that you're presumably referring to dates back only to 1464 CE: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.403.6611&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.403... > 5. Oldest Dated Manuscript: > No. 5/1882-83 (1464 AD) > ... > There are 30 manuscripts of Rigveda at the Institute, collected from different parts of India like Kashmir, Gujarat, the then Rajaputana, Central Provinces etc. They are written in Sharada, Devanagari and Devanagari with Prishthamatra and the material used for writing is birch bark as well as paper. The oldest of these manuscripts is dated 1464 A. D. So if these are the texts you're referring to, then Wikipedia is not out of date here and your information is simply wrong. Not even the UNESCO nomination text attempts to claim that these manuscripts are three thousand years older than how old they actually are.

jhgb 5y ago

From what I understand, the texts are perhaps from 1800-1500 BCE but the manuscripts aren't. That ancient and medieval manuscripts are almost universally younger copies of older texts is common knowledge. The oldest manuscript in the set of "30 Rigveda scriptures kept in BORI" that you're presumably referring to dates back only to 1464 CE: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.403.6611&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.403... > 5. Oldest Dated Manuscript: > No. 5/1882-83 (1464 AD) > ... > There are 30 manuscripts of Rigveda at the Institute, collected from different parts of India like Kashmir, Gujarat, the then Rajaputana, Central Provinces etc. They are written in Sharada, Devanagari and Devanagari with Prishthamatra and the material used for writing is birch bark as well as paper. The oldest of these manuscripts is dated 1464 A. D. So if these are the texts you're referring to, then Wikipedia is not out of date here and your information is simply wrong. Not even the UNESCO nomination text attempts to claim that these manuscripts are three thousand years older than how old they actually are.