Geography of the Rig Veda
Summary
The geographical area of the Early Old Books (6,3,7 in that order) from a period before 3000 BCE covers only the eastern parts of the Rigvedic area. These Early Old Books show complete ignorance of western areas, but easy familiarity with and emotional attachment to the eastern areas (in VI.61.14, the composer begs the river Sarasvatī: "let us not go from thee to distant countries"):
These three oldest books mention the eastern rivers Gaṅgā/Jahnāvī, Yamunā, Dṛṣadvatī/Hariyūpīyā/Yavyāvatī, Āpayā, Sarasvatī, Śutudrī, Vipāś, Paruṣṇī, Asiknī, but they do not mention the western rivers Marudvṛdhā, Vitastā, Ārjīkīyā, Suṣomā, Sindhu and its western tributaries Triṣṭāmā, Susartu, Anitabhā, Rasā, Śveti, Shvetyāvarī, Kubhā, Krumu, Gomatī, Sarayu, Mehatnu, Prayiyu, Vayiyu, Suvāstu, Gaurī, Kuṣavā, all of which are mentioned in the New Books. They mention the eastern place names Kīkaṭa, Iḷāspada (also called vara ā pṛthivyā or nābhā pṛthivyā, i.e. "the best place on earth" or "the centre of the earth") but they do not mention the western place names Saptasindhava, Gandhāri, both of which are mentioned in the New Books. They mention the eastern lake Mānuṣā, but they do not mention the western lake Śaryaṇāvat(ī) and the western mountains Mūjavat, Suṣom and Arjīk, all of which are mentioned in the New Books.
Further, the western place names, lake name, mountain names and animal names are missing not only in the Early Old Books (6,3,7), but also in the Middle Old Books (4,2) and in the New Book 5: in short, in all the family books. And the river names appear from east to west in historical contexts: i) The oldest Book 6 refers only to the Sarasvati (which is deified in three whole hymns, VI.61, VII.95-96, and in 52 other verses in the three Early Old Books) and to the rivers east of it: in VI.45.31 the long bushes on the banks of the Gaṅgā figure in a simile (showing their long acquaintance and easy familiarity with the topography and flora of the Gaṅgā area). ii) The next Book 3 refers in III.58.6 to the banks of the Jahnāvī (Gaṅgā) as the "ancient homeland" of the Gods. In III.23.3-4, it remembers the establishment of a perpetual sacred fire by Devavāta, a far ancestor of the Rigvedic king Sudas, at Iḷaspada (in Haryana) on the eastern banks of the Sarasvatī. In III.33, it refers for the first time to the first two easternmost rivers of the Punjab, the Vipāś and Śutudrī, in the context of the militarist expansion in all directions by Sudās, and the reference is to his moving from Haryana into the Punjab and crossing the two rivers with his warriors. iii) The next book 7 (which refers to the Yamunā in VII.18.19) describes (in VII.18, and also 19,33 and 83) the dāśarājña battle (the Battle of the Ten Kings) in which Sudās, fighting from the east on the banks of the third easternmost river of the Punjab, the Paruṣṇī, fights the coalition of ten Anu tribes who are described (in VII.5.3) as the Asiknī people (as they are fighting from the west, from the direction of the fourth easternmost river of the Punjab, the Asiknī). The three Early Old Books (6,3,7) do not refer to rivers further west. iv) The Middle Old Book 4 (but not yet the Middle Old Book 2, whose riverine references are restricted to the Sarasvatī) for the first time refers to the Indus (Sindhu) and its western tributaries (Sarayu and Rasā), in clear continuation of the earlier westward movement: it refers (in IV.30.18: which, incidentally, is a Redacted Hymn) to the battle fought by Sahadeva and Somaka, descendants of Sudās, in an area "beyond the Sarayu". In short, the geography of the Rigveda in the period of the oldest book 6 and in the pre-Rigvedic period, before 3000 BCE, is completely restricted to the area to the east of the Sarasvatī river, in Haryana and western U.P., which is regarded as "the ancient homeland". Needless to say, there is not the faintest trace in the Rigveda, even at this point of time before 3000 BCE, of any extra-territorial memories or migrations from the totally unknown far western areas. [1] [archive]
The evidence of the Rigvedic data shows that long before 2000 BCE, in the period of the Old Books, the Vedic Aryans were originally located in the areas of Haryana and further east. The east-to-west expansion shown by the above data-graphs is actually described in the historical narrative in the Rigveda: the activities of the ancestors of Sudās (in order of lineage: Bharata, Devavāta, Sṛñjaya, Divodāsa) are all located in Haryana. The expansion in the period of Sudas (following his own earlier activities in Haryana) shows him first crossing the two easternmost rivers of the Punjab westwards with his army. Then he fights an alliance of ten western tribes on the banks of the third river, and his enemies are described as fighting from the region of the fourth river. Later, in the period of his descendants Sahadeva and Somaka, the Vedic Aryans expand as far west as beyond the Indus. Note: it is in this period, long before 2000 BCE, that we find the Vedic Aryans originally not even familiar with the northwestern parts of India into which they were yet to expand, let alone with Central Asia or areas further west. They do not refer to any linguistically non-Indo-European entities anywhere in their vicinity. And the local rivers all have Indo-Aryan/Indo-European names.[2] [archive]
General
- In fact, in whole of the Family Mandalas, the only hymn (other than the reference to the distant battle “beyond the Sarayu” in 4.30.18) which refers freely to western rivers (no hymn refers to western places or animals) is 5.53, and Witzel himself admits that the hymn has no geographical significance, being merely “indicative of the poet’s travels” (WITZEL 1995b: 317): the poet, Shyavashva, also refers, in another hymn (5.52) to the Yamuna and Purushni! (Talageri 2001)
- Hopkins points out that his interpretation of the climate and topography of the Rigveda as
indicating a homeland decidedly east of the Punjab ―is supported even by native traditions. At a very early (Brahmanic) period the ̳Northerners‘ are regarded as a suspicious sort of people, whose religious practices, far from being authoritative, are censured. No tradition associates the ancient literature with the Punjāb. In fact, save for one exception, even the legal manuals do not take cognizance of the Northwest. They have the stanza that defines Āryāvarta, and also the stanzas that extend the geographical boundary still further south; but they ignore the North‖ (HOPKINS 1898:20).
- Hopkins quotes two verses from Manu: Manu 11.17, which states that brahmāvarta or
―the district between the Sarasvatī and Dṛṣadvatī is the home of the Veda‖ (HOPKINS 1898:21), and Manu 11.22, which describes the land which is the natural habitat of the blackbuck as the ―district fit for sacrifice‖, and points out that ―the Gangetic plain and the country about Kurukṣetra, between Delhi and Umballa and south of the former locality, is still the ̳natural habitat‘ of the blackbuck‖ (HOPKINS 1898:23). On both these counts, Hopkins points out that ―Punjab is [...] omitted altogether from the list. The most western locality is the place where the Sarasvatī disappears in the north-west, and the Arabian Sea, west of the southern line of the Vindhya‖ (HOPKINS 1898:21).
- The attitude of all traditional Vedic literature towards peoples and areas further west,
including the Punjab, is one of disdain and even mild hostility: the Sūtras (e.g. Baudhāyana Dharmasūtra 1.1.2,14-15), the traditional compendia of Vedic orthodoxy, describe these lands as mleccha or barbarian lands, express strong disapproval of their socio-religious practices and customs, and even declare these areas as not fit to be visited by orthodox Brahmins, who are required to undergo purificatory rituals if they do visit these areas. This attitude continues into the Epics: e.g. Mahābhārata VIII.30.35-74. In fact, it is no coincidence that in the Epics, the villains or the lesser heroes always have a northwestern connection, and the greater heroes have an eastern connection: in the Rāmāyaṇa, the good queen Kauśalyā is from the east, and the bad queen Kaikeyī is from the northwest. In the Mahābhārata, the main good queen Kuntī, mother of the greater Pāṇḍavas, is from the east; the lesser good queen Mādrī, mother of the lesser Pāṇḍavas (depicted, like the Aśvins, the lesser gods of the Rigveda, as twins, and in fact even depicted as the offspring of the Aśvins) is from the west (but she disappears from the scene early on in the story, and her brother, the king of the western Madras, lands up on the side of the bad guys, the Kauravas, in the Great War); and the bad queen Gāndhārī (mother of the Kauravas, the bad guys of the Epic) is from even further west. After the evidence examined in the course of this chapter, it becomes clear that the Rigvedic situation was almost exactly the same as the post-Rigvedic situation: the sacred area of the Rigveda (III.24), the vara-ā-p ṛ thivyāh (best place on earth) and nābhā p ṛ thivyāh (centre of the earth) of the Rigvedic Aryans, was the same as the brahmāvarta of the post-Rigvedic Aryans and the holy Kuruk ṣ etra of the Tīrthayātrā Parva of the Mahābhārata (III.81). (Talageri 2008)
Climate and topography
Talageri notes: The climate of the Rigveda is very clearly that of a monsoon land, where the storm-god or thunder-god of the skies, Indra, is the main and most important god. And the monsoon areas of India just stop short of the Punjab. (Talageri 2008)
- The Rigveda “reflects not so much a wandering life…. as a life stable and fixed, a life of halls and cities, and shows sacrificial cases in such detail as to lead one to suppose that the hymnists were not on the tramp, but were comfortable well-fed priests” [...] If the first home of the Aryans can be determined at all by the conditions topographical and meteorological, described in their early hymns, then decidedly the Punjab was not that home. For here there are neither mountains nor monsoon storms to burst, yet storm and mountain belong to the very marrow of the Rigveda. ...[it is] ―a district [...] where monsoon storms and mountain scenery are found, that district, namely, which lies South of Umballa (or Ambālā). It is here, in my opinion, that the Rigveda, taken as a whole, was composed. In every particular, this locality fulfils the physical conditions under which the composition of the hymns was possible, and what is of paramount importance, is the first district east of the Indus that does so.
- Edward Washburn Hopkins 1898. The Punjab and the Rig-Veda. pp. 19-28 in the ‘Journal of the American Oriental Society’, Vol. 19, July 1898
Talageri: And hima in the meaning of "snow" is also not a "linguistic memory": it is mentioned in the Rigveda only twice in the New Rigveda, after the Vedic Aryans expanded westwards past the Punjab into Afghanistan and the northwestern Himalayas from their Haryana homeland: in X.121.4 (a reference to the snow-covered mountains of the Himalayas or the northwest) it means snow, and in another reference, in VIII.32.26, it could possibly refer to a weapon made of ice.[1]
Bihar (KIkaTa)
The most historically prominent part of ancient Bihar was Magadha, also known as KIkaTa. While the word Magadha is not found in the Rigveda, the word KIkaTa is found in III.53.14. The reference is to SudAs’s battle with the KIkaTas and their king Pramaganda (whose name is connected by many scholars with the word Magadha = Pra-maganda). This clinches the origin of the Bharatas in Uttar Pradesh: the expansion of the Bharatas under SudAs took place in two directions, eastwards into Bihar, and westwards across the SarasvatI into the Punjab. Clearly, only a homeland in the area between KASI and KurukSetra fits into this picture.(Talageri 2000)
MaNDala III mentions KIkaTa in Bihar, the easternmost location named in the Rigveda. Witzel, naturally, finds such an eastern location difficult to swallow, and asserts that the KIkaTas are “still frequently misplaced in Magadha (McDonell and Keith, 1912, Schwartzberg, 1975) even though their territory is clearly described as being to the south of KurukSetra, in eastern Rajasthan or western Madhya Pradesh, and Magadha is beyond the geographical horizon of the Rigveda.” (Talgeri 2000)
- Kikata is Magadha in every other occurrence of the name in ancient texts; and very few scholars, if any, have suspected any other identity for the word in the RV. The connection between Magadha and Pramaganda is not my suggestion either. My exact words were: “Pramaganda (whose name is connected by many scholars with the word Magadha = Pra-maganda)” (p. 119 OF MY BOOK). Now Magadha, from its very first mention in the AV, is identified by everyone with S. Bihar, as Witzel himself does: “the country of Magadha in S. Bihar” (§8). Both the name Magadha and the language family (Austro-Asiatic) point towards S. Bihar. The various opinions regarding the location of Kikata are summarized by RAHURKAR (1964:26-27). It is clear that the opponents of the equation “Magadha = Kikata” have only one argument (a circular one) – they state that the age of the RV is too early to warrant an acquaintance of the invading Aryans with an Eastern region like S. Bihar. In contrast, Indian tradition is very unanimous in identifying Kikata with Magadha (e.g. Bhagvata Purana I.3.24 and Vayu Purana 108.73-74. Nirukta merely says ‘anarya janapada’ and the word does not occur in the other Samhitas). Thus, we have here a case of a speculation (based on circular arguments) vs. direct textual evidence. In fact, in an earlier publication, WITZEL (1980:103, f.13) suggests that the reader should read pp. 116 sqq. of vol. 2 of the Vedic Index. And the Vedic Index actually identifies Kikata as Magadha after giving divergent opinions! (Talgeri 2001)
Uttar Pradesh (kings of KASI)
The Uttar Pradesh of the present-day is more or less equivalent to the land known in ancient literature as AryAvarta or MadhyadeSa. Neither the word AryAvarta, nor the word MadhyadeSa, is found in the Rigveda. Nor is there any direct reference in the hymns to any place in Uttar Pradesh. But, the AnukramaNIs provide us with a priceless clue: hymns IX.96 and X.179.2 are composed by a late Bharata RSi who (like many other composers in MaNDala X and the corresponding parts of MaNDala IX) attributes his compositions to his remote ancestor, Pratardana. He, accordingly, uses the epithets of his ancestor: in IX.96, the epithet is DaivodAsI (son or descendant of DivodAsa); and in X.179.2, the epithet is KASirAja (King of KASI). Pratardana was a king of KASI, which is in eastern Uttar Pradesh. This can only mean that the Bharata Kings of the Early Period of the Rigveda were Kings of KASI; and, in the light of the other information in the Rigveda, the land of the Bharatas extended from KASI in the east to KurukSetra in the west.(Talageri 2000)
a. The evidence of Indian tradition outside the Rigveda which knows the land from KASI to KurukSetra as AryAvarta or MadhyadeSa throughout not only the Puranic and Epic literature (which, moreover, clearly describes this land as the original homeland in its traditional accounts, as noted by Pargiter), but even the rest of the Vedic literature. The geography even of the Yajurveda is clearly an Uttar Pradesh centred geography. That the geography of the Rigveda is also the same has escaped the recognition of the scholars purely and simply because these scholars are so mesmerised by the Aryan invasion theory, and so obsessed with the vital need to locate the Rigveda in the northwest and the Punjab for the sheer survival of the theory, that their ideas and conclusions about the geography of the Rigveda are based on the tenets of this theory rather than on the material within the hymns of the text. (Talageri 2000)
Haryana (ILAyAspada)
The region in Haryana known as KurukSetra or BrahmAvarta in ancient times was considered to be the holiest place on earth. But the Rigveda refers to this holy region by other names or epithets: it is known as vara A pRthivyA (the best place on earth) or nAbhA pRthivyA (the navel or centre of the earth); and two specific places in this region are named in the hymns: ILAyAspada or ILaspada, and MAnuSa. (Talageri 2000)
These two places are clearly named in III.23.4: “He (DevavAta) set thee in the best place on earth (vara A pRthivyA) in ILAyAspada, on an auspicious day. Shine brightly, Agni, on the DRSadvatI, on MAnuSa on the ApayA, and on the SarasvatI.” (Talageri 2000)
The MahAbhArata, in its TIrthayAtrA Parva section of the Vana Parva, devotes one part (III.81, containing 178 verses) to the KurukSetra region, and gives details about the locations of the major pilgrim centres in this region. (Talageri 2000)
Within a span of 21 verses (III.81.53-73) it gives details about the locations of the particular places with which we are concerned here:
Mbh. III.81.53-54: “Then from there one should go to the world-famous ManuSa… By bathing (in the lake) there, a man who is chaste and master of his senses is cleansed of all evils, and (he) glories in the world of heaven.”
Mbh. III.81.55-56: “The distance of a cry east of MAnuSa, there is a river called ApagA, visited by the Siddhas;… when one brahmin is fed there, it is as though a crore of them have been fed.”
Mbh. III.81.62-64: “Thereupon one should go to the world-famous SAraka… There is also there the Abode-of-IlA Ford (IlAspada): by bathing there and worshipping the ancestors and Gods, one suffers no misfortune…”
Mbh. III.81.73: “By bathing in the DRSadvatI and satisfying the deities, a man finds the reward of a Land-of-the-fire (AgniSToma) and an Overnight-Sacrifice (AtirAtra).”6
M.L. Bhargava, in his brilliant research on the subject points out that these places are still extant: MAnuSa is still known as MAnas, still a pilgrim centre, a village 3½ miles northwest of Kaithal; the ApayA or ApagA tIrtha is still recognised at Gadli between MAnas and Kaithal; and ILAyAspada or ILaspada at SAraka is the present-day Shergadh, 2 miles to the southeast of Kaithal: “MAnuSa and IlAspada were thus situated on the right and left sides of the ApayA, about 5½ miles apart, and in the tract between the DRSadvatI and the SarasvatI.”7
What is more, ILA, the deity worshipped at ILAyAspada or ILaspada, is one of the three Great Goddesses (one, as we saw, is SarasvatI) who are worshipped in the AprI-sUktas of all the ten families of composers in the Rigveda, and specifically named in all ten of them.
The third Great Goddess is BhAratI (named in seven of the AprI-sUktas, called by another name MahI, in two others, and implied in the tenth), and M.L. Bhargava points out that BhAratI is the deity of the still extant “BhAratI-tIrtha of Kopar or Koer in the middle of KurukSetra, 22 miles east of Kaithal and 12 miles south-southwest of Thanesar”.8
It is clear that the three Great Goddesses, who are worshipped in the AprI-sUktas of all the ten families of composers in the Rigveda, are deities of places in KurukSetra: this is specifically stated in II.3.7 which refers to the “three high places” (adhI sAnuSu trISu) in “the centre of the earth” (nAbhA pRthivyA = KurukSetra). The next verse names the three Goddesses, BhAratI, ILA and SarasvatI; and this is the only reference, outside the ten AprI-sUktas, where these Goddesses are named together.
The following are the verses which refer to these places in Haryana:
a. Vara A pRthivyA:
III. 23.4; 53.11.
b. NAbhA pRthivyA:
I.143.4;
II.3.7;
III.5.9; 29.4;
IX.72.7; 79.4; 82.3; 86.8
X.1.6.
c. ILaspada/ILAyAspada:
I. 128.1;
II. 10.1;
III. 23.4; 29.4;
VI. 1.2;
X. 1.6; 70.1; 91.1, 4; 191.1.
d. MAnuSa:
I. 128.7;
III. 23.4.
(As the word MAnuSa can also mean “man”, it is difficult to recognize the references to the holy spot of that name in other occurences of the word in the Rigveda. Hence it will be safe to cite only the two above verses, in which the references are indisputable.)(Talageri 2000)
The references to Haryana are fairly distributed throughout the Rigveda, right from the oldest MaNDala VI: VI.1.2 refers to Agni being established at ILaspada. Even more significantly, III.23.4 tells us that DevavAta (an ancestor of DivodAsa of the oldest MaNDala VI) established Agni at that spot. (Incidentally this appears to reflect an ancient custom of maintaining a perpetual fire, a custom still preserved by the Zoroastrians.)(Talageri 2000)
The references to these places are particularly profuse in MaNDala III, the MaNDala which represents the commencement of the westward expansion of the Vedic Aryans. (Talageri 2000)
- Witzel should read carefully the article “The Punjab and the Rig-veda” by Prof. E.W. HOPKINS (1898) who points out in great detail that the Punjab cannot be the home of composition of the RV, and that the Ambala region of Haryana is the westernmost possible area which fulfils the topographical and meteorological conditions described in the RV. (Prof. Hopkins is definitely one of the greatest Indologists produced by the West, but the objective and unbiased nature of his scholarship and analysis will undoubtedly make him a special target of Witzel’s venom: “badly out dated…. by more than a century”; perhaps even, because of his work on the Epics, a scholar with a “purANic mindset”!) Witzel assures us that the flooding of rivers described in the RV is caused by melting of snow (in spring, I presume) and that this is typical of the Punjab. Amusingly, while Witzel sees a Punjabi spring in swollen rivers, Wilhelm Rau (another German Indologist) sees the rainy season. Explaining the phrase “shaaradih purah” (RV 6.20.10), RAU (1976:37) says: “I therefore take shaaradih purah as ‘purah constructed in autumn’ against possible attacks, in other words as provisional defenses to be repaired or rebuilt every autumn after the floods of the rainy season.” (Talgeri 2001)
- So far as U.P. is concerned, I have pointed out that eastern U.P. was the original homeland of the Purus (i.e. they originally came from the east); their homeland in the period of composition of the RV covered both U.P. and Haryana; and the area where the hymns were composed was Haryana, which was their centre of activity, and which they regarded as the best and holiest place on earth. (Talgeri 2001)
Punjab
- See Sapta Sindhu
- About my conclusion that the Iranians migrated westwards from the Punjab, Witzel claims that “T. opts for the Panjab as hapta h@ndu is mentioned in the vIdEvdAd (actually, as the second least desirable of sixteen countries, since it is ‘too hot’ for comfort!)” (§9) By referring to the heat in Hapta Handu, Witzel cannot be denying the identity of this land with the Punjab (where, in fact, we do find the hottest spot on earth, Jakobabad), so he is presumably only denying that a land described as having undesirable qualities could have been an original homeland of the Iranians. But then, all the sixteen lands named in the Videvdad list are described as having different undesirable qualities, and all of them were the habitats of the Iranians in that remote period. (Talageri 2001)
Afghanistan
Gandhara and Kashmir
Witzel rejects my connection of Gandhari with gandharva and Kashyapa with Kashmir as “folk- etymology” (§8). The fact that in this case, as in almost all the cases rejected by him, the obvious similarities between the respective words (not, in either case, first discovered by me) is corroborated by close correspondences in sense and context, is ignored by Witzel. All the four are closely connected with Soma: Gandhari and Kashmir geographically (Soma being “a plant of the High Iranian, Pamir and Himalayan mountains”), and the gandharvas and Kashyapa mythically and ritually throughout the RV. Witzel’s aside that the connection between Kashyapa and Kashmir is “not mentioned before Patanjali, 150 BCE!” is puerile: can Witzel produce a reference older than “150 BCE” to disprove this connection, or demonstrate that Patanjali had an axe to grind in making this connection, or give undisputed etymologies for all these words to show that they have no connections at all with each other?..... On the other hand, the six hymns named in the Aitareya Brahmana (p. 73-74 OF MY BOOK) as interpolations DO pose an exception to the general trend: the word ‘gandharva’ (p. 113 OF MY BOOK). (Talageri 2001)