The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c10.41

c10.41

Now working on this system, we can easily define the regions and their foci. Bounded by the Aravallis and the desert of Rajputana in the east, and the Sulaiman and Kirthar ranges in the west, is the Indus basin, draining the central Himalayas. This can be roughly subdivided at the point where the hills from the west and the desert in the east converge near the Bugti country, into the lower and the upper, corresponding to the Sind and Punjab respectively. Beginning with Delhi, where the Aravallis converge towards the Himalayas, the Gangetic basin runs east from the narrow divide. On its southern flanks lies the Vindhyan complex. The lower deltaic region of the Ganges, as it leaves the Vindhyan complex, is Bengal. The valley of the Brahmaputra is Assam. Forming, as it were, a little triangle constituted by the Aravallis in the west, and the Vindhyas running obliquely towards the Gangetic basin, is the plateau of Malwa, drained by the rivers—Chambal, Banas, Sipra, Narbada and Son. Lying south of the Vindhyas, and constituting the upper basins of the rivers Krishna and Godavary, and more or less co-extensive with the Deccan Trap area, is Maharashtra. The lower basins of these two great rivers constitute Andhra. The southern part of the Krishna basin, more or less constituting the ‘rocky triangle’ formed by the Eastern and the Western Ghats viz. the Mysore plateau, is Karnatak. At its southern end, it is drained by the river Kaveri. Beginning from the constriction of the Nagar hills and Pulicat lake, and running right along the East coast is Tamilnad. The narrow coastal plain on either side of the Palghat gap in the Western Ghats is Kerala. The valley of the Mahanadi, surrounded by hills and plateau, constitutes Orissa. The northern part of the West coast and the peninsula of Saurashtra, abutting on the desert of Rajaputana is Gujarat. Rajaputana really consists of two natural divisions : Mewar and Marwar on either side of the Aravalli ranges. Mewar drained by the river Banas falls into the Gangetic basin and is more or less an extension of the Malwa Plateau. The semi-arid desert country, Marwar, lies to the west of the mountain range. (Fig. 6)