cities-and-towns-in-india

"If the first home of the Aryans can be determined at all by the conditions topographical and meteorological, described in their early hymns, then decidedly the Punjab was not that home. For here there are neither mountains nor monsoon storms to burst, yet storm and mountain belong to the very marrow of the Rigveda... If there is an area which fulfils these conditions, according to Hopkins, it is ―a district […] where monsoon storms and mountain scenery are found, that district, namely, which lies South of Umballa (or Ambālā). It is here, in my opinion, that the Rigveda, taken as a whole, was composed. In every particular, this locality fulfils the physical conditions under which the composition of the hymns was possible, and what is of paramount importance, is the first district east of the Indus that does so."

"When the [Rig Vedic] hymns were written the focus of Āryan culture was the region between the Jamnā (Sanskrit Yamunā) and Satlaj (Shutudrī), south of the modern Ambālā, and along the upper course of the river Sarasvatī. The latter river is now an insignificant stream, losing itself in the desert of Rajasthan, but it then [in Rig Vedic times] flowed broad and strong..."

"It is certain ... that the Rigveda offers no assistance in determining the mode in which the Vedic Aryans entered India., .. If, as may be the case, the Aryan invaders of India entered by the western passes of the Hindu Kush and proceeded thence through the Punjab to the east, still that advance is not reflected in the Rigveda, the bulk at least of which seems to have been composed rather in the country round the Sarasvati river, south of the modern Ambala."

"Max Müller, Weber, Muir, and others held that the Punjab was the main scene of the activity of the Rgveda, whereas the more recent view put forth by Hopkins and Keith is that it was composed in the country round the SarasvatI river south of modem AmbAla.”"

"In the reign of the early Hindu rulers, Bhinmal became one of the premier cities of the Northern India. According to the preserved tradition, the city was about 24 to 32 km in extent, laid-out in the shape of a square. There were several temples of Ganpati, Kshetrapala, Chandika-devis, Shivalingas and others. It had 84 gates…there is no doubt that it must have been a flourishing town in those days. From the…mediaeval times, we learn that Bhinmal was a prosperous city, and a home of artists, who were in demand at other places also. They were expert sculptors, architects and Sutradharas. Bhinmal was also a great seat of learning and home of several illustrious scholars… The Brahamanas of this place, known as Srimalis were reputed for their Vedic learning. It is for this reason that Padmanabha calls it the Brahmapuri of the Chauhans. …it (later) began to be called Bhinmal because of its poverty caused by its destruction at the hands of the Muslim invaders which forced the wealthy residents to migrate to other places."

"They that dwell in Kurukshetra which lies to the south of the Sarasvatī and the north of the Drishadvatī, are said to dwell in heaven."

"In the Hoysala country which was daily increasing in prosperity, a place of great good fortune was Muttana-Hosavūru. There hunger was unknown to the people, so abundant were the crops. The bees knew not hunger, such were the bountiful flowers. The birds knew no hunger on account of the abundance of woods. This was the favourable residence known as Muttana-Hosavūru. Its moat was as deep as the Serpent King’s city, and its golden fort walls rose higher than the clouds — what can I say of its glory? Equal to Indra’s town, or to Dhanada’s city (Kubera’s Capital), or to Vishnu’s town, was Muttana-Hosavūru with lines of lofty houses and many different temples."

"In contrast, changes taking place in the Saraswati Valley in the early second millennium were probably a major contributor to the Indus decline. In Harappan times, the Saraswati was a major river system flowing from the Siwaliks at least to Bahawalpur, where it probably ended in a substantial inland delta. The ancient Saraswati River was fed by a series of small rivers that rose in the Siwaliks, but it drew the greater part of its waters from two much larger rivers rising high in the Himalayas: the Sutlej and the Yamuna. In its heyday the Saraswati appears to have supported the densest settlement and provided the greatest arable yields of any part of the Indus realms. The Yamuna, which supplied most of the water flowing in the Drishadvati, a major tributary of the Saraswati, changed its course, probably early in the second millennium, to flow into the Ganges drainage. The remaining flow in the Drishadvati became small and seasonal: Late Harappan sites in Bahawalpur are concentrated in the portion of the Sarawati east of Yazman, which was fed by the Sutlej. At a later date the Sutlej also changed its course and was captured by the Indus. These changes brought about massive depopulation of the Saraswati Valley, which by the end of the millennium was described as a place of potsherds and ruin mounds whose inhabitants had gone away. At the same time new settlements appeared in the regions to the south and east, in the upper Ganges-Yamuna doab. Some were located on the palaeochannels that mark the eastward shift of the Yamuna. Presumably many of the Late Harappan settlers had originated in the Saraswati Valley."

"The decline of Harappan urbanism probably had many contributing factors. The shift to a concentration on kharif cultivation in the outer regions of the state may have seriously disrupted established schedules for craft production, civic flood defense, building and drain maintenance, and other publicly organized works on which the smooth running of the state depended. The reduction in the waters of the Saraswati and the response of its farmers by migrating into regions to the east tore apart the previous unity of the Harappan state, disrupting its cohesion and its ability to control the internal distribution network."

"Mughal's broad chronological periods are not specific enough to assist us in definitively situating the Vedic-speaking Aryans as inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization. It is significant, however, that about 80 percent of Mughal's 414 archaeological sites along a three-hundred-mile section of the Hakra were datable to the fourth or third millen- nium B.C.E, suggesting that the river was in its prime during this period."

"S. P. Gupta (1996) elaborates on this perspective: Once it becomes reasonably clear that the Vedas do contain enough material which shows that the authors of the hymns were fully aware of the cities, city life, long-distance over- seas and overland trade, etc. . . . it becomes easier for us to appreciate the theory that the Indus-Saraswati and Vedic civilizations may have been just the two complementary ele- ments of one and the same civilization. And this, it is important to note, is not a presup- position against the cattle-keeping image of the Vedic Aryans. After all, ancient civiliza- tions had both the components, the village and the city, and numerically villages were many times more than the cities. In India presently there are around 6.5 lakhs of villages but hardly 600 towns and cities put together. . . . Plainly, if the Vedic literature reflects primarily the village life and not the urban life, it does not at all surprise us." (147)"

"Or as Amalananda Ghosh stated in 1952 after he discovered Harappan sites along the bed of the Ghaggar, those settlements ‘on the bank of the Sarasvati’ could not have been established there ‘had the river been dead during the lifetime of the culture’."

"B. B. Lal (1997) is a little more cautious in denying the nomadic character of the Indo- Aryans: "Just as there were cities, towns and villages in the Harappan ensemble (as there are even today in any society) there were both rural and urban components in the Vedic times. Where then is the 'glaring disparity' between the cultural levels of the Harappan and Vedic societies?" (285)."

"There is nothing that we know of in prehistoric Egypt or Mesopotamia or anywhere else in western Asia to compare with the well-built baths and commodious houses of the citizens of Mohenjodara."

"(the Sarasvatī) continued to flow down to c. 2000 BC. The major reduction of sites in the Early Post-urban period (c. 2000-1700 BC) . . . strongly suggests that a major part of the river’s water supply was lost around that time; while the final settlement pattern of the Late Post-urban period indicates that the river was by then dry (i.e. by c. 1300-1000 BC)."

"In Tod’s description, the ‘Marusthali’, as it was then called, consists of ‘expansive belts of sand, elevated upon a plain only less sandy, and over whose surface numerous thinly peopled towns and hamlets are scattered’. He also records ‘the tradition of the absorption of the Caggar river, as one of the causes of the comparative depopulation of the northern desert’. This tradition was transmitted in the form of a ‘couplet still sung among Rajputs, which dates the ruin of this part of the country back to the drying up of the Hakra.’ Although Tod could not recall the exact text of the said song, he acknowledged ‘the utility of these ancient traditional couplets’. ‘Folk history’, as we would call it today... Yet, James Tod finds worthy of mention a tradition alive in the 1810s that blames the region’s ‘depopulation’ on the Ghaggar’s ‘absorption’ or disappearance; he even notes how ‘the vestiges of large towns, now buried in the sands, confirm the truth of this tradition, and several of them claim a high antiquity."

"With the separation of the Pakistan Provinces, the main sites of what was known as the Indus Valley Civilisation have gone to Pakistan. It is clearly of the utmost importance that archaeological work in connection with this early period of Indian history must be continued in India. A preliminary examination has shown that the centre of the early civilisation was not Sind or the Indus Valley but the desert area in Bikaner and Jaisalmer through which the ancient Saraswati flowed into the Gulf of Kutch at one time."

"Archaeological evidence demonstrates that the Hakra flood plain was densely populated between the fourth and the second millennia B.C.... the Ghaggar-Hakra is ‘often identified with the sacred Sarasvatī River of the Vedic Aryans’... ‘certain that in ancient times the Ghaggar-Hakra was a mighty river, flowing independently [of the Indus] along the fringes of the Rann of Kutch’."

"Combined, these geological changes meant major changes in the hydrology patterns of the region. These natural geologic processes had significant consequences for the food producing cultural groups throughout the greater Indus Valley area. Archaeological surveys have documented a cultural response to these environmental changes creating a “crisis” circumstance..."

"‘[The desertion of the Drishadvati and the Sutlej] is typical of the instability of the river courses in the Indus plains—but in the case of the Saraswati, the effect was not localized but devastating on a major scale. Cities, towns, and villages were abandoned, their inhabitants drifting to other regions of the Indus realms and eastward towards the Ganges, pushing back the centuries-old eastern boundaries of Indus culture and venturing into uncharted territory.’"

"In the course of a survey project limited to only a section of the Hakra/Ghaggar in the Cholistan desert in Bahawalpur state (representing three hundred miles of the Pakistan side of the Hakra part of the riverbed), Mughal mapped out a total of 414 archaeological sites on the bed. This dwarfs the number of sites so far recorded along the entire stretch of the Indus River which number only about three dozen. The centrality of the river, both archaeologically and culturally, has led a minority of Indian archaeologists to propose, and to begin to adopt, die term Indus- Sarasvati Civilization in lieu of the labels Harappan or Indus Valley Civilisation."

"‘The major reduction of sites [along the Sarasvatī] in the Early Post-urban period (c. 2000-1700 BC) . . . strongly suggests that a major part of the river’s water supply was lost around that time’."

"In view of Stein’s statement which had led us to believe that nothing very ancient would be found in the region, it was a great thrill for us when even on the first and second days of our exploration we found sites with unmistakable affinities with the culture of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro. And a few subsequent days’ work convinced us that the Sarasvatī valley had been really a commingling of many rivers, not only geographically, but culturally... the valleys of the Sarasvatī and the Drishadvatī must be regarded as very rich indeed in archaeological remains."

"D.P Agrawal: ‘It is obvious that in north and west Rajasthan tectonically changed paleochannel configurations were a major factor which affected the human settlements, perhaps from the pre-Harappan times onwards. Major diversions cut off the vital tributaries and growing desiccation . . . dried up the once mighty Saraswati and Drishadvati rivers.’"

"The frequent Rg-Vedic references to the Saraswati river are seen by both sides as a key to the solution of the Aryan question. Non-invasionists have pointed out that the biggest concentration of Harappan cities was along the Saraswati river, and that it nearly dried up synchronously with the decline of Harappan city culture. Therefore, the Rg-Veda cannot be post-Harappan..."

"Scholars such as Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib and the late RS Sharma started questioning this identification in the 1980s. What prompted this rather late reaction? It was a new development: A study of the evolution of the pattern of Harappan settlements in the Saraswati basin now revealed that in its central part — roughly southwest Haryana, southern Punjab and northern Rajasthan — most or all Harappan sites were abandoned sometime around 1900 BCE, a period coinciding with the end of the urban phase of the Indus civilisation. Clearly, the river system collapsed — which archaeologists now saw as a factor contributing to the end of the brilliant Indus civilisation. Why was this a problem? We must remember that the Saraswati is lavishly praised both as a river and a Goddess in the Rig Veda, a collection of hymns which mainstream Indology says was composed by Indo-Aryans shortly after their migration to India around 1500 BCE. However, by that time, the Saraswati had been reduced to a minor seasonal stream: How could the said Aryans praise it as a ‘mighty river’, the ‘best of rivers’, ‘mother of waters’, etc? There is a chronological impossibility. Hence, the objectors asserted, the Ghaggar-Hakra was not, after all, the Saraswati extolled in the Rig Veda. While some (Rajesh Kochhar) tried to relocate the river in Afghanistan, others (Irfan Habib) decided that the Saraswati was not a particular river but “the river in the abstract, the River Goddess”; but both theses ran against the Rig Veda’s own testimony that the river flowed between the Yamuna and the Sutlej."

"Sites such as Harappa continued to be inhabited and are still important cities today. . . . Late and post-Harappan settlements are known from surveys in the region of Cholistan, . . . the upper Ganga-Yamuna Doab,. . . and Gujarat. In the Indus Valley itself, post-Harappan settlement patterns are obscure, except for the important sites of Pirak. . . . This may be because the sites were along the newly-stabilized river systems and lie beneath modern villages and towns that flourish along the same rivers."

"Another ancient river, the Saraswati or Ghaggar-Hakra had taken its course along the eastern edge of the plain. Numerous surveys in the deserts of Cholistan and Rajasthan made it clear that large numbers of settlements dating from the fourth to the first millennium B.C. were situated along the banks of this other major river system . . . Now that we know of the presence of the ancient Saraswati river (also known as the Ghaggar-Hakra along its central stretches), some scholars refer to this culture as the Indus-Sarasvatī civilization."

"Khan and Sinha noted, “A dense concentration of Harappan sites has been documented in the Jind and Hisar districts of Haryana and further west in the Ganganagar district of Rajasthan, and this can only be explained if the Yamuna once flowed through these southwesterly flowing palaeochannels. ... The palaeo-Yamuna does represent the courses of a major feeder to the Ghaggar–Hakra system (Sarasvati) as suggested by thick sand bodies.”"

"These discoveries establish the existence in Sind (the northernmost province of the Bombay Presidency) and the Punjab, during the fourth and third millennium B.C., of a highly developed city life; and the presence, in many of the houses, of wells and bathrooms as well as an elaborate drainage-system, betoken a social condition of the citizens at least equal to that found in Sumer, and superior to that prevailing in contemporary Babylonia and Egypt. . . . Even at Ur the houses are by no means equal in point of construction to those of Mohenjo-daro."

"Marco Madella and Dorian Fuller : ‘Archaeological research in Cholistan has led to the discovery of a large number of sites along the dry channels of the Ghaggar-Hakra river (often identified with the lost Sarasvati and Drishadvati rivers of Sanskrit traditions) ... The final desiccation of some of these channels may have had major repercussions for the Harappan Civilisation and is considered a major factor in the de-centralisation and de-urbanisation of the Late Harappan period.’"

"This work revealed an incredibly dense concentration of sites, along the dried-up course of a river that could be identified as the ‘Saraswati’. . . Suddenly it became apparent that the ‘Indus’ Civilization was a misnomer—although the Indus had played a major role in the rise and development of the civilization, the ‘lost Saraswati’ River, judging by the density of settlement along its banks, had contributed an equal or greater part to its prosperity...Many people today refer to this Early state as the ‘Indus-Saraswati Civilization’ and continuing references [in her book] to the ‘Indus Civilization’ should be seen as an abbreviation in which the ‘Saraswati’ is implied."

"The now-dry Hakra River forms part of this river system. Surveys along its dry bed revealed that this was one of the most densely populated areas of the 3rd millennium, the agricultural heartland of the civilization, although it is now virtually desert."

"Several hundred sites [of the Indus civilization] have been identified, the great majority of which are on the plains of the Indus or its tributaries or on the now dry course of the ancient Sarasvatī River, which flowed south of the Sutlej and then southward to the Indian ocean, east of the main course of the Indus itself."

"‘The large number of protohistoric settlements, dating from c. 4000 BC to 1500 BC, could have flourished along this river only if it was flowing perennially.’"

"V.N. Misra: ‘Late Harappan sites are concentrated on the tributaries of the [Sarasvatī] river, originating in the Siwalik Hills. They appear to be a consequence of the desiccation of the river and mass migration of the population to less dry regions near the Siwalik Hills and across the Yamuna.’"

"‘This change ... is strongly suggestive of the dispersal of inhabitants, if not depopulation, of the Hakra flood plain during the Late Harappan. ... It seems almost certain that changing environmental conditions were profoundly affecting the long-established cultural pattern in Cholistan.’"

"The existence of this river at no very remote period, and the truth of the legends which assert the ancient fertility of the lands through which it flowed, are attested by the ruins which everywhere overspread what is now an arid sandy waste. Throughout this tract are scattered mounds, marking the sites of cities and towns. And there are strongholds still remaining, in a very decayed state, which were places of importance at the time of the early Mahommedan invasions. Amongst these ruins are found not only the huge bricks used by the Hindus in the remote past, but others of a much later make. All this seems to show that the country must have been fertile for a long period . . ."

"In the Indus period the Saraswati river system may have been even more productive than that of the Indus, judging by the density of settlement along its course. In the Bahawalpur region, in the western portion of the river, settlement density far exceeded that elsewhere in the Indus civilization . . . While there are some fifty sites known along the Indus, the Saraswati has almost a thousand . . . [The Yamuna] shifted its course eastward early in the second millennium, eventually reaching its current bed by the first millennium, while the Drishadvati bed retained only a small seasonal flow; this seriously decreased the volume of water carried by the Saraswati. The Sutlej gradually shifted its channel northward, eventually being captured by the Indus drainage . . . The loss of the Sutlej waters caused the Saraswati to be reduced to the series of small seasonal rivers familiar today. Surveys show a major reduction in the number and size of settlements in the Saraswati region during the second millennium."

"‘The large number of these ancient sites contrasts strikingly with the very few small villages still on the same ground.’..."

"When the Jasalmir territory comes to be regularly surveyed, I apprehend that some interesting and valuable discoveries will be made, which will tend to throw some light upon the ancient state of these parts, once fertilized by the waters of the Hakra or Wahindah and its tributaries; for, from the traditions and histories of the past, there can be no possible doubt, that these parts were once flourishing and populous, and contained several important towns and cities, the names of which have now been lost."

"The study offered 'the first stratigraphic evidence that a palaeochannel exists in the sub-surface alluvium in the Ghaggar valley. The fact that the major urban sites of Kalibangan and Kunal lie adjacent to the newly discovered subsurfacefluvial channel body ... suggests that there may be a spatial relationship between the Ghaggar-Hakrapalaeochannel and Harappan site distribution' (Sinha et al., 2013)."

"A remarkable discovery ... at Kalibangan was that of a ploughed agricultural field.... This is the earliest agricultural field ever brought to light through an excavation anywhere in the world."

"Marshall identified certain stone objects ... as lingas and yonis... [At Kalibangan] has been found a terracotta specimen which is clearly identifiable as linga-cum-yoni."

"Kalibangan . . . is strategically located at the confluence of the Sarasvatī and Drishadvatī Rivers and must have played a major role as a way station and monitor of the overland communications of the Harappan peoples."

"Such a conclusion had been reached by archaeologists long ago, since Kalibangan, for instance, shows no evidence of independent water supply; unlike Mohenjo- daro, it had very few wells, and unlike Dholavira, no reservoirs, yet it was continually occupied for several centuries: for its water supply through the year, it must therefore have depended on the Sarasvati, on whose left bank it lay, with entries into its fortified enclosures facing the riverbed."

"Such "ritual hearths" are reported from the beginning of the Harappan period itself. It has been suggested that they may have been fire altars , evidence of domestic, popular and civic fire-cults of the Indo-Iranians, which are described in detail in the later Vedic literature. It may then be an indication of culture contact between an early group of Indo-Aryans and the population of the still-flourishing Indus civilization."

"The fire-altars of Kalibangan and Lothal are so far without parallels at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. Indeed, it has been asked [by Raymond and Bridget Allchin]: "Fire- worship being considered a distinctly Indo-Aryan trait, do these {ritual hearths of Kalibangan] carry with them an indication of an Indo-Aryan presence even from so early a date?" This hypothesis new seems quite plausible to me, if "Indo-Aryan" here is understood to refer to carriers of the Bronze Age culture of Greater Iran, who had become quickly absorbed into the Indus Civilization, culturally and linguistically. It is supported further by the cylinder shape of the famous Kalibangan seal showing a Durga-like goddess of war, who is associated with the tiger. The goddess on the Kalibangan cylinder seal is said to be similar in style, especially the headdress, to one depicted on a cylinder seal from Shahdad [in Kerman on the desert of Lut in Iran, a major centre of the Bronze Age cultural tradition]. Seated lions attend to a goddess of fertility on a metal flag found at Shahdad."

".,. the so-called-'citadels' at Indus cities were taken to be the seats of government but B.B. Lal (1981) has now conclusively proved that at least at Kalibangan it was not at all so; it was possibly the place where collective religious ceremonies were held around the 'fire altars'. Inother words, underlying the mature Indus Civilization or Harappan Culture was a great deal of social change, all of which is not easy to comprehend but without which the cities would not have emerged on the Indus plains. Social changes and cultural changes keep on interplaying variously at various levels (Gupta 1974)."

"Proceeding to the east of Andbhavan for about a mile we come to the large village of Sudrbal situated on a deep inlet of the Dal known as Sudrakhun. The name of the village and the neighbouring portion of the lake make it very probable that we have to place here the sacred spring of Sodara (see note Rajat. Bk. i. 125-126). An ancient legend related by Kalhana represented this spring as ... an Avatara of the Sodara Naga worshipped Close to the mosque of Sudrabal and by the lake shore are two pools fed by perennial sprigs.originally near the sacred site of Bhuteshvara below Mound Haramukata (For this Sudara the present Naran Nag see notes I, 123; v. 55- 59). Stein further says Close to the mosque of Sudrabal and by the lake shore are two pools by by perennial springs. These, according to a local tradition were in old times visited by numerous pilgrims. Now all recollection of this Tirtha has been lost among the Brahmans of Srinagar. But the name of a portion of the village area Battapur points to a former settlement of Battaas or Purohitas. It is curious, too, that we find only half a mile from the village the Ziarat of Hazrat Bal, perhaps the most popular of all Muhammadan shrines in the Valley. It is supposed to be built over the remains of the miracle-working Pir Dastgir Sahib. Is it possible that the presence of the rathr ubiquitous saint at this particular spot had something to do with the earlier Hindu Tirtha?î Rajat. Vol. ii, p. 457. Commenting on verses 125 ñ 126 of Bk. i of Rajat. Stein states in the footnote as this: In order to give full sactitity to Jyeshtharudra, which Jalauka of the lake, but according to the uniform statementg of by the water vered cohad established near Srinagar, the presence of the Sodara spring was also needed. The Tirtha which the legend represens an Avatara of the latter, must after what has been said regarding the position of Jalaukaís Jyeshtharudra (Note C), be loked for in the vicinity of the present Srinagar. I have, therefore, no hesitation in connecting the name Sudar, which appears in the designation of a portion of Dal, called Sudarkhun and in the name of neighbouring village Sudarbal, with this legend. The Sudrakhun (khun from Sanskrit kona) is a narrow inlet on the west side of the Dal strettheching between the suburban villages of Arampor and Sudarbal. ... On visiting Sudarbal in June 1895, I was shown on the very shore of the Sudarkhun, and close to the village Masjid , two small pools which were then covered by the water of the lake, but according to the uniform statement of the villagers, which I gathered fatement of the villagers, are fed by two perennial springs. A tradition, whfrom the old men of the village, relates that many hundred years ago Brahmans were in the habit of making pilgrimage to these springs. The name Battpor, which survives to this day as the name of a now deserted part of the village area was pointed out to me as evidence of the former habitation of Battas, i.e. Purohitas (Skt. bhatta). No ancient remains can now be traced near the springs, but large carved slabs are said to have been carried away from that site to serve as building material for the new temple erected by Maharaja Ranbir Singh at Ranvor in Srinagar. I cannot find any reference to the Sodara spring of Srinagar in the texts accessible to me nor can I trace any tradition relating to it among the Brahmans of the capital. The marginal gloss of G (Sodarabal Gagaribal), however, indictes that the same identification as proposed already has been made by some modern reader of the Rajat."