SARASVATI RIVER (Circa 3000 to 1500 B.C.)

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SARASVATI RIVER (Circa 3000 to 1500 B.C.) SARASVATI RIVER (circa 3000 to 1500 B.C.) Dr. S. Kalyanaraman October 1997 Sarasvati Sindhu Research Centre, 19 Temple Avenue, Chennai 600015 Tel. 044-2354640; [email protected] http://www.investindia.com 1 SARASVATI RIVER (circa 3000 to 1500 B.C.) Dr. S. Kalyanaraman (October 1997) Table of Contents Sarasvati: An Overview 3 Sarasvati: River and Goddess 13 Sarasvati: Economy and Polity 34 Sarasvati: Geography and Archaeology 57 Sarasvati: Soma yajña and the Veda 89 Sarasvati: Heritage and Language 96 Sarasvati River Basin (NW India) Watershed Development Project 127 Sarasvati River Basin Project: Haryana 145 Annex 1: Maps, images and lists used for delineating the Sarasvati river and ancient sites of the civilization 149 Annex 2: Locality Index: Archaeological sites in the Sarasvati River Basin 151 Bibliography 162 Continuity and Legacy of Sarasvati Civilization in India: A Pictorial Presentation 179 Sarasvati: Maps and Figures 180 2 SARASVATI RIVER Dr. S. Kalyanaraman1 SARASVATI: AN OVERVIEW The mighty, sacred, Vedic Sarasvati river nourished, on her banks, an ancient, the most expansive, remarkably homogeneous, civilization of the times, circa 3000 B.C. The river is adored in the Rigveda as: ambitame, naditame, devitame. (Best of mothers, best of rivers and best of goddesses). The people of this maritime, riverine civilization (with a marked preference for alluvial plains) traversed the Himalayan rivers and the oceans across the gulf of Bahrain and the gulf of Khambat. This is evident from the over 1200 settlements located along the banks of the dried-up river bed of this great river (approx. 1600 km. long) and also trade with Mesopotamia and South India (e.g. use of alloy electrum for gold ornaments in Lothal, imported from the gold mines of Hatti or Kolar in Karnataka). The Sarasvati river joined the sàgara (also called Hakra or Nara or Wahind or Mihran), and flowed through the Rann of Kutch into the Indian ocean at the Gulf of Khambat. Some centuries before the river dried up (circa 1500 B.C.), it should have been possible to navigate from the Indian ocean right up to Ganga-Yamuna doab, from Dwaraka to Mathura, or from Lothal to Ganweriwala or Kalibangan, on the river Sarasvati. The rise of the ocean-bed which explains the submergence of Dwaraka also explains the rise of the Aravalli ranges which was one of the principal causes for river migrations in Northern and North-West India, the river piracy, the capture of the river source of Sarasvati by the Yamuna (Chambal), a tributary of the Ganga. The eggression and recession of the sea right upto the quaternary period, right up to Kuruk±etra, explains the Luni river system, the ocean fossils near Jaisalmer and the salt marshes of the Rann of Kutch. The river dried up in long stretches due to sand deposition (àndhi) and due to river piracy (Yamuna captured Sarasvati at PaontaSaheb and carried her to Prayag, Allahabad to join the Ganga; hence the myth of the sangamam of the three rivers, Sarasvati, Yamuna and Ganga). When the river was in full flow, it had borne the Himalayan glacier waters emanating from Har-ki-dun glacier (Bandarpunch massif) and of the waters of the Sutlej emanating from Mt. Kailas; thus the river had carried the present-day waters of the Sutlej, the Tons and the Yamuna. Due to the desiccation of the mighty river which was the life-sustence for the civilization, there was a migratory movement of people, from circa 1500 B.C., westwards towards the Haraquaiti (Kubha, Afghanistan), towards 1 Former Sr. Exec., Asian Development Bank; Sarasvati Sindhu Research Centre, 19 Temple Avenue, Chennai 600015 3 the Ganga-Yamuna doab (Rakhigarhi), and south through the Gulf of Khambat (cf. the ancient site of Daimabad, on the banks of Pravara, a tributary of the Godavari River). Map 1: Course of the Vedic Sarasvati River Map 2: Ancient Civilization Settlements on the Sarasvati River Historical Perspective: The river and the ancient settlements Map 1 depicts the flow of Sarasvati circa 1500 B.C. when part of the river dried up due to aandhi, river capture and river migrations; in earlier millennia, prior to 1500 B.C., the river had carried the waters of both Sutlej and Yamuna and fflowed through the Rann and Little Rann of Kutch to the Gulf of Khambat. [Map based on K.S. Valdiya, 1996]. Map 2 depicts the remarkable clustering of ancient archaeological settlements on the banks of the Sarasvati River establishing that the settlements formed the substratum of the civilization; Harappa and Mohenjodaro were only trading outposts. [Map based on Parpola, 1994]. Over 1200 of the 1600 ancient settlements of the civilization circa 3000 to 1500 B.C. are on the Sarasvati river; Ganweriwala and Rakhiharhi are as large in area as Mohenjodaro, which was also an island flanked by Sarasvati and Sindhu. The locality index is provided. (Annex 1: Locality Index: Archaeological Settlements, mostly on Sarasvati River Basin). Radiocarbon dates (B.C.) of selected ancient sites on the Sarasvati-Sindhu Rivers Balakot 4150-3800 Harappa 3338-3208 Kunal 3016 Ganeshwar (Jodhpura) 3018-2926 Kalibangan 2950-2650 Somnath 3055-2800 Banawali 2560-1965 Mitathal 2435-2095 Mohenjodaro 2545-2315 Lothal 2655-2185 Surkotada 2940-2540 Daimabad 1961-1420 Prabhas Patan 1406 Rojdi 1947 Shortugai 1445 4 Secular Sequence of desiccation of the Sarasvati River This work proves that the Sarasvati river is not a myth; the river’s ancient courses have been found from Naitwar in the Himalayas (Bandarpunch, Har-ki-dun glacier, including the earlier tributaries of Sutlej, Tons, Giri and Yamuna), through Markanda River, through Dri±advati River, to the Indian Ocean in the Gulf of Khambat (Cambay). About 5000 years ago, a momentous geophysical event occurred. The Chambal (now called Yamuna) which was a tributary of the Ganga captured the Sarasvati River at PaontaSaheb and took the Sarasvati River to meet the Ganga River at Prayag, near Allahad. Hence, the physical basis for sangamam. About 4000 years ago another momentous geophysical event occurred. The Sutlej (Satadru) which was a tributary of the Sarasvati river (meeting at Shatrana, Punjab) migrated westwards and joined the Indus river. These two major events in a span of a millennium, led to the drying up the mighty, sacred Sarasvati river and the migrations of people away from the banks of the Sarasvati river eastwards and southwards. The mythical Sarasvati River is celebrated in the Rigveda and also in the Mahabharata, describing Balarama’s pilgrimage, making offerings to ancestors (pitrs), on the river from Dwaraka to Mathura. Niruktam gives two meanings: sara as a river and as a goddess: sarasvatì iti etasya nadi bad devatabehha nigama bhavanti. (Niruktam, 2.29); sarasvatì sarah ity udaka nàma sartes tadvati (Niruktam, 9.26); In the Rgbhà±ya, Sàya¯a says: dvividhà hi sarasvatì vigrahavat devatà nadi rùpà ca (Rgbhà±ya 1,3,12). The etymon, sarasvati means `abundance of lakes (saras)'. The synonym of sarasvatì (goddess of vàk = speech or language) is bràhmì which is the name given to the early scripts used in Ašoka's epigraphs of circa 300 B.C. Tamilnadu celebrates Sarasvatì pùjà as àyudha pùjà, celebrating the arts and crafts integral to life activities. Tiruppukazh calls her caraccuti (Ti. 337), ma°aimaka³ (Ti. 399: ma°ai = vedas). Three points have been established by the studies made by Dr. S. Kalyanaraman and published since March 1996. First, the Sarasvati was a mighty and perennial river circa 3000 B.C. when the so-called Harappan civilization flourished, flowing from the Har-ki-dun glacier of the Himalayas in W. Garhwal into the Gulf of Khambat near Lothal, via the Little Rann and the Nall Lake (near Ahmedabad). (Thus, 5 Gujarat was an island in the second millennium and it was possible to travel on the Sarasvati River from the Gulf of Khambat). Second, as shown by the geo-physical evidence provided by hymns of the Rigveda, and archaeological evidence, the river sustained a maritime civilization and a metal-based economy with about 1200 ancient settlements on the river basin, which lasted for a millennium. Mohenjodaro was an island enclosed by the rivers Sindhu and the Western Nara loop (Sarasvati River in Sind). Ganweriwala (Bahawalpur province) and Rakhigarhi were sites as large as Mohenjodaro. Soma, the celebrated process of the Rigveda has been interpreted as the processing of electrum (gold-silver quartz). The civilization was a remarkably homogeneous maritime civilization as evidenced by the artefacts unearthed from Tigris-Euphrates to the Ganga-Yamuna Doab, and showed a marked preference for establishing settlements on alluvial plains [marutam (Tamil)]. Third, at about 1500 B.C., the Sutlej river (originating from Mt. Kailas) which was also flowing into the Sarasvati river at Shatrana took a U-turn at Ropar and migrated westwards. Yamuna had drained the waters flowing into the Sarasvati (at PaontaSaheb or ?near ancient, Plaksha Prashravana), due perhaps to the continuing rise of the Aravalli ranges and deepening of the erstwhile Chambal (now called Yamuna) tributary of the Ganga. The phenomenon of aandhi (sandstorms) also submerged parts of the riverbed near Jaisalmer-Pokaran in the Marusthali. The settlement pattern extending over approx. 1500 years, indicates an eastern movement of people into the Ganga-Yamuna doab and southward along the coastline. The confluence of the Sarasvati at Sangam in Prayag is, therefore, not mythology, but based on ground truth. Similarly, the popular belief that the Sarasvati disappeared in the sands and went underground is also based on ground truth. When Satadru river was joining Sarasvati river at Shatrana, Kalibangan, on the banks of Sarasvati river, a supply node from the Khetri copper mines (through Kanthali river, a tributary of Sarasvati) was accessibly over land to Harappa on the banks of Beas (Vitasta) river.
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