Mahabharata is back on television, story starts with Bhīshma
… makes me nostalgic reminds me the story of his sacrifice. How Bhīshma kept
lying on a bed of arrows pierced through his body .Finally breathes his last
when Hastinapur gets safe into the hands of Yudhistra and sun set for
utarayana. When I had seen this for the first time it had puzzled why did he
wait till utarayana for his death?
Discovery of
Saraswati
Meanwhile in India at the start of 19th century
John Marshall discovers the ruins of an ancient civilization around the cities
of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, Later it is identified as the Mohenjo-Daro - Indus
valley civilization. Along
with Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia it was one of three early civilizations of
the Old World, and of the three the most widespread. It flourished in the
basins of the Indus River, one of the major rivers of Asia, and the Ghaggar-Hakra River, which once coursed through northwest
India and eastern Pakistan.
The find of the civilization grew from around 40 sites in
1947 located mostly in Pakistan’s Punjab province to thousands of sites now
(around 3700 sites ) located across India’s
province of Punjab , Haryana, Gujarat and Rajasthan. The area covered by this
civilization was around 800000 kms. While the civilization was named after the
first location it was discovered recent excavations point out that the name
does not describes the geographical extent of the civilization. With thousands of
sites found around the dry bed of a river which has now been identified as the
Vedic river Saraswati and more evidence coming from satellite imageries and
research’s it proves that once there flowed a river around which the
civilization of Harappa flourished .Looking at the amount of sites found around
this river it becomes more appropriate if this is called by the name
Indus-Saraswati civilization.
For years Saraswati was considered as a mythical river
though the river was mentioned in Rig Veda as many as 72 times in 45 hymns and
has been described as the mother of all rivers. Evidences now point to an indeed
an existence of such a river flowing much before 3500 BC up to 2100 BC which
due to seismic activities or other geological activities ceased to be a mighty
river and disappears around 1700 BC.
Aryan invasion Theory
The discovery and disappearance of the river saraswati and
few other discoveries like (lost city of dwarka re-discovered) however has a
huge impact on a different debate and that
is the Aryan invasion theory long ago put by Max Muller who proposed
that Vedas were composed by invading Aryans around 1200 BC. However with Vedas
describing saraswati as a flowing river which ceased to exist long before the
dates given by Muller for Aryan invasion it is now clear that Vedas were
composed much earlier when saraswati was flowing. Also there is no evidence of
any kind of invasion on ground as suggested by Muller. In fact in his book “the
lost river” author Michel danino gives an account of how from mehrgrah which is
an site from the Indus-saraswati civilization around 7000 BC to the modern India
there is continuity in the traditions , religion , gods ,rituals common local
weights etc. Thus the debate is more or less getting settled that Aryans or the
early inhabitants of Indus-saraswati were indeed local indigenous population
and there was a flourishing civilization between river Indus and saraswati
around the end of last glacial age. This also brings us to the conclusion that
Harappa /Indus-Saraswati civilization was the Vedic Civilization.
Arctic characteristic
of some Hymns in Vedas
However there are some interesting evidences which still
leaves few questions unanswered. One of them is rooted in Vedas and was
proposed by none other than Lokamanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a great scholar of Vedas
himself. Though Tilak did not had the benefit of the recent discoveries of thousands
of sites along the dry bed of river saraswati we can still take his work which
points out to the arctic connections to early Aryans. Tilak in his work “The Arctic
Home in the Vedas” point out to hymns in Vedas which are characteristic of
someone located in arctic while composing the Vedas.
For e.g. If an
observer is stationed at the North Pole,the sun will rise there only once a
year, — it will be constantly visible for 6 months and then there will be a
continuous night of 6 months.6 months of night may make us feel that the place
is inhospitable but the night of 6 months may not be completely dark as Tilak
explains how in nights there will be the electric discharges, known as Aurora
Borealis, filling the polar night with their charming glories, and relieving
its darkness to a great extent. Then we have the moon, which, in her monthly revolution,
will be above the polar horizon for a continuous fortnight, displaying her
changing phases, without intermission, to the polar observer. But the chief
cause, which alleviates the darkness of the polar night, is the twilight before
the rising and after the setting of the sun. With us in the tropical or the
temperate zone, this twilight, whether of morning or evening, lasts only for an
hour or two; but at the Pole this state of things is completely altered, and
the twilight of the annual morning and evening is each visible for several
days. The exact duration of this morning or evening twilight is, however, still
a matter of uncertainty. Some authorities fix the period at 45 days, while
others make it last for full two months.
The Polar climate is at present extremely cold; but
in the Interglacial epoch or just before the last ice age it was different, and
thus must have been capable of supporting humans. The Avesta which is the
primary collection of sacred texts of Zoroastrianism,
and is composed in the Avestan language also contains of passages
which very clearly mentions of things characteristic of arctic.
So Did in Mahabharata
when Bhīshma waited for utarayana he was actually waiting for the day to set in
the northern hemisphere which must have been a tradition followed by his
ancestors long ago who may have waited for day to set out before they cremated
their dead and the same tradition must still have had left its traces.Tilak
suggests that It seems, very probable
that the Devayâna and the Pitṛiyâna originally represented a two-fold division of
the year, one of continuous light and the other of continuous darkness as at
the North Pole; and that though it was not suited to the later home of the
Vedic people it was retained, because it was an established and recognized fact
in the language, like the seven suns, or the seven horses of a single sun.
Another interesting point if that at the Pole the
twilight of the yearly morning and evening lingers on for several days. The
sun, in his course through the ecliptic, would take more than a month to reach
the horizon from this point; and during all this time a perpetual twilight will
prevail at the Pole. Long dawn and long evening twilight are, therefore, the principal
factors in shortening the darkness of the Polar night and if we deduct these
days from the duration of the night, the period of darkness is reduced from six
to two, or at the most, to two-and-half-months.
A close examination of the dawn-hymns in the Rig-Veda finds
out the fact that Ushas, or the deity presiding
over the dawn, is often addressed in the plural number in the Vedic hymns, and
that this could be accounted for only on the supposition that the Vedic dawns were
a closely connected band of many dawns-a supposition, which was found to be
fully borne out by express passages in the Vedic literature, stating, in
unambiguous terms, that the Vedic dawns were 30 in number and that in ancient
times a period of several days elapsed between the first appearance of light on
the horizon and the rising of the sun. We have also found that the dawn is
expressly described in the Rig-Veda as moving round like a wheel, a characteristic,
which is the true only in the case of the Polar dawn.
Avesta
There are more details which Tilak take us in Avesta and in
Veda but the question is if we take further this theory where does all this
leaves us, did Aryans originally inhabited the arctic and later moved from
arctic to Iran to India? The evidence on ground however does not suggest any
such movement but then how do we explain the arctic characteristics of some
hymns in Vedas. In this regard a recent discovery of arkain in Russia needs to
be mentioned
Swastika City of
Russia
Constructed on a circular principle around a central square,
with about sixty semi-dugout houses built within its ramparts, the settlement
was situated in the southern Urals, near the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. It
was defended by two concentric ramparts of clay and adobe blocks on a wooden
frame, and could only be entered via four intricately constructed passageways
that would have made the entrance of enemies extremely difficult. The
inhabitants and the common central square were thus well protected by Arkaim’s
defensive, inward-turned ground plan. The town was found to be closely aligned
to several celestial reference points, and is therefore believed to have been
an observatory as well as a fortress, an administrative and a religious centre.
In order
to gain publicity, the early investigators described Arkaim as "Swastika
City", "Mandala City", and "the ancient capital of early Aryan civilization, as
described in the Avesta
and Vedas".
The swastika description refers to the floor plan of the site, which (with some
imagination) may appear similar to the swastika
symbol, albeit with rounded arms (similar to the lauburu)
attached to a central ring instead of a cross.
According
to many experts, the Arkaim and related sites could be created by ancient
Indo-Iranians long before their separation, relocations over the Eurasian
steppe and traffic corridor to the south of Iran and India.Some of the
scientists have drawn parallels between the circular fortified settlements such
Arkaima and the city of the legendary king Yima reproduces the model of the
universe and described in “Avesta” – the sacred book of the ancient Iranians.
However some scientist believes Arkaim was an ancient
observatory, somewhere I too get inclined to this idea... the architecture of
the city and the small population it supported makes you pick it up as an
observatory rather than a town in thick of trade and investment. It also has
remarkable similarity to Stonehenge in UK.
Where does it leave
us?
The question comes back to the same place did Aryans moved
from arctic to India , a century has been spent working on this idea it does
not however gives you sufficient evidence as nothing on ground shows a
population movement from arctic to India. However what if we invert the prism
and see the other way round things start to make sense. Aryans were extremely
exploratory in nature and had satellite colonies and towns established in
ancient world across different civilizations like the Egypt and Mesopotamia.As
the author of “the lost river” Michel danino puts “it is fascinating to note
that essentially no material remains have been found in an Indus setting with
certain Mesopotamian origin. Why do Indus artifacts appear in Mesopotamia, but
not vice-versa? " The best explanation to date is that the Indus peoples traded
for perishable materials. But it is still not completely convincing. It is therefore
not impossible that Aryans while prospering along the bank of river saraswati
set out observatories in arctic which they used to study the sun
and its movement? The findings of those observatories have been reflected in
Vedas. There was never a movement of complete towns and cities but a small set
of population could be travelling to gather the findings across the globe. We
do this these days by setting up observatories in Antarctica or other places,
did the ancient Indians did the same .With around a couple of site across the
globe and around 3700 sited of Indus-Saraswati civilization situated around the
length of now dry river saraswati this does looks possible but only more
research on this can prove it beyond doubt.
Taken from a range of work you can access it here
