Rewinding the Traditional Clock – Part I
Geography of Jambudwipa Series
Change is constant.
As we know it, the
political map of the world has never remained the same even for a year. Any
speculation based on the assumption that it had remained unchanging for a span
of a few thousand years – during the subcontinent’s prehistoric civilization – will
of course be hollow. Here, I want to acknowledge my newly found friend, Harish
Gala for providing the necessary trigger when he commented on my earlier post,
‘Finding Mount Méru’. Check link: http://saipapineni.blogspot.in/2012/08/finding-mount-meru.html
Before we begin
exploring the various clues that exist in the traditional lore, I will secure
myself in some reasonably undisputable pointers. Archaeology provides a sequence,
which we shall examine first. Instead of speculating on ‘who’s first’, I am giving
a broad timetable of events below.
DATE
|
EVENT
|
PLACES
|
9000
BP
|
Holocene
|
|
8000
BP
|
Appearance
of Neolithic Cultures
|
Mehrgarh,
Catal Huyuk, Jericho etc.
|
6500
BP
|
Chalcolithic
Urban Centers
|
Indus
Valley, Euphrates, Nile basin etc
|
5100
BP
|
Bronze
Age
|
Indian
Subcontinent, Mesopotamia, Egypt
|
2500
BP
|
Classical
Age
|
India,
Persia, Greece
|
The historic period in
the neighboring Mesopotamia and Egypt begins with the Bronze Age Civilizations
there. Thanks to the libraries of Assurbanipal and the clay tablets of Egypt,
these civilizations have an acceptable chronological framework. But, the
subcontinent has no such luck. Here, the records available are oral,
susceptible to revision by their custodians. Therefore, any attempt at
reconstructing the past based on these oral traditions will always be mired in
controversy. A predicament we cannot escape, but nevertheless we shall continue
to endeavor and try not to be driven by ideological and political agenda, but
stick to reasonable reason and be open to similar views from others.
Unfortunately, the temper and tenor of our scientists betray otherwise, causing
nonpartisan observers to look at even the most objective attempts with
suspicion.
Let me be forthright
with my stance. I am not a professional historian and this is not an academic
paper. My attempt here is purely speculative and has no scientific pretentions.
All that I hope is that some true historian may find inspiration from this and
postulates a logical hypothesis. Now that I am through with my disclaimer, let
me plough along…
The Indian tradition
has contents which may be slotted into three broad overlapping compartments:
1.
Contemporary Experiences
2.
Memories of Events from the Past
3.
Myths of Supernatural and Extra-human Nature
The final renditions of
the texts that we have today, belong to a period significantly recent compared
to the civilization, whose geography we set out to explore. And, to
differentiate and segregate, the myth from the past from the contemporary, from
the muddled narratives is certain to suffer from human judgmental bias. It’s
easy for any ‘scientist’ with known ideological or political leanings to pick
only those parts which are convenient to his argument and build his theory. We
cannot blame them because the source itself is imperfect and we have very
little irrevocable material evidence to fall back on. In a way, I attempt to do
the same and therefore refrain from calling this a hypothesis, but just a
speculation.
Firstly, I want to
identify a few time markers from archaeological and external sources to build
the matrices around them.
1.
1500 BCE – Dates of Dwaraka
2.
2000 BCE – Regionalization of IVC
3.
2500 BCE – Mature IVC - Meluhha appears
in Akkadian context
4.
3100 BCE – Gilgamesh and Evidence of
flood at Suruppak.
5.
4500 BCE – Climatic phase ‘Atlanticum’ -
Nascent urban sites in river valleys
6.
6363 BCE – Date given by Arrian for the
arrival of Dionysius in India.
Now, let me match the
traditional Puranic data with the
above dates.
Circa
1500 BCE
The Bengal King List
mentions a gap of 1040 years between the First Recitation of Purānas and the
Coronation of the first king of Nanda dynasty, Mahāpadma. During the intervening
period, 22 Brāhatrātra, 5 Prādyota, 8 Saisunāga kings ruled in succession. There
were 9 Nandas who ruled after Mahāpadma. If we give each Nanda king a reign of 20
years which approximates with the length of reigns of various historic
dynasties, we may reasonably assume that Nandas ruled for 180 years. Therefore,
a total of 46 kings ruled between the reign of Janamejaya and Chandragupta
Maurya, who succeeded the last Nanda king, with an average length of 28 years
each – a length particularly long compared to historic averages but well within
reasonable limits.
We are fairly sure of
the date of Maurya ascension – 321 BCE. Therefore, the traditional date of the first
recital falls on (320 BCE + 1040 + 180) 1540 BCE which approximates with mid
second millennium BCE.
This date happily
corresponds with the radiocarbon dates of Dwaraka, disappearance of Late
Harappan culture in Gujarat and Doab and
subsequent ruralization and isolation of urban centers in the subcontinent.
The tradition credits
Veda Vyāsa and his disciples, the contemporaries of Mahabharata war with the
final composition of Purānas and the compilation of ancient knowledge, in the
form of four separate Vedas and its annexures. No wonder the philologists’
dates of ṚgVeda also fall thereabouts. However, the memories and myths
contained in these compilations might have belonged to earlier contexts.
Assuming that circa
1500 belonged to the Mahabharata period we may attempt deciphering the
geography of the period based on the epic. However, the epic, as we inherited,
is encyclopediaic in nature. The specific references to the geography suffer
from being extrapolations of later times. A more conservative approach based on
the principal characters of the story, supported by archaeological knowledge
may give us an idea. I would like to leave it for my next post and confine
myself here to the task of building the chronological framework for that
purpose.
Circa
2000 BCE
Before we venture into
the maze of Solar and Lunar king-lists, I would like to establish two basic
assumptions. See table.
1.
Brihatbala a solar king and a direct
descendent of Rama, the protagonist of the epic, Ramayana, is supposedly a
contemporary of the heroes of Mahabharata war. Therefore, I assume that he lived
in circa 1500.
2.
Secondly, I assume that – the basic
tenets of Yuga chronology – Ramayana and Mahabharata occurred towards the end
of Treta and Dwapara segments respectively. And, utilize the lists of solar
kings for the period earlier to Mahabharata instead of the lunar kings.
From Brihatbala to
Rama, there are 30 solar kings on the list. If we give an average reign of 18
years to each of them, taking into account a conservative life expectancy rate,
an interregnum of 540 years, places the period of Ramayana at the end of the
third millennium BCE.
Here, we must look at
two seminal themes in our tradition. One, Ramarajya is remembered as the most
glorious phase of our past and the empire reached the maximum extent during
Rama’s reign. Second, the entire period is known for continuous conflict with Asuras,
whose presence ended with the reign of Rama.
It doesn’t take too long
to club Treta-Yuga with the Mature Harappan archaeological phase and presume
that Rama’s reign occurred at its end. Tradition also states that the sons of
Rama and Bharata established new territories and cities far away from the core
areas of the earlier empire, like Takshasila, Puskalavati, Kusalavati, Lavapuri
etc.
Therefore, when I
finally try to speculate on the extent of Jambudwipa; and the nature and names
of regions and towns within the Mature Harappan phase, due cognizance of this
fact will be taken.
Circa
3100 BCE
In the beginning, there
was this flood. Legend has it that the first man, a king called Manu
established order in a land inundated by chaos, whose descendents ruled Jambudwipa.
Ikshvaku line of kings claimed descent from him and 60 generations came to pass
before Rama was born. A period of 1100 years places Manu in 3100 BCE. See
table.
Interestingly, 3102 BCE
is the traditional date for the beginning of this era, given by Aryabhata.
Further, it coincides with the archaeological and Akkadian dates of Suruppak flood.
Sagara 24th
king in this lineage is known to have conquered the entire land all the way to
the sea. His date falls somewhere in the middle of the third millennium, 2532 BCE,
and explains the beginning of the Mature Harappan archaeological context. The
hydrologists’ estimate based on satellite imagery and the data from groundwater
mapping suggests 2400BCE as the beginning of a riparian crisis – drying up of the
Saraswati. Bhagirath, great grandson of Sagara is famous for bringing the celestial
river to the earth. Is it a dramatized version of a folk memory of the
humungous effort to dig a channel to divert the waters of Sutlej to the old bed,
reviving the parched settlements?
Further, we may assume
that the people of Ayodhya coexisted or in conflict with another equally strong
people called Asuras with their own strongholds. If our task is to understand
the geography of the region, we may need to explore the territories of both the
Ikshwakus and their bête noir, the so called Rakshasas or Asuras.
Finally … Before I
attempt that …
I would like to explore
the pre Harappan timelines (of 4500 & 6500 BCE) and try and associate them
with what our tradition has to offer. Of course, as we go deeper into the past,
memories turn into myths and we are constrained to find clues in irrational beliefs
and legends. Nevertheless, I shall endeavor in my next post: Rewinding the Traditional
Clock – Part II.
