B. B.

LAL

CAN THE VEDIC PEOPLE BE IDENTIFIED

ARCHAEOLOGICALLY? AN APPROACH

Swords have been crossed and are still being so done on the iden-
tification of the Vedic people on the terra firma. Most Western schol-
ars not all, and their dyed-in-the-wool followers in India hold that
nomadic hordes of the Vedic people entered the subcontinent from the
north-west and invaded the Harappan cities, as a result of which the
Harappa Culture became extinct. They also hold that the Vedas are
only as old as 1200 BCE. In the present paper we will try to analyze
the literary as well as archaeological data to find out if the Vedic peo-
ple can at all be identified archaeologically and if so with which mate-
rial culture-complex.
Looked at in a historical perspective, the seeds of this controversy
may be said to have been sown in the nineteenth century when a
renowned German scholar, Max Muller, declared that the Vedas were
to be placed around 1200 BCE. Accepting that the Stra literature was
assignable to the sixth century BCE, he allowed a period of 200 years
for each of the preceding literary stages, viz. those of the rayakas
and Brhmaas. This took him to 600 + 200 + 200 i.e. to 1000 BCE.
Since the Vedas preceded the Brhmaas, he opined that the former
may be placed between 1000 and 1200 BCE. This was a most
mechanical way of dating the Vedic literature, and obviously could
not cut much ice. Thus, when his contemporaries, like Wilson,
Whitney and Goldstucker, made a lot of hue and cry on this kind of
approach, a cornered Max Muller acknowledged that his dating was
174 B. B. Lal

merely hypothetical and finally surrendered by adding: Whether

the hymns were composed [in] 1000 or 1500 or 2000 or 3000 BCE, no
power on earth will ever determine 1.
The next stage in this historical perspective comes in the first quarter
of the twentieth century when a mighty civilization, now called variously
the Harappan, Indus or Indus-Sarasvat Civilization, was discovered in the
north-western part of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent. It is characterized
by well established cities, systematic town-planning, use of kiln-fired
bricks for structures, and, above all, underground drainage features
which were lacking in the contemporary civilizations of Egypt and
Mesopotamia. It may also be noted that this Indian civilization spread
over an area much wider than that covered by the aforesaid two civiliza-
tions put together. The exquisitely carved steatite seals of the Harappan
Civilization would ever remain the envy of any craftsman, past or present.
It took no time for archaeologists to date this newly found Indian
civilization to the third millennium BCE, since objects belonging to it
were found in datable contexts of the Mesopotamian civilization. And
herein lay the further sprouting of the seeds of the debate. Since the
Harappan Civilization was datable to the third millennium BCE and the
Vedas, according to the above-mentioned fatwa of Max Mller, were
no older than 1200 BCE, it seemed most logical, in the context of the
then prevailing chronological framework, to say that the Harappan
Civilization could not have been the product of the Vedic people.
The third and final stroke was that delivered in 1946 by Mortimer
Wheeler (later knighted) when he discovered a fortification wall
around one of the mounds at Harappa. Without losing any time, he
declared as follows: 2

The Aryan invasion of the Land of Seven Rivers, the Punjab and its
environs, constantly assumes the form of an onslaught upon the walled
cities of the aborigines. For these cities the term used in the igveda is
pur, meaning a rampart, fort or stronghold Indra, the ryan War-

1. F. Max Mller, Physical Religion, New Delhi, Asian Educational Services,

reprint 1979.
2. R. E. M. Wheeler, Harappa 1946: The Defences and Cemetery R 37,
Ancient India, 3 (1947), p. 82.
 Can the vedic people be identified archaeologically? An approach 175

god, is puram.dara, fort-destroyer. He shatters ninety forts for his

ryan protg Divodsa.
Where are or were these citadels? It has in the past been supposed that
they were mythical, or were merely places of refuge against attack, ramparts
of hardened earth with palisades and a ditch. The recent excavation of
Harappa may be thought to have changed the picture. Here we have a highly
evolved civilization of essentially non-ryan type, now known to have
employed massive fortifications, and known also to have dominated the river-
system of north-western India at a time not distant from the likely period of
the earlier ryan invasions of that region. What destroyed this firmly settled
civilization? Climatic, economic, political deterioration may have weakened
it, but its ultimate extinction is more likely to have been completed by deliber-
ate and large-scale destruction. It may be no mere chance that at a late period
of Mohenjo-daro men, women and children appear to have been massacred
there. On circumstantial evidence, Indra stands accused.

Thus came the climax in the framing of the thesis that the Vedic
Aryans were invaders who destroyed the Harappan Civilization.
We may now begin with an examination of Wheelers postulations.
He speaks of a massacre at Mohenjo-daro. Was it really one? There are
several flaws in it. In the first place, if it was a massacre which led to the
destruction of the site and its consequent abandonment, one expects that
these skeletons would lie at the uppermost level. But that is not the case.
Stratigraphically, in the history of the site, some belonged to the
Intermediate levels, some to the Late, while some more came from
deposits which got accumulated after the site had been deserted.
Secondly, as to their locale, all these came from the Lower Town an
area occupied by the common folks, but none from the Citadel where
lived the elites and the rulers. Are we then supposed to believe that the
invaders were choosy in their onslaught and slaughtered only the com-
moners and carefully avoided the rulers who really ought to have been
their prime target. Thirdly, some of the skeletons bore cut-marks which
had been healed. Such a healing would have been impossible had the
persons concerned died in a warfare, since the death would have been
immediate, leaving no time for the wounds to heal. And finally, no
weapons have been found at the site which could point to a warfare; nor
has the site yielded any material remains that could be associated with
the (supposed) invaders. Taking all these factors into consideration, one
176 B. B. Lal

cannot but agree with George F. Dales when he damns this as a mythi-
cal massacre 3. Surely, Indra stands exonerated!
And there are many other eminent scholars who do not see eye to
eye with Wheeler. For example, Collin Renfrew has the following
comments to offer 4:

When Wheeler speaks of the Aryan invasion of the land of the Seven
Rivers, the Punjab, he has no warranty at all, as far as I can see. If one
checks the dozen references in the igveda to the Seven Rivers, there is
nothing in any of them that to me implies invasion.
() Despite Wheelers comments, it is difficult to see what is particu-
larly non-Aryan about the Indus Valley Civilization.

If we cast a glance at the Harappan sites, from west to east and

from north to south, we do not find any evidence of wilful destruction,
much less of an Aryan Invasion: be it Kot Diji in Sindh, or Harappa
itself in Pakistani Punjab, or Rakhigarhi in Haryana or Lothal in Gujarat.
On the other hand, there is ample evidence of a cultural devolution,
taking the story from an urban scenario to a rural one. These transfor-
mations begin to assume local configurations. For example, at
Harappa itself there is a transition from the Mature Harappa Culture to
what has been termed the Cemetery H Culture. Or, in Gujarat there is
a devolution of the Harappa Culture into what is known as the
Rangpur Culture. This is not the place to go into the causes of such a
devolution, in detail. Briefly, however, some of these seem to have
been: the wearing away of the landscape owing to excessive exploita-
tion for agricultural purposes; a major change in climatic conditions;
and, above all, a steep fall both in internal as well as external trade.
There is yet another kind of evidence which stands in the way of
any kind of invasion. This comes from the study of human skeletal
remains. In a paper published in 1991, Hemphill and his colleagues
observe as follows: As for the question of biological continuity
within the Indus Valley, two discontinuities appear to exist. The first

3. G. F. Dales, The Mythical Massacre at Mohenjo-daro, Expedition,

(6)3(1964), pp. 36-43.
4. C. Renfrew, Archaeology and Language, New York, Cambridge University
Press, 1998, pp. 188 and 190.
 Can the vedic people be identified archaeologically? An approach 177

occurs between 6000 and 4500 B.C. () and the second occurs at
some point after 800 B.C. 5. In the face of such a categorical assertion
by distinguished anthropologists, how on earth can we push in, even
through a back door, the Aryan invaders who are regarded as aliens
and ethnically different from the Harappans?
Even in the face of the foregoing evidence against the Aryan
invasion theory, those who have a mind-set that the Aryans must have
been nomads, entering India from outside, continue to harp on their
pet theories, only changing garbs, as if in a theatrical performance. For
example, Romila Thapar comes out with an alternative formulation: 6

It is now generally agreed that the decline of Harappan urbanism was due
to environmental changes of various kinds, to political pressures and possi-
ble break in trading activities, and not to any invasion. Nor does the archae-
ological evidence register the likelihood of a massive migration from Iran
to northwestern India on such a scale as to overwhelm the existing cultures.
If invasion is discarded then the mechanism of migration and occasional
contacts come into sharper focus. The migrations appear to have been of
pastoral cattle-herders who are prominent in the Avesta and Rig Veda.

But once it is conceded that there is no evidence to support the

invasion theory, what purpose would it serve to keep on giving life-
saving injections to a dead horse, by formulating another theory, viz.
that of sporadic migration and occasional contacts by pastoral cat-
tle-herders? What archaeological evidence is there to substantiate the
theory even in its new garb?
Toeing the aforesaid line of Thapar and following the footsteps of
Fairsservis as well, R. S. Sharma writes: () the pastoralists who
moved to the Indian borderland came from Bactria-Margiana Archaeo-
logical Complex or the BMAC which saw the genesis of the culture of
the g Veda 7. But can the learned author point out even a single site
in India, east of the Indus which was the main scene of activity of

5. B. E. Hemphill et al., Biological Adaptations and Affinities of Bronze Age

Harappans, in R. H. Meadow (ed.) Harappa Excavations 1986-90, (1991), pp. 137-82.
6. R. Thapar, in Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bombay, 64-66 (1988-91), pp.
259-60.
7. R. S. Sharma, Advent of the Aryans in India, New Delhi, Manohar
Publishers,1999, p. 77.
178 B. B. Lal

the igvedic people where settlements/ remains of the BMAC as

such have been found? If not, why then indulge in baseless specula-
tions? Perhaps in this context the pro-BMAC scholars might like to
point to a recent paper in which Possehl refers to some seal-impres-
sions on clay found in his excavation at Gilund, a Banas Culture site
in south-eastern Rajasthan, which, according to him, are similar to
those associated with the BMAC 8. While these seal-impressions yet
remain to be studied more closely, let it be stated that the occurrence
of a few seal-impressions does not necessarily imply the immigra-
tion of the people as such belonging to the BMA Complex. Their
presence can equally well be explained by trade-contacts and so on.
Dont we give the same explanation for the occurrence of the objects
of the Harappa Culture in Mesopotamia, Iran and Central Asia, and
for the counter presence of some objects from these areas at Harappan
sites on the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent?
Once again, those who have their mind deeply immersed in the
Aryan Invasion/Immigration theory, take recourse to another kind of
argument, viz. that of the flora. For example, Possehl writes: One
thing seems certain; the speakers of Vedic Sanskrit () came from
elsewhere. This conclusion comes from () Indo-European words for
trees which are species such as birch, Scotch pine, linden, alder and
oak. These are plants from a temperate environment and the fact that
their names are shared among the early languages of the family sug-
gests a homeland in this environment 9.
I have dealt with this issue in great detail in my latest book 10, but
it may briefly yet categorically be stated here that the earliest book of
the Aryans, viz. the igveda, does not mention any of the species of
cold-climate trees enumerated above. On the other hand, all the trees
mentioned in the igveda, such as the Avattha (Ficus Religiosa L.),
Khadira (Acacia catechu), Nyagrodha (Ficus benghalensis), to name
just a few, do not belong to a cold climate but to a tropical one.

8. Gregory L. Possehl, The Ahar-Banas Complex and the BMAC, Man and
Environment, 29(2), 2004, pp. 18-29.
9. Gregory L. Possehl, Indus Age: The Writing System, New Delhi, Oxford and
IBH, 1996, p. 65.
10. B. B. Lal, The Homeland of the Aryans: Evidence of igvedic Flora and
Fauna and Archaeology, New Delhi, Aryan Books International, 2005.
 Can the vedic people be identified archaeologically? An approach 179

Likewise, the igvedic fauna, comprising such species as the lion, ele-
phant, peacock also belongs to a tropical climate and does not include
any species specific to cold climate. So where is the case for import-
ing the igvedic people from a cold-climate zone?
There is yet another misconstrued theory, viz. that the Harappans
were a Dravidian-speaking people, which requires an examination.
This indeed is an off-shoot of the Aryan Invasion theory itself. It is
held by the proponents of this theory that as a result of the Aryan inva-
sion the Harappans were driven away all the way to south India but a
pocketful of them somehow managed to stay on in Baluchistan; and
these residual people now speak the Brahui language which is
regarded by these proponents as a branch of the Dravidian group. Let
it straightaway be stated that most scholars do not agree that Brahui
belongs to the Dravidian group. Some even hold that the Brahui-
speaking people migrated to that region from elsewhere during the
medieval times.
Further, if the so-called Dravidian-speaking Harappans were
pushed down to South India, one expects to find some Harappan sites
in that region. But the hard fact is that in none of the four Dravidian-
speaking States of South India, viz. Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh,
Karnataka and Kerala, do we have even a single site of the Harappan
Culture! On the other hand, what we do have in South India about that
time is a neolithic culture. Do then the proponents of the Harappan=
Dravidian equation expect us to believe that the urban Harappans, on
being sent down to South India, shed away overnight their urban char-
acteristics and took to a Stone Age way of living?
And now comes another significant observation. It is seen all over
the world that even if the original inhabitants are pushed out of an
area, some of the rivers, mountains and towns in that area continue to
bear their original names. Thus, for example, even after the Europeans
overran North America and gave their own names to the towns, such
as New York, New Jersey, etc., many of the names of the towns and
rivers given by the earlier inhabitants, viz. the American (Red)
Indians, may still be noted: for example, Chicago and Massachusetts as
those of towns and Missouri and Mississippi as of rivers. But in the
entire region once occupied by the Harappans, from the Indus to the
upper reaches of the Yamun-Gag, there is not even a single name
180 B. B. Lal

of river, mountain or town which can claim a Dravidian origin. Why?

The obvious answer is that the Harappans were not a Dravidian-speak-
ing people.
If, as we have just seen, the Aryans Invasion is a myth and the
Harappans were not Dravidian-speakers, were they themselves the
ones who composed the Vedas and are popularly called the Aryans.
Further, were they indigenous, occupying the north-western part of the
Indo-Pakistan subcontinent? There are four major objections to a
Vedic=Harappan equation and we shall examine the same one by one,
though rather briefly in view of the space-constraint of this paper.
First. It has vociferously been orchestrated that the Vedic Aryans
were nomads, and since the Harappans had reached an urban stage,
how could the two be equated? But this concept of the Vedic people
is, as we shall see, a complete myth perpetuated over a couple of cen-
turies. The Aryans were not nomads, wandering from place to place,
but had regular settlements which were even fortified. This would be
abundantly clear even from the few quotations that we give below
from the igveda itself. For example, RV 7.15.14, runs as follows:

Adh Mah na yasyandhio niptaye prbhav atabhuji.

And, irresistible, be thou a mighty metal fort to us,
With hundred walls for mans defence.

Through another verse, RV 10.101.8, the devotee prays that not only
should the forts be metal-like strong, but that he should also be provided
with many coats of armour, evidently signifying military strength:

() varma svyadhvam bahul pithni

pura kiudhvamyasradhi
() stitch ye [oh gods] the coats of armour, wide and many; make metal
forts, secure from all assailants.

On the economic front too, the Vedic Aryans were quite affluent.
They were engaged in both internal as well as also overseas trade.
This is clearly indicated by the following igvedic verse, 9.33.6:

rya samudrschaturo asmabhyam soma vivata. pavasva

sahasria
 Can the vedic people be identified archaeologically? An approach 181

O Soma, from every side pour forth four seas filled with a thousand-fold
riches.

For carrying out sea-trade, they used large-sized boats which were
sometimes provided with a hundred (i.e. a large number of) oars. Says
RV 1.116.5:

anrambhae tadvrayethmansthne agrabhae samudre

yadavin hathurbhujyumastam atritrm nvamtasthivnsam
O Asvins, you saved Bhujyu (from drowning) in a deep sea where there
was nothing to hold on, by lifting him up in a boat that had a hundred
oars and sending him to his place. This was indeed a brave act of yours.

On the land, the igvedic Aryans plied, besides bullock-carts,

fast-running chariots, to which were sometimes yoked as many as four
horses each, bedecked with pearl-ornaments. This is vouchsafed by
the following (RV 1.126.4):

chatvrinad daarathasya o sahasrasygre reim nayanti

madachyuta kianvato atyn Kakvanta udamikanta pajr
Forty bay horses of the ten cars master before a thousand lead the long
procession.
Reeling in joy Kakivns sons and Pajrs have grounded the coursers
decked with pearly trappings.

Unlike nomads, the Vedic people were highly organized on the

social as well as political fronts. The igveda throws valuable light on
the polity of the times, as indicated by the occurrence in it of such
terms as sabh and samiti on the one hand and of samr, rjan, r-
jaka, etc. on the other. The first two terms clearly refer to assemblies
that took vital decisions on matters of public interest. That there did
exist these institutions in the Vedic society is clearly borne out by the
following verse of the igveda (9.92.6):

pari sadmeva paumnti hot raj na satya samitriyna. /

soma punna kala ayst sdan migo na mahio vaneu //
As the priest seeks the station rich in cattle, like a true king who goes to
great assemblies,
182 B. B. Lal

Soma hath sought the pitchers while they cleansed him, and like a wild
buffalo, in the wood hath settled.

In the above-noted verse, certain similes are given: viz. that the
Soma enters the pitcher (kalaa) just as the king enters the assembly
or a wild buffalo enters the forests.
The other three terms, viz. samr, rjan and rjaka, point to a
hierarchy of rulers. In RV 6.27.8, Abhyvart Chyamna is referred to
as a Samr, whereas in RV 8.21.18 Chitra is said to be a mere Rjan
and the epithet of other still inferior rulers is Rjaka.

RV 6.27.8:
dvy agne rathino viatim g vadhmato maghav mahyam samr /
Abhyvart Chyamno dadti deyam daki prthavnm //
Two wagon-teams, with damsels, twenty oxen, O Agni, Abhyvartin
Chyamna,
The liberal Sovran, giveth me. This guerdon of Pithus seed is hard to
win from others.

RV 8.21.18:
Chitra id rj rjak idanyake yake Sarasvatmanu /
parjanya iva tatanaddhi viy sahasramayut dadat //
Chitra is King, and only kinglings are the rest, who dwell beside
Sarasvat.
He, like Parjanya with his rain, hath spread himself with thousand, yea,
with myriad gifts.

Does one expect such fine distinction of governance in a nomadic

society? That these distinctions were not imaginary but very much real is
borne out by the atapatha Brhmaa (V.1.1.13) when it clearly states:

Rj vai Rjasyenev bhavati, Samrd Vjapeyena / avara hi rjya

para smrjya / Kmayeta vai Rj Samr bhavitum avara hi rjyam
para samrjya / Na Samr kmayeta Rj bhavitum avara hi
rjya para samrjya /
By offering the Rjasya he becomes Rj and by the Vjapeya he becomes
Samr, and the office of Rjan is lower and that of Samraj the higher. A
Rj might indeed wish to become a Samr, for the office of Rjan is lower
and of Samrj the higher; but the Samr would not wish to become a Rj
 Can the vedic people be identified archaeologically? An approach 183

for the office of the Rjan is lower, and that of Samrj the higher.

From what has been quoted above from the igveda itself it must
have become abundantly clear that the igvedic Aryans were highly
advanced on most fronts social, economic and political. Should
these people be labelled nomads?
Now to the second objection. It has been argued that whereas the
Vedic vehicles had spoked wheels the Harappans were unfamiliar
with such wheels 11. This is highly misleading. While in the hot and
humid climate of India it would be too much to expect wooden wheels
to have survived, we do have ample examples of terracotta models of
wheels which clearly show that these were spoked. Thus, Kalibangan
and Rakhigarhi, both well known sites of the Harappan Civilization,
have produced terracotta examples of wheels in which the spokes are
shown by painted lines which emerge from the central hub and radiate
to the periphery (Fig. 1, from Rakhigarhi). And yet another technique,
viz. that of low relief, was used to depict the radiating spokes, exam-
ples of which come from Banawali, another Harappan site.
The third objection, viz. that the Harappans did not domesticate
the horses is equally ill-founded. Mackay, who carried out further exca-
vations at Mohenjo-daro, categorically stated: Perhaps the most inter-
esting of the model animals is the one that I personally take to repre-
sent a horse 12. Wheeler not only re-affirmed the same, but also added
further evidence: One terracotta, from a late level of Mohenjo-daro,
seems to represent a horse, reminding us that the jaw-bone of a horse
is also recorded from the site, and that the horse was known at a con-
siderably earlier period in northern Baluchistan 13.
In addition to the foregoing, there is a lot of new evidence. Lothal,
a well known Harappan site in Gujarat, has yielded a terracotta figure
of the horse (Fig. 2), besides a second upper molar of the animal 14. To

11. R. S. Sharma, op. cit., pp. 18-19.

12. E. J. H. Mackay, Further Excavations at Mohenjo-daro, Delhi, Government
of India, 1938, Vol. I, p. 289.
13. R. E. M. Wheeler, The Indus Civilization, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 3rd edition, 1968, p. 92.
14. S. R. Rao, Lothal A Harappan Port Town, New Delhi, Archaeological
Survey of India, 1985, Vol. II, p. 641.
184 B. B. Lal

cap it all, there are more faunal remains from Surkotada, yet another
Harappan site in Gujarat 15. Commenting on these, the renowned inter-
national expert on horse-bones, Sandor Bokonyi, wrote in 1993 a letter
to the Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India, as fol-
lows: The occurrence of true horse (Equus caballus L.) was evidenced
by the enamel pattern of the upper and lower cheek and teeth and by
the size and form of incisors and phalanges (toe bones). Since no wild
horses lived in India in post-Pleistocene times, the domestic nature of
the Surkotada horses is undoubtful. This is also supported by an inter-
maxilla fragment whose incisor tooth shows clear signs of crib biting, a
bad habit only existing among domestic horses which are not exten-
sively used for wars. An attempt is being made by certain scholars to
play down the Surkotada evidence, but this has not cut much ice.
Faunal remains of the horse have also been found at a few other
Harappan sites, such as Rupnagar in Panjab and Kalibangan in
Rajasthan. Indeed, the truant horse has crossed the hurdles 16!
And finally comes the alleged chronological disparity between
the Harappan and Vedic times. To recall, whereas the Harappan
Civilization belongs to the third millennium B.C., it is held even today
by many blind followers of Max Mller that the Vedas are no older
than 1200 B.C., although the savant himself had ultimately given up
his ad hoc hypothesis (above, p. 174).
We shall now ascertain the date of the igveda from a combina-
tion of evidences, namely those from literature, archaeology, geology
and hydrology. In this investigation, the igvedic river Sarasvati- plays
a vital role. Some scholars, e.g. R. S. Sharma 17, hold that this river is to
be identified with the Helmand of Afghanistan. And, taking a leap fur-
ther, they hold that the igvedic Aryans lived in Afghanistan. Well, it
requires no extra wisdom to say that if we are looking for the identifi-
cation of the igvedic Sarasvat we have first to go to the igvedic text
itself and find what it has to say about the location of this river.

15. J. P. Joshi, Excavations at Surkotada 1971-72 and Explorations in Kutch,

New Delhi, Archaeological Survey of India, 1990, p. 381.
16. B. B. Lal, India 1947-97: New Light on the Indus Civilization, New Delhi,
Aryan Books International, 1998, pp. 109-12.
17. R. S. Sharma, Advent of the Aryans in India, New Delhi, Manohar
Publishers, 1999, p. 35.
 Can the vedic people be identified archaeologically? An approach 185

Verses 10.75. 5 and 6 of the famous Nad-stuti hymn of the

igveda enumerate the rivers in a serial order from the Gag and
Yamun on the east to the Indus, along with its western tributaries
such as the Kabul, Gomal and Kurram. The verses run as follows:

imam me Gage Yamune Sarasvati utudri stomam sachat Paruy /

Asikny Marudvidhe Vitastay rjkye iuhy Suomay //5//
Timay prathamam ytave saj Susartv Rasay vety ty /
Tvam Sindho Kubhay Gomatm Krumum Mehatnv saratham
yhiryase // 6//
O Gag, Yamun, Sarasvat, utudr (Sutlej) and Paru (Ravi), O
Marudvidh with Asikn (Chenab), O rjiky with Vitast (Jhelum)
and Suom (Sohan), please listen to and accept this hymn of mine. // 5 //
O Sindhu (Indus), flowing, you first meet the Tim (and then) the Susartu,
the Ras, and the vet (Swat), and thereafter the Kubh (Kabul), the Gomat
(Gomal), the Krumu (Kurram) with the Mehatnu; and (finally) you move on
in the same chariot with them (i.e. carry their waters with you). // 6 //

From the above geographical description it is abundantly clear

that the Sarasvat flowed between the Yamun and Sutlej. Do we have
these rivers in Afghanistan? If not, how can we place the Sarasvat
there? Of course, not.
Now we pass on to RV 7.95.2 which refers to the Sarasvat as a
mighty river flowing from the mountains to the sea:

ekchetat Sarasvat nadnm uchir yat giribhya samudrt /

ryachetant bhuvanasya bhrerghitam payo duduhe Nhuya //
Pure in her course from mountains to the ocean, alone of streams
Sarasvat hath listened. Thinking of wealth and the great world of crea-
tures, she poured for Nahua her milk and fatness.

While we do have mountains in Afghanistan, there is no sea; and

the Helmand does not have any access to the sea. How could then the
Sarasvat be identified with the Helmand? No chance!
If the Sarasvat is not to be identified with the Helmand of
Afghanistan, then with which river should it be? As seen from RV
10.75.5 (quoted above), the igvedic Sarasvat lay between the
Yamun and Sutlej. Even today there flows a river called the Sarasut
186 B. B. Lal

(=Sanskrit Sarasvat) between the aforesaid two rivers. It now origi-

nates at the foot of the Siwalik hills and flows in a southwesterly
direction in Haryana, passing by Pipli, Kurukshetra and Pehowa.
Thereafter it joins the Ghaggar, and the combined Sarasvat-Ghaggar
stream dries up near Sirsa. Beyond that it is only the dry bed that is
identifiable, going by the names of the Ghaggar in Rajasthan, the
Hakra in Cholistan (Pakistan) and the Raini and Wahinda in Sindh,
and joining the sea at the Rann of Kachchha.
A question may well be asked: Since as of now the Sarasvat-
Ghaggar combine does not carry plenty of water and dries up beyond
a certain point, how come that the dry bed is so wide, sometimes even
up to 8 km? In search of the answer, we have once again to get back to
the igveda. Verse RV 6.61.2 states:

iyam umebhirbisakh ivrujat snu girm taviebhirrmibhi /

prvataghnmavase suviktibhi Sarasvatm vivsema dhtibhi //
This (Sarasvat river) has shattered the mountain peaks with her fast and
powerful waves, just (as easily) as one uproots the lotus stems; let us
invoke her, who strikes what is far and near, with holy hymns and prayers.

It would thus be seen that the igvedic Sarasvat had plenty of

water in it, so much so that its fast and powerful currents could some-
times even shatter the peaks of mountains.
From where did the igvedic Sarasvat get all this tremendous
supply of water? In this context one can do no better than refer to a
most recent study of the problem. It is by two eminent geologists, V.
M. K. Puri and B. C. Verma 18. In their paper, they present a very com-
prehensive survey of the Himalayan region of its rivers, terraces and
glaciers, and observe:

Thus, the terraces studied in Sudanwala, Bata, Garibnath and Markanda

provide an irrefutable geological evidence to suggest a course of a river
that was flowing in almost west-northwesterly direction in the past. Its
dimension was very large as it contained a very high discharge that tra-
versed in its upper reaches a terrain of quartzite and metamorphic rocks.

18. V. M. K. Puri and B. C. Verma, Glaciological and Geological Source of

Vedic Sarasvati in the Himalayas, Itihas Darpan, Vol. IV, No. 2, 1998, pp. 7-36.
 Can the vedic people be identified archaeologically? An approach 187

Such a region does exist in central and upper reaches of Yamun fourth
order basin where Central Crystallines and Jutogh group of rocks are
located towards north, north-east and eastern side of above-mentioned
four terraces. Moreover, in the Paonta valley, there is a clear evidence that
prior to the present Yamun river, there existed a major river channel at a
much higher elevation that followed a westerly and southwesterly course
through a route now almost completely obliterated on Siwalik platform
due to erosion but its terraces are still observed along Adh Badri-
Markanda link in the plains immediately to the south of Siwalik belt.

After a further study of the region, these geologists produced a

map which shows that the ultimate sources for this Vedic Sarasvat
were what are known today as the Sarasvat, Jamadar, Supin and
Manjee Glaciers, supplemented by Rupin and Nargani Glaciers. All
these glaciers melted near Naitwar and the river thus formed moved
first in a southwesterly direction and then in the westerly. Breaking
through the Siwaliks near Adh Badri, it finally made its mighty
descent on the plains. This, in brief, is the story of perennial water
supply to the once mighty Sarasvat which is now represented by mere
dry beds, though, as already stated, these are at places as wide as 6-8
kilometres.
A very relevant question that may now be asked: If the Sarasvat
was such a mighty river, how did it dry up? The answer, again, had to
be sought thorough an investigation of the Himalayan terrain, which
the afore-mentioned geologists, Puri and Verma, verily did. According
to them, there took place a major seismic upheaval in the Himalayas,
as a result of which there arose the Bata-Markanda Divide, nearly 30
metres in height 19. It blocked the passage of the Sarasvat, which
could no longer flow westwards. Since water must find its way out, it
flowed backwards and, taking advantage of the Yamuna Tear opening,
joined the Yamun river. Thus ended the glorious history of the river
long-venerated by the igvedic Aryans.
It is very interesting to note that this event of the drying up of the
Sarasvat is duly confirmed by a later Vedic text. The Pachavia
Brhmaa (XXV. 10. 16) refers to the drying up of the Sarasvat.

19. Puri and Verma, op. cit., Fig. 13.

188 B. B. Lal

Thus, the literary data fully corroborate the presence of tremendous

amount of water in the Sarasvat river in ancient times as well as its
subsequent drying up.
In this context attention must be drawn to some very telling evi-
dence from the Ghaggar-Sarasvati bed itself, at Kalibangan. When the
excavations over here were in progress, we were naturally keen on
verifying locally the facts about the drying up of the river, since it was
obvious to us that the massive settlement at Kalibangan could not
have flourished without the adjacent river having been alive and
active. With this end in view, a project, combining the efforts of the
Archaeological Survey of India, Geological Survey of India (repre-
sented by Shri R. K. Karanth) and an Italian firm named Raikes and
Partners (headed by Mr. R. L. Raikes), was set in motion. Four bore-
holes were dug, one of which lay in between the two mounds compris-
ing the site and three in the river-bed itself, located at a distance of
300 metres from one another towards the centre of the bed. All things
apart, the most revealing fact was that the greyish sand encountered in
these bore-holes, at a depth of about 11 m below the present flood-
plain, was very similar in mineral content to that found in the bed of
the present-day Yamuna. This confirms the findings of Puri and
Verma that the source of the Ghaggar (Sarasvat) lay high up in the
Himalayas from where the Yamun also originated, thus making the
sand similar in both the cases. Further, as Raikes has very aptly cap-
tioned his paper just referred to, viz. Kalibangan: Death from Natural
Causes 20, the Harappan settlement at Kalibangan came to a sudden
end because of the drying up of the Ghaggar, even though it was still
in a Mature stage and not decaying and ending up in a normal process.
The next question is: Is it possible to date the drying up of the
Sarasvat? While geologists have yet to come up with a precise dating,
archaeologists and hydrologists do have some noteworthy facts and
figures to offer. The hydrological evidence (discussed above) shows
that the Mature Harappan occupation at Kalibangan had to be given
up suddenly because of the stoppage of water-supply consequent on
the drying up of the adjacent river, viz. the Sarasvat. The radiocarbon

20. Robert Raikes, Kalibangan: Death from Natural Causes, Antiquity, XLII,
1968, pp. 286-91.
 Can the vedic people be identified archaeologically? An approach 189

dates show that this sudden abandonment of Kalibangan took place

around 2000 BCE 21. It follows, therefore, that this was the time when
the Sarasvat dried up.
To wrap up the history of the Sarasvat. From the above discus-
sion it is clear that:

1) the now-dry Ghaggar on whose bank stands the site of

Kalibangan is none other than the Sarasvat of the igveda;

2) it originated in the Himalayas and flowed all the way down to

the sea;

3) it dried up because of a tectonic upheaval in the Himalayan

region which threw up a barrier known as the Bata-Markanda
Divide, with the result that the path of the Sarasvat was
blocked and its water got diverted to the Yamun via the
Yamun Tear; and

4) this drying up of the Sarasvat led to the abandonment of the

Mature Harappan settlement at Kalibangan an event that took
place around 2000 BCE, as testified to by the radiocarbon dates.

We may now pass on to the most significant outcome of the fore-

going data. Since during the igvedic times the Sarasvat was a
mighty flowing river but it dried up around 2000 BCE, the igveda
has got to be earlier than 2000 BCE. How much earlier by 500
years, 1000 years or even more? It is anybodys guess.
What are the ramifications of such a dating of the igveda in
terms of history? To recall, according to the famous Nad -stuti Skta
of the igveda (RV 10.75.5-6, already quoted above), the area occu-
pied by the igvedic Aryans extended from the upper reaches of the
Gag -Yamun on the east to the Indus and its western tributaries on
the west. Now, if a simple question is posed, viz. which archaeologi-
cal culture flourished in this very area during the pendency of the
igvedic times, i.e. prior to 2000 BCE?, the inescapable answer will

21. B. B. Lal, The Earliest Civilization of South Asia, New Delhi, Aryan Books
International, 1997, pp. 245-46.
190 B. B. Lal

have to be: The Harappa Culture, none else. In other words, the
Harappa Culture and Vedic Culture are just two faces of the same
coin (see Map, Fig. 3).
To take the debate further. Were the Harappans intruders from
outside or autochthonous? Soon after the discovery of the Harappan
Civilization in the early 1920s it was held that this civilization must
have had its origin somewhere in West Asia, since it was the prevail-
ing belief at point of time that civilization began on the Indian subcon-
tinent only after the invasion of Alexander. However, when the pro-
tagonists of the West-Asian origin were called upon to point out
which constituents of the Harappan Civilization were identical with
those of the West-Asian civilization concerned, they fumbled, since
there was nothing that they could put their fingers on, in support of
their thesis. They then took recourse to a strange theory, viz. ideas
have wings, suggesting that, if not the actual civilization itself, the
idea of civilization must have come from West Asia. Thanks, this
baseless theory has since been abandoned because excavations carried
out during the past fifty years have revealed a fool-proof story of the
gradual evolution of the Harappan Civilization on the soil of the Indo-
Pakistan subcontinent itself. The principal excavated sites yielding
evidence of settlements which were ancestral to the Mature Harappan
ones are: Mehrgarh, Kotdiji, Harappa itself, Gumla. Rehman Dheri,
etc. in Pakistan; and Kalibangan, Banawali, Rakhigarhi, Kunal and
Bhirrana in the Sarasvat Valley in India. There are at least two stages
that preceded the Mature Harappan stage of the second half of the
third millennium BCE. The stage that immediately preceded the
Mature Harappan is known variously as Kot Diji/Sothi/ Kalibangan I
Culture, and goes back to the last quarter of the fourth
millennium BCE. There is yet another earlier stage, known as
Hakra/Ravi in Pakistan, going back to the beginning of the fourth mil-
lennium BCE. or somewhat earlier. At Mehrgarh, the chalcolithic
complex goes well back to the fifth millennium BCE. This earlier
stage is now being also revealed in the Sarasvat Valley, where, at
Bhirrana in Haryana, the Carbon-14 dates, as per the Radiocarbon
Laboratory of the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany, Lucknow,
are as follows:
 Can the vedic people be identified archaeologically? An approach 191

Sample No. BS 2314. Calibrated age: 1 Sigma 4770 (4536, 4506,

4504) 4353 BCE
Sample No. BS 2318. Calibrated age: 1 Sigma 5336 (5041) 4721
BCE
Sample No. BS 2333. Calibrated age: 1 Sigma 6647 (6439) 6221
BCE

Even if we temporarily ignore Sample No. BS 2333, the other two

samples clearly show that the ancestry of the Harappa Culture in the
Sarasvat Valley goes back to the beginning of the fifth millennium B.C.
It would then follow that the Harappans, to use a rather colloquial
term, were the sons of the soil. In which case, the Vedic people too,
being identical with the Harappans as shown earlier, were the same,
i.e. autochthonous.

To Sum up
Scientific investigation is an ongoing process. What appears to be
true today would call for a fresh evaluation in the light of evidence
that may turn up tomorrow. Thus, when Wheeler propounded in 1946
his theories of an Aryan Invasion of India and the extinction of the
Indus Civilization, he may (or may not) have been justified at that
point of time. But the new evidence that has piled up from extensive
explorations and intensive excavations at a large number of sites on
the subcontinent during the past fifty years, discussed in this paper,
clearly shows that Wheelers postulates were wrong. Also, the other
offshoot of the Aryan Invasion theory, viz. that the Harappans were
a Dravidian-speaking people, is equally untenable, as shown in the
preceding pages.
An alternative that the Harappans themselves might have been the
Vedic people draws knee-jerk reactions from scholars who have their
minds glued to the former three postulates.
However, quite contrary to the widely orchestrated belief, the
igveda amply describes its people as belonging to a highly civilized,
politically organized, trade-faring society. Can such people be dubbed
as nomads?
192 B. B. Lal

Further, the unique picture that has emerged in recent years from a
combination of evidences from a variety of sources literature and sci-
ences like archaeology, hydrology, geology and radiocarbon-method of
dating shows that the igveda antedated 2000 BCE. Besides, the lit-
erary evidence available in the igveda itself confirms that the region
occupied by the igvedic people lay from the west of the Indus right
up to the upper reaches of the Gag-Yamun doab which is pre-
cisely the area occupied by the Harappan/Indus/Indus-Sarasvat
Civilization prior to 2000 BCE. This new chronological-cum-spatial
evidence poses a fresh question: could the Vedic and Harappan
Civilizations have been the two faces of the same coin? While all the
available data point to an answer in the affirmative, a word of caution
seems necessary. And the caution is: this otherwise most plausible
equation shall have to await a proper decipherment of the Harappan
script something which has eluded all the claimants so far 22.

CAPTIONS FOR ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig. 1. Rakhigarhi: Terracotta wheel. The painted lines represent

the spokes. Mature Harappan.
Fig. 2. Lothal: Terracotta horse. Mature Harappan.
Fig. 3. Map showing a correlation between the igvedic area and
the spread of the Harappan Civilization, before 2000 BCE.

22. B. B. Lal, op.cit.,1997, pp. 203-14.

 Can the vedic people be identified archaeologically ? An approach 193

Fig. 1. Rakhigarh: Terracotta wheel. The

painted lines represent the spokes. Mature
Harappan

Fig. 2. Lothal: terracotta horse. Mature Harappan

194 B. B. Lal

Fig. 3 Map showing a correlation between the igvedic area and the spread of the
Harappan civilization, before 2000 BCE.