11-02-2008, 02:28 AM
Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization
01/11/2008 12:56:33
By M. P. Ajithkumar *
Right from early times Indiaâs northwestern part had been the cradle of cultural florescence that gave birth to one of the ancient civilizations. Differently called as Harappan Culture or Sindhu Valley Civilization, this early civilization of India has been of much historical interest to archaeologists, geologists and even space researchers. However as archaeological research progressed, the very name Indus Civilization proved to be a misnomer since the remains of this civilization unearthed from various parts of India reveal that it was not confined exclusively to Indus Valley. Its cultural dissemination took place in an area of about 2.5 million sq. KM. of India. The northern most of Indus sites is Manda located on river Beas near Jammu. The southern most is Bhagatrav on river Tapti in Maharashtra. The eastern most sites are Alamgirpur on river Hindon near Delhi and Mandoli near Nandanagari in North Delhi. In the west it extended to Sutkagendor on the ancient shore of Arabian Sea near the eastern border of Iran. The main sites include Harappa, Mohenjodaro, Chanhudaro, Lothal, Rupar, Kalibengan, Banavali, Kunal, Kot-Diji, Dholavira, Surkothada, Mehrgarh, Rahmandheri, Ranagundai, Amri, Kil Gul Mohamad and a host of other major and minor ones.
However what is most astonishing is the concentration of these sites in the vast tract lying between Indus on the west and Ganges on the east, where the archaeologists and geologists alike have discovered the paleochannels of a lost river with more than 22 KM breadth at some places. This according to D N Wadia is the âold bed of Saraswati ⦠at a time when it and the Sutlej flowed independently of the Indus to the sea, i.e. the Rann of Kutchâ. (D N Wadia, Geology of India, Delhi, 1984, p. 368.First published in 1919) By 1886 itself R D Oldham, the then Deputy Superintend of the Geological Survey of India had pointed to the existence of this river during ancient times. Oldham was the first geologist who studied and gave as early as 1886, geological comments about river Saraswathi and the changes in the drainage pattern of the rivers of Punjab and western Rajasthan that reduced the once fertile region into a desert. He observed the paleochannels of a river that flowed in between the Yamuna and Sutlej and that this river had two channels one of which passed through Haryana (Khaggar-Saraswati channel). He also observed some shifts in the channels of this river, which according to geological findings had changed its course many times. Analyzing the fossils unearthed from the beds of these old rivers, he concluded that these were of the creatures, which floated in the same river, which proved that these channels were of the same river. (R D Oldham, âOn Probable Changes in the Geography of the Punjab and its Rivers an Historico-Geographical Studyâ, Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1886, Vol.55, pp.322-343) C F Oldham also took notice of the paleochannels of this river. He traced an old riverbed, the Hakra or Sotra (Ghaggar) or Wahind, more than thousand Km. in length, the channel of a lost river, traceable from Ambala near the foot of the Himalayas through Bhatinda, Bikaner and Bahawalpur to Sind and thence onwards to the Rann of Kutch. Quoting from the Rig Veda, Mahabharatha and Manusmrithi, he concluded that this was the channel of the ancient river Saraswati around which had lay the highly civilized centers. He wrote:
The existence of this river at no very remote period and the truth of the legend which assert the ancient fertility of the lands through which it flowed, are attested by the ruins which everywhere overspread what is now an arid sandy waste.
Throughout this tract are scattered mounts, marking the sites of cities and towns. And there are strongholds still remaining, in a very decayed state, which were places of importanceâ¦
Amongst these ruins are found, not only the huge bricks used by the Hindus of the remote past, but others of much later make too.
Taking the once urban nature of these areas and the unerring geological findings about the long and wide riverbed of the lost river, he concluded that this was nothing other than the Vedic Saraswati referred to in the ancient Indian literature. (C F Oldahm, âThe Saraswati and the Lost River of the Indian Desertâ, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1893, Vol.34, pp.49-76) Later the geologists engaged in the geomorphologic survey on the eve of launching the Fakra-Nangal project also came across the old bed of a long river, which flowed in the southwest direction and ended up in the desert. (B C Roy, âGeological Map of Rajasthanâ, Geological Survey of India, Vol. 86; âLost Course of Saraswati River in the Indian Desertâ, Geographical Journal, Vol-145 (3), 1979)
The evidence from Manusmrithi about the existence of the rivers Saraswati and Drishadvathi, which flanked the area it calls Brahmavartha is further attested by the most modern geological findings and also imageries sent by the earth sensing satellites of both NASA and ISRO. They give information about the ancient geological structure of the northwest India based on the pictures of the paleochannels of the rivers that flowed and ended up in the Thar Desert. (Yas Pal, âRemote Sensing of the Saraswati Riverâ, Frontiers of Harappan Civilization, (Ed. B B Lal and S P Gupta), New Delhi, 1984, pp. 491-498)
According to Geological and hydrological findings this area, though now appears arid, was in ancient times watered by a group of mighty rivers that flowed in between Sindhu in the west and Ganga on the east. River Saraswathi, according to the literary tradition was bigger than the Sindhu during its heydays and had coursed through the region between modern Yamuna and Sutlej. (A. V. Sankaran, âSaraswati â the ancient river lost in the desertâ, Aseema, Mangalore, Vol. 5. No. 7, January 2005, pp. 7-14.) Though Saraswathi is lost its sister rivers outlived and have survived to this day. It is to be noted that most of the big rivers of North India in the time of the Vedas â Saraswathi, Shatadru (Sutlej) and Yamuna â derived their waters from the Himalayan glaciers during the Pleistocene times. The melting of these glaciers during the Holocene later led to the origin of many rivers that coursed down the Himalayan slopes. The Vedic bards symbolically present the thawing of these glaciers through the war between God Indra and demon Vritra. Indra is represented in the Vedic literature as the shaker of the forts or Purandara who shatters the saradiyapura or the snow fort, a story, which has been misinterpreted by Mortimer wheeler and others to buttress up their version of Arya-Dravida conflict. The long channel of the river sourcing off the foot of Sivalik ranges and coursing southwest was junctioned with many streams having considerable volume of water. The main Khaggar-Saraswati channel was enriched from the west by Sutlej arising from Mount Kailas while from the east the rivers like Drishadvati (the present Chautang), Yamuna and Markanda combined flowed into the Saraswati-Khaggar channel which took its mighty southwestern course till it emptied itself into the sea at Rann of Kutch. (K S Valdia, Saraswati â The River that Disappeared, Orient Longman, Hyderabad, 2002, pp. 23-36.). Consequently the areas between Saraswati and Drishadvati became resourceful for the all-round prosperity of those who peopled there. Interestingly, Saraswathiâs course in the states of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan is highlighted in the LANDSAT imagery by the lush cover of vegetation thriving on the rich residual loamy soil along its course. That this region was once watery is further confirmed by the earth-science studies conducted here. Geophysical surveys by the Geological Survey of India to study the ground water potential in Bikaner, Ganganagar and Jaisalmer districts of western Rajasthan came across many zones of fresh and less saline water in the form of arcuate shaped aquifers similar to other palaeochannels found in different parts of the state. Studies on hydrogen, oxygen and carbon isotopes on shallow and deep ground water samples from these districts further confirm that these surface palaeochannels are of the ancient rivers. A report on an environmental isotope study conducted along an identified palaeochannel in western Rajasthan by a team of scientists of the Isotope Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay thus reads:
A number of palaeochannels have been identified in western Rajasthan using remote sensing techniques and field observations ⦠One of these channels traced is in western Jaisalmer along Kishangar, Ghantiyali and Shahgarh. Inspite of the highly arid condition of the region, comparatively good quality ground water is available along the course below 30 m depth. A few dug wells in the study area do not dry up even in summer and the tube wells do not show reduction in water table, even after extensive utilization for human as well as livestock consumption. Ground water away from this course is saline. This course is seen to have link with the dry bed of Ghaggar river in the northeast, while in the southwest it is met with or even cut across the surviving courses of Hakra or Nara rivers in Pakistan. The above course is thought to belong to the legendry river Saraswathi of Himalayan origin, mentioned in many early literary works and known to have existed before 3000 BP. (A. R. Nair, S. V. Navada and S. M. Rao, âIsotope Study to Investigate the Origin and Age of Groundwater along Palaeochannels in Jaisalmer and Ganganagar Districts of Rajasthanâ, (Ed. B. P. Radhakrishna and S. S. Merh) Vedic Sarasvati â Evolutionary History of a Lost River of Northwestern India, Memoir of the Geological Society of India, No. 42, 1999, pp. 315-319.)
The SaraswathiValley as well as the growth of civilization there are thus facts confirmed both by geology and archaeology. According to Manu this was the most auspicious place and hence suitable for all kinds of spiritual activities and he calls it Brahmavartha, the god-created land:
saraswatidrushadvathyor devanadyor yadanantharam
tham devanirmithamdesam brahmavartham prachakshathe (Manu. 2. 17)
This opinion of Geology has not changed till date and it continued only to be buttressed up by similar findings of archaeology and space research later. Interestingly, most of the sites of what was so far called the Indus Valley Civilization have been excavated from the areas this lost river with its many feeder sources had flowed and changed its course different times. Indeed most of the archaeological finds regarding what we call the Harappan civilization have been unearthed from the Cholistan desert area where the Pakistani team of archaeologists headed by M Rafique Mughal concentrated its surveys along 300 miles of the dry bed of the HakraRiver. The Cholistan discoveries, Mughal says, have given a ânew perspective and orientation for planning future research on Indus Valley Civilizationâ, because âsites of various periods, and their concentration or distribution, provides a reliable basis for reconstructing various changes in the course of the Hakra River, often identified with the Saraswati of the Vedic periodâ (M. Rafique Mughal, âRecent Archaeological Research in the Cholistan Desertâ, Harappan Civilization, (Ed. Gregory L. Possehl) New Delhi, Oxford & IBH, 1993, pp. 85-94) Further excavations in Cholistan and other sites which dot all across the regions where this lost river had flowed have brought to light that what has been thus far described as the Indus Valley Civilization had only a few sites on the Indus. Most sites of this civilization including the maritime and other navigational centers were concentrated on the strands of the once mighty River Saraswati or were connected to it.
One may wonder as to whether this lost river was so big that its sand beds and valleys had helped flower so great a civilization and fostered it for a long time till it ceased to have its mighty flow and ended up in the desert. According to geologists the two thousand year period, between 6000 and 4000 B.C., witnessed the full splendour of Saraswati when as a great river it watered the plains of Punjab, Rajastan, Gujarat and Haryana. Definitely this mighty river became an object of much praise and veneration and was deified and eulogized by the seers who authored the Vedic hymns. She is described in the Rig Veda as:
ekacetat Saraswati nadinam suciryati giribhya a samudrat (Rk Veda. 7:95:2)
âShe is flowing from the mountains to the oceanâ. So great was she to the Vedic people that they praised her as the best of mothers, best of rivers and best of Goddesses and invoked her blessings:
ambitame naditame devitame Saraswati
aprasasta iva smasi prasastimamba naskridhi (Rk Veda. 2:41:16)
âBest of mothers, best of rivers, Best of Goddesses, Saraswati we are ignorant and untrained, give us wisdom and knowledgeâ
She is described as the river whose unlimited and uninterrupted flow with its swift movement and speedy rush gushes forth with tempestuous roar:
yasya ananto ahnuta stvesa scarisnurarnava amascarati roruvat (Rk Veda. 6:61:8)
Her mighty current is described to have broken the boulders on either side with as much ease as breaking the lotus stems. (Rk Veda.6: 61:2) Similarly Yajur Veda, Atharva Veda, Brahmanas, Manu Smriti, Mahabharatha and the Puranas wax eloquent in praise about River Saraswati, which was the lifeline of the versatile progress of ancient northwest India.
But all the available sources say that the river gradually dried up and lost its course in later time and the civilization that flowered on its banks turned lackluster with its industrious population migrating to elsewhere. It is natural that the one time industrious group who peopled the valley of Saraswati quit this place and migrated to the Sindhu valley when they saw Saraswati drying up. According to archaeologists around 1900 BC, signs of gradual decline emerged. People started to leave the cities. Those who remained were poorly nourished. Even fishes died out in Saraswati. The crucial factor may have been the disappearance of substantial portions of the Ghaggar-Hakra river system. Geology has it that a tectonic event had diverted the system's sources toward the Ganges plane, though there is a little uncertainity about the date of this event. (Still the Gauda Saraswath Brahmins of South India and the Saraswath Brahmins or Pundits of Kashmir have their tradition according to which the both were the migrants from the SaraswathiValley who left its valley at the time of the riverâs disappearance owing to natural calamities.) The plate tectonics had done away with the existing earth structure resulting in the hydro changes of the area leading to aridity. A comparative study of the paleochannels of the Sutlej and Yamuna as found in the imageries sent by the satellites and the geological graphs, with their present courses would reveal that some catastrophes like an earthquake resultant of plate-tectonics caused Sutlej to take a westerly course to join the Sindhu, and Yamuna an easterly one to flow into the Ganga. Consequently the main channels now sparse of water, with no feeder channels, dried up in the dreary desert sands. This is supported by the Mahabharata, which mentions that the Sarasvati river ends in a desert (modern day Rajasthan area) (Vanaparvan, LXXXII, CXXX, etc.) . What remained were only the Ghaggar, Chautang and some insignificant channels, which could not help Saraswati and Drushadvati flow with as much waters as in the time fed by Sutlej and Yamuna. Literary sources like Panchavimsa Brahmana, Latyayana Srauta Sutra, Baudhayana Dharmasutra, etc., state that Saraswati of later times had very little water. It may again be noticed that though the earlier hymns of Rg Veda praise Sarasvati, the later hymns mention the river to be meandering and sluggish, and praise the Sindhu river instead. Saraswati dried up with its fishes dieing and the occupants of its valley leaving the cities and migrating to other places in search of safe settlements. Manu Smriti says that Saraswati lost its flow and went underground at the place called Vinasana which the scholars identify as somewhere at Kalibengan, one of the major sites of Saraswati-Sindhu civilization.
vinasyati anthardadhati saraswati atreti vinasanam . (Manu Smruti, II, 21)
The oral tradition that Saraswati is vilupta or completely hidden at Prayag is thus testified right by archaeological, geological, literary and other sources. According to S. P. Gupta:
âIt may also be noted that from Adi Badri in the Sivaliks supposed to be the source of Saraswati, to the site of Bahar, running past Kapalmochana, Bhagawanpura, Thanesar-Kurukshetra and Pehoa, the river is still seasonably alive. At Bahar it meets the river Ghaggar. Its old course, which is now seen running parallel to that of the Ghaggar, is still visible on the ground in the form of a long and wide depression, some four to five km. At the widest, called SottarValley ⦠This old channel runs through the districts of Jind, Hissar, and Srisa in Haryana until it meets the modern Ghaggar near the Rajastan border. The old channel of Saraswati is popularly known as Rangoi, Nai, Nadi, Hakra, Ban, Sarsuti, etcâ. (S. P. Gupta, The Indus-Saraswati Civilization, pp. 13-14)
The geostructural changes that led to the disappearence of Sarasvati was a part of the major tectonic change that took place on the northwestern cost of India. This, as already noted, is referred to in the Mahabharata and the literary evidence is amply shored up by geology of the area. According to Mahabharata thirtysix years after the Kuru-Pandava war the people of Indraprastha-Hasthinapur region saw the great river running in opposite direction and the birds overhead wheeling in circles. Similarly they saw anomalous animal behaviour along the cost during the same time. The Musala Parva thus says: âstreets swarmed with rats and mice which came out of their holes looked dazed, earthern pots showed cracks and were broken from no apparent cause, birds chirped ceaselessly, cattle and goats cried themselves hoarse, and horses bolted away from their carriagesâ. The city of Dwaraka was shortly engulfed by marshes due to ground subsidence. Understanding the possibility of a natural calamity Sri Krishna sent all his people to safer places including Prabhas. Soon after the departure of the people, Mahabharata says, âthe sea, the abode of the monsters, engulfed the gem-filled Dwarakaâ. The city thus sank into the sea âpresumably due to a tectonic movement accompanied by an earthquakeâ. (K. S. Valdiya, Saraswati â The River that Disappeared, op. cit, p. 80) Thus in the light of literary, archaeological and geological evidences it could be construed that by around 1800 BC, most of the cities were abandoned, leaving them to desolation and decrepitude, allowing the regional cultures showing the influence of Indus civilization to emerge like the âCemetery H cultureâ of Harappa and the âOchre Coloured Pottery cultureâ.
A possible natural reason of Saraswathi civilizationâs decline is connected with the climate change. In 2600 BC, the Saraswathi-SindhuValley was verdant, forested, and teeming with wildlife. It was wetter, too; floods were a problem and appear, on more than one occasion, to have overwhelmed certain settlements. As a result, Indus people supplemented their diet with hunting. By 1800 BC, the climate is known to have changed. It became significantly cooler and drier. Besides, there was the problem of the recurring floods, and as evident from the archaeological remains this compelled the inhabitants to erect mudwalls and fortifications around their cities which some western historians in their early stages of research have mistaken as the walls of defence against the invading Aryans. In fact the recurring floods that submerged the layers of construction forced the people to build new cities over the ruins of the old which required the felling of the trees in abundance both for construction wood as well as firewood for baking bricks. This certainly must have resulted in the deforestation of the area, turning it arid and dry. Naturally the place slowly turned sparse in vegitation and human habitation, and the Saraswati civilization began to find new pastures on the bed of the River Indus to continue as a living civilization in times to come.
Thus on the basis of all these findings what may be assumed is that the earliest cradle of civilization of the northwest India was the Saraswati Valley which accommodated most of sites of what the historians have been calling the Indus Valley Civilization. Indus, as famous as Saraswati in the time when Vedas were composed, compiled and classified, was no less than any other river in caressing the cultural growth of ancient India. Nonetheless it was Saraswati that top-ranked. It was the Vedic civilization that flourished on her valley, and it is from the Saraswati valley region that archaeologists unearthed the relics of the civilization whose chronology goes back, in some cases, to periods prior to 10,000 BC. Archaeological discoveries from the Fatehbad district in Haryana gave valuable information about the pre-Harappan civilization. The artifacts unearthed from Kunal on the Sraswati bed are inordinately antique. These discoveries âhave striking similarities with the finds excavated so far in Pakistan and dated to the pre-Harappan periodâ claimed the team of archaeologists including Dasarath Sing Malik, the then Deputy Director of Haryana State Archaeology Department. The Carbon dating exercise carried out by the University of Pennsylvania dates some of these artifacts to 3100 BC or before. Some of them belonged to the period prior to 3500 BC. (Mukesh Bharadwaj, âA New Page From Historyâ,The Indian Express, Thiruvananthapuram, 3 March, 2002) Ceramic Neolithic cultures flourished in these areas during 6000-5000 BC. There were the Nagwad and Lotheswar cultures, which may be dated back to 5000 BC or much earlier. There are also many more sites, which are dated back to periods earlier than these.It is thus archaeologically proved that the north India comprising the 2.5 million sq. Km. had more than 7000 years of cultural heritage. Indeed it is in the light of these findings and developments that many historians and archaeologists like B. B. Lal have concluded that it was the people of Indus-SaraswatiValley who authored the Vedas. And this is again supported by many facts and also similarities between what have been so far written off as entirely different civilizations in race, nature, religion and many other ways of life â Indus and Vedic cultures.
* Author is Senior Lecturer in History, SanatanaDharmaCollege, Alappuzha & Vice-President (Kerala Unit), Akhila Bharatiya Rashtriya Saikshik Mahasangh.
http://www.haindavakeralam.com/HkPage.aspx...EID=7425&SKIN=D
01/11/2008 12:56:33
By M. P. Ajithkumar *
Right from early times Indiaâs northwestern part had been the cradle of cultural florescence that gave birth to one of the ancient civilizations. Differently called as Harappan Culture or Sindhu Valley Civilization, this early civilization of India has been of much historical interest to archaeologists, geologists and even space researchers. However as archaeological research progressed, the very name Indus Civilization proved to be a misnomer since the remains of this civilization unearthed from various parts of India reveal that it was not confined exclusively to Indus Valley. Its cultural dissemination took place in an area of about 2.5 million sq. KM. of India. The northern most of Indus sites is Manda located on river Beas near Jammu. The southern most is Bhagatrav on river Tapti in Maharashtra. The eastern most sites are Alamgirpur on river Hindon near Delhi and Mandoli near Nandanagari in North Delhi. In the west it extended to Sutkagendor on the ancient shore of Arabian Sea near the eastern border of Iran. The main sites include Harappa, Mohenjodaro, Chanhudaro, Lothal, Rupar, Kalibengan, Banavali, Kunal, Kot-Diji, Dholavira, Surkothada, Mehrgarh, Rahmandheri, Ranagundai, Amri, Kil Gul Mohamad and a host of other major and minor ones.
However what is most astonishing is the concentration of these sites in the vast tract lying between Indus on the west and Ganges on the east, where the archaeologists and geologists alike have discovered the paleochannels of a lost river with more than 22 KM breadth at some places. This according to D N Wadia is the âold bed of Saraswati ⦠at a time when it and the Sutlej flowed independently of the Indus to the sea, i.e. the Rann of Kutchâ. (D N Wadia, Geology of India, Delhi, 1984, p. 368.First published in 1919) By 1886 itself R D Oldham, the then Deputy Superintend of the Geological Survey of India had pointed to the existence of this river during ancient times. Oldham was the first geologist who studied and gave as early as 1886, geological comments about river Saraswathi and the changes in the drainage pattern of the rivers of Punjab and western Rajasthan that reduced the once fertile region into a desert. He observed the paleochannels of a river that flowed in between the Yamuna and Sutlej and that this river had two channels one of which passed through Haryana (Khaggar-Saraswati channel). He also observed some shifts in the channels of this river, which according to geological findings had changed its course many times. Analyzing the fossils unearthed from the beds of these old rivers, he concluded that these were of the creatures, which floated in the same river, which proved that these channels were of the same river. (R D Oldham, âOn Probable Changes in the Geography of the Punjab and its Rivers an Historico-Geographical Studyâ, Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1886, Vol.55, pp.322-343) C F Oldham also took notice of the paleochannels of this river. He traced an old riverbed, the Hakra or Sotra (Ghaggar) or Wahind, more than thousand Km. in length, the channel of a lost river, traceable from Ambala near the foot of the Himalayas through Bhatinda, Bikaner and Bahawalpur to Sind and thence onwards to the Rann of Kutch. Quoting from the Rig Veda, Mahabharatha and Manusmrithi, he concluded that this was the channel of the ancient river Saraswati around which had lay the highly civilized centers. He wrote:
The existence of this river at no very remote period and the truth of the legend which assert the ancient fertility of the lands through which it flowed, are attested by the ruins which everywhere overspread what is now an arid sandy waste.
Throughout this tract are scattered mounts, marking the sites of cities and towns. And there are strongholds still remaining, in a very decayed state, which were places of importanceâ¦
Amongst these ruins are found, not only the huge bricks used by the Hindus of the remote past, but others of much later make too.
Taking the once urban nature of these areas and the unerring geological findings about the long and wide riverbed of the lost river, he concluded that this was nothing other than the Vedic Saraswati referred to in the ancient Indian literature. (C F Oldahm, âThe Saraswati and the Lost River of the Indian Desertâ, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1893, Vol.34, pp.49-76) Later the geologists engaged in the geomorphologic survey on the eve of launching the Fakra-Nangal project also came across the old bed of a long river, which flowed in the southwest direction and ended up in the desert. (B C Roy, âGeological Map of Rajasthanâ, Geological Survey of India, Vol. 86; âLost Course of Saraswati River in the Indian Desertâ, Geographical Journal, Vol-145 (3), 1979)
The evidence from Manusmrithi about the existence of the rivers Saraswati and Drishadvathi, which flanked the area it calls Brahmavartha is further attested by the most modern geological findings and also imageries sent by the earth sensing satellites of both NASA and ISRO. They give information about the ancient geological structure of the northwest India based on the pictures of the paleochannels of the rivers that flowed and ended up in the Thar Desert. (Yas Pal, âRemote Sensing of the Saraswati Riverâ, Frontiers of Harappan Civilization, (Ed. B B Lal and S P Gupta), New Delhi, 1984, pp. 491-498)
According to Geological and hydrological findings this area, though now appears arid, was in ancient times watered by a group of mighty rivers that flowed in between Sindhu in the west and Ganga on the east. River Saraswathi, according to the literary tradition was bigger than the Sindhu during its heydays and had coursed through the region between modern Yamuna and Sutlej. (A. V. Sankaran, âSaraswati â the ancient river lost in the desertâ, Aseema, Mangalore, Vol. 5. No. 7, January 2005, pp. 7-14.) Though Saraswathi is lost its sister rivers outlived and have survived to this day. It is to be noted that most of the big rivers of North India in the time of the Vedas â Saraswathi, Shatadru (Sutlej) and Yamuna â derived their waters from the Himalayan glaciers during the Pleistocene times. The melting of these glaciers during the Holocene later led to the origin of many rivers that coursed down the Himalayan slopes. The Vedic bards symbolically present the thawing of these glaciers through the war between God Indra and demon Vritra. Indra is represented in the Vedic literature as the shaker of the forts or Purandara who shatters the saradiyapura or the snow fort, a story, which has been misinterpreted by Mortimer wheeler and others to buttress up their version of Arya-Dravida conflict. The long channel of the river sourcing off the foot of Sivalik ranges and coursing southwest was junctioned with many streams having considerable volume of water. The main Khaggar-Saraswati channel was enriched from the west by Sutlej arising from Mount Kailas while from the east the rivers like Drishadvati (the present Chautang), Yamuna and Markanda combined flowed into the Saraswati-Khaggar channel which took its mighty southwestern course till it emptied itself into the sea at Rann of Kutch. (K S Valdia, Saraswati â The River that Disappeared, Orient Longman, Hyderabad, 2002, pp. 23-36.). Consequently the areas between Saraswati and Drishadvati became resourceful for the all-round prosperity of those who peopled there. Interestingly, Saraswathiâs course in the states of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan is highlighted in the LANDSAT imagery by the lush cover of vegetation thriving on the rich residual loamy soil along its course. That this region was once watery is further confirmed by the earth-science studies conducted here. Geophysical surveys by the Geological Survey of India to study the ground water potential in Bikaner, Ganganagar and Jaisalmer districts of western Rajasthan came across many zones of fresh and less saline water in the form of arcuate shaped aquifers similar to other palaeochannels found in different parts of the state. Studies on hydrogen, oxygen and carbon isotopes on shallow and deep ground water samples from these districts further confirm that these surface palaeochannels are of the ancient rivers. A report on an environmental isotope study conducted along an identified palaeochannel in western Rajasthan by a team of scientists of the Isotope Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay thus reads:
A number of palaeochannels have been identified in western Rajasthan using remote sensing techniques and field observations ⦠One of these channels traced is in western Jaisalmer along Kishangar, Ghantiyali and Shahgarh. Inspite of the highly arid condition of the region, comparatively good quality ground water is available along the course below 30 m depth. A few dug wells in the study area do not dry up even in summer and the tube wells do not show reduction in water table, even after extensive utilization for human as well as livestock consumption. Ground water away from this course is saline. This course is seen to have link with the dry bed of Ghaggar river in the northeast, while in the southwest it is met with or even cut across the surviving courses of Hakra or Nara rivers in Pakistan. The above course is thought to belong to the legendry river Saraswathi of Himalayan origin, mentioned in many early literary works and known to have existed before 3000 BP. (A. R. Nair, S. V. Navada and S. M. Rao, âIsotope Study to Investigate the Origin and Age of Groundwater along Palaeochannels in Jaisalmer and Ganganagar Districts of Rajasthanâ, (Ed. B. P. Radhakrishna and S. S. Merh) Vedic Sarasvati â Evolutionary History of a Lost River of Northwestern India, Memoir of the Geological Society of India, No. 42, 1999, pp. 315-319.)
The SaraswathiValley as well as the growth of civilization there are thus facts confirmed both by geology and archaeology. According to Manu this was the most auspicious place and hence suitable for all kinds of spiritual activities and he calls it Brahmavartha, the god-created land:
saraswatidrushadvathyor devanadyor yadanantharam
tham devanirmithamdesam brahmavartham prachakshathe (Manu. 2. 17)
This opinion of Geology has not changed till date and it continued only to be buttressed up by similar findings of archaeology and space research later. Interestingly, most of the sites of what was so far called the Indus Valley Civilization have been excavated from the areas this lost river with its many feeder sources had flowed and changed its course different times. Indeed most of the archaeological finds regarding what we call the Harappan civilization have been unearthed from the Cholistan desert area where the Pakistani team of archaeologists headed by M Rafique Mughal concentrated its surveys along 300 miles of the dry bed of the HakraRiver. The Cholistan discoveries, Mughal says, have given a ânew perspective and orientation for planning future research on Indus Valley Civilizationâ, because âsites of various periods, and their concentration or distribution, provides a reliable basis for reconstructing various changes in the course of the Hakra River, often identified with the Saraswati of the Vedic periodâ (M. Rafique Mughal, âRecent Archaeological Research in the Cholistan Desertâ, Harappan Civilization, (Ed. Gregory L. Possehl) New Delhi, Oxford & IBH, 1993, pp. 85-94) Further excavations in Cholistan and other sites which dot all across the regions where this lost river had flowed have brought to light that what has been thus far described as the Indus Valley Civilization had only a few sites on the Indus. Most sites of this civilization including the maritime and other navigational centers were concentrated on the strands of the once mighty River Saraswati or were connected to it.
One may wonder as to whether this lost river was so big that its sand beds and valleys had helped flower so great a civilization and fostered it for a long time till it ceased to have its mighty flow and ended up in the desert. According to geologists the two thousand year period, between 6000 and 4000 B.C., witnessed the full splendour of Saraswati when as a great river it watered the plains of Punjab, Rajastan, Gujarat and Haryana. Definitely this mighty river became an object of much praise and veneration and was deified and eulogized by the seers who authored the Vedic hymns. She is described in the Rig Veda as:
ekacetat Saraswati nadinam suciryati giribhya a samudrat (Rk Veda. 7:95:2)
âShe is flowing from the mountains to the oceanâ. So great was she to the Vedic people that they praised her as the best of mothers, best of rivers and best of Goddesses and invoked her blessings:
ambitame naditame devitame Saraswati
aprasasta iva smasi prasastimamba naskridhi (Rk Veda. 2:41:16)
âBest of mothers, best of rivers, Best of Goddesses, Saraswati we are ignorant and untrained, give us wisdom and knowledgeâ
She is described as the river whose unlimited and uninterrupted flow with its swift movement and speedy rush gushes forth with tempestuous roar:
yasya ananto ahnuta stvesa scarisnurarnava amascarati roruvat (Rk Veda. 6:61:8)
Her mighty current is described to have broken the boulders on either side with as much ease as breaking the lotus stems. (Rk Veda.6: 61:2) Similarly Yajur Veda, Atharva Veda, Brahmanas, Manu Smriti, Mahabharatha and the Puranas wax eloquent in praise about River Saraswati, which was the lifeline of the versatile progress of ancient northwest India.
But all the available sources say that the river gradually dried up and lost its course in later time and the civilization that flowered on its banks turned lackluster with its industrious population migrating to elsewhere. It is natural that the one time industrious group who peopled the valley of Saraswati quit this place and migrated to the Sindhu valley when they saw Saraswati drying up. According to archaeologists around 1900 BC, signs of gradual decline emerged. People started to leave the cities. Those who remained were poorly nourished. Even fishes died out in Saraswati. The crucial factor may have been the disappearance of substantial portions of the Ghaggar-Hakra river system. Geology has it that a tectonic event had diverted the system's sources toward the Ganges plane, though there is a little uncertainity about the date of this event. (Still the Gauda Saraswath Brahmins of South India and the Saraswath Brahmins or Pundits of Kashmir have their tradition according to which the both were the migrants from the SaraswathiValley who left its valley at the time of the riverâs disappearance owing to natural calamities.) The plate tectonics had done away with the existing earth structure resulting in the hydro changes of the area leading to aridity. A comparative study of the paleochannels of the Sutlej and Yamuna as found in the imageries sent by the satellites and the geological graphs, with their present courses would reveal that some catastrophes like an earthquake resultant of plate-tectonics caused Sutlej to take a westerly course to join the Sindhu, and Yamuna an easterly one to flow into the Ganga. Consequently the main channels now sparse of water, with no feeder channels, dried up in the dreary desert sands. This is supported by the Mahabharata, which mentions that the Sarasvati river ends in a desert (modern day Rajasthan area) (Vanaparvan, LXXXII, CXXX, etc.) . What remained were only the Ghaggar, Chautang and some insignificant channels, which could not help Saraswati and Drushadvati flow with as much waters as in the time fed by Sutlej and Yamuna. Literary sources like Panchavimsa Brahmana, Latyayana Srauta Sutra, Baudhayana Dharmasutra, etc., state that Saraswati of later times had very little water. It may again be noticed that though the earlier hymns of Rg Veda praise Sarasvati, the later hymns mention the river to be meandering and sluggish, and praise the Sindhu river instead. Saraswati dried up with its fishes dieing and the occupants of its valley leaving the cities and migrating to other places in search of safe settlements. Manu Smriti says that Saraswati lost its flow and went underground at the place called Vinasana which the scholars identify as somewhere at Kalibengan, one of the major sites of Saraswati-Sindhu civilization.
vinasyati anthardadhati saraswati atreti vinasanam . (Manu Smruti, II, 21)
The oral tradition that Saraswati is vilupta or completely hidden at Prayag is thus testified right by archaeological, geological, literary and other sources. According to S. P. Gupta:
âIt may also be noted that from Adi Badri in the Sivaliks supposed to be the source of Saraswati, to the site of Bahar, running past Kapalmochana, Bhagawanpura, Thanesar-Kurukshetra and Pehoa, the river is still seasonably alive. At Bahar it meets the river Ghaggar. Its old course, which is now seen running parallel to that of the Ghaggar, is still visible on the ground in the form of a long and wide depression, some four to five km. At the widest, called SottarValley ⦠This old channel runs through the districts of Jind, Hissar, and Srisa in Haryana until it meets the modern Ghaggar near the Rajastan border. The old channel of Saraswati is popularly known as Rangoi, Nai, Nadi, Hakra, Ban, Sarsuti, etcâ. (S. P. Gupta, The Indus-Saraswati Civilization, pp. 13-14)
The geostructural changes that led to the disappearence of Sarasvati was a part of the major tectonic change that took place on the northwestern cost of India. This, as already noted, is referred to in the Mahabharata and the literary evidence is amply shored up by geology of the area. According to Mahabharata thirtysix years after the Kuru-Pandava war the people of Indraprastha-Hasthinapur region saw the great river running in opposite direction and the birds overhead wheeling in circles. Similarly they saw anomalous animal behaviour along the cost during the same time. The Musala Parva thus says: âstreets swarmed with rats and mice which came out of their holes looked dazed, earthern pots showed cracks and were broken from no apparent cause, birds chirped ceaselessly, cattle and goats cried themselves hoarse, and horses bolted away from their carriagesâ. The city of Dwaraka was shortly engulfed by marshes due to ground subsidence. Understanding the possibility of a natural calamity Sri Krishna sent all his people to safer places including Prabhas. Soon after the departure of the people, Mahabharata says, âthe sea, the abode of the monsters, engulfed the gem-filled Dwarakaâ. The city thus sank into the sea âpresumably due to a tectonic movement accompanied by an earthquakeâ. (K. S. Valdiya, Saraswati â The River that Disappeared, op. cit, p. 80) Thus in the light of literary, archaeological and geological evidences it could be construed that by around 1800 BC, most of the cities were abandoned, leaving them to desolation and decrepitude, allowing the regional cultures showing the influence of Indus civilization to emerge like the âCemetery H cultureâ of Harappa and the âOchre Coloured Pottery cultureâ.
A possible natural reason of Saraswathi civilizationâs decline is connected with the climate change. In 2600 BC, the Saraswathi-SindhuValley was verdant, forested, and teeming with wildlife. It was wetter, too; floods were a problem and appear, on more than one occasion, to have overwhelmed certain settlements. As a result, Indus people supplemented their diet with hunting. By 1800 BC, the climate is known to have changed. It became significantly cooler and drier. Besides, there was the problem of the recurring floods, and as evident from the archaeological remains this compelled the inhabitants to erect mudwalls and fortifications around their cities which some western historians in their early stages of research have mistaken as the walls of defence against the invading Aryans. In fact the recurring floods that submerged the layers of construction forced the people to build new cities over the ruins of the old which required the felling of the trees in abundance both for construction wood as well as firewood for baking bricks. This certainly must have resulted in the deforestation of the area, turning it arid and dry. Naturally the place slowly turned sparse in vegitation and human habitation, and the Saraswati civilization began to find new pastures on the bed of the River Indus to continue as a living civilization in times to come.
Thus on the basis of all these findings what may be assumed is that the earliest cradle of civilization of the northwest India was the Saraswati Valley which accommodated most of sites of what the historians have been calling the Indus Valley Civilization. Indus, as famous as Saraswati in the time when Vedas were composed, compiled and classified, was no less than any other river in caressing the cultural growth of ancient India. Nonetheless it was Saraswati that top-ranked. It was the Vedic civilization that flourished on her valley, and it is from the Saraswati valley region that archaeologists unearthed the relics of the civilization whose chronology goes back, in some cases, to periods prior to 10,000 BC. Archaeological discoveries from the Fatehbad district in Haryana gave valuable information about the pre-Harappan civilization. The artifacts unearthed from Kunal on the Sraswati bed are inordinately antique. These discoveries âhave striking similarities with the finds excavated so far in Pakistan and dated to the pre-Harappan periodâ claimed the team of archaeologists including Dasarath Sing Malik, the then Deputy Director of Haryana State Archaeology Department. The Carbon dating exercise carried out by the University of Pennsylvania dates some of these artifacts to 3100 BC or before. Some of them belonged to the period prior to 3500 BC. (Mukesh Bharadwaj, âA New Page From Historyâ,The Indian Express, Thiruvananthapuram, 3 March, 2002) Ceramic Neolithic cultures flourished in these areas during 6000-5000 BC. There were the Nagwad and Lotheswar cultures, which may be dated back to 5000 BC or much earlier. There are also many more sites, which are dated back to periods earlier than these.It is thus archaeologically proved that the north India comprising the 2.5 million sq. Km. had more than 7000 years of cultural heritage. Indeed it is in the light of these findings and developments that many historians and archaeologists like B. B. Lal have concluded that it was the people of Indus-SaraswatiValley who authored the Vedas. And this is again supported by many facts and also similarities between what have been so far written off as entirely different civilizations in race, nature, religion and many other ways of life â Indus and Vedic cultures.
* Author is Senior Lecturer in History, SanatanaDharmaCollege, Alappuzha & Vice-President (Kerala Unit), Akhila Bharatiya Rashtriya Saikshik Mahasangh.
http://www.haindavakeralam.com/HkPage.aspx...EID=7425&SKIN=D