The Lost River: On The Trail of Saraswati

by Michel Danino

  94 Ibid., p. 28.

  95 Shaffer, Jim G., ‘The Indus Valley, Baluchistan, and Helmand Traditions : Neolithic through Bronze Age’, in Ehrich, Robert W., (ed.), Chronologies in Old World Archaeology, third edn, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, vol. I, p. 459.

  11. The Sarasvatī’s Testimony

  1 Müller, F. Max, Vedic Hymns, op. cit., p. 60.

  2 E.g. Misra, V.N., ‘Climate, a Factor in the Rise and Fall of the Indus Civilization: Evidence from Rajasthan and Beyond’, in Lal, B.B. & S.P. Gupta, (eds), Frontiers of the Indus Civilization°, p. 482.

  3 Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark, Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization°, pp. 27-29.

  4 See Chapter 2 for references to the Sarasvatī from books 2 to 7, widely accepted to be the Rig Veda’s oldest mandalas (the so-called ‘family books’; e.g. Renou, Louis & Jean Filliozat, L’Inde classique: manuel des études indiennes, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 272).

  5 Allchin, Raymond & Bridget, Origins of a Civilization, p. 213.

  6 Ibid., p. 24.

  7 Possehl, Gregory L., Indus Age: The Beginnings°, p. 384.

  8 Ibid., p. 363.

  9 Ibid., p. 363.

  10 Chakrabarti, Dilip K. & Sukhdev Saini, The Problem of the Sarasvati River°, p. 38.

  11 Possehl, Gregory L., Indus Age: The Beginnings°, p. 382, Fig. 3.145.

  12 Winternitz, Moritz, A History of Indian Literature°, vol. I, p. 288.

  13 Winternitz, Moritz, Some Problems of Indian Literature, Bharatiya Book Corporation; reprinted Delhi, 1977, pp. 3-4.

  14 Ghosh, B.K., ‘The Origin of the Indo-Aryans’, in Bhattacharya, K., (ed.), The Cultural Heritage of India, vol. I : The Early Phases, The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Calcutta, 1958, p. 137.

  15 Casal, Jean-Marie, La Civilisation de l’Indus et ses énigmes°, p. 205.

  16 With the exception of some Bactrian styles or artefacts, but these only represent growing contacts between the two regions, not a ‘Bactrian migration’. See Jarrige, Jean-François, ‘Du néolithique à la civilisation de l’Inde ancienne’, op. cit., p. 22.

  17 Danino, Michel, ‘Genetics and the Aryan Debate’, Puratattva, New Delhi, no. 36, 2005-06, pp. 146-154.

  18 Lal, B.B., The Sarasvatī Flows On°, p. 75.

  19 Danino, Michel, The Elusive Aryans and the Dawn of Indian Civilization°. See also Suggested Further Reading under ‘The Aryan Problem’, for a choice of studies and perspectives.

  20 Thapar, Romila, ‘Ideology and Interpretation of Early Indian History’, in Interpreting Early India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1992, p. 10. (The author states in her preface that this paper was written in 1974.)

  21 Thapar, Romila, Ancient India: A Textbook of History for Class VI, National Council of Educational Research and Training, New Delhi, 1987, p. 38. (This textbook was reprinted thirteen times till January 2000.)

  22 Thapar, Romila, The Penguin History of Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300, op. cit., p. 42.

  23 Thomas, Edward, The Rivers of the Vedas, and How the Aryans Entered India, Stephen Austin & Sons, Hertford, 1883.

  24 Ibid., p. 8.

  25 Kochhar, Rajesh, The Vedic People°, p. 123.

  26 Ibid., p. 126.

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

  28 Rig Veda, 3.33.10.

  29 Kochhar, Rajesh, The Vedic People°, p. 127.

  30 Witzel, Michael, ‘Autochthonous Aryans? The Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts’, op. cit., §25.

  31 Imperial Gazetteer, new edn, 1908, vol. 23, p. 179.

  32 Wilhelmy, Herbert, ‘The Shifting River: Studies in the History of the Indus Valley’, Universitas, vol. 10, 1967, no. 1, p. 60.

  33 Macdonell, A.A. & A.B. Keith, Vedic Index°, p. 301.

  34 The Belgian Indologist Koenraad Elst has presented other arguments to refute Kochhar’s thesis, which I do not repeat here. See his Asterisk in Bharopiyasthan : Minor Writings on the Aryan Invasion Debate°, ch. 2.

  35 Kochhar, Rajesh, The Vedic People°, p. 127.

  36 Ibid., p. 128.

  37 Jansen, Michael, ‘Settlement Networks of the Indus Civilization’, op. cit., p. 118.

  38 It is, to be precise, the ‘Ravi aspect’ of the Hakra phase. See Meadow, R.H. & J.M. Kenoyer, ‘Recent Discoveries and Highlights from Excavations Harappa: 1998-2000’, available online at www.harappa.com/indus4/print.html (accessed 15 September 2009).

  39 Lal, B.B., et al., Excavations at Kalibangan, vol. 1, Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi, 2003, p. 103.

  40 Ibid., p. 30.

  41 Shinde, Vasant, et al., ‘Exploration in the Ghaggar Basin and Excavations at Girawad, Farmana (Rohtak District) and Mitathal (Bhiwani District), Haryana’, in Osada, Toshiki & Akinori Uesugi, (eds), Occasional Paper 3, Linguistics, Archaeology and the Human Past, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto, 2008, pp. 77-158.

  42 Rao, L.S., et al., ‘New Light on the Excavation of Harappan Settlement at Bhirrana’, Puratattva, no. 35, 2004-05, pp. 60-68.

  43 Kochhar, Rajesh, The Vedic People°, p. 131.

  44 Ibid., p. 209.

  45 Ibid., p. 132.

  46 Oldham, R.D., ‘On Probable Changes in the Geography of the Panjab and its Rivers: An Historico-Geographical Study’, Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. 55, 1886, p. 341.

  47 E.g. Talageri, Shrikant G., The Rigveda: a Historical Analysis°, pp. 120-124 (as regards fauna), and Lal, B.B., The Homeland of the Aryans : Evidence of Rigvedic Flora and Fauna°.

  48 Witzel, Michael, ‘Autochthonous Aryans? The Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts’, op. cit., §25.

  49 Bhargava M.L., The Geography of Rgvedic India, The Upper India Publishing House, Lucknow, 1964, ch. 1 : ‘The Seas’.

  50 Bhargava, P.L., India in the Vedic Age°, p. 85.

  51 Frawley, David, Gods, Sages and Kings°, p. 45. See also his ‘Geographical References: The Ocean and Soma’, ch. 4 of In Search of Vedic-Harappan Relationship°.

  52 Kazanas, Nicholas, ‘Samudra and Sarasvatī in the Rig-Veda’, Quarterly Journal of the Mythic Society, vol. 95, 2004, pp 90-104.

  53 Rig Veda, 1.11.1, Griffith’s translation.

  54 Ibid., 1.174.9, 6.20.12.

  55 Ibid., 7.33.8, Griffith’s translation.

  56 Ibid., 10.136.5.

  57 Ibid., 1.169.3, 8.20.4.

  58 Ibid., 7.68.7, 1.117.14, among others.

  59 Ibid., 1.116.4, Griffith’s translation.

  60 Ibid., 1.116.5.

  61 Ibid., 1.46.2.

  62 Ibid., 1.71.7 (see also 1.190.7).

  63 E.g., Rig Veda, 7.6.7, 3.22.3, 1.163.1.

  64 Ibid., 2.34.12.

  65 Ibid., 4.58.5.

  66 Ibid., 9.73.1, Griffith’s translation.

  67 Müller, F. Max, Vedic Hymns, op. cit., p. 60.

  68 Habib, Irfan, ‘Imagining River Sarasvati: A Defence of Commonsense’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 61st session, Kolkata, 2000-01, pp. 67-92, reproduced in Social Scientist, V.29, nos 1-2, January-February 2001, #332-333, pp. 46 ff. All subsequent quotations from Habib in the rest of chapter 10 are from this paper; I have used the article’s widely circulated Internet version: http://members.tripod.com/ahsaligarh/river.htm (accessed 15 August 2008).

  69 Oldham, C.F., ‘The Sarasvatī and the Lost River of the Indian Desert’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 34, 1893, p. 51.

  70 Rig Veda, 3.23.4.

  71 Shatapatha Brāhmana, V.3.4.1. See Eggeling, Julius, The Satapatha Brāhmana°, p. 73.

  72 Wheeler, Mortimer, L’Inde avant l’histoire, Sequoia-Elsevier, Paris-Bruxelles, 1967, p. 30, where he states that Kalibangan overlooks the arid valley of the Ghaggar, ‘the ancient Sarasvati’. (I do not have access to the English original.) See also his reference to ‘the former Ghaggar or Sarasvatī’, in Spear, Percival, (ed.), The Oxford History of India, Oxford U
niversity Press, fourth edn, Delhi, 1974-1998, p. 26. (Ch. 2, ‘Prehistoric India’, is by Mortimer Wheeler.)

  73 Casal, Jean-Marie, La Civilisation de l’Indus et ses énigmes°, pp. 190 & 191.

  74 Asko Parpola fully accepts the identification of the Ghaggar-Hakra with the Sarasvatī: see his Deciphering the Indus Script°, pp. 5 & 9.

  75 Dani, Ahmad Hasan, in his foreword to Mughal, M.R., Ancient Cholistan: Archaeology and Architecture°, writes of the ‘old, one-time flourishing river, such as a Sarasvati and Drishadvati, so well recorded in the Rigveda’, a course of which is ‘Hakra in Pakistan and Gagra (Ghaggar) in India’ (p. 11, see also p. 12).

  76 Personal communication (2006) from Dr S.P. Gupta, who was trying to obtain details from his Pakistani colleagues. Not having access to recent Pakistani papers, I am unable to provide a precise reference for those sites.

  77 Stein, Aurel, ‘A Survey of Ancient Sites along the “Lost” Sarasvatī River’, op. cit., p. 181.

  78 Possehl, Gregory. L, Indus Age: The Beginnings°, pp. 372-77.

  79 Flam, Louis, ‘The Prehistoric Indus River System and the Indus Civilization in Sindh’, Man and Environment, vol. XXIV, 1999, no. 2, p. 58.

  80 Flam, Louis, ‘Ecology and Population Mobility in the Prehistoric Settlement of the Lower Indus Valley, Sindh, Pakistan’, in Meadows, Azra & Peter S. Meadows, (eds), The Indus River: Biodiversity, Resources, Humankind, Oxford University Press, Karachi, 1999, pp. 315-17.

  81 Adapted from Louis Flam’s map in ibid., p. 315.

  82 Mughal, M.R., Ancient Cholistan : Archaeology and Architecture°, p. 21.

  83 Wilhelmy, Herbert, ‘The Ancient River Valley on the Eastern Border of the Indus Plain and the Sarasvatī Problem’, in Vedic Sarasvatī°, p. 97.

  84 Allchin, Bridget ‘Some Questions of Environment and Prehistory in the Indus Valley from Palaeolithic to Urban Indus Times’, in The Indus River : Biodiversity, Resources, Humankind, op. cit., 1999, p. 294.

  85 Francfort, Henri-Paul, ‘Evidence for Harappan Irrigation System in Haryana and Rajasthan’, The Eastern Anthropologist, 1992, vol. 45, p. 91.

  86 Ibid., p. 89.

  87 Gentelle, Pierre, ‘Paysages, environment et irrigation: hypothèses pour l’étude des 3e et 2e millénaires’, in Francfort, Henri-Paul, (ed.), Prospections archéologiques au nord-ouest de l’Inde : rapport préliminaire 1983-1984, Éditions Recherches sur les Civilisations, Paris, mémoire 62, 1985, p. 41.

  88 Francfort, H.-P., ‘Distribution des sites’, in ibid., p. 65.

  89 Francfort, Henri-Paul, ‘Evidence for Harappan Irrigation System in Haryana and Rajasthan’, op. cit., p. 98.

  90 Francfort, H.-P., ‘Distribution des sites’, Prospections archéologiques au nord-ouest de l’Inde, op. cit., p. 65.

  91 Rig Veda, 7.96.2.

  92 The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, op. cit., vol. III, Salya Parva, IX.55, p. 151.

  93 Tripathi, Jayant K., Barbara Bock, V. Rajamani & A. Eisenhauer, ‘Is River Ghaggar, Saraswati? Geochemical constraints’, Current Science, vol. 87, no. 8, 25 October 2004, pp. 1141-45.

  94 Ibid., Fig. 1-b, p. 1142. According to the map’s caption, samples were taken at ‘Sirsa and Fatehabad on Ghaggar’, but the dry bed is a few kilometres north of Sirsa and Fatehabad is some 20 km south of the Ghaggar.

  (Curiously, the map is actually based—without acknowledgements—on a scan of a map of mine, an earlier version of the map reproduced in Fig. 4.2 in this book; it is strange that the four scientists were unable to draw a map of their own on a scale suitable for showing the precise locations of their sampling sites. Even more curiously, after erasing most names from my map, the authors added the word ‘Saraswati’ and two big arrows pointing to the course I drew, which is the course of the Ghaggar-Hakra—even though the main point of their paper was to deny this identity!)

  95 Courty, M.-A., ‘Geoarchaeological Approach of Holocene Paleoenvironments in the Ghaggar Plains’, Man and Environment, vol. X, 1986, p. 112.

  96 Casal, Jean-Marie, La Civilisation de l’Indus et ses énigmes°, p. 7.

  97 Erdosy, George, ‘Prelude to Urbanization’, in Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia”, p. 77.

  98 Allchin, Raymond & Bridget, Origins of a Civilization°, p. 124.

  99 Possehl, Gregory L., Indus Age: The Beginnings°, p. 356.

  100 McIntosh, Jane R., A Peaceful Realm°, p. 46.

  101 Kenoyer, J.M., Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization°, p. 27.

  102 Sharma, Ram Sharan, Advent of the Aryans in India°, ch. 2.

  103 Lal, B.B., The Sarasvatī Flows On°, p. 8 ff.

  104 One such promising study recently published a preliminary report of exploration: Singh, R.N., et al., ‘Settlements in Context: Reconnaissance in Western Uttar Pradesh and Haryana’, Man and Environment, vol. XXXIII, no. 2, 2008, pp. 71-87.

  12. Epilogue: Sarasvatī Turns Invisible

  1 The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, op. cit., Salya Parva, vol. III, IX.54, p. 149.

  2 Ibid., p. 150.

  3 O.P. Bharadwaj identifies Plakshaprāsravana with a location in the Nahan district of the Shivaliks, see ‘The Rigvedic Sarasvatī’, in In Search of Vedic-Harappan Relationship°, p. 16.

  4 Valdiya, K.S., Saraswati, the River That Disappeared°, p. 26.

  5 Ibid., p. 54.

  6 Flam, Louis, ‘The Prehistoric Indus River System and the Indus Civilization in Sindh’, op. cit., p. 57 (emphasis in the original).

  7 See Bharadwaj, O.P., ‘Vinasana’, Journal of the Oriental Institute of Baroda, vol. 33, 1983, nos 1-2, pp. 69-88. Bharadwaj, keen to identify Vinashana with Kalibangan, argues for a Sarasvatī-Drishadvatī confluence above Kalibangan, but this can hardly be accepted, as topographic studies and satellite imagery have made clear.

  8 Bharadwaj, O.P., ‘Vinashana’, op. cit., p. 78.

  9 The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, op. cit., vol. III, Salya Parva, IX.42, p. 118.

  10 Iyengar, R.N., ‘Profile of a Natural Disaster in Ancient Sanskrit Literature’, Indian Journal of History of Science, vol. 39, 2004, no. 1, pp. 11-49, available online at www.ifih.org/NaturalDisasterinAncientSanskritLiterature.htm (accessed 15 September 2009); ‘On Some Comet Observations in Ancient India’, Journal of the Geological Society of India, vol. 67, March 2006, pp. 289-94.

  11 Chakrabarti, Dilip K., The Oxford Companion to Indian Archaeology°, pp. 209 & 211.

  12 Mathur, U.B., ‘Chronology of Harappan Port Towns of Gujarat in the Light of Sea Level Changes during the Holocene’, Man and Environment, vol. XXVII, no. 2, 2002, pp. 61-67.

  13 Kenoyer, J. Mark, ‘New Perspectives on the Mauryan and Kushana Periods’, in Between the Empires : Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE, Oxford University Press, New York, 2006, pp. 34 & 46.

  14 Joshi, J.P., Madhu Bala & Jassu Ram, ‘The Indus Civilization : A Reconsideration on the Basis of Distribution Maps’, in Lal, B.B. & S.P. Gupta, (eds), Frontiers of the Indus Civilization°, p. 516.

  15 Shaffer, Jim G. & Diane A. Lichtenstein, ‘The Concepts of “Cultural Tradition” and “Paleoethnicity” in South Asian Archaeology’, in Erdosy, George, (ed.), The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia, op. cit., p. 139 (emphasis in the original).

  16 Shaffer, Jim G., ‘The Indus Valley, Baluchistan, and Helmand Traditions : Neolithic through Bronze Age’, in Chronologies in Old World Archaeology, op. cit., p. 450.

  17 Shatapatha Brāhmana, 1.4.1.10-19. See Eggeling, Julius, The Satapatha Brāhmana°, pp. 104-06.

  18 Lātyāyana Shrautasūtra, 10.18.3, quoted in and translated by Burrow, Thomas, ‘On the Word Arma or Armaka in Early Sanskrit Literature’, in Journal of Indian History, vol. 41, 1963, pp. 159-166.

  19 Burrow quotes the Rig Veda where ‘armaka’, the word for ‘ruin’, occurs once in an unspecified context, and builds on it a conviction that it was ‘the Aryans who were responsible for the overthrow of the Indus civilisation’. This view has been categorically rejected by archaeologists in recent decades.

/>   20 Tewari, Rakesh, ‘The Origins of Iron Working in India : New Evidence from the Central Ganga Plain and the Eastern Vindhyas’, Antiquity, vol. 77, 2003, no. 297, pp. 536-544, available online at http://antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/ tewari/tewari.pdf and www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/iron-ore.html (accessed 15 September 2009).

  21 Tewari, Rakesh, ‘The Myth of Dense Forests and Human Occupation in the Ganga Plain’, Man and Environment, vol. XXIX, 2004, no. 2, pp. 102-116.

  22 Darian, Steven, ‘Gangā and Sarasvatī: An Incidence of Mythological Projection’, East and West, vol. 26, 1976, nos 1-2, pp. 153-165.

  23 The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, op. cit., vol. III, Salya Parva, IX.42, p. 117 (slightly altered).

  24 Rig Veda, 1.3.10-12. The translation is my adaptation of two different translations by Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda°, pp. 85 & 519.

  Prologue

  * When referring to ancient times, like most scholars I will use India as synonymous, in a geographical sense, with the Indian subcontinent.

  {1}

  The ‘Lost River of the Indian Desert’

  * In Sanskrit, maru = desert, sthala = region. The name can also be taken to mean ‘land of the dead’ or, as Tod calls it, ‘region of death’.

  † Interestingly, ‘Wahind’ means ‘river (wah) of India (Hind)’.

  ‡ A tīrtha is a sacred site or place of pilgrimage, often associated with a body of water.

  § Variously spelt Bhatnir, Bhatnair, Bhatner or Bhatneej; this fortified town, once a stronghold of the Bhatti Rajputs (hence its name), is now part of Hanumangarh, on the northern tip of Rajasthan (in the erstwhile Bikaner state)

  ¶ Probably today’s Kalepar, in Pakistan’s Cholistan Desert, about halfway between Fort Abbas and Derawar Fort.

  ** ‘Xuanzang’ in Pinyin spelling.

  †† Also spelt ‘Adh Badri’ or ‘Adi Badri’, some 15 km north of Bilaspur, on the Haryana-Himachal Pradesh border; it is a pilgrimage centre with temples to Narayana, Kedarnath and Mantra Devi. (This Ad Badri is not to be confused with the pilgrimage centre of Adi Badri located in the Chamoli district of Uttara- khand, one of the Panch Badri shrines.)