Rigvedic rivers

Rivers, such as the Sapta Sindhavah ("seven rivers" Sanskrit: सप्त सिन्धव:) play a prominent part in the hymns of the Rig Veda, and consequently in early Historical Vedic religion. Vedic texts have a wide geographical horizon, speaking of oceans, rivers, mountains and deserts. “Eight summits of the Earth, three shore or desert regions, seven rivers.” (asthau vyakhyat kakubhah prthivyam tri dhanva yojana sapta sindhun RV.I.35.8).

Brbu hath set himself above the Panis, o'er their highest head, Like the wide bush on Ganga's bank. ~ Rigveda

O Gangā, Yamunā, Sarasvatī, Shutudrī, Parushnī, hear my praise! ~ Rigveda

Your ancient home, your auspicious friendship, O Heroes, your wealth is on the banks of the Jahnavi. ~ Rigveda

Quotes

• From the lap of the mountains, happy, smiling, like two running mares, like two bright Mother cows licking their calf, Vipas and Shutudri run with fluid. Directed by Indra, seeking power, as chariots they travel to the sea.
  • RV III.33.1‑2
  • Quoted in Frawley, David. The Rig Veda and the History of India. (2001). Quoted from Frawley, D. The Hindu, 25th June 2002. WITZEL’S VANISHING OCEAN – HOW TO READ VEDIC TEXTS ANY WAY YOU LIKE. A Reply to Michael Witzel’s article “A Maritime Rigveda? How not to read the Ancient Texts”.

• Your ancient home, your auspicious friendship, O Heroes, your wealth is on the banks of the Jahnavi.
  • Rigveda III.58.6. Jahnavi is another name for Ganges in Sanskrit literature and occurs also in Rigveda I.116.19, where it is associated with the Simsumara (I.116.18) [Gangetic river dolphin]. However, Griffith translated it as “the house of Jahnu”. As quoted from Talageri, S. (2000). The Rigveda: A historical analysis. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 4.

• Brbu hath set himself above the Panis, o'er their highest head,
  Like the wide bush on Ganga's bank.
  • Rigveda VI.45.31 (translated by R. Griffith)

• Sarasvati, pure in her course from the mountains to the sea.
  • RV VII.95.2
  • Quoted in Frawley, David. The Rig Veda and the History of India. (2001). Quoted from Frawley, D. The Hindu, 25th June 2002. WITZEL’S VANISHING OCEAN – HOW TO READ VEDIC TEXTS ANY WAY YOU LIKE. A Reply to Michael Witzel’s article “A Maritime Rigveda? How not to read the Ancient Texts”.

• Maruts, what medicine of yours is in the Indus and in the Asikni rivers, what is in the oceans or what is in the mountains.
  • RV VIII.20.25
  • Quoted in Frawley, David. The Rig Veda and the History of India. (2001). Quoted from Frawley, D. The Hindu, 25th June 2002. WITZEL’S VANISHING OCEAN – HOW TO READ VEDIC TEXTS ANY WAY YOU LIKE. A Reply to Michael Witzel’s article “A Maritime Rigveda? How not to read the Ancient Texts”.

• Favour ye this my laud, O Gangā, Yamunā, O Sutudri, Paruṣṇī and Sarasvatī: With Asikni, Vitasta, O Marudvrdha, O Ārjīkīya with Susoma hear my call. First with Trstama thou art eager to flow forth, with Rasā, and Susartu, and with Svetya here, With Kubha; and with these, Sindhu and Mehatnu, thou seekest in thy course Krumu and Gomati.
  • Variant: O Gangā, Yamunā, Sarasvatī, Shutudrī (Sutlej), Parushnī (Ravi), hear my praise! Hear my call, O Asiknī (Chenab), Marudvridhā (Maruvardhvan), Vitastā (Jhelum) with Ārjīkiyā and Sushomā. First you flow united with Trishtāmā, with Susartu and Rasā, and with Svetyā, O Sindhu (Indus) with Kubhā (Kabul) to Gomati (Gumal or Gomal), with Mehatnū to Krumu (Kurram), with whom you proceed together.
  • Rigveda X.75.5-6

• The rivers invoked are . . . the real rivers of the Punjāb, and the poem shows a much wider geographical horizon than we should expect from a mere village bard.
  • About the Nadistuti sukta. Müller, F. Max, in India—What Can It Teach Us?, first edn 1883, sec. edn 1892; republ. Penguin Books, New Delhi, 2000, p. 149. quoted in Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.

• Apart from its silence on a former homeland, or immigration, the RV contains positive indications about the Áryas’ very long presence in Saptasindhu. Hymn X, 75 gives a list of names of rivers not in the order west-to-east, as we would expect from invaders advancing in that direction, but from east- to-west, as of a people long settled and having the east as a starting point of reference. Then there are passages expressing the Aryans’ strong sense of being rooted in their lands when they recall their ancestors taking their place in the sacrifice “here”, like the Angiras family (IV, 1, 3) or the Vasis†has (VII, 76, 4), etc.
  • Kazanas, N. (2002). Indigenous Indo-Aryans and the Rigveda: Indo-Aryan migration debate. Journal of Indo-European Studies, 30(3-4), 275-334.

• ...in the RV we find references only to the Seven Rivers saptá síndhavaḥ (and different oblique cases of the plural). Now Avestan has the name Haptahǝndu as a place, like Airyana Vaējah, Raŋhā, Haetumant, etc, from which the Iranians had passed before settling down in eastern Iran, then spreading west and north. But what is this name? Yes, hapta- is the numeral ‘seven’ but what of hǝndhu? It is a fairly obvious Avestan correspondence to the Sanskrit síndhu. Now hǝndu is an isolated occurrence. The stem does not otherwise exist in Avestan. Hindu appears in Old Persian indicating the Indian province under the Achaemenids, and that is all. The interpretation ‘seven rivers’ comes from the Sanskrit collocation. But the Avestan for river is usually θraotah- (=S srotas) and raodah-. In Sanskrit síndhu ‘river, sea’ comes either from √syand ‘flowing’ or from √sidh ‘reaching, succeeding’, both of which generate several derivatives, while síndhu itself appears in compounds like sindhuja, sindhupati ‘riverborn, riverlord’ etc, and has cognates like saindhava ‘marine, salt, horse’ etc. Surely nobody would be so foolhardy as to suggest that the IAs took this otherwise unattested stem from Iranian and used it so commonly and productively.
  • Kazanas, N. (2015). Vedic and IndoEuropean studies. Aditya Prakashan. , chapter 4, Vedic and Avestan.

• Clearly, the Avestan and Vedic names are connected. Since the Vedic name cannot reasonably be said to come from the Avestan, then the Avestan must come from the Vedic. Moreover, the Vedic collocation saptá síndhu- does not occur at all in the very early Books of the RV (i.e. 3, 6, 7) but once only in Bk2 (12.3,12) and Bk4 (28.1), then twice in Bk1 (32.12; 35.8), Bk8 (54.4; 69.12) and Bk10 (43.3; 67.12) and once in Bk9 (66.6). Now in the earliest Maṇḍalas 3,6,7 (as well as later ones) we find collocations like saptá srótas-, srávat-, yahvī- or nadí- but not síndhu-. This then suggests that the Iranians left the Saptasindhu only after the collocation saptá síndhu- had been established by the late Maṇḍalas.
  • Kazanas, N. (2015). Vedic and IndoEuropean studies. Aditya Prakashan. , chapter 4, Vedic and Avestan.

• The hymn, which seeks to glorify Indus as the greatest of all rivers, enumerates two types of rivers – First, those which flow into the Indus, directly or through a tributary Second, those which do not flow into the Indus and reach the ocean or a desert lake independently. My hypothesis is that the hymn mentions each and every river in the first category, because of which even the smallest tributaries and sub-tributaries of Indus are mentioned.
  • quoted in A Reply to Michael Witzel’s ‘Ein Fremdling im Rgveda’ (Journal of Indo-European Studies, Vol. 31, No.1-2: pp.107-185, 2003) by Vishal Agarwal 11 August 2003