Dating the Vedas – Part 2: Saraswati illuminates the way

Reading Time: 18 minutes

How old are the Vedas, who wrote the Rig Veda? Are the Aryans a myth, a hoax, or did they really exist? What are the mysteries of the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC)? In a two part blog, we trace the evidences available and theories made about the origin of the Vedas and their connection with the IVC and the Aryans.

Part 1 examined how ancient Indian history has been dated. We decoded the myth behind the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) and saw how AIT was invented to further colonial interests. In this blog we will critically examine the theory of Aryan migration and how the Saraswati river and its past flow help us date the Rig Veda.

Migrating Aryans

With AIT being fully discredited by scholars by the early 1980’s, an alternate theory was proposed to establish an Aryan connection to the Vedas. The essence of this theory, called the Aryan Migration Theory (AMT), was:

• There existed a ‘race’ of people called the Aryans in Central Asia. They were militarily superior, had horses and chariots and knew farming.
• The Aryan language was Sanskrit, or at least some early version of Sanskrit
• Aryans did not invade and massacre the citizens of the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC). Instead, the Aryans came through the Khyber pass on their horses and chariots and intermingled with the gentle citizens of the IVC. Horses were introduced to IVC by the Aryans.
• With time, they forced their ideas and culture over the IVC people. Eventually the IVC civilization disappeared and only the ‘Aryan civilization’ existed.
• And, finally, having complete control of the land, their sages sat down and composed the Rig Veda. Aryan migration happened around 1500 BCE and the Rig Veda is a later product.

Compare this with the AIT and you will notice the similarities between the two theories. Except for the difference between the Aryans invading/massacring the IVC citizens versus the Aryans migrating, nearly everything else is identical. Aryans were a ‘race’ of people, they belonged to Central Asia, they were militarily superior and these outsiders wrote the Rig Veda. Bottom-line: the Vedic tradition is a foreign import.

How true is AMT, does it stand the test of scrutiny? The horse and the spoked wheel is often used as evidence to prove the correctness of the AMT. Let us examine both of these in some detail.

Chasing Horse Skeletons

Domestication of horses in Central Asia/Arabia has been recorded via fossils and other evidences over several thousand years. The Rig Veda too has innumerable references to the ‘Ashva’ or the horse. Naturally, only a culture that knew about the horse could have composed poems about it.

The horse and the spoked wheel is often used as evidence to prove the correctness of the AMT.

And that’s where the catch was – the AMT claimed that the Harappans never domesticated horse or knew about it. If the Harappans never knew about the horse, they could have never composed Vedic poems about the animal – and hence the Vedas were not the creation of the IVC! It surely must be the Aryans who migrated to the IVC region, introduced the horse and later composed the Vedas.

Harappan horse under dunes of ignorance…

This belief that Harappans were ignorant about the horse is so wide spread that it is believed to be the gospel truth. Archaeological evidences, on the other hand, prove that IVC was very well aware of horses. Let us look at the key evidences available (you will find links to each of these documents in the Further Reading section).

Surely the ‘migrating Aryans’ couldn’t have crossed the Khyber pass into IVC cities and reached Karnataka in such a short time.

• Excavations conducted by J P Joshi of the ASI at Surkotada in Kutch in 1971-72 discovered horse teeth and phalanges (phalange is the hoof bone of the horse). These were dated to around 2000 BCE. The IVC was in its mature phase at this time.
• Excavations conducted at Halluru in Haveri district of Karnataka by archaeozoologist K R Alur in the 1970’s found horse phalange that could be dated back to 1800 BCE (later civilizational period of the IVC). Surely the ‘migrating Aryans’ couldn’t have crossed the Khyber pass into IVC cities and reached Karnataka in such a short time. Horses were, in other words, present without the ‘Aryan migration‘.
• Horse remains have come up in excavations across the various IVC sites. Kalibangan, Harappa, Lothal and Mohenjo-Daro are some of the sites where skeletal remains of the horse has been found.
• In the Malwa region of central India, around Ujjain, clay figures of horse and horse skeletons (dated to before 2000 BCE) has been discovered by the archaeological work of Prof. Dhavalikar and Prof. Wakankar of Pune’s Deccan College.
• Horse fossils have also been excavated from near Allahabad by G R Sharma and dated to late IVC period.

We can safely say, based on these evidences, that the IVC knew about the horse and there were domesticated horses in the IVC cities. The Rig Vedic sages didn’t need an ‘Aryan migration’ to compose verses about the horse.

What’s in a wheel?

The humble spoked wheel – of the type that you see in bullock carts or bicycles today – has been at the center of another controversy. For long it was believed that the IVC knew only about solid disc wheels. Such wheels were seen in the many toys excavated from IVC sites and it has been ever since believed that the IVC had not evolved to using spoked wheel.

What’s with the type of wheel you may ask – actually a lot! The spoked wheel is what a chariot would use, as it allows for a lighter and swifter vehicle. And the million dollar question – which animal is yoked to a chariot? A horse, of course! The IVC had no spoked wheel because they had no horse and no chariot. And who introduced both of them – you guessed it right, the migrating Aryans. Once again, let us test this theory against available evidence.

The wheels of evidence

Bhirrana is a small village in Haryana located about 200kms from Delhi. While it may look like a quiet little village now, it has a power packed history. Bhirrana’s history has been traced back to the 8th century BCE – the archaeological ruins at Bhirrana is around 10,000 years old. Bhirrana was also an important town in the IVC times, but was eventually abandoned during the mature Harappan phase around 2500 BCE.

Does the Rig Veda contain within itself the secret of its origin?

Excavations conducted by the ASI has ‘yielded considerable number of spoked terracotta toy wheels’ from the Early-Mature Harappan phase. These findings were published by L S Rao in the Indian Archaeological Society’s Puratattva magazine under the title “The Harappan Spoked Wheels Rattled Down the Streets of Bhirrana, Dist. Fatehabad, Haryana,” (see the Further Reading section for details). These findings proved conclusively that spoked wheel was known even in the early stages of the IVC. The AMT does not stand the test of scrutiny.

Where the Saraswati flowed

We have seen so far that the theories of Aryan Invasion (AIT) and Aryan Migration (AMT) do not stand the test of scrutiny. There exists innumerable evidence that proves both these theories wrong. So if the Rig Veda cannot be assigned to the Aryans, then who composed them? Does the Rig Veda contain within itself the secret of its origin? Maybe it’s time we look closely to what some of the verses of the Vedas have to say and try and reconstruct the past.

Importance of decoding the river’s flow

I sing a lofty song, for she is mightiest, most divine of Streams. Sarasvati will I exalt with hymns and lauds, and, O Vasistha, Heaven and Earth.

^{Rig Veda: Mandala 7, Hymn 96}

Thus sang Rishi Vasishta in praise of the ‘most divine of streams’, the Saraswati. The Rig Veda has innumerable references to the Saraswati, in fact Saraswati is more frequently referred to than even the Ganga, the holiest of Indian rivers. The Vedic sages called it the ‘Nadi Uttama’, the greatest and excellent of all rivers. The Saraswati is also referenced to in the ‘Nadistuti Sukta’, the Rig Vedic hymn that identifies the seven rivers that flowed through the Vedic heartland.

Fast-forward to the 21st century. There is no Saraswati river today, at least there flows no river today that matches Vasishta’s description. Did the river ever flow, or was it just someone’s poetic license that invented a river out of thin air?

Knowing how or where the Saraswati flowed helps because:

• The Vedas were supposed to have been composed on its banks, and all the great sages of the past had their ashrams there.
• Vedic literature also indicates that the river dried out over time
• Logic dictates that if the Rig Vedic sages had their ashrams on the river bank, it must surely have been before the river dried out.
• Once we find out when the river dried out, we can safely assume that the Vedas were composed prior to that.

Rig Vedic references to Saraswati

The Rig Veda has innumerable references to the Saraswati. We will look at a few of them here and attempt to deduce some important aspect of the river from them.

Slayer of Mountains

She with her might, like one who digs for lotus-stems, hath burst with her strong waves the ridges of the hills.

Let us invite with songs and holy hymns for help Sarasvati who slayeth the Paravatas.

^{Rig Veda: Mandala 6, Hymn 61. Underline added for emphasis}

The Rishi praises Saraswati as one who has slayed the Parvatas and whose strong waves has burst the ridges of the hills. There are no hills in present-day Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat or Sindh, worthy of such description. On the other hand, the ‘Parvatas’ that the Rishi is alluding to is clearly the Himalayas. The Rishi is praising Saraswati as one who is flowing down from the Himalayas. This gives us a clear indication that the Saraswati of the past had its origin in the Parvatas of the Himalayas – much like the Ganga, Yamuna, Sutlej and Indus of today.

From Mountain to Sea

Pure in her course from mountains to the ocean, alone of streams Sarasvati hath listened.

^{Rig Veda: Mandala 7, Hymn 95. Underline added for emphasis.}

The Rishi praises Saraswati as having remained pure in her course. What would that mean? A possible meaning is that Saraswati never merged with any other river, unlike the Yamuna that merged with the Ganga or the Jhelum/Beas etc. that merged with the Indus.

And where did she flow to? The Rishi says ‘from mountains to the ocean’. The Saraswati was a river that flowed down from the Himalayas to the ocean without merging with or joining any other river.

Seven sisters

Seven-sistered, sprung from threefold source, the Five Tribes’ prosperer, she must be Invoked in every deed of might.

Marked out by majesty among the Mighty Ones, in glory swifter than the other rapid Streams, Created vast for victory like a chariot, Sarasvati must be extolled by every sage.

^{Rig Veda: Mandala 6, Hymn 61. Underline added for emphasis.}

Saraswati, the Rishi sings, has a three fold source and has seven sisters. She flows as a rapid stream and is vast. And the river is ‘marked out by majesty among the mighty ones’. It is very evident the high reverence that the river was held in the Rig Veda.

And who are the sister rivers? The Nadistuti sukta (Rig Veda, Mandala 10, Hymn 75) helps us understand the riverine geography of the Vedic times. From East to West, the rivers have been identified as (referring to their current names):

• Ganga
• Yamuna
• Saraswati
• Sutlej
• Chenab
• Ravi
• Indus
• Kabul

Each of these rivers fall into a precise geographical order and can be traced exactly in that order even today – with the exception of the Saraswati which has disappeared altogether. But the Rig Veda gives us a vital clue – if we are to search for the Saraswati, we need to look for it between where the Yamuna and Sutlej flows today!

Absence of evidence is not evidence

With these clues in hand, let’s turn to science to finally unravel the puzzle!

Saraswati Paleochannels

What do you do if you believe that a river, a mighty one at that, has disappeared from sight – how do you search for it? One option is to just dig down deep enough and look for sediments and traces of the river. That would work except that it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack – there is no one place you can dig with confidence of finding the river. And, as they say, absence of evidence is not evidence. The smarter approach : take a step back – about 1000km above the ground level actually – and use a remote sensing satellite to look for paleochannels.

Did you know…
Paleochannels represent the flow area of ancient rivers or streams that have over time been buried over by other sediment or newer water bodies. Such channels are never visible to the naked eye from ground level, but a satellite high above can clearly mark out minor differences in land forms and vegetations and help track down long extinct rivers.

And that’s precisely what ISRO’s Remote Sensing Centre at Jodhpur in Rajasthan did. Using satellite imagery captured by the ISRO’s Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS), scientists were able to map out the paleochannel for the now extinct Saraswati river. This report was published in the January-March 2002 edition of ISRO’s magazine ‘Space India’ and was then followed up by ground level drilling which confirmed the discovery.

From mountains to the ocean

The Saraswati was a mighty river originating from Manasarovar lake in the inner Himalayas and flowing all the way down to the Gulf of Kutch. The river flow covered part of (present day) Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Western Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Geographically, the river was located exactly as where the Nadistuti sukta had mentioned – between the Yamuna and the Sutlej. And, just as the Rig Vedic hymns had indicated, the river definitely was a slayer of mountains and pure in her course from mountains to the ocean.

Surprisingly, the Saraswati flowed through areas that today have an extremely dry climate. Present day Thar desert and the Rann of Kutch fell under the drainage area of the Saraswati. We can very well imagine that during the IVC times these areas would have had a very different climate than what it is now.

Tributaries

The Vedic Saraswati was fed by waters from the Sutlej and the Drishadvati river. Amongst these two, the Sutlej still flows – except that it flows into the Indus river. The Vedic Drishadvati has been identified with the present-day Chautang river that flows through Haryana. Unlike in the past where the Drishadvati was fed by the Yamuna, today the Chautang is a rain-fed river dependent nearly entirely on the monsoon.

IVC sites and the Saraswati

The paleochannel study has so far helped us understand where the Vedic Saraswati flowed. If the Saraswati was as great a river as the Vedic sages had praised it, then it would be reasonable to expect many of the IVC sites to be around the river. To validate this, let us superimpose the location of the known IVC sites over the paleochannel map.

This image is a real eye opener and settles the matter once and for all. The vast majority of the IVC sites are around the drainage area of the Saraswati river. As can be clearly seen, while there are many sites around the Indus, their density pales into insignificance when compared against those around the Saraswati river. The Saraswati of the Vedic period did exist and the IVC was built around the Saraswati river. It is now time to rename the Indus Valley Civilization as the Saraswati-Indus Civilization (SIC).

Did you know…
Mohenjo-Daro was considered the largest IVC site until recently. Over the last few years, that title has gone to Rakhigarhi in Haryana. Situated 150km away from Delhi, Rakhigarhi is spread over 350 hectares and is still under excavation. And no prizes for guessing – Rakhigarhi is located along the paleochannel of the Saraswati river.

The Disappearing Act

So far we have examined scientific evidence that proves that the Saraswati river existed during the Vedic age and an entire civilization sprung up along its banks. But what caused the the river to disappear and what was its impact on the SIC.

The Saraswati of the Vedic period did exist and the IVC was built around the Saraswati river.

Tributaries change course

The Sutlej and the Drishadvati were the main tributaries of the Saraswati. The Sutlej was fed by the inner Himalayan glaciers and the waters of the Manasarovar lake at the foothill of Mt. Kailas. Drishadvati rose from the Shivaliks, the lower Himalayas, and was additionally fed by the Yamuna.

Somewhere around 2500 BCE (during the mature Harappan phase), both these tributaries changed course. The Sutlej which was the biggest contributor to the Saraswati’s water flow, moved West and was ‘captured’ by the Indus river system. Likewise, the Yamuna moved East and was captured by the Ganga; the Drishadvati had very less water flow without the Yamuna and in turn the Saraswati river started drying up. It is estimated that by the 1800 BCE, the main Saraswati basin had gone completely dry.

Over exploitation

The Saraswati river, at the height of the SIC, would have supported a million people or so. As like today, such a big population would have exerted tremendous pressure on the river ecosystem. With the tributaries changing course over time, this over-dependency on the river would have quickly dried up the seasonal water flow. The once mighty river would have dried up over a couple of generations and the civilization built up around it crumbled in no time.

Saraswati – as it exists today

The Vedic Saraswati has long disappeared. In it’s place what we have today is the Ghaggar-Hakra river. Ghaggar-Hakra is a composite name – the river is named Ghaggar in India and Hakra in Pakistan. The river is a seasonal river, fed by monsoon rains. And, just as the Vedic scriptures say, the river does disappear into the sands of the Thar desert.

Impact on people

Once the Saraswati turned into a seasonal river, no large scale human settlements was possible along its path. This would have triggered a mass exodus causing millions of people to migrate North-East to the fertile Gangetic plain. How do we know people moved to the Gangetic plain? The next big phase of urbanization in India, after the collapse of the SIC, is seen in the Gangetic plain with the rise of the Mahajanapadas, the Nandas and the Mauryan empire.

Saraswati was now the Goddess of learning, wisdom and knowledge

The Saraswati was now only in the memories of these people. In memory of their most revered river, the new settlers of the Gangetic plains invented the myth of the Saraswati joining the Yamuna and Ganga at Allahabad: the divinity associated with the Saraswati was now transferred to the Ganga. And keeping in mind the tradition of knowledge and learning that the Vedic sages taught in their ashrams on the banks of the river, Saraswati was turned from a river to a Goddess. Saraswati was now the Goddess of learning, wisdom and knowledge – our civilizational past continues unhindered over several thousand years.

Dating the Vedas

It is now time to put all this information together. What we know thus far is:

• There has never been any Aryan Invasion
• The theory of Aryan Migration and the Aryans authoring the Vedas is equally faulty
• The Rig Veda describes a great river – the Saraswati – on whose banks the Vedic Rishis had their ashrams.
• Satellite imagery has conclusively proved that the Saraswati did exist around the time when the Indus Valley Civilization was at its peak.
• Superimposing the Saraswati paleochannels with the known archaeological sites, we have seen that there are more sites along the now-dried banks of the Saraswati than around the Indus. We can now call the IVC as the Saraswati-Indus Civilization (SIC).
• Due to multiple reasons the Saraswati river dried up around 2500-2000 BCE. With this the mature Harappan phase came to an end and there was a gradual migration of people towards the Gangetic plain where there was no shortage of water.

If the Vedic ashrams were on the banks of the fast-flowing Saraswati, then clearly the ashrams existed before 2500 BCE. We can now establish that the Rig Veda, the first of the Vedas, should have been composed before the Saraswati dried out. In other words, the earliest mandalas of the Rig Veda were composed around 3000 BCE or before. The Vedas are more than 5000 years old.

And who authored the Vedas? There were no Aryans coming in and settling down and composing the Vedas. No other civilizational group advanced enough to author the Vedas existed anywhere else in the country. That leaves us with the simplest option – the Vedas were composed by the sages of the SIC/IVC. The Harappans composed the Vedas. The citizens of Rakhigarhi, Kalibangan, Bhirrana, Dholavira, Lothal, Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro and a 1000 other sites of the most wide-spread ancient civilization ever known to mankind were the Rig Vedic Indians.

Dravidian mystery

With the collapse of the SIC, vast majority of people migrated Eastwards towards the Gangetic plains. A branch of the SIC people moved south and brought the SIC civilization down to South India. There are multiple scientific, literary and linguistic markers that help us trace this journey.

Old Tamil & Indus Scripts

Striking similarities between the SIC script (as used in the seals) and old Tamil. Padmashri Iravatham Mahadevan has done extensive research in this area and his work showing similarities between both scripts are now universally accepted amongst linguists. I have listed out a few of his works in the ‘Further Reading‘ section, it is a fascinating read.

The Agastya connection

Agastya was one of the most revered rishis of the Vedic period. He had composed many of the poems of the Rig Veda, and is referred to many times in the great Indian epics. But that’s not all – Agastya is also considered the father of Tamil language and compiler of Tamil grammar. According to Tamil traditions, Agastya was a great sage who came from Dwaraka in Gujarat with a band of followers that included a few kings. These people settled down in the Tamil country and codified the Tamil language. Long considered an interesting story, we can now co-relate this story with our understanding of the drying up of the Saraswati river and how the SIC collapsed:

• Agastya was a Rishi of the Rig Vedic tradition. He would have had his ashrams along the banks of the Saraswati river
• When the Saraswati flow stopped, he along with his followers, moved south.
• In the Tamil country, where they finally settled, Agastya codified the Tamil language during the period of the first Sangam. This explains the close similarity between Old Tamil and the writings in the SIC seals.

We can deduce here that Dravidian is not a ‘race’ of people who were expelled from the Saraswati basin by the ‘Aryans’. The word Dravidian is to be used purely in a language/linguistic sense.

Conclusion

This has been one epic journey where faith, archaeology, history, story telling, inscriptions and satellite imagery have helped us piece together the puzzle of the origin of the Rig Vedas.

The citizens of Rakhigarhi, Kalibangan, Bhirrana, Dholavira, Lothal, Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro and a 1000 other sites of the most wide-spread ancient civilization ever known to mankind were the Rig Vedic Indians.

To summarize our findings:

• The Rig Veda, and subsequent Vedic literature, has an Indic origin.
• There is significant similarity between Old Tamil and the inscriptions in Harappan seals. Understanding Old Tamil may be the way to decipher the Harappan script.
• We have a civilizational continuity that can be traced back to the Saraswati-Indus Civilization. Our customs, our traditions, our beliefs – the very basis of who we are – is an unbroken tradition spanning back to 5000-6000+ years
• AIT is a hoax.
• It can be reasonably assumed that over time there would have been a steady stream of migrants from Central Asia and beyond into the SIC region. This is to be naturally expected since the SIC was a very prosperous civilization.
• There was no ‘Aryan migration’ that overpowered the SIC civilization.
• India has always been a land of cultural assimilation and we can trace back this civilizational trait back to the SIC.

Sanskrit

Tracing the history of Sanskrit is an interesting challenge in itself. Sanskrit texts dating to 1500 BCE have been found in Syria (Mitanni kingdom), earlier than have been found in India. Some scholars have used this as evidence to state that Sanskrit was imported from Syria (by the Aryans, who else!). Without getting into much detail, doesn’t it seems strikingly odd that there is no trace of Sanskrit in Syria/middle-East/central Asia today, but the language that was transported to far away India spread all over the country and influenced all other languages.

A more sane explanation could be that as the SIC civilization expanded, the Harappans had moved through Central Asia and influenced cultures all along their path. Sanskrit, in early forms, was part of this cultural influence. This also explains why in its country of origin – India – the language still survives.

Did you know…
Do you find such linguistic/cultural influences hard to believe? Travels to Malaysia/Cambodia/Bali/Thailand and you will find many Tamil inscriptions there. Surely no one believes that Tamil came from the far East to India!

And much more…

We have not touched upon many aspects of the SIC that are critical and intriguing – in particular the evolution of Sanskrit, deciphering of Harappan script and the Out-of-India theory of SIC civilization spreading out of India to Central Asia. We will discuss this and allied topics in subsequent posts.

Further Reading

Books

Amongst books, I highly recommend B B Lal’s book “The Rigvedic people: Invaders, Immigrants or Indigenous”. Prof Lal, was the Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) between 1968-1972. He led excavation of the SIC site at Kalibangan in Rajasthan where he discovered the world’s first ploughed field (dated to 2800 BCE, i.e. 4800 years ago!).

Michel Danino’s ‘The Lost River: On the Trail of the Sarasvati’ details out all the literary, scientific and archaeological evidences surrounding the Saraswati river and its disappearance. A must read for anyone interested in this subject.

There are other books by R S Sharma (India’s Ancient Past) and articles by eminent historians (notably Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib) who have proposed alternate theories in support of AMT and an Aryan source to the Vedas. Another book in this genre is journalist Tony Joseph’s ‘Early Indians’. Their theories and line of thought have been debunked by Indian archaeologists, scientists and historians (including a recent book ‘Genetics and the Aryan debate: “Early Indians” Tony Joseph’s Latest Assault’ written specifically to debunk Tony Joseph’s theories) – all these can be easily found by a quick online search.

Online books/articles

Evidence for horse

Lots of research articles have been published in this space. The ones I have referred to, and read, are:

• Archaeology Online – The Horse Debate
• Surkotada Excavation
• Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology (refer to page #4 specifically)
• “Animal Remains” in Proto-historical Cultures of the Tungabhadra Valley
• Harappan horse, a highly recommended quick read
• Records of the Zoological society of India

Evidence for Spoked Wheel

• Harappan Spoked Wheels
• Beyond Horses and Chariots

Paleochannel maps

ISRO has put out all the paleochannel maps via an interactive website. I would encourage you to visit this site and look up the paleochannels, archaeological sites and drainage areas of the existing and prehistoric rivers.

ISRO’s publication, Space India, announced its discovery of the paleochannels in the January-March 2002 edition of the magazine.

Indus Script

Iravatham Mahadevan has produced many scholarly, and at the same time easily understandable, works around the Indus script. A few of them that I enjoyed reading:

• Meluha and Agastya
• Indus and Dravidian Scripts
• Legend of Nilakantha