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Ghaggar-Hakra River

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 The Ghaggar-Hakra River is a dried out river, now consisting of the seasonal Ghaggar River in India and the Hakra riverbed in Pakistan. It is often identified with the Vedic Sarasvati River, but it is disputed if all Rigvedic references to the Sarasvati River refer to this river.

Estimates of the date at which the river dried up range, very roughly, from 2500 to 2000 BC, with a further margin of error at either end of the date-range. This may be precise in geological terms, but for the Indus Valley Civilization (2800 to 1800 BC) it makes all the difference whether the river dried up in 2500 (its early phase) or 2000 (its late phase). Similarly, for the Gandhara grave culture, often identified with the early influx of Indo-Aryans from ca. 1600 BC, it makes a great difference whether the river dried up a millennium earlier, or only a few generations ago, so that by contact with remnants of the IVC like the Cemetery H culture, legendary knowledge of the event may have been acquired.

The identification with the Sarasvati River is based the descriptions in Vedic texts (e.g. in the enumeration of the rivers in Rigveda 10.75.05, the order is Ganga, Yamuna, Sarasvati, Sutlej), and other geological and paleobotanical findings. This however, is disputed. The Victorian era scholar C.F. Oldham was the first to suggest that geological events had redirected the river, and to connect it to the lost Saraswati: "[it] was formerly the Saraswati; that name is still known amongst the people, and the famous fortress of Sarasuti or Saraswati was built upon its banks, nearly 100 miles below the present junction with the Ghaggar." (Oldham 1893: 51-52) [1]

Ghaggar River

The Ghaggar is a seasonal river in India, flowing when water is available from monsoon rains. It originates in the Shivalik Hills of Himachal Pradesh and flows through Punjab and Haryana to Rajasthan; just southwest of Sirsa in Haryana, this seasonal river feeds two irrigation canals that extend into Rajasthan, and is thereby consumed.

The present-day Sarasvati originates in a submontane region (Ambala district) and joins the Ghaggar near Shatrana in PEPSU. Near Sadulgarh (Hanumangarh) the Naiwala channel, a dried out channel of the Sutlej, joins the Ghaggar. Near Suratgarh the Ghaggar is then joined by the dried up Drishadvati river.

The wide river bed of the Ghaggar river suggest that the river once flowed in great strength, and that it formerly continued through eastern Pakistan in the presently dry channel of the Hakra River, possibly emptying into the Rann of Kutch. It supposedly dried up due to the capture of its tributaries by the Indus and Ganges rivers, and the loss of rainfall in much of its catchment area due to deforestation and overgrazing. This is supposed to have happened at the latest in 1900 BCE, but perhaps much earlier.

In India there are also various small or middle-sized rivers called Sarasvati or Saraswati. One of them flows from the west end of the Aravalli Hills into the east end of the Rann of Kutch.

Hakra River

The Hakra is the dried-out channel of a river in Pakistan that until about 2000 BC - 1500 BC was the continuation of the Ghaggar River in India.

Many settlements of the Indus Valley Civilisation have been found along the Ghaggar and Hakra rivers.

(According to National Geographic maps, the Ghaggar-Hakra river flowed through the Indus valley. National Geographic Vol.197, No.6, Page114)

Indus Valley Civilization

The river was also of great importance to the Indus Valley Civilization. Archaeologists have suggested that the drying up of this river may have been one of the causes for the decline of the Indus Valley Civilization.

Along the course of the Ghaggar-Hakra river are many archaeological sites of the Indus Valley Civilization; but not further south than the middle of Bahawalpur district. It could be that the permanent Sarasvati ended there, and its water only reached the sea in very wet rainy seasons. It may also have been affected by much of its water being taken for irrigation.

Over 500 sites of the Indus civilization have been discovered on the Hakra-Ghaggar river and its tributaries (S.P. Gupta 1995: 183). In contrast to this, only 90 to 96 Indus Valley sites have been discovered on the Indus and its tributaries (about 36 sites on the Indus river itself.) V.N. Misra (in S.P. Gupta 1995: 144) states that over 530 Harappan sites (of the more than 800 known sites, not including Degenerate Harappan or OCP) are located on the Hakra-Ghaggar. The other sites are mainly in Kutch-Saurashtra (nearly 200 sites), Yamuna Valley (nearly 70 Late Harappan sites) and in the Indus Valley/ Baluchistan (less than 100 sites).

Early Harrapan sites are mostly situated on the middle Ghaggar-Hakra river bed, and some in the Indus Valley. Most of the Mature Harappan sites are located in the middle Ghaggar-Hakra river valley, and some on the Indus and in the Kutch-Saurashtra. However in the late Harappan period the number of late Harappan sites in the middle Hakra channel and in the Indus valley diminishes, while it expands in the upper Ghaggar-Sutlej channels and in Saurashtra. The abandonement of many sites on the Hakra-Ghaggar between the Harappan and the Late Harappan phase was probably due to the drying up of the Hakra-Ghaggar river.

Because most of the Indus Valley sites are actually located on the Hakra-Ghaggar river and its tributaries and not on the Indus river, some archaeologists have proposed to use the term "Indus Sarasvati Civilization" to refer to the Harappan culture.

In a survey conducted by M.R. Mughal between 1974 and 1977, over 400 sites were mapped along 300 miles of the Hakra river (see M.R. Mughal in S.P. Gupta 1995). The majority of these sites were dated to the fourth or third millennium BCE (Bryant 2001).

Painted Grey Ware sites (ca. 1000 BCE) have been found on the bed and not on the banks of the Ghaggar-Hakra river (Bryant 2001: 168; Gaur 1983).

The Ghaggar-Hakra and its ancient tributaries

Satellite photography has shown that the Ghaggar-Hakra was indeed a large river that dried up probably between ca. 2500 to 2000 B.C. The dried out Hakra river bed is between three and ten kilometers wide. Recent research indicates that the Sutlej and possibly also the Yamuna once flowed into the Saraswati river bed. The Sutlej and Yamuna Rivers have changed their courses over the time. (see for example Studies from the Post-Graduate Research Institute of Deccan College, Pune, and the Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI), Jodhpur. Confirmed by use of MSS (multi-spectoral scanner) and Landsat satellite photography. Note MLBD NEWSLETTER (Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass), Nov. 1989.)

Paleobotanical information also documents the aridity that developed after the drying up of the river. (Gadgil and Thapar 1990 and references therein). The disappearance of the river may have been caused by earthquakes which may have led to the redirection of its tributaries. It has also been suggested that the loss of rainfall in much of its catchment area due to deforestation and overgrazing in what is now Pakistan may have also contributed to the drying up of the river.

The Ghaggar-Hakra and the Sutlej

There are no Harappan sites on the Sutlej in its lower course, only in its upper course near the Siwaliks, which indicates the Sutlej did flow into the Sarasvati at that period of time.

It has been shown by satellite imagery that at Ropar the Sutlej river suddenly flows away from the Ghaggar in a sharp turn. The beforehand narrow Ghaggar river bed itself is becoming suddenly wider at the conjunction where the Sutlej should have met the Ghaggar river. And there is a major paleochannel between the point where the Sutlej takes a sharp turn and where the Ghaggar river bed widens. (see Edwin Bryant 2001).

In later texts like the Mahabharata, the Rigvedic Sutudri (="swiftly flowing") is called Shatudri (Shatadru/Shatadhara), which means a river with 100 flows. [2] The Sutlej (and the Beas and Ravi) have frequently changed their courses.[3]

The Ghaggar-Hakra and the Yamuna

There are also no Harappan sites on the present Yamuna river. There are however Painted Gray Ware (1000 - 600 BC) sites on the Yamuna channel, showing that the river must have flown in the present channel during this period (V.N. Misra in S.P. Gupta 1995:153). The distribution of the Painted Gray Ware sites in the Ghaggar river valley indicates that during this period the Ghaggar river was already partly dried up.

Scholars like Raikes (1968) and Suraj Bhan (1972, 1973, 1975, 1977) have shown that based on archaeological, geomorphic and sedimentological research the Yamuna may have flown into the Saraswati during Harappan times (see V.N. Misra in S.P. Gupta 1995: 149). There are several often dried out river beds (paleochannels) between the Sutlej and the Yamuna, some of them two to ten kilometres wide. They are not always visible on the ground because of excessive silting and encroachment by sand of the dried out river channels (V.N. Misra in S.P. Gupta 1995:149-50). The Yamuna may have flown into the Sarasvati river through the Chautang or the Drishadvati channel, since many Harappan sites have been discovered on these dried out river beds (V.N. Misra in S.P. Gupta 1995: 155).

References

  1. ^ Vishal Agarwal says similarly: It may be noted that the Nara is still called the Sarasvati by rural Sindhis and its dried up delta in Kutch is still regarded as that of Sarasvati by the locals. Template:Harvard reference
  2. ^ Template:Harvard reference
  3. ^ see Vishal Agarwal. A Reply to Michael Witzel’s ‘Ein Fremdling im Rgveda’, JIES, 2003

Bibliography

  • Bryant, Edwin (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195137779.
  • Frawley David: The Rig Veda and the History of India, 2001.(Aditya Prakashan), ISBN 81-7742-039-9
  • Gupta, S.P. (ed.). 1995. The lost Sarasvati and the Indus Civilization. Kusumanjali Prakashan, Jodhpur.
  • Keith and Macdonell. 1912. Vedic Index of Names and Subjects.
  • Oldham, R.D. 1893. The Sarsawati and the Lost River of the Indian Desert. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 1893. 49-76.
  • Shaffer, Jim G. (1995). Cultural tradition and Palaeoethnicity in South Asian Archaeology. In: Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia. Ed. George Erdosy. ISBN 0948-1923.

See also

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