The Rigveda refers to a number of rivers located in the northwestern Indian subcontinent, from Gandhara to Kurukshetra.
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The Rigveda refers to a number of rivers located in the northwestern Indian subcontinent, from Gandhara to Kurukshetra.
Identification of Rigvedic hydronyms has engaged multiple historians; it is the single most important way of establishing the geography and chronology of the early Vedic period. [1] [2] Rivers with certain identifications stretch from eastern Afghanistan to the western Gangetic plain, clustering in the Punjab. The Rigveda mentions the sapta-sindhavaḥ (Sanskrit : सप्तसिन्धवः, seven rivers), along with other rivers:
“He has surveyed eight summits of the Earth, three shore or desert regions, seven rivers.” (aṣṭaú vy àkhyat kakúbhaḥ pr̥thivyā́s trī́ dhánva yójanā saptá síndhūn RV.I.35.8). [3]
Sapta-sindhavaḥ is cognate with Avestan hapta həndu, and is interpreted as referring to Punjab. [lower-alpha 1] The region's name comes from پنج, panj, 'five' and آب, āb, 'water' thus "five waters", a Persian calque of the Indo-Aryan Pancha-nada meaning "five rivers". [4]
The same names were often imposed on different rivers as the Vedic culture migrated eastward from around Afghanistan (where they stayed for a considerable time) to the subcontinent via Punjab. [1]
Multiple hydronyms are located in the Rigvedic corpus; they are slotted according to rough geographical locations, following the scheme of Michael Witzel. [1] Alongside, opinions of scholars about modern correlates are provided: [5] [6]
Indus:
Northwestern Rivers:
Eastern tributaries:
Eastern Rivers:
The Sarasvati River is a mythologized and deified ancient river first mentioned in the Rigveda and later in Vedic and post-Vedic texts. It played an important role in the Vedic religion, appearing in all but the fourth book of the Rigveda.
Samudra is a Sanskrit term literally meaning the "gathering together of waters". It refers to an ocean, sea or confluence. It also forms the name of Samudradeva, the Hindu god of the ocean. The word is also present on other languages influenced by Sanskrit.
The Ghaggar-Hakra River is an intermittent river in India and Pakistan that flows only during the monsoon season. The river is known as Ghaggar before the Ottu barrage at 29.4875°N 74.8925°E, and as Hakra downstream of the barrage in the Thar Desert. In pre-Harappan times the Ghaggar was a tributary of the Sutlej. It is still connected to this paleochannel of the Sutlej, and possibly the Yamuna, which ended in the Nara River, presently a delta channel of the Indus River joining the sea via Sir Creek.
The Arghandab is a river in Afghanistan, about 400 km (250 mi) in length. It rises in Ghazni Province, west of the city of Ghazni, and flows southwest, passing near the city of Kandahar, before joining the Helmand River 30 km (19 mi) below the town of Grishk. In its lower course, it is much used for irrigation, under the control of the Helmand and Arghandab Valley Authority, and the valley is cultivated and populous; yet the water is said to be somewhat brackish. It is doubtful whether the ancient Arachotus is to be identified with the Arghandab or with its chief confluent the Tarnak, which joins it on the left 50 km (31 mi) southwest of Kandahar. The Tarnak, which flows south of Kandahar, is much shorter and less copious.
Kuru was a Vedic Indo-Aryan tribal union in northern Iron Age India of the Bharatas and other Puru clans. The Kuru kingdom appeared in the Middle Vedic period, encompassing parts of the modern-day states of Haryana, Delhi, and some parts of western Uttar Pradesh. The Kuru kingdom was the first recorded state-level society in the Indian subcontinent.
Kīkaṭa was an ancient Indian kingdom in what is now India, mentioned in the Vedas.
The Nadistuti Sukta, is the 75th hymn (sukta) of 10th Mandala of the Rigveda. Nadistuti sukta is important for the reconstruction of the geography of the Vedic civilization. Sindhu is addressed as the mightiest of rivers and addressed specifically in verses 1, 2, 7, 8 and 9.
The seventh Mandala of the Rigveda has 104 hymns. In the Rigveda Anukramani, all hymns in this book are attributed to Vashista. Hymn 32 is additionally credited to Sakti Vashista, and hymns 101-102 are additionally credited to Kumara Agneya. It is one of the "family books", the oldest core of the Rigveda, which were composed in early vedic period.
Rasa is the name of a western tributary of the Indus in the Rigveda. The word rasa means "moisture, humidity" in Vedic Sanskrit.
The Drishadvati River is a river hypothesized by Indologists to identify the route of the Vedic river Saraswati and the state of Brahmavarta. According to Manusmriti, the Brahmavarta, where the Rishis composed the Vedas and other Sanskrit texts of the Vedic religion, was at the confluence of the Saraswati and Drishadvati rivers during the Vedic period.
Ratha is the Indo-Iranian term for a spoked-wheel chariot. The term has been used since antiquity for both fast chariots and other wheeled vehicles pulled by animals or humans, in particular the large temple cars or processional carts still used in Indian religious processions to carry images of a deity.
The Bharatas were an early Vedic tribe that existed in the latter half of the second millennium B.C.E. The earliest mentioned location of the Bharatas was on the first Sarasvatī River in southern Afghanistan. Led by the tribal king Divodāsa, the Bharatas moved through the Hindu Kush mountains and defeated Śambara. Divodāsa's descendant, Sudās, won the Battle of the Ten Kings against a Pūru-led coalition, after which the initial compilation of hymns of the R̥gveda was carried out. After the battle, the Bharatas and other Pūru clans eventually formed the Kuru Kingdom, which was the first attested state in Indian history.
Vedic Sanskrit has a number of linguistic features which are alien to most other Indo-European languages. Prominent examples include: phonologically, the introduction of retroflexes, which alternate with dentals, and morphologically, the formation of gerunds. Some philologists attribute such features, as well as the presence of non-Indo-European vocabulary, to a local substratum of languages encountered by Indo-Aryan peoples in Central Asia (Bactria-Marghiana) and within the Indian subcontinent during Indo-Aryan migrations, including the Dravidian languages.
Indigenous Aryanism, also known as the Indigenous Aryans theory (IAT) and the Out of India theory (OIT), is the conviction that the Aryans are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent, and that the Indo-European languages radiated out from a homeland in India into their present locations. It is a "religio-nationalistic" view on Indian history, and propagated as an alternative to the established migration model, which considers the Pontic–Caspian steppe to be the area of origin of the Indo-European languages.
The Harappan language is the unknown language or languages of the Bronze Age Harappan civilization. The Harappan script is yet undeciphered, indeed it has not even been demonstrated to be a writing system, and therefore the language remains unknown. The language being yet unattested in readable contemporary sources, hypotheses regarding its nature are based on possible loanwords, the substratum in Vedic Sanskrit, and some terms recorded in Sumerian cuneiform, in conjunction with analyses of the Harappan script.
The Vedic period, or the Vedic age, is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic literature, including the Vedas, was composed in the northern Indian subcontinent, between the end of the urban Indus Valley Civilisation and a second urbanisation, which began in the central Indo-Gangetic Plain c. 600 BCE. The Vedas are liturgical texts which formed the basis of the influential Brahmanical ideology, which developed in the Kuru Kingdom, a tribal union of several Indo-Aryan tribes. The Vedas contain details of life during this period that have been interpreted to be historical and constitute the primary sources for understanding the period. These documents, alongside the corresponding archaeological record, allow for the evolution of the Indo-Aryan and Vedic culture to be traced and inferred.
The Rigveda or Rig Veda is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (sūktas). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts (śruti) known as the Vedas. Only one Shakha of the many survive today, namely the Śakalya Shakha. Much of the contents contained in the remaining Shakhas are now lost or are not available in the public forum.
The Indori river, is a rain-fed river originates from Aravalli Range from Sikar district and flows through Alwar district of Rajasthan to Rewari district of Haryana and it is the longest tributary of Sahibi River which stretches to 50 km. In Delhi, it is called the Najafgarh drain or Najafgarh Nallah.
The Krishnavati river, also called Kasaunti, is a rain-fed river originates from Aravalli Range near Dariba copper mines in Rajsamand district of Rajasthan, and flows through Patan in Dausa district and Mothooka in Alwar district and then disappears in Mahendragarh district in Haryana where it used to be a tributary of Sahibi River, which in turn still is a tributary of Yamuna. Several Ochre Coloured Pottery culture sites have been found along the banks of Krishnavati, Sahibi river, Dohan river and Sota River. The drainage pattern for all these rivers is dendritic.
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