The Saraswatī and the Lost River of the Indian Desert

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society http://journals.cambridge.org/JRA Additional services for Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here Art. III.—The Saraswatī and the Lost River of the Indian Desert C. F. Oldham Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society / Volume 25 / Issue 01 / January 1893, pp 49 - 76 DOI: 10.1017/S0035869X00022176, Published online: 15 March 2011 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0035869X00022176 How to cite this article: C. F. Oldham (1893). Art. III.—The Saraswatī and the Lost River of the Indian Desert. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 25, pp 49-76 doi:10.1017/S0035869X00022176 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/JRA, IP address: 139.184.14.159 on 26 Mar 2015 49 ART. III.—The Saraswatl and the Lost River of the Indian Desert. By Surgeon-Major 0. F. OLDHAM. As is well known, the description of the Saraswatl river, given in the Veda, differs much from that met with in the Hahabharata and other ancient but later authorities, while neither agrees with the present condition of that sacred stream. In the Rig Yeda we are told of a large and rapid river flowing from the mountains to the sea. The Mahabharata describes the same stream as losing itself in the sands. At the present day we find a river, wide and rapid during floods, but containing little water at other times, joining another stream of similar character, and thereupon losing its name; the river below the confluence being now called Gaggar. According to Rig Veda (v. 61. 2) the Saraswatl, " by her force and her impetuous waves, has broken down the sides of the mountains like a digger of lotos fibres."1 In another hymn (vii. 36. 6) the Saraswatl is called the mother of rivers.2 And, again, we find (R.V. vii. 95. 1. 2): "With her fertilizing stream the Saraswatl comes forth. (She is to us) a stronghold, an iron gate. Moving along, as on a chariot, this river surpasses in greatness all other waters. 2. Alone among all rivers Saraswatl listened, she who goes pure from the mountains as far as the sea. She who knows of the manifold wealth of the world has poured out to man her fat milk."3 With reference to this passage, Prof. Max Miiller remarks : " Here we see Samudra used clearly in the sense of sea, the 1 Muir, ii. 346. 2 Sacred Books of East, xxxii. 61. 3 Sacred Books of East, xxxii. 60. J.E.A.S. 1893. 4 50 THE SAKASWAT1. Indian Sea, and we have at the same time a 'new indication of the distance which separates the Vedic age from the later Sanskrit literature. Though it may not be possible to determine, by geological evidence, the time of the changes which modified the southern area of the Punjab and caused the Saraswati to disappear in the desert, still the fact remains that the loss of the Saraswati is later than the Vedic age, and that, at that time, the waters of the Saraswati reached the sea."l In the Rig Yeda nothing is said of the disappearance of the Saraswati in the sands. At the time of Manu, however, the waters of the sacred river no longer flowed to the sea. From the Mahabharata we learn that " Valadeva proceeded to Vinasana, where the Saraswati has. become invisible in consequence of her contempt for Sudras and Abhirias."2 And in another place we find : " Here is the beautiful and sacred river Saraswati, full of waters; and here 0 Lord of men is the spot known as Vinasana, or the spot where the SuraswatI disappears. Here is the gate of the country of the Nishadas, and it was from hatred of them that the Saraswati sank into the earth, that the Nishadas might not see her." 3 From a reason being thus assigned for the disappearance, it would seem to have been then recognized that there had been a time when the sacred stream did not lose itself in the sands. The legend of Utathya also seems to be an attempt to account for the disappearance of the river. Although the Vedic accounts of the Saraswati differ so much from those of less ancient authorities, and from the actual condition of the stream now known by that name, it is very unlikely that the river to •which so important a position is assigned in the Brahmanical writings could ever have lost its identity, or that its name and sacred character 1 Sacred Books of East, xxxii. 60. 2 Salya, Gudayuddha Parva. s Mahabharata, Vana, Tirtha-yatra Parva. THE SARASWATI. 51 could have been transferred to another and less considerable stream. Indeed it is tolerably certain that the Saraswall of the present day is the river mentioned in the Veda and the Mahabharata. The SaraswatI in the Rig Veda (x. 75. 5.) is associated with the other Panjab rivers, and is placed beween the Yamuna aud the Satudri,1 which is its present position. Then, the sacred stream has always retained its character, not merely locally, but wherever the Hindu religion has prevailed. It has been the resort of pilgrims from the earliest times, and it flows through the holy land of Kurukshetra, which was sacred even before the wars of of the Mahabharata. Further, although it now joins the stream called Gaggar, the SaraswatI did formerly lose itself in the sands, and that in the locality which appears to have been assigned to the Vinasana. Moreover, as I shall endeavour to show, the Vedic description of the SaraswatI, with a little allowance for poetical license, agrees with what was probably the ancient course of the river, while that given in the Mahabharata coincides with its position at a later period. The SaraswatI rises in the outer Himalayan range, usually called Siwalik, close to the water-shed of Upper India, and not far from the gap in the hills by which the Jumna enters the plains. All streams to the eastward, with the exception of the neighbouring Chitrang, join the Jumna and Ganges ; and all to the westward flow towards the Indus. After a south-westerly course of nearly 100 miles, and after receiving as tributaries the Markanda and other streams, the SaraswatI now joins the Gaggar near the village of Rasula. Although the river below the confluence is marked in our maps as Gaggar, it was formerly the SaraswatI;2 that name is still known amongst the people, and the famous 1 Muir, ii. 341. 2 Panjab Gazetteer, Hissar. 52 THE SAEASWATI. fortress of Sarsuti or SaraswatI was built upon its banks, nearly 100 miles below the present junction with the Gaggar. How the sacred river came to lose its own name and acquire that of its former tributary is not known. It may have been owing to some change in its course in comparatively modern times. There is no mention in the Veda or Mahabharata of any such river as the Gaggar, or of any important stream between the Sutadru and the SaraswatI. The ancient fortress of Sarsuti or SaraswatI (noTV Sirsa) was a place of importance up to the time of the early Mahommedan invasions. Its site is marked by immense mounds rising some sixty feet above the plain. The wife of Goga Chohan, the demigod whose shrine is to be found in every Panjab village, was a daughter of the raja of Sirsa Pattana. Some seven or eight miles to the eastward of Sirsa is another old bed of the Saraswatl. This is partially ob- literated, but it apparently joined the channel just referred to, not far from Sirsa. It may, however, have once been continuous with the old river-bed, called in our maps Chitrang. The exact position of the Vinasana is unknown, but it was probably not far from Sirsa. We may now consider how the SaraswatI came to lose itself in the sands. The view held by several writers on the subject appears to be that it was owing to a shrinking of the stream caused by diminished rainfall. This, however, could not possibly have been the cause. It would have involved the existence, previously, of such meteorological conditions as must have rendered the holy land of the Brahmans an uninhabitable swamp. The neighbouring large rivers, too, must in such case have been vast in proportion. This, as their channels show, they were not. Some of them, in fact, which are mentioned in the Vedas as being fordable, are so with difficulty at the present day. THE SARASWATI. 53 In addition to this we find, from the hymns of the Rig Veda, that instead of the rainfall being in excess, relief from drought was most frequently prayed for, and that Indra " gave rain to the sacrificer" (iv. 26. 2).1 According to the Aitareya Brahmana (ii. 19) the country at some distance from the river was even then desert, for the rishis, at a sacrifice on the banks of the Saraswati, took Kavasha Ailiisha into the wilderness, saying, "let thirst destroy him here."2 Moreover, long before the time of the Mahabharata, a terrible drought occurred in this tract of country, which lasted for twelve years, when the rishis wandered hither and thither in search of food, and thus lost the Vedas. This was not owing to any drying-up of the Saraswati, as the Muni Saraswata, who is said to have been progenitor of the Saraswati tribe of Brahmans, remained on the banks of the sacred stream, living upon fish furnished by the river.

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