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Cosmography and Geography in Early Indian Literature c5.s3: 3. Mountains and Rivers

Cosmography and Geography in Early Indian Literature c5.s3

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3. Mountains and Rivers

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Of the mountains, the *Rgveda* mentions only a few, such as the Himavat⁸⁰ (the Himalayas together with other systems such as the Suleiman range) and the Mūjavat⁸¹ (called Muñjavat in later works and located in the Himalayas). The later Saṃhitās and Brāhmaṇas speak of the Trikakud or Trikakubh (modern Trikota in the Himalayas),⁸² while the *Taittirīya Āraṇyaka* refers to the Krauñca, Mahāmeru (i.e. Meru or Sumeru) and Maināka (or Maināga), all of them to be located in or about the Himalayan region.⁸³ The mountain on which Manu’s vessel rested after the subsidence of the Great Deluge is called ‘Manu’s Avasarpaṇa’ in the

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⁸⁰ x. 121. 4.
81. x. 34.

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⁸² *Ved. Ind.*, Vol. i. p.

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⁸³ *Ved. Ind.*, Vol. i, p. 200 ; Vol. ii., pp. 141, 180.

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parārdhāt pṛthivyāḥ samudra-paryantāyā Ekarāḍ=iti tam=eten=aindreṇa mahābhiṣekeṇa Kṣatriyam śāpayitv=ābhiṣiñcet, “If he, who knows thus, should desire of a Kṣatriya, ‘May he win all victories, find all the worlds, attain the superiority, pre-eminence and supremacy over all kings and overlordship, paramount rule, self-rule, sovereignty, supreme authority, kingship, great kingship and suzerainty ; may he be all-encompassing, possessed of all the earth, possessed of all life, from the one end upto the further side of the earth bounded by the ocean, sole ruler,’ he should anoint him with the great anointment of Indra, after adjuring him.” Cf. Raychaudhuri, *PHAI*, 1938, pp. 139, 178 ff. ; also Sircar, *Inscriptions of Aśoka*, p. 10. The suggestion offered above would mean that all sections of the *Śatapatha* and *Aitareya Brāhmaṇas* may not be earlier than c. 400 B.C. Although the gradation of the different types of rulers cannot be regarded as strictly historical, it is less fanciful than the Buddhist conception about the ruler of the whole earth of 4 continents, of only one continent and of a part of one of the continents.

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¹ Soma is called *Maujavata* meaning ‘from the Mūjavat’, the reference being to Mount Mūjavat according to Yāska. The Mūjavat are mentioned as a distant people in the later Saṃhitās.

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³²⁹ Some scholars believe that the Seven Mountains called the Doors of Heaven are mentioned in the *Taittirīya Saṃhitā* (iii. 12. 2. 9 ; vi. 2. 4. 3). See Hopkins, *Epic Mythology*, p. 9, note ; Raychaudhuri, *Stud. Ind. Ant.*, p. 90, note.

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Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa.⁸⁴ The Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad⁸⁵ mentions the Dakṣiṇa-parvata probably meaning the Vindhyan range. The Pāriyātra is mentioned in the Baudhāyana Dharmasūtra as we have seen above.

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⁸⁴ i. 8. 1. 8. Its epic name is Naubandhana (Ved. Ind., Vol. ii, p. 130).

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⁸⁵ ii. 8.

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The Ṛgvedic Aryans regarded some of the rivers as divinities. Thus the Sarasvatī is called devitamā (the best among the goddesses).⁸⁶ In the Āprī hymns, she is associated with the goddess Bhāratī who was the divine protective power of the Bharata people dwelling in the Sarasvatī valley.⁸⁷ It is well known that the goddess Sarasvatī=Bhāratī became a famous deity in later times.

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⁸⁶ ii. 41. 16.

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⁸⁷ Ved. Ind., Vol. ii. p. 97.

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There is a eulogy of rivers, containing the following names, in the latest section of the Ṛgveda.

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1. Sindhu—the Indus ; rises in Tibet, passes through Kashmir, the Punjab and Sind and discharges its waters into the Arabian Sea.

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2. Gaṅgā—the Ganges ; rising in the Himalayas, it appears near Gaṅgotri (lat. 30⁰ 56′, long. 79⁰ 56′) in Garhwal, runs through U. P., Bihar and Bengal and discharges its waters into the Bay of Bengal.

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3. Yamunā—the Jumna ; runs from Garhwal through the Eastern Punjab and North-Western U.P. and joins the Gaṅgā at Prayāga (near Allahabad).

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4. Sarasvatī—modern Sarsūtī ; rises in Sirmur, passes by Thanesar in the Ambala District and loses itself in the sands of Patiala ; originally a large river flowing to the Arabian Sea ; in some cases, Hillebrandt is inclined to identify the Sarasvatī with Iranian Harakhvaiti (Helmund) which gave the name to Arachosia (the Kandahar region of Afghanistan).

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5. Śutudrī—post-Vedic Śatadru, modern Satlaj ; the most easterly of the Punjab rivers ; rising in the further Himalayas, it runs through the Punjab as the boundary between the Hoshiarpur and Jalandhar Districts on the right and the Ambala and Ludhiana Districts on the left and joins the Beas in lat. 31⁰ 11′, long. 75⁰ 4′ ; originally flowing independently into the Rann of Kutch.

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6. Paruṣṇī—later Irāvatī, modern Rāvi ; rises in Kulu in the Kangra District and joins the Chenab in lat. 30⁰ 31′, long. 71⁰ 51′.

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7. Asiknī—later Candrabhāgā, modern Chenab ; rises in Lahul in the Himalayas, runs through Kashmir and the Punjab and joins first the Jhelam and then the Rāvi.

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8. Marudvṛdhā—regarded by some as the combined stream of the Asiknī and Vitastā; but the name is apparently the same as that of modern Maru-wardwan which joins the Chenab at Kistawar in Kashmir.

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9. Vitastā—modern Jhelam; rises in Kashmir, passes through Kashmir and the Punjab and joins the Chenab in lat. 31⁰ 11′, long. 72⁰ 12′.

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10. Suṣomā—probably modern Suwan or Sohan which runs through the Rawalpindi and Jhelam Districts and joins the Indus near Mokhad.

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11. Ārjīkiyā—the Vipāś or Beas according to Yāska, though identified by some scholars with Arghesan, a tributary of the Arghanab; associated with the Ārjīka people.

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12. Tṛṣṭāmā.

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13. Susartū—some tributary of the Sindhu.

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14. Rasā—supposed by some scholars to be the same as Avestic Raṅhā or the Araxes or Jaxartes (Syr Darya) in Central Asia.

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15. Śvetī or Śvetyā—probably a tributary of the Sindhu; identified by some scholars with the Swat.

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16. Krumu—modern Kurum; a western tributary of the Sindhu; rises in the Safed Koh, passes through Afghanistan and the Bannu District and joins the Indus near Isakhel in lat. 32⁰ 37′, long. 71⁰ 22′.

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17. Gomatī—modern Gomal, a western tributary of the Sindhu; passes through the Dera Ismail Khan District and gives the name to the Gomal pass, the middle route from India to Afghanistan.

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18. Kubhā—the Kabul, a western tributary of the Sindhu; runs through Afghanistan and the Peshawar District.

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9 Mehatnū—probably a tributary of the Krumu or a western tributary of the Sindhu.⁸⁸

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⁸⁸ x. 75. Most of the rivers are mentioned in stanzas 5-6 :

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A significant omission from the above list is the well-known name of the

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Imam me Gaṅge Yamune Sarasvati
Śutudri stomaṃ sacatā Paruṣṇyā |
Asiknyā Marudvṛdhe Vitastay=Ā-
rjikiye śṛṇuhyā Suṣomayā ||
Tṛṣṭāmayā prathamam yātave sajūḥ
Susartvā Rasayā Śvetyā tyā |
tvam Sindho Kubhayā Gomatīm Krumum
Mehatnvā saratham yābhir=īyase ||

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Dṛṣadvatī (literally ‘the stony’) which flows into the Sarasvatī after running parallel to it for some distance, its modern name being Citang, Citrang or Cautang, though some writers prefer its identification with the Rakṣi which flows by the south-east of Thanesar, while a few earlier authors proposed to identify it with the Ghaggar.⁸⁹ Besides the above, the Ṛgveda also mentions the following rivers.

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⁸⁹ Vedic Index, Vol. i, p. 374.

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1. Anitabhā.
2. Yavyāvatī—identified by Sāyaṇa with Hariyūpīyā ; Hillebrandt identifies it with the Djob.
3. Vipāś—later Vipāśā, modern Beas ; rises in Lahul in the Himalayas, passes through Mandi and the Punjab and joins the Satlaj at Endrisa near Hureki on the borders of Kapurthala.
4. Vibāli.
5. Śiphā.
6. Sarayu—reminds us of the name Sarayū applied to two tributaries of the Ghogra in Eastern U.P., now called Eastern and Western Sarju, though the Ṛgvedic river is often identified by scholars with the united course of the Śutudrī and Vipāś.
7. Suvāstu—modern Swat ; runs through the Peshawar District and joins the Kubhā or Kabul at Nisatha.
8. Hariyūpīyā—the Yavyāvatī according to Sāyaṇa ; Hillebrandt identifies it with the Iranian river Iryab or Haliab ; some scholars are inclined to associate the name with modern Harappa in the Montgomery District.⁹⁰

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⁹⁰ Ved. Ind., Vol. i. p. 22 ; Vol. ii, pp. 188, 301, 302, 380, 433-34, 460, 499.

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According to some, the following names occur in stanzas 7-8 of the hymn—(1) Ṛjitī, (2) Enī, (3) Ruśatī, (4) Citrā, (5) Ūrṇāvatī, (6) Hiraṇmayī and (7) Śilamāvatī.⁹¹ Scholars have further traced the names of the following rivers in the Ṛgveda—(1) Añjasī, (2) Amśumatī, (3) Aśmanvatī, (4) Kulīśī and (5) Virapatnī.⁹²

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⁹¹ See Majumdar Sastri, Cunningham's Ancient Geography of India, p. xl.

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⁹² Cf. Majumdar Sastri, loc. cit. According to RV, viii. 96. 13-15, a certain Kṛṣṇa living with an army of 10,000 on the bank of the Amśumatī, was killed by Indra with all his retinue.

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Among rivers referred to in other works of the Vedic literature, mention may be made of the following.

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1. Revā—name of the Narmadā in post-Vedic literature ; probably alluded to in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa.

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2. Varaṇāvavatī—known from the Atharvaveda; identified by Ludwig with the Ganges.
3. Sadānīrā—same as the Karatoyā according to the lexicons; but mentioned in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa as the boundary between the lands of the Kośalas and the Videhas; may be any of the rivers now called Ghogra, Rāptī and Gaṇḍak.
4. Sudāman—known from the Pañcaviṃśa Brāhmaṇa.⁹⁸

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⁹⁸ Ibid., Vol. ii, pp. 226, 244, 421-22, 454.

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