Living with Itihasa and History together

Is Itha-sa and History Synonym of each other or identical of each other each other ?

From my childhood days, we all have been hearing the words Itihasa and history and that both are synonyms but are they really the same words? 

Curious as a cat I am, so one day  I  picked up a dictionary and saw that the word History originates from the Greek the word “ἱστορία”, “Historia” which basically means knowledge acquired by investigation. Further, the Oxford Dictionary (10th edition) describes history “as the study of past events” and the same Oxford Dictionary describes Study as the “devotion of time and attention to acquiring knowledge”. 

Consequently, I looked up the meaning of the word Itiha-sa and to my surprise, I found the meaning of इतिहास and not Itiha-sa. इतिहास was described as “Story, fable, narrative, annals, history; tradition: — itihās-kārak, adj. & s.m. (f. -ikā), History-making; historian; narrator: — itihās-vettā, s.m. Historian, professor of history [Platts dictionary]"

I was confused, so are History and इतिहास not the same thing as History has clearly been defined as an inquiry into the past while Itihas (इतिहास) has been described as a story/ narrative and then what does Itiha-sa mean. 

On the quest to find the meaning of Itiha-sa I came across an interesting article written by Mr. Devdutt Pattanaik published by the name of "Itihasa is not a fantasy" where he has described Itihasa as “Itihasa is not fantasy; it is not history either at least not in Sanskrit….In Sanskrit, itihasa means cultural memoir and refers to the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata that connect Ram and Krishna to Vishnu, who is bhagavan, which is the closest Hindu equivalent to the English concept of God. By contrast, in Hindi, itihasa means history, a subject that considers Ramayana and Mahabharata as Sanskrit literary works, not more than 2,500 years old, composed using Panini grammar, retelling ancient orally transmitted tales, which contain cultural frameworks, such as the concepts of karma, dharma, atma, and avatara.”.[The said Article was published at https://devdutt.com/articles/itihasa-is-not-fantasy/, last accessed on July 5th, 2020].

For further reference please do see the interview of Mr. Devdutt Patnaik conducted by Mr. Akash Banerjee published under the name of Bhakt Banerjee Vs. Devdutt Pattanaik:- Hindutva Vs. Hinduism between 8.50 minutes - 9.56 minutes out of 34.23 minutes where he discusses and explains very nicely what exactly is Itiha-sa.[The said interview was published at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVigXMCw1mY&t=1370s, last accessed on July 8th, 2020]. 

Itiha-sa and Culture Memoir. 

The most interesting thing about Mr. Devdutt Patnik's article was that he made a distinction between history and Itiha-sa based on a cultural memoir. I found the word culture memoir to be most interesting because the moment the word culture and memoir are used together it becomes the collective memory of people together and at the same time personal memory of a person. 

One Man’s Itiha-sa is Another Person’s History

So does that mean one person's Itiha-sa is another person's History? For example, the Independence of India and the Partition of India was Itiha-sa for my grandfather while History for me. Likewise, the Emergency of India would be Itiha-sa for my mother and History for me or to come to a very personal level, the death of my father would be Itiha-sa for me while it would be History for my future generations. So are Itiha-sa and history two sisters/brothers bound by the same umbilical cord.

To have a more specific example let's take the example of today's Pandemic. It is only during the present Pandemic that I came to the view that yes one person's Itiha-sa is another person's History. 

For example, the moment I started experiencing the harsh and brutal lockdown which effected all strata of the society at various levels (with the marginalised and unorganised sector being hit the most), so a question arose in my mind, whether such and lockdown has happened before or whether we have faced such pandemics before. Consequently, I started to research and started an inquiry in the past to find out about the past pandemics and how the government of those times and the prominent people and common people reacted to it. 

Thus the moment I started making an inquiry into the past events and why people reacted in a particular manner, I fell into the realm of history as I started making an inquiry and analysing the past events, while when I felt and experienced the pain and curse of the pandemic I fell into the realm of Itiha-sa. It is really very difficult to establish and differentiate between History and Itiha-sa and both overlap with each other and have to be understood through the eyes of the person who is experiencing it. 

The difference between History and Itiha-sa is not simplistic and cannot be put into absolute terms or separate boxes like this is History, this is Itiha-sa in fact they overlap each other. Itiha-sa is very personal and has to be experienced by a person personally while History is based on factual evidence. Since Itiha-sa is not bound by factual limitations and parameters and tests which History has to go through it evolves through tales, stories, fables which in many cases get filtered down generations through writings and oral stories in literature, arts and various other forms. 

History is based on facts which have to be proven by evidence while Itiha-sa is based on the culture memoir and living memory of the person, which is why you see two persons of the same age and of the same generation will tell you a unique and different living memory and culture memoir their living memory and culture memoir is based on their prejudices, ideas and perceptions which is why I believe Itiha-sa is like a river who keeps meandering and changing its course and no fixed path while History has a fixed path.