Sarayu
The Sarayu or Hari River (Persian: هریرود or Template:Lang-prs; Pashto: د هري سیند) or Herat River is a river flowing 1,100 kilometres (680 mi) from the mountains of central Afghanistan to Turkmenistan, where it forms the Tejend oasis and disappears in the Karakum Desert. In its lower course, the river forms a northern part of the border between Afghanistan and Iran, and a southeastern part of the border between Turkmenistan and Iran.
The name of the river derives from the Old Persian word Harawaiah 'river rich in water'.[1]
In Turkmenistan it is known as the Tejen or Tedzhen river and passes close to the city of Tedzhen. To the Ancient Greeks it was known as the Arius.[2] In Latin, it was known as the Tarius.
History
One theory identifies the Rigvedic Sarayu river with the Hari river.[3][4]
A Buddhist monastery hand-carved in the bluff of the river Harirud existed in the first centuries during the prevalence of Buddhism. The artificial caves revealed testimony of daily life of the Buddhist monks.[5]
Talageri identifies the Rigvedic Sarayu river as the Avestan Haroyu (Harirud) in Afghanistan. The context is a final battle between westward-expanding Bharata Pūru Indo-Aryans (under Sahadeva and Somaka) and the pre-Avestan Anu proto-Iranians which took place in Afghanistan. [6]
Other scholars have proposed the Epic-Puranic Sarayu (Ghaghara) in Uttar Pradesh[7]
P.L. Bhargava identified it with the Siritoi river, a western tributary of the Indus. The Siritoi is a small, insignificant minor tributary. It is in the south, in northern Baluchistan, and it is a western tributary of the Zhob, which is a southern tributary of the Gomal (the western Gomati in the Rigveda), which is itself a western tributary of the Indus.[8]
The Sarayu is mentioned only three times in the Rigveda: IV.30.18; V.53.9; X.64.9. [9]
Talageri: It appears first in the Rigveda in IV.30.18 only in the context of the Vārṣāgira battle fought by Sahadeva and Somaka at the westernmost extreme of their west-expanding conflict with the proto-Iranians, and this matches with the geographical descriptions in the Iranian records, where the river is definitely the Harirud.[10]
Talageri: The second reference to the Sarayu in the Rigveda is in V.53,9. Here the widely-traveled poet Śyāvāśva Ātreya in one hymn refers to the rivers of the East and Punjab (V.52.17, the eastern river Yamunā; and V.52.9, the Punjab river Paruṣṇī), and in the other hymn refers to the rivers of the northwest and Afghanistan (V.53.9, first line, the tributaries of the Indus, the Rasā, Anitabhā , Kubhā , Krumu, alongwith the Indus=Sindhu itself; and in V.53.9, second line, Sarayu all alone by itself). Clearly, here Sarayu is detached from the Indus and its tributaries as a separate entity.[11]
Talageri: This verse X.64.9, in a very late Rigvedic period, clearly names three distinct, important and independent rivers of the time, and the only rivers of the same independent status as the Sarasvati and the Indus known at the time to the Rigvedic composers are the Ganga in the east and the Harirud in the west: obviously the reference cannot be to the Ganga and must be to the Harirud. Even today, they represent the three main Rigvedic-period rivers found in three distinct present-day countries: India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Significantly, the hymn X.64 refers to the dog-star Tiṣya (Avestan Tištrya, Greek Sirius) known to the Rigveda elsewhere only in one other reference: in V.54.13, a hymn of the same much-travelled composer Śyāvāśva Ātreya who refers to the Sarayu in V.53.9 above. Also, X.64 is one of the few hymns which refers to Aramati (a deity found also in the Avesta as Aramaiti). It also refers to Yama, so important in the Avesta, and Kṛśānu, found in both the Rigveda and the Avesta: so the western Iranian connection in this late reference is obvious.[12]
Course
The river originates in the eastern part of Ghor Province in the Baba mountain range, part of the extensions of Hindu Kush system, and follows a relatively straight course to the west.
Still some 200 kilometres (120 mi) upstream from Herat the river meets the Jam River at the site of the Minaret of Jam, the second tallest ancient minaret in the world at 65 metres (213 ft).
In western Afghanistan the Hari Rud flows to the south of Herat. The valley around Herat with the Paropamisus Mountains (Selseleh-ye Safēd Kōh) on the right river bank was historically famous for its fertility and dense cultivation. After Herat, the river turns northwest, then north, forming the northern part of the border between Afghanistan and Iran. Farther north it forms the south-eastern part of the border between Iran and Turkmenistan. The Iran–Turkmenistan Friendship Dam is on the river.[13]
The Afghan-India Friendship Dam (Salma Dam) is a hydroelectric and irrigation dam project located on the Hari Rud in Chishti sharif District of Herat Province in western Afghanistan.
The average annual discharge of the Hari Rud is about 55 m3/s, but during a spring flood in 1939 the discharge went up to 1090 m3/s.[14]
In 2000, the river dried up completely during a 10-month drought.[15]
- ↑ Everett-Heath, John (2019-10-24). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names [archive]. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780191882913.001.0001 [archive]. ISBN 978-0-19-188291-3.
- ↑ George Rawlinson (1873). The sixth great Oriental monarchy; or The geography, history, & antiquities of Parthia, collected and illustrated from ancient and modern sources [archive]. pp. 69, 444(index).
- ↑ Irfan Habib; Vijay Kumar Thakur, eds. (2003). The Vedic Age and the Coming of Iron, C. 1500-700 B.C. [archive] Tulika. p. 4.
- ↑ Early Aryans of India, 3100–1400 B.C. By S. B. Roy Page 76
- ↑ Lithuanian archeologists make discovery in Afghanistan [archive], The Baltic Times, May 22, 2008; Archaeologists make new discoveries about ancient Afghan cultures [archive], Top News, 23 May 2008.
- ↑ https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/03/a-review-of-rivers-of-rgveda-by-jijith.html [archive]
- ↑ https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/03/a-review-of-rivers-of-rgveda-by-jijith.html [archive]
- ↑ https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/03/a-review-of-rivers-of-rgveda-by-jijith.html [archive]
- ↑ https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/03/a-review-of-rivers-of-rgveda-by-jijith.html [archive]
- ↑ https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/03/a-review-of-rivers-of-rgveda-by-jijith.html [archive]
- ↑ https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/03/a-review-of-rivers-of-rgveda-by-jijith.html [archive]
- ↑ https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/03/a-review-of-rivers-of-rgveda-by-jijith.html [archive]
- ↑ Shroder, John F. (2016). "Hari Rud – Murghab River Basin". Transboundary Water Resources in Afghanistan: Climate Change and Land-Use Implications. Saint Louis: Elsevier. pp. 410–412. ISBN 978-0-12-801861-3.
- ↑ "DLM 3 Rivers of the Hindu Kush, Pamir, and Hindu Raj" [archive]. International Programs. 24 April 2019. Retrieved 31 October 2020.
- ↑ "Iran-Turkmen river flowing again after drought" [archive]. Parvand News. 3 January 2001. Retrieved 15 January 2021.