Sarayu Again: And
a Discussion in Chanakya University Bangalore
Shrikant G.
Talageri
Dr Koenraad Elst was in Bangalore
recently, and there was a suggestion by some faculty member of Chanakya
University, Bangalore, to hold a discussion to debate the issue of the Sarayu
river and the Ikṣvākus, which has been a bone of contention between Jijith
Nadumuri Ravi and myself in the last few years. As I was not able to travel
there, I took part in the discussion online (the other two speakers being, of
course, Jijith Nadumuri Ravi himself and Koenraad Elst). The identification of
this river, and of the original location of the Ikṣvākus, is a fundamental
point in the OIT-AIT debate, and in understanding the exact identity-aspects of
Indian civilization, so this debate was necessary; and I knew that I could not
avoid being blunt and precise on the issue, which, although necessary, I really
do not like to do it, since Jijth apparently believes there is a personal angle
in my opposition to him on this point, and that I am jealous of anyone else
intruding into my “space” of Rigvedic interpretation. So I was hesitant
as to how blunt I should be in my part in the discussion (scheduled for
yesterday, 8 March 2025, 2.30 PM).
However, yesterday morning,
Someone brought to my attention a tweet by Jijith which referred to this
discussion which was to take place in the afternoon, in which he wrote:
“This talk will bring clarity
to the question of Sarayu in Rgveda. Mentor and Guru Shrikant Talageri thinks
the Rgvedic Sarayu is in Afghanistan and agrees with the AIT scholars's
identification of Sarayu as an Afghanistan River. My research shows
Sarayu of Rgveda, rendered as Haroyu in Avesta, is the Haro River, an eastern
tributary of Sindhu where it enters the plains after flowing through the
mountainous terrain in northern Pakistan. Sarayu - Haroyu - Haro.”
To begin with, I do not “think”
“the Rgvedic Sarayu is in Afghanistan”: every
single writer on the Rigvedic rivers (except Jijith) has identified
it with the Afghan river, except of course for the few Indians
who identify it with the Śarayu of Ayodhya, and P.L. Bhargava who
tentatively identified it with the Siritoi, a tributary of the Indus
(an identification I blindly accepted in my second book, and failed to correct
myself until prodded by a reader of my blogs).
And it is not an “AIT
scholars's identification”: it is simply an identification,
and the correct one, having nothing to do with the AIT.
Similarly, the Rigvedic Śutudrī is identified with the Sutlej,
the Rigvedic Vipāś with the Beas, the Rigvedic Paruṣṇī with the Ravi:
these are all identifications, and correct ones, not “AIT
scholars's identifications”, having nothing to do with the AIT.
[Likewise, all “AIT scholars” have correctly identified the Rigvedic
Gangā and Yamunā as the rivers of U.P., except extremists like
the leftist writer Rajesh Kochhar who identifies them as
tributaries of the Helmand in Afghanistan].
Likewise, before Jijith’s
book, not a single writer or scholar on the Rigvedic rivers,
ancient or modern, Indian or western, has identified the Rigvedic Sarayu
with the Haro river.
I spoke (online) in the
discussion, and today Jijith has apparently tweeted as follows: “While
Shrikant Talageri continued holding on to some points on Sarayu in Afghanistan
and Manu & Mandhata in Ayodhya…” (this contains a gross misrepresentation: I have never located Manu in Ayodhya in any book or article,
and certainly not in the discussion yesterday, where my only references to Manu
described him as a mythical figure whom Indian historical
tradition records as the ancestor of all the different tribes covering the
whole of India).
He goes on: “The
talk at Chanakya University was a pivotal event in my research career. I
could clarify some 5-year-old confusion in the mind of Shrikant Talageri,
my mentor and guru, for the study of Rgveda. In the end, it all went well! Dr
Elst supported my position based on archaeology and the literary evidence from
the two Itihasas, apart from Rgveda and the Puranas.” I would
appreciate it if Jijith put down in written record exactly which “5-year-old
confusion in [my] mind” he clarified yesterday, and it would be
better if Koenraad Elst (rather than Jijith himself) specified in
writing that he “supported [Jijith’s] position based on
archaeology and the literary evidence from the two Itihasas, apart from Rgveda
and the Puranas” in respect of the identity of the Sarayu
river, and the Sarasvati area origin of the Ikṣvākus.
I do not know if Chanakya University
has recorded the discussion on video, and if it will be uploaded on youtube
or elsewhere. But I give below the note sent to me by Chanakya University
giving the points on which I was to speak, followed by the write-up sent by me
to them, with the gist of what I was going to say on those points:
I. Structure of Discussion.
II. My Write-up for the
Discussion.
I. Structure of
Discussion
Structure of Discussion
1.
Opening Presentations (10 minutes)
Individual
scholars present positions on three key interrelated topics (3 minutes each):
- Geographic
Scope
- Homeland—Extended (UP) or Localized (Haryana)
- Tribes
- Tribes—Purus and Ikshvakus
- Movement
Patterns
- Migration pattern—East to West or West to East
(including the status of Mandhata)
2.
Sarayu Discussion (12 minutes)
- JijithNadumuri
- 5 minutes
- Shrikant
Talageri - 5 minutes
- Dr.KoenraadElst
- 2-3 minutes
3.
Methodological Considerations (10 minutes)
Issues
of Methodology/Nature of Evidence (3 minutes each):
- Integration
of Multiple Disciplines
- Appropriate way to synthesize linguistics,
archaeology, genetics, etc.
- Textual
Analysis
- Tribes in the Rig Veda vs. Tribes in Puranas (Which
should be privileged, how to synchronize)
4.
Chronological Analysis (10 minutes)
Discussion
of chronological challenges (3 minutes each):
- Rig
Veda
- Ramayana/Ayodhya
- Mahabharata/Kurukshetra
5.
Cultural Impact (15 minutes)
Open
discussion on Cultural implications for the Rest of India (5 minutes each)
II. My Write-up
for the Discussion
1. Opening Presentations (3 minutes each)
·
Geographic
Scope
o
Homeland—Extended
(UP) or Localized (Haryana)
·
Tribes
o
Tribes—Purus
and Ikshvakus
·
Movement
Patterns
o Migration pattern—East to West
or West to East (including the status of Mandhata)
1. The total geographical
horizon of the Rigvedic data covers a northwestern area from the Sarayu
river in Afghanistan (the Herat or Harirud) in the north-west to
the westernmost areas of the Ganga and Yamuna in the south-east,
i.e. to the lands of the Matsyas (VII.18.6) and the Kīkaṭas
(III.53.14, whom WITZEL 1995b:333 fn
locates "in eastern Rajasthan or western
Madhya Pradesh").
2. The total
geographical horizon of the Epic-Puranic data extends not only all over
India but beyond it on both sides, extending to parts of SE Asia in the
east and Central Asia in the northwest:
2a)
However, this total Epic-Puranic data represents the areas known to the writers
of the Epic-Puranic texts during and after the Mauryan period
when these texts came to be put down in writing.
2b) The
earliest origins of the different peoples, nations and tribes, as
per the Epic-Puranic data, are mythically traced to an ancestral Manu
Vaivasvata whose ten sons ruled over different areas covering this whole
geographical horizon. However, while there are formally ten sons, the history
and geography of only two sons (Iḷa and Ikṣvāku) and their
descendants (respectively the Lunar and Solar
tribes or peoples) are described in detail. And their geographical areas
described in the texts are as follows:
The tribes described as
descended from Ikṣvāku lived in eastern-central Uttar Pradesh extending
to Bihar. The descendants of Iḷa were divided into five main
conglomerates of tribes (mythically treated in the later narratives as Aiḷas
descended from the five
sons of Yayāti, a descendant of Iḷa): the Pūru tribes in the
general area of Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, the Anu tribes
to their North in the areas of Kashmir and the areas to its immediate west,
the Druhyu tribes to the West in the areas of the Greater Punjab,
the Yadu tribes to the southwest in the areas of Gujarat, Rajasthan
and western Madhya Pradesh, and the Turvasu tribes to the Southeast
(generally to the east of the Yadu tribes).
The Puranas, just as they fail to give details of the
history and even the precise geography of the other eight sons of Manu, fail to
give details of the history and even the precise geography of the Turvasu
tribes (who are generally mentioned in tandem with the more important Yadu
tribes). The main concentration of Puranic (and the Epic and other later
traditional) narrative is on the history of the Pūru tribes of the western
north, the Ikṣvāku tribes of the eastern north, and the Yadu
tribes of the southwestern north. The early history of the Druhyu
tribes is given, but later they disappear from the horizon and the history of
the Anu tribes occupies a comparatively peripheral space in the Puranas.
So this is the very clear geographical data in the
two (sets of) texts for the earliest period. The question is: what is the narrative which can
explain or coordinate the difference in the two sets of geographical data by
way of movements east-to-west or west-to-east? In respect of the Rigvedic
People (the Pūrus), I have given all the details in my books and
papers. Here I will only dwell on the Ikṣvākus:
The Rigveda and Vedic texts refer to
five kings: Mandhātā,
Purukutsa, Trasadasyu, (and Trivṛṣan and Tryaruṇa).
The Ramayana (II.110) refers to a long list of kings,
including all the important ancestors of Rama and kings of Ayodhya known to the
Puranic traditions, including (other than Mandhātā) Ikṣvāku,
Triśaṅku, Dhundhumāra, Ajita, Sagara, Aṁśuman,
Dilīpa, Bhagīratha, Raghu, Kalmāṣapāda and Daśaratha,
none of whom (again other than Mandhātā) are known to the Rigveda. But
it does not seem to know the very important Purukutsa, Trasadasyu
and the other Ikṣvāku kings known to the Rigveda.
Thus there are two mutually exclusive
sets of Ikṣvāku kings; those named in the Vedic texts and
those named in the Ramayana. And both these sets of kings are
named in the Puranas in the list of Ikṣvāku kings. The only very
important common king is Mandhātā.
Clearly, there are two lineages of Ikṣvāku kings: one
in Ayodhya in the east and one in the Rigvedic area
in the northwest. And the connecting link is Mandhātā.
The explanation is given in the traditional narrations:
The Puranas tell us that the ancient Ikṣvāku king Mandhātā
of the east was related to the Pūrus through his mother, who was the
daughter of a Pūru king Matīnāra. It is at least clear from this
that Mandhātā (half a Pūru himself) had reason to be friendly
with the Pūrus, who were his maternal relations.
The Puranic accounts of the Ikṣvāku dynasty associate
all the early kings with the east, but in the case of Mandhātā, they
relate his movement westwards in support of his Pūru kinsmen who
were under assault from the Druhyus to their west in a pre-Rigvedic
period. The Druhyus had attacked all the people to their east and all
the eastern people combined against them to drive them out. Mandhātā
moved out as far as the Punjab and drove the Druhyus out from the Punjab
into the northwest. Pargiter describes it as follows: "The Druhyus
occupied the Punjab, and Mandhātṛ of Ayodhya had a long war with the Druhyu
king Aruddha or Aṅgāra and killed him" (PARGITER 1962:167). Later,
more in detail, he tells us that Mandhātā pushed past "the prostrate Paurava
realm, and pushing beyond them westwards, he had a long contest with and
conquered the Druhyu king who appears to have been then on the confines of the
Panjab, so that the next Druhyu king Gandhāra retired to the northwest and gave
his name to the Gandhāra country" (PARGITER 1962:262).
Later, Mandhātā returned to his own kingdom in the east,
and there is little record in traditional history of the activities of his
successor kings in the east having much to do with the northwest (until
the much later period of the Epics). However, it is clear that some of his
descendants remained in the northwest and originated a new northwestern
branch of Tṛkṣi or Ikṣvāku kings distinct from the eastern ones.
Undoubtedly Purukutsa, Trasadasyu and their descendants in the
Rigveda were late descendants, in the period of the New Books of the
Rigveda, belonging to this northwestern branch.
So this shows that as per the combined evidence of the Vedic
texts and the Epic-Puranic data, the movement o0f
the Ikṣvākus was from the east to the west.
2. Sarayu Discussion (5 minutes each)
There are only
two prominent historical rivers which are known to any historical
records by the name Sarayu (or its later variant forms): the Epic-Puranic
Sarayu (Ghaghara) in Uttar Pradesh, and the Avestan Haroyu (Harirud) in
Afghanistan. The two questions that arise from this are:
1. Which of
these two rivers is the Sarayu mentioned in the Rigveda?
2. Which of
these two rivers originally bore the name Sarayu, which was later transferred
to the other of the two?
It must be noted that both these
rivers fall outside the core historical area of the Vedic
Aryans (which is westernmost U.P.-and-Haryana in the east expanding to the
western tributaries of the Indus in the west: Afghanistan was never
linguistically part of the core Vedic historic area, and its languages
belong even today to the Iranian branch), one well to its east and
the other well to its west.
In this book,
however, Jijith identifies three distinct rivers within the core
Rigvedic area with the name Sarayu, totally unsupported by any actual
data either in the Vedic or in the Epic-Puranic texts, or even by the
speculations of any earlier Indologists:
Sarayu-1 = The Sarasvatī:
"The Tṛkṣis….migrated
westwards from the Ancestral Sarayu (alternate name of Sarasvatī in its
southern course)" (p.42).
"They migrated from what I posit as the 'Ancestral Sarayu'
(which I identify as none other than Sarasvatī)" (p.203).
"As per my analysis, this Ancestral Sarayu is none
other than the river Sarasvatī herself" (p.208).
"The Ikṣvākus referred to the river (Ghaggar-Hakra)
as Sarayu and the Aiḷas called it Sarasvatī" (p.209).
"We designate the Ancestral Sarayu as the dried-up
Sarasvatī channel between fort Derawar and Anupgarh" (p.216).
Sarayu-2 = The Sutlej:
"Since Sutlej is the
nearest river for the southern-Ikṣvākus, they migrated to Sutlej before any
other river. Thus, the name Sarayu got applied to Sutlej (to be precise, the
name Sarayu got applied to a Sutlej-distributary joining Sarasvatī). This old
name Sarayu, applied to Sutlej got
captured in the 10th Maṇḍala verse 10.64.9 (sarasvatī sarayuḥ sindhur)"
(p.209).
Sarayu-3 = The Haro:
"to the Western Sarayu
(Haro river, tributary of Indus)" (p.42).
"I identify the Ṛgvedic
Sarayu with the Haro river" (p.77-78).
"Northwest upto Sarayu
(Haro)" (p.80).
"The region between
Sindhu (Indus) and Sarayu (Haro)" (p.91).
"The eastern tributary of Indus that can be identified with
Sarayu is the Haro River"
(p.202).
"They migrated… to the Śaryaṇāvat region and named the main
river (Haro) in the region as Sarayu" (p.203).
The two rivers which actually do bear the name Sarayu
are then accounted for by postulating unrecorded and fictitious
migrations of the Ikṣvākus from an original Ikṣvāku
Homeland within the core Rigvedic area into both the eastern and
western directions:
Sarayu-4 = The Ghaghara in U.P. (a tributary of the Gaṅgā):
"The ancient settlements of the Ikṣvākus were
distributed along Sarasvatī from Bhirrana in the north to Derawar Fort in the
south. This is the region of the pre-Harappan Hakra-Ware culture [….] We call
it the Ikṣvāku Homeland, equal in status to the Vara Pṛthivyā, the Aiḷa
Homeland"
(p.209).
"The Ikṣvākus were the earliest civilization
on the banks of Sarasvatī. Their settlements existed along Sarasvatī many
centuries earlier than the Ṛgvedic civilization of the Ailas, Pūrus and the
Bharatas"
(p.217).
"The Aitihāsic river Sarayū (Ghaghara) mentioned
prominently in the Rāmāyaṇa is a major tributary of Gaṅgā" (p.197).
"His son Bhagīratha migrated further eastwards into
Gaṅgā. The descendants of Bhagīratha went further eastwards and finally settled
on its major tributary (Ghaghara) and named it Sarayū in memory of their
Ancestral Sarayu river" p.215).
Sarayu-5 = The Herat or Harirud (Avestan Haroyu) in
Afghanistan:
"Some of these Ikṣvākus too migrated with
their Ānava allies into Afghanistan and Iran. This explains why the name Sarayu
is applied to a river (Harirud) in Afghanistan as Harôyû" (p.220).
Occam's razor is a principle of formulating and evaluating
theories which says that "entities must not be multiplied beyond
necessity". The theory outlined in Jijith's book creates five
distinct Sarayu rivers, three of them totally fictitious and unrecorded
ones unsupported by any genuine data in either the Vedic or Puranic
literature, or even in earlier Indological speculations. And then
follows it up by inventing fictitious migrations from a fictitious Ikṣvāku
homeland on the "Ancestral Sarayu", again totally unrecorded
and unsupported by data or even by speculative Indological precedent.
Of the three Sarayus invented in this book, two (the Sarasvati
and Sutlej) do not even merit any analysis, and in fact they seem to be
inserted only in order to link a fictitious Homeland through a chain of
fictitious migrations. The third one, Haro, which Jijith gratuitously
calls the "Rigvedic Sarayu", though such an identification is
equally unrecorded and fictitious, requires some attention:
The identification of the Haro, a river in the
northwest, as the Rigvedic Sarayu (purely on the ground that the name Haro
seems similar to the Avestan name Haroyu) is also totally without basis.
There is no doubt whatsoever about the identity of the Haro river: it is
identified clearly by scholars with the Rigvedic Ārjīkīyā (and what
is more, Jijith, by a Freudian slip, himself identifies the Haro with
the Ārjīkīyā on p.99).
Elsewhere, Jijith consciously and determinedly tries to
negate this by identifying the Ārjīkīyā river with the Sil river (even when there is no
connection between the two names, or record or tradition of any kind to this
effect), but again, it is obvious that he arbitrarily picks up this
identification because the Rigveda regularly couples the Ārjīkīyā
with the sister river Suṣomā, both identified by the scholars with the Haro
and Sohan, and the Sil ("a tributary of Sohan river",
p.307) is the geographically closest candidate to which the name Ārjīkīyā
can be shifted so that the Haro becomes free to be identified with the Sarayu!
[Please read my review of Jijith’s book to show more
contradictions in the attempts to identify the Sarayu with the Haro].
3. Methodological Considerations (3 minutes each)
Issues of Methodology/Nature of Evidence (3 minutes each):
·
Integration
of Multiple Disciplines
o
Appropriate
way to synthesize linguistics, archaeology, genetics, etc.
·
Textual
Analysis
o Tribes in the Rig Veda vs.
Tribes in Puranas (Which should be privileged, how to synchronize)
Linguistics, archaeology, textual data, and genetics, are
four different disciplines dealing with different areas. How the first three
can be integrated is shown in my books and papers, and it is too long to detail
that here. The fourth (genetics) has no connection with the AIT-OIT debate or
even the internal migrations.
All I can point out here is how not to
“integrate” them:
1. By taking some genetic feature (some particular
genes, DNA, haplogroup, clade, etc.) and assigning to it a linguistic
identity (IE, Dravidian, etc.) or a textual identity (Pūru,
Ikṣvāku, etc.).
2. By taking an archaeological culture (PGW,
etc.) and assigning to it a linguistic identity (IE, Dravidian,
etc.) or a textual identity (Pūru, Ikṣvāku, etc.).
4. Chronological Analysis (3 minutes each)
Discussion of chronological challenges:
·
Rig
Veda
·
Ramayana/Ayodhya
·
Mahabharata/Kurukshetra
Chronologically, the Rigveda falls into 4 stages:
1. Old Books (6,3,7): pre-3000 BCE-2800 BCE.
2. Middle Books (4,2):
post-2800 BCE-2500 BCE
3. New Books (1-Final version, including updated earlier
upamandalas-,8,9): 2500 BCE-2000 BCE
4. Book 10 and final additions: 2000 BCE-1500 BCE (roughly)
Epic Events: 2000 BCE-1500 BCE
Epics Recorded Final Version: 300 BCE onwards
5. Cultural Impact (5 minutes each)
Open discussion on Cultural implications for the Rest of
India
1. Indian culture is not derived from the culture of the
northwest or the Sarasvati area.
2. Indian people of other parts of India not descendants of
the people of the northwest or the Sarasvati area.
There were different types of civilizations in different parts of India. If the
Harappan civilization had not been discovered, would we have rejected all of
India’s traditional history as false or invented or imaginary on that ground?
Then why does the discovery of the Harappan culture in the early 20th
century mean that all the other parts of India (which do not have similar urban
archaeological remains) were bereft of people, culture, history and traditions
until the Harappans took their people, culture, history and traditions to that
area, and that therefore all the traditions about the people, culture,
history and traditions of those different areas are invented or imaginary in
those areas and must be originally located in the Harappan areas which were the
only civilizational areas in India?
To begin with, many discoveries have been made in the
eastern Gangetic areas in the last few decades which show sites as old as or
older than the Harappan sites (though not with the same type of urban
culture). And now, the discovery that iron was first used in South India
before it was used anywhere else in the world shows that there was some
different kind of civilization in the South. So why this obsession to falsify
traditions and invent stories to show that all the traditional peoples recorded
in our historical traditions lived only on the Sarasvati and in the northwest
and spread out from there?
As I have written countless times, India was a huge
banyan tree of cultures, and the Harappan culture only represents the culture
of the Druhyus, Anus and Pūrus and some western Yadus. The Ikshvakus represent
the culture of the east. There were other Dravidian-language speaking cultures
in the south.
In India, after the emigration of the Anu and Druhyu
tribes, the religion of the Pūru, because of its highly organized and
systematically developed priesthood and rituals, spread over the rest of
the country along with Vedic culture. As the religions of the different tribes
all over the country converged into the increasingly diluted Pūru
religion, the original Pūru (Vedic) rituals and myths increasingly came
to occupy the position of a nominal upper layer in a new multi-layered and
multi-facetted religion which was rapidly becoming the common Pan-Indian
religion of the sub-continent. When this pan-Indian religion and culture
came to be known as Hindu is a matter of irrelevant dispute. That it is
known as Hindu is an indisputable fact.
But there was a big difference in the spread of Hinduism
all over India and the spread of Abrahamic religions all over the world.
Unlike these Abrahamic religions, which demonised the Gods, beliefs
and rituals of the religions which they sought to uproot, destroy and supplant,
Hinduism accepted and internalised the Gods, beliefs and rituals of the
tribal religions which converged into it. The result is that today the most
popular Hindu deities in every single part of India are originally local
tribal Gods: whether Ayyappa of Kerala, Murugan of Tamilnadu, Balaji
of Andhra, Vitthala of Karnataka (Vithoba of Maharashtra), Khandoba
of Maharashtra, Jagannatha of Orissa, etc., etc., or the myriad forms of
the Mother Goddess, with thousands of names, in every nook and corner of
India. Further, every single local (originally tribal) God and Goddess is
revered by every Hindu in every corner of India, in the form of the kuladevata,
the grihadevata or the gramadevata. In time, of course, myths
were formed nominally associating many of these deities with one or the other
of the main Gods and Goddesses of Puranic Hinduism as their manifestations,
these Puranic Gods themselves being additions from different parts of India to
the Hindu pantheon (or originally Vedic Gods like Vishnu and Rudra with basic
characteristics adopted from the other local and tribal deities). But these
associations were not an imposition “from above”, they were the result of
popular local myth-making and part of the consolidation of the national
popularization of the local deities: the deities retained their local names,
forms, rituals and customs, and became all-India deities, objects of
pilgrimages from distant areas.
But it is not only in respect of “Gods” and
“Goddesses” that Hinduism freely and respectfully adopted from local
tribes and religions: even the most basic concepts of the Hindu religion
are originally elements adopted from the tribal and local religions from every
part of India. The original Pūru (Vedic) layer of religion which
forms the pan-Indian umbrella of Hinduism was originally more or less the
religion depicted in the Rigveda: the worship of Indra, Varuna, Mitra,
Agni, Soma, the Maruts and Ashvins, and other specifically Vedic deities
(including Vishnu and Rudra, who later become the most important Puranic Gods),
and the main religious rituals were the Agni rituals (homa, yajña,
etc.) and the Soma rituals. The Soma rituals are completely defunct today (in
fact, even the exact identity of Soma is debated and disputed), the Agni
rituals are still performed, but only during major ceremonies (birth, death,
weddings, ritual inaugurations of houses, etc.) and on other major occasions,
and the major Vedic Gods are minor figures of Puranic stories.
Practically every single basic feature of Hinduism
today was adopted from the religious beliefs and rituals of the other,
originally tribal, religious traditions of the people from every single corner
of India as they all converged into Hinduism. To begin with, Idol-worship which is
absolutely the central feature of Hinduism and which includes (a) the
worship of the lingam, “rude blocks of stone” with eyes painted on them, or
roughly or finely carved or cast images of stone, metal or some other material,
(b) treating the idols as living beings (bathing, dressing and feeding them,
putting them to sleep, etc.), (c) performing puja by offering flowers,
water and fruits, bananas and coconuts, clothes and ornaments to the idols, (d)
performing aarti by waving lights and incense before the idols, (e)
performing music and dance before the idols, (e) partaking of prasad of
food offered to the idols, (f) having impressive idol-temples with pillared
halls, elaborate carvings and sculptures, sacred tanks and bathing ghats,
temple festivals with palanquins and chariots, etc. (g) applying ash,
sandal-paste, turmeric, vermillion, etc. on the forehead as a mark of the
idols, etc. This entire system in all its variations was adopted from the
various practices of the people of eastern, central and southern India, along
with the Gods and idols themselves.
All the basic philosophical
concepts of mainstream Hinduism are likewise adopted from the tribal and
local populations of different parts of India: the concept of rebirth and
transmigration of souls, the concept of auspicious moments based on
the panchanga and the tithis, the worship of particular trees
and plants, animals, birds and reptiles, the worship of particular
forests, groves, mountains and rivers, the worship of ancestors in
elaborate ceremonies, etc., etc.
The spread of this Vedic religion (ultimately Vedic
only in name) from an original Pūru centre in Haryana to all over India
can in no way be treated as an invasion, any more than the spread in later
times (after 600 BCE) of Buddhism and Jainism from an
original Ikṣvāku centre in Bihar to all over India (and in the case of
Buddhism, all over Asia at one time).
ADDITIONAL POINTS:
Modern western Indologists (even more than the early
Indologists, who were actually more objective, but were wearing the blinkers of
the AIT which distorted their vision) set out with the agenda of finding
evidence for the AIT in the Rigveda. Jijith (and other AIOIT
believers like PL Bhargava and Narhari Achar) sets out with the agenda of
finding evidence for the origin of the Ikṣvākus in the northwest or
specifically in the Sarasvati area. When people set out to analyze the
Rigveda with an agenda in mind, and treat the agenda as more important
than the data, it leads to a complete distortion of perspective and to
fundamental mistakes.
In the case of “Rivers of the Rigveda”, it leads to a
complete distortion of perspective on two fundamental matters:
1. The identity of the Vedic Aryans.
2. The internal chronology of the Rigveda.
1. Western Indologists find “Aryans” and “non-Aryans” among
the entities named in the Rigveda. Jijith finds two mutually hostile groups of
protagonist Vedic people in the Rigveda who are both simultaneously the People
of the Book.
All the Rigvedic data shows that the People
of the Book were the Bharata Pūrus, whose
rulers or leaders were the dynasty of Divodāsa and Sudās:
a) In the Old Rigveda, it was purely a book of
the Bharata Pūrus, and other Pūrus were rivals.
b) In the New Rigveda, it was still a book of
the Bharata Pūrus, but the other Pūrus were no longer
rivals, but part of the expanding Vedic culture. And even non-Pūrus
were no longer enemies but included patrons of the Vedic rishis.
c) In subsequent Vedic literature, the Vedic
culture was no more a culture only of the Pūrus, but was becoming
the umbrella-culture of large parts of North India, and was incorporating more
and more of the non-Pūru religious elements of the east.
d) In post-Vedic literature, the Vedic culture
became more or less the umbrella-culture of most of North India with
innumerable new originally non-Vedic religious elements
increasingly being incorporated into it, and it metamorphosed into Hinduism.
Of the Vedic texts, the Rigveda alone
gives us details of the Pūru tribal identity of the Vedic Aryans
vis-à-vis other tribes: the subsequent Vedic literature, including the other
Samhitas are purely ritualistic and religious texts, and do not even
once mention the names of the five Aiḷa tribes or the Ikṣvākus in
an identity sense. Hence movements depicted in the subsequent Vedic texts
(e.g. Videgha Māthava) are movements of ritual and religious
elements and not of tribes or people.
Jijith, in the zeal of the Ikṣvāku agenda, creates
two rival People of the Book in the Rigveda,
and (like Witzel and Jamison) finds contradictory verses supporting two rival
factions of the People of the Book within
the same hymn. Also, he ends up echoing the views of Witzel and Jamison
about Videgha Māthava representing a migration movement
towards the east. For details, see my review of the book.
2. He claims that he fully supports my internal chronology,
which is absolute (see my article on “The Chronological Gulf
Between the old Rigveda and the New Rigveda”), but in pursuit of the Ikṣvāku
agenda, he
a) places Purukutsa and Trasadasyu of the New
Rigveda as older than Sudās of the Old Rigveda,
b) converts the historical Bharatas-vs.-Iranians
battle, the vārṣāgira battle, into an ambiguous "Tṛtsu Bharatas"-vs.-"Saṁvaraṇa Bharatas"
battle.
c) and invents a new Battle of Asiknī
which is older than the Dāśarājña battle (thereby endorsing the AIT
view that western battles preceded eastern battles).
But then a contradiction
arises (as it does for all scholars, like Witzel and Jamison above, who
postulate two mutually inimical Pūru groups in the Rigveda, both of them
protagonist heroes in the text): if for the Vasiṣṭhas the "Saṁvaraṇa
Bharatas" are the enemies in one battle (the dāśarājña battle), how is it
they are the protagonists in the other one (the "Battle of Asiknī")?
Jijith realizes this
contradiction, and has the following explanation: "Mahābhārata
subsequently says, Vasiṣṭha helped Samvaraṇa. This enabled his lineage to
return to their own territory in the Yamunā-Sarasvatī region from where they
were expelled by Sudās. But, as per the Ṛgveda, it was Vasiṣṭha who helped
Sudās to gain victory against the Pūrus and Ānavas in the Dāśarājña Battle. how
is it then possible that Vasiṣṭha help the enemies of Sudās? The Mahābhārata
says Vasiṣṭha had a period of conflict with Sudās's son, Kalmāṣapāda Saudāsa,
also known as Mitrasaha. Due to this, Vasiṣṭha abandoned Sudās's son. During
this time he might have aligned with the enemies, viz. the Saṁvaraṇa Bharatas.
Vasiṣṭha helped Saṁvaraṇa by forging an alliance with the Tṛkṣi-Ikṣvākus (the
Western Ikṣvākus)" (p.46-47).
This lands him in another contradiction: “Sudās's
son, Kalmāṣapāda Saudāsa” is totally unknown to the Vedic
texts (and names with “-pāda” are extremely post-Rigvedic). But even if
we assume that a son of Sudās (whatever his actual name) alienated Vasiṣṭha, after
which he abandoned them and aligned with the "Saṁvaraṇa Bharatas",
Jijith forgets that he has already stated that the "Battle of Asiknī",
where Vasiṣṭha was apparently aligned with the "Saṁvaraṇa Bharatas", had "occurred
earlier than the Dāśarājña Battle" (p.183) where he is aligned with
Sudās!
