The Lost River: On The Trail of Saraswati

by Michel Danino

  79 Casal, Jean-Marie, La Civilisation de l’Indus et ses énigmes°, p. 122.

  80 Kenoyer, J.M., Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, p. 90.

  81 Kenoyer, J.M., ‘The Indus Civilization’, Wisconsin Academy Review, Madison, March 1987, p. 26.

  82 Meadow, R.H. & J.M. Kenoyer, ‘Recent Discoveries and Highlights from Excavations at Harappa: 1998-2000’, online article at: www.harappa.com/ indus4/print.html (accessed 15 September 2009).

  83 Contrary to conventional histories, the first attested appearance of the Brāhmī script is not with Ashoka’s edicts, but two centuries earlier at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka: see Allchin, F.R., Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia°, pp. 176-179 & 209-211. Of course, evidence for a similar or even earlier date in the Ganges region cannot be ruled out and may emerge one day.

  84 See Rao, S.R., The Lost City of Dvaraka, Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi, 1999, and Gaur, A.S., Archaeology of Bet Dwarka Island, Aryan Books International, New Delhi, 2005. For the dates, see ch. 2 of the latter book and Current Science, vol. 82, no. 11, 10 June 2002, pp. 1352-56.

  85 For a discussion of the inscription (but within the framework of S.R. Rao’s decipherment of the Indus script), see The Lost City of Dvaraka, op. cit., p. 115 ff.

  86 Jayaswal, K.P., ‘The Vikramkhol Inscription’, The Indian Antiquary, 1933, vol. LXII, p. 60.

  87 Lal, B.B., The Earliest Civilization of South Asia°, p. 157; Sali, S.A., ‘The Extension of the Harappan Culture in the Deccan’, in Joshi, J.P., (ed.), Facets of Indian Civilization: Essays in Honour of Prof. B.B. Lal, op. cit., p. 127; Agrawal, D.P., L’archéologie de l’Inde, Éditions du CNRS, Paris, 1986, pp. 266 & 269.

  88 Sinha, B.P. & Sita Ram Roy, Vaisali Excavations (1958-1962), Directorate of Archaeology and Museums, Patna, 1969, p. 121, Pl. XXX, no. 24. This find is commented on by Mahadevan, Iravatham, in ‘”Murukan” in the Indus Script’, Journal of the Institute of Asian Studies, March 1999, available online at http://murugan.org/research/mahadevan.htm (retrieved May 2008).

  89 Mahadevan, Iravatham, ‘”Murukan” in the Indus Script’, op. cit.

  90 Fabri, C.L., ‘The punch-marked coins: a survival of the Indus civilization’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1935, p. 308. Fabri was not the first scholar to point to such parallels; he was preceded by Pran Nath in 1931 and Durga Prasad in 1933, see K.P. Jayaswal’s note with the same title as Fabri’s paper, in the same issue, pp. 720-21.

  91 Ibid., p. 311.

  92 Gonda, J., Change and Continuity in Indian Religion, Mouton & Co., The Hague, 1965, p. 26.

  93 Sharma, Savita, Early Indian Symbols: Numismatic Evidence, Agam Kala Prakashan, Delhi, 1990, plates 10-13.

  94 Langdon, Stephen, ‘The Indus Script’, in Marshall, John, (ed.), Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization, Arthur Probsthain, London, 1931, 3 vols, several Indian reprints.

  95 Hunter, G.R., PhD thesis of 1929 published in 1934, The Script of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro and Its Connection with Other Scripts; reprint Munshiram Manoharlal, New Delhi, 2003.

  96 Kak, Subhash, ‘On the Decipherment of the Indus Script: A Preliminary Study of its Connection with Brahmi’, in Indian Journal of History of Science, no. 22, 1987, pp. 51-62; ‘A Frequency Analysis of the Indus Script’, Cryptologia, no. 12, 1988, pp. 129-143; ‘Indus Writing’, Mankind Quarterly, no. 30, 1989, pp. 113-118; ‘Indus and Brahmi: Further Connections’, Cryptologia, no. 14, 1990, pp. 169-183. The results of those four articles are summarized and updated in a ‘Note on Harappan Writing’, Brahmavidya : The Adyar Library Bulletin, vol. 66, 2002, pp. 79-85; I drew Table 9.4 from this last note.

  97 Salomon, Richard, Indian Epigraphy, University of Texas, Austin, 1998, Indian reprint Munshiram Manoharlal, New Delhi, n.d., p. 29.

  98 Chakrabarti, Dilip K., India : An Archaeological History°, p. 291.

  99 Sircar, D.C., ‘Inscriptions in Sanskritic and Dravidian Languages’, Ancient India, no. 3, 1953, p. 215.

  100 Jarrige, Jean-François, ‘Du néolithique à la civilisation de l’Inde ancienne’, op. cit., p. 30.

  101 Agrawal, D.P., ‘An Indocentric Corrective to History of Science’, 2002, p. 5, online: www.infinityfoundation.com/indic_colloq/papers/paper_agrawal.pdf (accessed 15 September 2009).

  10. The Intangible Heritage

  1 For instance at Hastinapura, see Lal, B.B., ‘Excavation at Hastinapura and other Explorations in the Upper Ganga and Sutlej Basins 1950-52’, op. cit., p. 43. Fig. 10-1 shows swastikas from Rupar and Ahichchhatra, both from Sharma, Y.D., ‘Explorations of Historical Sites’, Ancient India, no. 9, 1953, pp. 129 & 139.

  2 Sarkar, H. & B.M. Pande, Symbols and Graphic Representations in Indian Inscriptions, Aryan Books International, New Delhi, 1999, ch. 3; Sharma, Savita, Early Indian Symbols, op. cit., ch. 3.

  3 From a copper plate of Dhruva II of Gujarat Rashtrakuta branch, 884 ce: see Sarkar, H. & B.M. Pande, Symbols and Graphic Representations in Indian Inscriptions, op. cit., plate IX, and also pp. 64, 128.

  4 Chakrabarti, Dilip K., India : An Archaeological History°, p. 154.

  5 Mahadevan, Iravatham, ‘The Cult Object on Unicorn Seals : A Sacred Filter?’, Puratattva, no. 13 & 14, 1981-83, pp. 165-186; ‘The sacred filter standard facing the unicorn : more evidence’, in Parpola, Asko & Petteri Koskikallio, (eds), South Asian Archaeology 1993, Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Helsinki, 1994, I.435-450.

  6 See the second reference in the preceding note.

  7 See for instance Ranade, H.G., Illustrated Dictionary of Vedic Rituals°, pp. 40, 95, 114, 143, 149.

  8 Rig Veda, 1.135.8, 10.97.5. Many passages in Atharva Veda. In the Rig Veda, the sacred sticks (arani) which, rubbed together, produce Agni, are partly made of the ashvattha.

  9 Reproduced in Sharma, Savita, Early Indian Symbols : Numismatic Evidence, op. cit., p. 110.

  10 Aravamuthan, T.G., Some Survivals of the Harappa Culture, Karnatak Publishing House, Bombay, 1942, p. 46 ff (my thanks to Dr R. Nagaswamy for kindly procuring a copy of this book). More recently, also by Sharma, Savita, Early Indian Symbols : Numismatic Evidence, op. cit., p. 101.

  11 Harappan female figurines with large earrings can be seen for instance in Mackay, E.J.H., Further Excavations at Mohenjo-daro, op. cit., vol. 2, plates LXXIII no. 6 & LXXIV no. 15.

  12 E.g. Miller, Barbara Stoler, (ed.), Exploring India’s Sacred Art : selected writings of Stella Kramrisch, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts & Motilal Banarsidass, New Delhi, 1994, p. 72, and Kramrisch’s endorsement of this survival (she calls it a ‘spade-shaped head’).

  13 E.g. Franz, Heinrich Gerhard, (ed.), L’Inde ancienne: histoire et civilisation, Bordas, Paris, 1990, p. 356.

  14 Exploring India’s Sacred Art: selected writings of Stella Kramrisch, op. cit., p. 87.

  15 Gonda, J., Change and Continuity in Indian Religion, op. cit., p. 26, with reference to Kramrisch, Stella, Indian Sculpture, Y.M.C.A. Publishing House, Calcutta & Oxford University Press, London, 1933, pp. 11 & 143.

  16 Varenne, Jean, L’art de l’Inde, Flammarion, Paris, 1983, p. 105.

  17 Rao, S.R., Dawn and Devolution of the Indus Civilization, p. 187. See a more detailed explanation in Lal, B.B., India 1947-1997°, pp. 88-91.

  18 E.g. Kenoyer, J.M., Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization°, pp. 59 & 120.

  19 See also parallels between Mohenjo-daro’s Great Bath and the tanks of Modhera or Sravana-Belgola by Stietencron, Heinrich von, ‘Les religions’, in Franz, Heinrich Gerhard, (ed.), L’Inde ancienne: histoire et civilisation, op. cit., pp. 181 & 186.

  20 E.g. Kenoyer, J.M., Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, p. 83.

  21 Ibid., pp. 119-120.

  22 Marshall, John, (ed.), Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization, op. cit., vol. 1, p. vi.

  23 At Baghor (Madhya Pradesh). See Kenoyer, J.M., et al., ‘An Upper Palaeolithic Shrine in India?’ Antiquity, LVII, 1983, pp. 88-94, reproduced in Allchin, F.R. & Dilip K. Chakrabarti, (eds), A Source-book of Indian Archaeology, Munshiram
Manoharlal, New Delhi, 2003, vol. III, pp. 49-54. Let us note that the excavators understood the significance of the triangular stone that symbolizes the mother goddess only after observing similar stones in several nearby tribal temples—over 10,000 years apart! In conclusion, the authors noted ‘the remarkable continuity of religious beliefs and motifs in the Indian subcontinent’.

  24 Rig Veda, 9.96.6.

  25 See Krishna Yajur Veda, 1.8.22, 2.2.10, 2.2.11, 4.5.8, etc. (Verse numbers are from A.B. Keith’s translation, which will also be used as a reference in further notes below.)

  26 Hymn 6.74 of the Rig Veda is dedicated to ‘Soma-Rudra’ as a fused god. The fusion of gods is frequent in the Rig Veda (Heaven-Earth, Indra-Agni, Mitra-Varuna . . .), a reminder that all those gods and goddesses are merely different faces of the same divinity, as the famous hymn 1.164.46 explicitly states. The Rig-Vedic religion is not polytheism, but ‘polymorphism’.

  27 Shiva as a god appears in the Yajur Veda. European Sanskritists decided that the word shiva found in the Rudra Prasna of the Krishna Yajur Veda (ch. 24) is only an adjective (meaning ‘good’ or ‘auspicious’) and not a proper noun. But traditional Vedic scholars disagree: priest and poet Prof. Vishnu Narayan Namboodiri of Kerala, inheritor of a lineage that has orally transmitted the Krishna Yajur Veda for many centuries, explains (personal communication) that several of the eleven mentions of the word shiva in this text can only be proper nouns (capitalized in the following examples), appearing as they do next to the adjective shiva : Mīdhushtama sivatama Shivo nah sumanā bhava (‘O Shiva, most auspicious one, give us your blessings and be gracious to us!’) or Namah Shivāya cha shivatarāya cha (‘Salutations to Shiva and to the most auspicious one!’).

  28 Kenoyer, J.M., Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization°, p. 114.

  29 E.g. Rig Veda, 8.68.15; Krishna Yajur Veda, 4.7.15.w.

  30 Rig Veda, 6.16.46, 10.115.9.

  31 Ibid., 10.15.6.

  32 Ibid., 6.1.6.

  33 Ibid., 6.32.3.

  34 Ibid., 7.95.4.

  35 Except for the gaur’s human face (my own observation), the seal is so described by Allchin, Raymond & Bridget, in Origins of a Civilization°, p. 202. It is reproduced by Parpola, Asko, in Deciphering the Indus Script°, p. 256, after Mackay 1943, pl. 51:13.

  36 Allchin, Raymond & Bridget, Origins of a Civilization°, p. 202.

  37 Rig Veda, 1.160.2, 5.43.2, etc.

  38 Ibid., 1.159, 1.160, 6.70, etc.

  39 Ibid., 5.83.

  40 Pusalker, A.D., ‘The Indus Valley Civilization’, ch. IX of The Vedic Age, vol. I in Majumdar, R.C., (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, 1951-88, p. 192.

  41 The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, op. cit., vol. IV, Santi Parva, XII.343, p. 166.

  42 Rig Veda, 6.16.39 for Agni, 7.19.1 and 10.86.15 for Indra (the translation here is Griffith’s). Also Yajur Veda, 2.6.11.r for Agni.

  43 Rig Veda, 9.15.4 (Griffith’s translation). Soma sharpens his horns again in 9.70.7.

  44 Ibid., 10.103.01.

  45 Ibid., 1.33.13.

  46 Ibid., 1.55.1.

  47 Ibid., 7.18.18.

  48 Ibid., 8.85.5.

  49 Ibid., 5.59.3 (Sri Aurobindo’s translation).

  50 Ibid., 1.80.6, 8.6.6, etc.

  51 Bisht, R.S., ‘Excavation at Banawali, District Hissar’, in Indian Archaeology 1988-87—A Review, Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi, 1992, p. 33.

  52 The Vishwa Veda Sathram, Pañjal (Kerala), April 2002; my talk was on ‘Indus Valley Civilization and Vedic Culture’. Some of the Vedic scholars present had taken part in the impressive 1975 re-creation of the Vedic fire ritual recorded by Indologist Frits Staal; see Staal, Frits, C.V. Somayajipad & M. Itti Ravi Nambudiri, (eds), Agni: The Vedic Ritual of the Fire Altar°.

  53 On the cosmic, astronomical and inner significance of the fire altars, see Kak, Subhash, ‘The Axis and the Perimeter of the Hindu Temple’, Mankind Quarterly, vol. 46, 2006.

  54 See Witzel, Michael, ‘Autochthonous Aryans? The Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts’, Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies, vol. 7, no. 3, 25 May 2001, § 26.

  55 B.B Lal, personal communication. The Kalibangan altars are described in detail in Lal, B.B., et al., Excavations at Kalibangan, Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi, vol. 2, in press.

  56 Allchin, F.R., ‘The Legacy of the Indus Civilization’, in Possehl, Gregory L., (ed.), Harappan Civilization : A Recent Perspective, op. cit., p. 388.

  57 Rao, S.R., Lothal: A Harappan Port Town, Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi, 1985, vol. I, p. 121 & 216.

  58 Ibid., vol. I, p. 217 & vol. II, p. 499.

  59 In the case of the square altar of the Shulbasūtra, the ‘handle’ is 80 angulas wide and the side 320 angulas long (see The Sulbasutras, op. cit., Baudhāyana-Sulbasūtra 17.3 & p. 220). Lothal’s altar has a platform 65 cm wide for a side of 2.65 m, hence a ratio of 0.245 (measurements taken on the sketch of the altar, see Rao, S.R., Lothal: A Harappan Port Town, op. cit., vol. I, p. 97).

  60 See Joshi, J.P., ‘Religious and Burial Practices of Harappans: Indian Evidence’, in Pande, G.C., (ed.), The Dawn of Indian Civilization (up to c. 600 BC), Centre for Studies in Civilizations, New Delhi, 1999, p. 381, and his comments on the fire altars at Kalibangan and Lothal. See a similar treatment and additional details on Rakhigarhi in his Harappan Architecture and Civil Engineering°, ch. 7.

  61 See a few examples in Possehl, Gregory L., The Indus Civilization°, p. 148 ff.

  62 Ibid., p. 153.

  63 McEvilley, T., ‘An archaeology of yoga’, Res, 1, 1981, pp. 44-77.

  64 Dhyansky, Yan Y., ‘The Indus Valley Origin of a Yoga Practice’, Artibus Asiae, vol. 48, 1987, no. 1/2, pp. 89-108.

  65 See examples in Lal, B.B., The Saraswati Flows On°, p. 127.

  66 E.g. Jarrige, Jean-François, ‘Du néolithique à la civilisation de l’Inde ancienne’, op. cit., p. 12-14 & Possehl, Gregory L., The Indus Civilization°, pp. 114-17.

  67 Chanda, Ramaprasad, Survival of the Prehistoric Civilisation of the Indus Valley, Archaeological Survey of India, 1929, p. 25.

  68 Wheeler Mortimer, L’Inde avant l’histoire, Sequoia-Elsevier, Paris-Bruxelles, 1967, p. 41. (I do not have access to the original English and have retranslated here from the French.)

  69 Chakrabarti, Dilip K., India: An Archaeological History°, p. 197.

  70 Rig Veda, 5.81.1 (Sri Aurobindo’s translation).

  71 Ibid., 1.51.10.

  72 Ibid., 1.84.3.

  73 Ibid., 5.2.6 (adapted from Sri Aurobindo’s translation, The Secret of the Veda°, p. 368).

  74 The best exposition of the spiritual experience enshrined in the Rig Veda remains, in my opinion, Sri Aurobindo’s Secret of the Veda°.

  75 Dhyansky, Yan Y., ‘The Indus Valley Origin of a Yoga Practice’, op. cit., p. 104.

  76 Kosambi, Damodar Dharmanand, Myth and Reality, Popular Prakashan, Bombay, 1962; reprint 2005, p. 75. Kosambi assumes that Cemetary H is ‘undoubtedly Aryan’ (p. 74), but apart from the absurdity of such a racial label, it has recently been shown that there are ‘clear continuities’ between that phase and the earlier urban one: Meadow, R.H. & J.M. Kenoyer, ‘Recent Discoveries and Highlights from Excavations at Harappa : 1998-2000’, available online at www.harappa.com/indus4/print.html (accessed 15 September 2009); see also Kenoyer, J.M., Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization°, p. 175.

  77 Rig Veda, 10.27.22, Griffith’s translation.

  78 Sharma, D.V., K.C. Nauriyal & V.N. Prabhakar, ‘Excavations at Sanauli 2005-06 : A Harappan Necropolis in the Upper Ganga-Yamuna Doab’, Puratattva, no. 36, 2005-2006, pp. 166-79.

  79 Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark, Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization°, p. 81.

  80 Keller Olivier, La figure et le monde, une archéologie de la géométrie : peuples paysans sans écriture et premières civilisations, Vuibert, Paris, 2006, p. 138.

  81 For instance, Manasara
, 35.18-20, Acharya, Prasanna Kumar, Architecture of Manasara, Munshiram Manoharlal, 1934; reprint New Delhi, 1994, p. 374.

  82 See Kak, Subhash, ‘Time, Space and Structure in Ancient India’, paper presented at a conference on ‘Sindhu-Sarasvati Valley Civilization: A Reappraisal’, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, 21 & 22 February 2009, available online at http://arxiv.org/pdf/0903.3252v2 (accessed 15 September 2009).

  83 Apart from titles quoted earlier, see Parpola, Asko, Deciphering the Indus Script°; Sergent, Bernard, Genèse de l’Inde, Payot, Paris, 1997, p. 114 ff.; Feuerstein, Georg, Subhash Kak & David Frawley, In Search of the Cradle of Civilization°, ch. 4 & 7; Pathak, V.S., ‘Buffalo-Horned Human Figure on the Harappan Jar at Padri : A Note’, Man and Environment, vol. XVII, 1992, no. 1, pp. 87-89; Danino, Michel, ‘The Harappan Heritage and the Aryan Problem’, Man and Environment, vol. XXVIII, 2003, no. 1, pp. 21-32; and various papers in Agrawal, Ashwini (ed.), In Search of Vedic-Harappan Relationship°.

  84 Parpola, Asko, Deciphering the Indus Script°, p. 222.

  85 Bisht, R.S., ‘Dholavira Excavations: 1990-94’ in Joshi, J.P., (ed.), Facets of Indian Civilization: Essays in Honour of Prof. B.B. Lal, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 111-112.

  86 Bisht, R.S., ‘Harappan and the Rgveda: Points of Convergence’, in Pande, G.C., (ed.), The Dawn of Indian Civilization (up to c. 600 BC), op. cit., p. 416.

  87 Singh, Bhagwan, Vedic Harappans”, chapters VII-XI.

  88 Lal, B.B., India 1947-1997°, p. 123.

  89 See Suggested Further Reading, under the heading ‘The Aryan Problem (in the Indian context)’.

  90 Lal, B.B., The Sarasvatī Flows On°, pp. ix-x.

  91 Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark, ‘Interaction Systems, Specialized Crafts and Cultural change’, in George Erdosy, (ed.), The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin & New York, 1995, p. 234.

  92 Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark, Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization°, p. 180.

  93 Jarrige, Jean-François, ‘Du néolithique à la civilisation de l’Inde ancienne’, op. cit., p. 21.