Sarayu Again: And a Discussion in Chanakya University Bangalore

 

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 20^th 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!