Cosmography and Geography in Early Indian Literature c5.s2.1

c5.s2.1

The *Ṛgveda* generally mentions tribes or clans and not geographical areas particularly. But the expression Sapta Sindhavaḥ, literally meaning ‘the Seven Rivers’, is also used, in one instance at least, as the designation of a definite country no doubt comprising the valleys of the rivers in question.⁴⁶ The seven rivers are often taken to be the five Punjab streams (viz. the Jhelam, Chenab, Ravi, Satlaj and Beas) together with the Indus and the Sarasvatī, though some scholars are inclined to substitute the Sarasvatī by the Kabul or the Oxus, there being also a view that no importance need be attached to ‘seven’ which was a favourite conventional number both in the *Rgveda* and in later works.⁴⁷ A hymn of the latest stratum of the *Rgveda* seems to exhibit the knowledge of the eastern and the western sea, i.e. the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea.48