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How old is the Rig Veda? (Part 3) By- Arun Gupta Arun Gupta was educated in Electronics Engineering at IIT-Madras and in Theoretical Physics at Caltech. He is now a software systems analyst. His intellectual wanderlust does not let him rest easy. He wishes he knew everything about everything. To read his past articles on Sawf click here

The Maha Kumbh Mela in Prayag (Allahabad) at the confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna and the invisible river Saraswati will be culminating with Mahashivaratri on February 21. While the Kumbh Mela shows the continuity of an ancient tradition, the recent earthquake in Gujarat reminds us of the reality of disaster and abrupt change. The earliest period of Indian history may also be closely linked to Saraswati and catastrophe. Was the Saraswati once a real river and if so, what happened to it ?

The Saraswati is the most celebrated river in the Rig Veda, being mentioned in nine of the ten Mandalas (all but Mandala 4). In the nine mandalas where it is mentioned, it is the most important river except in mandala 10 (more on that below). In various hymns, it has been described as "the best of rivers" (naditama) or "mother of rivers" (Sindhu mata). It arises from a three-fold source and flowing to samudra (the sea). The Drishadvati and Apaya rivers are explicitly mentioned with along with the Saraswati. The Saraswati is also mentioned along with its seven sisters (sapta svasa) or seven rivers (sapta sindhavah). However in later Vedic literature, the Saraswati is described as disappearing in the desert sands.

Today, the Ghagghar river drains some of the foothills of the Sivaliks but does not gather enough water to reach the sea; instead it disappears in the Thar desert. The old lower reaches of the now-dried riverbed is called the Hakra. As mentioned in previous articles, the vast majority of sites of the Harappan culture are found along the Ghagghar-Hakra. Recent satellite imagery and geological studies suggest that the configuration of rivers four thousand years ago was very different from that today. The Sutlej and the Yamuna may have flowed into a different riverine system.

The following pictures may help explain the theory. These are borrowed from Professor S. Kalyanaraman's web-site, where he has lovingly collected an enormous amount of material regarding the Saraswati. The original citations can also be found there.

The first map shows the location of sites of the Harappan culture. The second map shows how these sites may have related to the Saraswati river. The third and fourth maps are different views of how the rivers of northwestern India may have flowed in the past. In the third map, the Drishadvati is a tributary of the Saraswati, while in the fourth map, the Drishadvati finds its own way to the sea. This is to drive home the point that the final answers from the geologists are not yet in.

It seems very likely that the Ghagghar-Hakra is the Saraswati of the post-Vedic literature and Mahabharata. This was postulated even in the the19th century based on ground surveys. The river's path would match that taken by Balarama in his pilgrimmage along the Saraswati, mentioned in the Mahabharata. But the river the Rig Vedic Saraswati ?

The consequences of identifying the Rig Vedic Saraswati with the Ghagghar-Hakra are tremendous. It means that the Vedic Aryans were present in India at a time when the Saraswati was a perennial river with a majestic flow. The geologists don't have firm dates for the desiccation of the river , it could be anywhere between 3000 BC and 2000 BC. The presence of the vast number of Harappan settlements along the river suggests that it was active towards the later date ( the Harappan culture was at its peak from 2600 BC to 1900 BC).

In this scenario, the Rig Veda was composed by Rishis living on the banks of the Saraswati, thus the Rig Veda is contemporaneous (or earlier) than the Harappan culture. Some people even venture to equate Vedic Aryans to the Harappans. Whether or not we believe in this equation, the fact that the majority of Harappan sites are along the Saraswati makes for a strong case that it be called the Saraswati-Sindhu civilization (rather than the Indus Civilization).

Moreover, the drying up of the Saraswati river might be one of the primary causes of the collapse of the Harappan civilization. Perhaps some tectonic event similar to the one that struck Gujarat caused rivers to change courses, moving rivers to their current configurations. Perhaps memory of river that once flowed into the Saraswati and now flows instead into the Yamuna is preserved in the invisible river Saraswati of Prayag. The Saraswati was once real; it dried up, perhaps suddenly or perhaps over centuries, and is still tied into our culture.

How firmly does this identification of the Saraswati hold up to scrutiny ?

The tenth mandala of the Rig Veda contains a hymn of praise to the rivers (Nadi-stuti) (X.75) which names the rivers in an east-to-west order, and the Saraswati is where one might expect it, after the Ganga and Yamuna but before the Shutudri (Sutlej). But the tenth mandala of the Rig Veda is the latest of the mandalas, and this relative chronology is accepted as a fact without controversy. While the Saraswati is mentioned more often in the tenth mandala than the Indus (Sindhu), the Indus is the most important river in this mandala. So, the possibility remains open that the Saraswati of the first nine mandalas is a different river.

Indeed, there is another candidate, the modern Helmand river in Afghanistan. The language of the Zoroastrian Zend Avesta is closely related to Vedic Sanskrit, with one of the systematic differences being the "s" to "h" sound shift from Vedic to Avestan. The Sanskrit Sapta-Sindhu is equivalent to Avestan Hapta-Hindhu. The Arghandhab river in Afghanistan had the name Harahvaiti in the Avesta. The Arghandhab is the chief tributary of the Helmand river. Since the transfer of the name of a tributary to the main river is has happened in the past, it is postulated that the 1300 kilometer long Helmand is the Rig Vedic Saraswati.

There is little doubt about that the Avesta is referring to Afghanistan. Moreover other geographic names appear , e.g, Herat may be the Avestan Haraiiou (Sanskrit Sarayu). The Helmand, however, does not flow to the sea, but terminates in a large lake. So, it is possible to make out a case that the Rig Vedic Saraswati was the Helmand, that most of the Rig Veda was composed on the banks of this river. When the Aryans migrated to the southeast into India, they carried the river names with them. The Indian Saraswati was named after the original, in post-Harappan times by recently arrived Aryans.

One set of arguments, for (Rajesh Kocchar) and against (Koenraad Elst) the Saraswati in Afghanistan hypothesis are available on the web. My personal view is that it is absurd that the migrating Aryans, carrying a memory of their Naditama and Sindhu Mata with them, should give this name to a river was dying even then. Of course, the Indus and its main tributaries were already named in the Rig Veda, so these rivers would not have been available for renaming. It seems logical that one branch of Aryans moved to Afghanistan, carrying with them the memory of the cradle of their culture, the name of the river that gave divine sustenance, wealth and abundance. But history is not logical. Historians do try to be logical, and the Indian placement of the Rig Vedic Saraswati upsets their most favored theory, of Aryan immigration into India, and so they do not like it. It is of course possible, that the Saraswati is correctly placed in India, but remained active much longer (say upto 1500 BC).

The Saraswati river presents one line of evidence that perhaps the Rig Veda is much earlier than the conventional post-1700 BC. In the next article we shall examine the evidence from astronomy.

Acknowledgement :

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