F. E. Pargiter

Frederick Eden Pargiter (1852 - 1927) was a British civil servant and Orientalist who gave the only reliable method of dating the Mahabharata War.

Early life

Born in 1852, Pargiter was the second son of Rev. Robert Pargiter. He studied at Taunton Grammar School and Exeter College, Oxford where he passed in 1873 with a first-class in mathematics. Pargiter passed the Indian Civil Service examinations and embarked for India in 1875.

Career

Pargiter served in India from 1875 to 1906 becoming Under-Secretary to the Government of Bengal in 1885, District and Sessions Court judge in 1887 and a judge of the Calcutta High Court in 1904. Pargiter voluntarily retired in 1906 on the death of his wife and returned to the United Kingdom.

His works

• Ancient Indian Historical Tradition - London: Oxford University Press.(1922). In his Ancient Indian Historical Tradition, taking the accession of Chandragupta Maurya in 321 BC as his reference point, Pargiter dated the Battle of Kurukshetra to 950 BC assigning an average of 14.48 years for each king mentioned in the Puranic lists.

• The Markandeya-Puranam Sanskrit Text English Translation with Notes and Index of Verses. Asoatic Society. (1920)
• A Revenue History of the Sundarbans from 1870 to 1920. Calcutta: Bengal Board of Revenue. (1904)

References

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