TENSING RODRIGUES
Before we move any further, let us diverge to get a better view of the drying of Saraswati. There is, in fact an array of dates for the drying up of Sarasvati; and an array of causes. Danino puts the onset of aridity between 3,700 BCE and 2,200 BCE, based on a study of groundwater available at depths of 50-60 m along the course of a buried channel of a ‘defunct river’ in northwestern Jaisalmer (Rao et al, 1997: ‘Isotope Hydrology Studies On Water Resources In Western Rajasthan’, in Current Science, Vol. 72, No. 1). Around this time the flow of fresh water in the buried channel seems to have stopped. [Danino, 2010: ‘The Lost River – On The Trail Of The Sarasvati’, 75] But why did the river stop flowing?
Both climatic and tectonic factors have been cited. Staubwasser ascribes it to the 4.2 ka BP event; this is a dry period that affected across Asia. (4.2 ka BP= 4,200 before present = 2,200 BCE) [Staubwasser, 2003: ‘Climate change at the 4.2 ka BP termination of the Indus valley civilization and Holocene south Asian monsoon variability’, in Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 30, 1425] It is supposed to have caused the collapse of the Old Kingdom in Egypt as well as the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia and the Liangzhu culture in the lower Yangtze River area, and probably triggered the movement of bramhan from the Central Asian steppes into Indian sub-continent.
Dixit too puts this dry spell around more or less the same time (= 2,100 BCE), based on the paleoclimate record at Kotla Dahar paleolake in southern Hariana. [Dixit et al, 2014: ‘Abrupt weakening of the summer monsoon in northwest India ~4100 yr ago’, in Geology, Vol. 42; No. 4] Phadtare puts the timing at about 2,000 BCE –1,500 BCE based on the temperature and rainfall records for Garhwal Higher Himalayas. According to him this was the weakest monsoon event of the Holocene period. [Phadtare, 2000 : ‘Sharp Decrease in Summer Monsoon Strength, in Quaternary Research’, Vol. 53, 122] But these ‘global’ events perhaps only added to the distress in the Sarasvati Valley; the river was essentially ephemeral; it was the melting of the Himalayan snow at the end of the Ice Age that had turned a seasonal stream into a mighty river; with time it was bound to dry up.
Tectonic events seem to have further worsened the situation. A fault tore apart the Siwalik Range, dislocating the western part horizontally southward, uplifting the western block by about 20 m and sinking the eastern block by about 14 to 30 m. As a result, the River Tamasa abandoned Sarasvati and joined Yamuna around 1,900 BCE to 1,700 BCE.[Valdiya, 2012 : ‘Geography, Peoples and Geodynamics of India in Puranas and Epics’, 171]
Around the same time (1,900 BCE to 1,500 BCE) the Indo-Gangetic Plain rose against the Siwalik by about 20 m due to the reactivation of the Himalayan Frontal Fault.[Valdiya, 2012 : 172]
About a thousand years later (500 BCE), River Shatadru abandoned Sarasvati and swung westwards to join River Beas flowing into Indus. So, the drying up of Sarasvati was not an event; it was a slow but continuous process that lasted from at least 3,700BCE to 500 BCE.
The enigma is that it is just around this time, when the Sarasvati Valley was losing its attractiveness that the farmers from Kachi-Bolan Plain decided to move there. In spite of the adverse conditions the settlements grew in Sarasvati Valley, and peaked by 2,500 BCE. The explanation can only be speculative. Perhaps when the movement began, the aridity was little perceptible; the advantages of the valley far outweighed its shortcomings. And that momentum could have carried it to the peak around 2,500 BCE. This is typical of any urbanisation process, even in modern times; it takes accumulation of a severe disadvantage for the curve to turn. As Madella et al put it: “We conclude that Harappan urbanism emerged on the face of a prolonged trend towards declining rainfall.” [Madella et al, 2006: ‘Palaeoecology And The Harappan Civilisation Of South Asia: A Reconsideration’, in Quaternary Science Reviews, Vol. 25, 1283]
But what is an even greater enigma is the fact that the bramhan chose to arrive in this ‘graveyard’ of a civilisation. After being driven out of their Central Asian steppes by the 4.2 ka BP event, they crossed the Khyber Pass to enter the Indian sub-continent. Did the bramhan really settle in the Sarasvati Valley? Or, did they just push to the upper reaches of the Yamuna, and then down along its course into the Yamuna – Gangadoab? At least that is what we see in the Harappan Timeline maps. The small cluster of settlements that we see growing slowly between 3,200 BCE and 2,500 BCE, suddenly explodes by 1,900 BCE and remains that way till 1,000 BCE.
Literary evidence from Samskrt texts seem to suggest that there was little love lost between the bramhan and the Sarasvati Valley; by most of the texts Aparamt, Punjab, Sindhu-Sauvira (lower Indus valley on either sides of the river) and Surastra (Kathiyavad) were outside the arya heartland. According to the Dharmasutra of Sankha-Likhita (300 BCE – 100 BCE) ‘spotless spiritual pre-eminence is to be found only in the country to the east of the countries of Sindhu and Sauvira’. (Kane, 1941: Vol . II, Part 1, 14) According to Baudhayana Dharmasutra(I.1.31) the countries of Surastra, Sindhu, and Sauvira are ‘not of pure Aryan ancestry’ and a person who goes to Aratta(a region in the Rann of Kutch) and Sauvira has to offer a solemn sacrifice like the Sarvaprstha. (Kane, 1941: Vol. II, Part 1, 15) Aratta is singularly looked down upon by the Vedic texts like Baudhayana Dharma Sutra (18.13, 44), which refers to it as the‘immoral region of the northwest comprising of Sindh, Gandhara and the western Punjab’. (Parpola, 2015: The Roots of Hinduism – The Early Aryans and the Indus Civilization, 216)
But then, what about the sarasvat, who clearly bear the name of Sarasvati their ‘best mother’ (Rig Veda 2.41.16)?
