[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Reference works](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference) › [Vedic Index of Names and Subjects](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.macdonell-keith-1912) › v1.c2.21 # Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v1.c2.21 Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v1.c2.21 - **Language:** English ### [v1.c2.21](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.macdonell-keith-1912.v1.c2.21) I ought to warn readers against placing too much reliance on the details of this map, because it is largely conjectural owing to the lack of precise geographical statement in the texts. The student, when using it, should always refer to the evidence furnished by the articles under each name that appears on the map. The identification of many of the Vedic rivers with those of modern India is certain; but even here the exact channels in which they flowed in ancient times is doubtful. Thus the Indus, some of the Panjab rivers, and the old Sarasvatī have been shown by Raverty, in an article in the \*Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal\* for 1892, to have changed their courses considerably, even within historical times. It must be remembered that all the rivers of Vedic India traversed the alluvial plains of the north, and were, therefore, unlike the rivers of the Deccan, which flow in rocky beds, liable to constant fluctuations in their channels. Again, the Vedic tribes are nearly always mentioned so vaguely in the texts that they can only be approximately located by the rivers with which they are connected, or by the way in which their names are associated or grouped. Many such names had to be omitted altogether in the map because of the total lack of evidence for their localization. Some help may be obtained from the geographical position in the post-Vedic period of tribes mentioned in Vedic literature. But this evidence is apt to be doubtful, because the Vedic period was largely one of migration, and various tribes may then have occupied localities much farther north or west than those in which they were later permanently settled. The general evidence of the map, however uncertain many of the details may be, leaves no room for doubt as to the route by which the Āryans entered India, or as to the direction of the successive stages of the migration by which they eventually spread their civilization over the whole of the peninsula. - [Previous: v1.c2.20](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.macdonell-keith-1912.v1.c2.20) - [Next: v1.c2.22](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.macdonell-keith-1912.v1.c2.22) - [Up: v1.c2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.macdonell-keith-1912.v1.c2) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.macdonell-keith-1912.v1.c2.21](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.macdonell-keith-1912.v1.c2.21) · Pramāṇa