The Geography of the Puranas c11.s2.11

c11.s2.11

From the human point of view, the availability of water for drinking and irrigation is the primary factor in the location of settlements and human groups in regions of low rainfall. The basin of the Indus is one of the regions where rivers big and small control the concentration and distribution of population so forcefully that its population pattern is clearly reflected in its drainage pattern, in fact the two are practically identical. The drainage control is so emphatic that the size of a population group can be translated in terms of the magnitude of the river or stream which served it. From the functional point of view therefore we can divide the rivers into two classes: