When and where was Rigveda composed? How is it related to thee vast Harappan archaeological tradition. These are quintessential questions on ancient Indian history which do not have direct answers. I examine a large body of evidence to arrive at plausible answers.

1. Colloquium delivered at Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre, Kolkata, 28 August 2014
The Rigveda: Chronology
and geography
Rajesh Kochhar
Mathematics Department, Panjab University
Chandigarh 160014
rkochhar2000@yahoo.com

2. The source for this talk is
Kochhar, Rajesh: The Vedic People:
Their History and Geography (
Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan).
 First published in 2000, the book has
been reprinted a number of times. No
new evidence or major insight has
appeared in the last 15 years to
warrant any revision.

3.  When and where was the Rigveda
composed?
 How are the Vedic people related to
the vast Harappan archaeological
tradition?
These are quintessential questions on
ancient Indian history.

4. There are however no direct answers to
these questions. At our current level of
knowledge, archaeological findings
and textual references constitute two
distinct streams which do not intersect.
One must therefore collect pieces of
information from a wide variety of
sources

5. and try to reconcile them, with a view
to obtaining plausible answers.
 Inherent uncertainties in the
evidence must reflect themselves in
the conclusions based on them.

6. WW
NATURAL HISTORY
GEOMORPHOLOGY
ARCHAEOLOGY
RGVEDA
HISTORY OF
AVESTA
LINGUISTICS
ASTRONOMY TECHNOLOGY
We dance round in a ring and suppose
But the secret sits in the middle and knows
Robert Frost

7. I would particularly like to draw
attention to evidence from outside the
Indian subcontinent, because it has
not received the attention it deserves.
The plan of the talk is as follows.

8. Plan
 Indian archaeology up to 2000 BC
 Rigveda/Avesta
 Proto- Indo-European speakers
 Central Asian archaeology
 Afghanistan and India after 2000 BC
 Suggestions for obtaining direct
evidence

9. Indian archaeology
Urban or Mature Harappan phase in
Indian archaeology is well known. It
lasted from 2600 BC to 1900 BC and
included cities such as Harappa and
Mohenjodaro. It should however be
kept in mind that this period represents
the peak of a tradition which goes back
to Neolithic times.

10. Mehrgarh in Baluchistan presents clear
evidence of transition in 7000 BC
from hunting to animal husbandry and
from food gathering to domestication
of wheat and barley. Remarkably,
various mounds at Mehrgarh itself
show continuous occupancy from 7000
BC till 2000 BC.

11. Archaeological timeline
7000 BC-2000 BC
 Baluchistan phase 7000 BC- 4500 BC
-
 Early Harappan 3500 BC-2600 BC
 Mature Harappan 2600 BC-1900 BC
 Later phases have new arrivals

12. From 7000 BC till 1900 BC, there
is no sign whatsoever of arrival of
new people.
 New arrivals manifest
themselves in archaeological
cultures only after this date.

13. Archaeology by itself cannot say who
these people were. For this, we must
turn to linguistics and ancient sacred
literature.
For later reference it may be noted that
These later arrivals are presumed to
be Indic-speakers.

14. The Rigveda
The Rigveda (Rv) is the world’s oldest
literary document. It mentions wheeled
vehicle and copper (ayas). Both these
technologies, which did not originate in
India, are dated 4000 BC. Rv cannot
be older than this date. As we shall see,
it should be much younger (<2000
BC).

15. Rv does not mention iron. It is certain
that before the other Samhitas came into
existence, Rv Samhita had already
assumed practically the same form in
which we find it today.
 When we say that text A is older than
text B, this does not mean that the whole
of A is older than whole of B. Rather, A
was closed earlier than B, so that the
youngest portions of A are older than the
youngest portions of B.

16. A relatively younger text may contain
matter that is very old (even if it has
been re-cast). Vedic texts such as
Brahmanas and Shrautasutras must
contain material (pertaining to ritual
etc.) which is contemporaneous with
the Rgveda.

17. Rv and the Zoroastrian sacred text
Avesta are so closely related that one
cannot be studied without the help of
the other. Rv in fact is closer to Avesta
than to the other Vedas. At some
remote time, the Indo-Iranians must
have been one.

18. The Vedic people were not merely
familiar with horse, they were
obsessed with it. A cult was built
around horse.
Indic and Iranian have the same word
for horse: ashva/aspa

19. Indo-Iranian group includes other
languages also, apart from Indic and
Iranian. Dardi and Kafiri are related to
the Indic, but are believed to have
separated from it at an early date. On
the other hand, Pashto, Baluchi and
Kurdish are related to the Iranian. Note
that the Kurds who are in the news for
reasons of war belong to this group.

20. Indo-European family of languages
Indo-Iranian group is part of a larger
family of languages known as the
Indo-European. Other groups in it are
Latin, Greek, Germanic, Celtic,
Albanian, etc.

21. It is postulated that some time in
remote past (in the Bronze Age), there
existed a hypothetical community of
proto-Indo-European people (PIE)
bound together by geography,
common culture and a common
language ( with various dialects).
Where was this homeland located?

22. There are Indo-European loanwords
in Finno-Ugric ( e.g. Hungarian sor
(beer)= Skt sura.). Since the Finno-
Ugric have always been associated
with North European forest lands, PIE
must be placed immediately to their
south, in the European steppes
bordering Caspian Sea and Black Sea.

23.  Earliest evidence for domestication
of horse comes from this very region,
from Sredni Stog culture which
flourished during 4000-3500 BC in
today’s Ukraine.
A solitary example of loan in the
reverse direction is on record ( Skt/
Avestan maksh = Mordavian meks
(bee)).

24. This word is not to be found in
European languages. This suggests
that the loan to Indo-Iranian took
place when European branches had
already left. Archaeology suggests
that Indo-Iranian migrations began in
2100 BC.
Clues to the earliest migrations come
from history of technology.

25. Terms associated with wheel and axle and
metal are common im many IE languages
(Skt chakra= Greek kyklos; Skt
ayas=Latin aeos). This suggests that these
technological developments had already
taken place when PIE were still in their
joint homeland. These technologies are
believed to have been introduced in
about 4000 BC (as already noted). The
earliest IE migrations must be after this
date.

26. It is believed that starting about 2000
BC, very large parts of the world
were affected by prolonged drought
which caused widespread migrations.
Presumably it was quest for water
which compelled Indo-Iranians to
move southwards where,

27. thanks to rivers fed by the snow-clad
Pamirs and Hindukush water shortage
would not be so acute. (In India, in the
post-urban Harappan phase also, there
were migrations from the lower
Ghaggar to the upper, but they took
place about 1700 BC. )

28. A positive fall-out of Russian
occupation of Central Asia was
thorough archaeological excavations in
the area including northern
Afghanistan. Unfortunately, south
Afghanistan and Iran which are more
relevant from an Indian point of view
remain largely unexplored
archaeologically.

30. Archaeology of South Turkmenistan
runs parallel to India’s, with Namazga
V corresponding to urban centres of
Harappa and Mohenjodaro. In 2100
BC Namazga V was ruined. Atop its
ruins came up a small impoverished
village ( Namazga VI), which shows
clear signs of decline in material
culture as well as new burial practices
and new symbols.

31. Remarkably, one pedestal from
Namazga VI was decorated by a
svastika, an absolutely new motif in
local symbolism. It was never found
again in the entire rich collection of
Southern Turkmenistan pottery.

32. About the same time as Namazga VI,
a new cultural complex came up
spread over the Murgab river delta (
Margiana) and the plain around the
middle reaches of Amu Darya
(Bactria). The calibrated radio-carbon
dates from Murgab-Amu cultures
cover a period 2100 BC-1700 BC.

33. Two sites from this area are
noteworthy in that they seem to
provide evidence that can be related to
the Rigveda. Togolok 21 in the
Murghab Delta in South Turkmenistan
shows evidence of use of Ephedra,
which has been identified with the
Soma/ Haoma plant of the
Rigvedic/Avestan people.

34. Togolok 21

35. In Togolok 21, Ephedra however
appears in association with poppy and
cannabis, while Soma/Haoma was a
pure plant extract.

36. Dashli 3 in the Amu plain in North
Afghanistan shows a circular building (inside
a square enclosure) which fits the Rigvedic
description of a Dasa fort. Unlike Togolok 21,
there is no sign of Ephedra. This is consistent
with the fact that Dasa are described as anti-
Soma. Since Iranian is also familiar with
Dasa, they cannot be the Harappan people.
Vaksh-Bishkent cultures in this region are also
believed to be connected with the Indo-
Iranians.

37. Dashli 3 (square
structure)

38. While looking for archaeological
evidence connected with Rv, it is
important to keep in mind that the Rv
people were neither a homogeneous
group nor an exclusive group. Nor can
they claim to be a microcosm of Indo-
Iranian cultures.

39. In other words, a Rv statement may
apply to a section of the Rv people or to
all of them. It may apply to a fraction or
all of the Indo-Iranian people. In
addition, there might have been
practices prevalent among the Rv or
related people which failed to make to
the book.

40. Archaeological cultures, believed to be
associated with Indo-Iranians, share a
number of features.
 Cult of fire
 Burial of burnt bones and ashes or of
the body in a flexed position
 Poor quality pottery, whether
handmade or wheel made
 Extensive use of handmade pottery.

41. It is noteworthy that the two earthen
vessels, ukha and mahavira, used in the
Vedic ritual were explicitly required to
be handmade.

42. Soma/ Haoma
The natural history of the Soma plant
helps us localize the Rigvedic/
Avestan people to whom the Soma/
Haoma cult is common. Soma is a
leaf-less plant whose twigs were
crushed to yield the juice, also called
Soma, which was filtered by passing
it through a strainer made of sheep’s
wool.

43. Soma juice was drunk
immediately. There was no time for
fermentation.
 The Vedic agnishtoma and the
Zoroastrian Haoma ceremony are
strikingly similar, both of which must
therefore have originated in the
common Indo-Iranian period.

44. In Rv (8.80) a maiden, Apala, plucks
Soma twigs by the wayside and chews
them. This means at the time the
Rigvedic people lived in the Soma-land.
Rigveda makes it clear that
Soma grew in mountains, a popular
location being Mount Mujavat.

45. In Baudhayana Shrautasutra (6.14),
the Adhvaryu asks the seller if the
Soma came from Mujavat, which
obviously was still a source of
supply.

46. In the Yajurveda (Maitrayani Samhita
1.160), the sacrificial offerings are
hung from a tree with the words, ‘This
is your portion, O Rudra! With this
food, pass by beyond Mujavat’. By
now, Mujavat is the civilization
outpost beyond which lies the
unknown. We thus see successive
movement of Indo-Aryans away from
the Soma habitat.

47. Each and every statement on Soma/
Haoma in the Vedic corpus and
Avestan literature can be explained in
a self-consistent manner by
identifying Soma plant with those
species of Ephedra which grows at
high altitudes and have high alkaloidal
content.

48. Northwestern plain of India could not
have been the home of the Rigvedic
people, because there is no suitable
candidate for Soma here.

49. Sarasvati
Sarasvati is the most celebrated river
in Rv. It rises in the mountains, cuts its
ridges, raises foam, and goes to the
samudra ( literally, gathering of waters).
It has many tributaries (inluding
Drishadvati and Apaya) which are called
its daughters. There are other rivers in
the region which are called Sarasvati’s
sisters. Sarasvati is described as
naditama, the best of all rivers.

50. Two western tributaries of Indus that
are named in Rv can be easily
identified : Kubha (Kabul) and
Suvastu (Swat). Rv also mentions
Gomati. From the context it is clear
that Gomal in Baluchistan is meant
and not the Lucknow Gomati. This
illustrates the later re-use of old
names.

51. The youngest portion of Rv, the tenth
mandala , contains a river hymn in
praise of Indus. All the superlatives
earlier applied to Sarasvati are now
transferred to Indus. Sarasvati is
mentioned here in passing . Quite
obviously this cannot be the Sarasvati
of the old mandalas.

52. Later Vedic texts ( Panchavimsha
Brahmana, Jaiminiya Upanishsa) as well
as Mahabharata mention a river Sarasvati
which vanishes in the desert at a place
called Vinashana. Presumably, this river
is the same as the Sarasvati of the tenth
mandala. It has been identified with
Ghaggar.

53. Ghaggar
The puny Ghaggar system is located
between the two mighty snow-fed
river systems of North India, Indus in
the west and Yamuna-Ganga in the
east. Many rivulets arise in the rain-fed
Shivaliks and merge to form
Ghaggar.

54. Interestingly, one of the Ghaggarettes is
named Sarsuti, an apabhransh of
Sarasvati.
Why should the name Sarasvati be
transferred from the main river Ghaggar
and given to a tributary? Also, why and
how did such an un-poetical name as
Ghaggar come into being?

55. Finally, the name Sarasvati was given to
an invisible river that joins Yamuna and
Ganga.
These transferences suggest that use of
name Sarasvati was expedient rather than
sacred.

56. The Ghaggar of today does not reach
the sea; it gets lost in the sands on its
way down. It has been known for 150
years that things were different at
some stage in the past. Satluj flowed
eastwards and Yamuna westwards to
join Ghaggar and together flow to the
sea.

57. It is noteworthy that satellite imagery
merely confirms this. It does not tell
us any thing new. More particularly,
the epoch when Ghaggar underwent
geo-morphological transformation
remains undetermined.

58. The fundamental question is this.
Sarasvati of the old mandala is a
mighty river, while Sarasvati of the
late tenth mandala loses its way in the
desert. Are there two rivers or
just one? In 1891, Max Muller
assumed that there was only one river
which underwent drastic change
during the Rigvedic time itself.

59. He was conscious of the speculative
nature of his suggestion. He wrote: ‘ It
may not be possible to determine by
geological evidence the time of the
changes which modified the southern
area of the Punjab and caused the
Sarasvati to disappear in the desert’.
Geology may not have been able to
come to the help of Indologists in
1890s, but it surely can now.

60. An alternative hypothesis was
proposed by Alfred Hillebrandt that
Sarasvati of the old mandalas was a
river in south Afghanistan. He
suggested Arghandab as the
candidate, whose old name is
Haraivati, cognate with Sarasvati.

61.  I have adduced a number of reasons why the
old Ghaggar cannot be the naditama
Sarasvati. Two important ones are these:
 The old Ghaggar does not match the
attributes of Rv Sarasvati:
 Even if Satluj and Yamuna flowed into
Ghaggar in Rigvedic times, the upper
Ghaggar will still be the same as now. By no
stretch of imagination can it be called
naditama which cuts ridges of mountains,
raises foam, etc.

62.  Furthermore, there is unambiguous
evidence from Rv itself that in its
time, Satluj was already apart of the
Indus system. Rv (3.33) describes
the arrival of Vishvamitra and his
entourage at the confluence of Satluj
and Beas where the Rishi appeals to
the two rivers to let them pass.

63. I have slightly modified Hillebrandt’s
thesis and suggested Helmand as the
old Rv Sarasvati.
In the same spirit, the Rv Sarayu cannot
be the present-day Sarayu; it must be
identified with Hari-rud, whose older
name is Horayu ( cognate with Sarayu).

64. Rv mentions Sapta Sindhavah, the
district of seven rivers. It is known to
the Avesta as Hapta Hindu. These
rivers, it has been suggested, be
indentified with other rivers in the
region including Farah- rud.

65. There is a striking commonality of
geographic names in Rv and Avesta.
The most natural explanation for the
phenomenon is this. Names to Afghan
rivers were given by the Indo-Iranians

66. The Iranian branch which came to
dominate the area later, decided to
selectively retain the names. When the
Rv people moved eastwards, they
carried these names along and
selectively reused them. The names
that were not reused lost their
geographical identity and became
literary terms.

67. This would explain the curious fact
that inspite of Rigveda’s
uninterrupted sanctity and the
continuous Aryan presence in India, a
large number of Rv names of rivers,
lakes and mountain are
unrecognizable.

68. If the rigorous study of ancient Indian
history is to advance, it must be
provided with direct evidence rather
than circumstantial. It may not be
advisable to embark on archaeological
exploration of South Afghanistan at the
present state of affairs, but a rigorous,
open-ended, investigation into the
hydrological history of the Ghaggar
system would be very valuable indeed.

69. Such a study is required by
archaeology also. There are a
number of late Harappan sites on
lower Ghaggar which were
abandoned 1700 BC and people
moved upstream.

70. Note that lower Ghaggar sites are
older than the upper ones.
 What was the water supply before
1700 BC and what happened then?
How old are the oldest
archaeological sites on Ghaggar and
its tributaries, esp. Sarsuti?

71.  To sum up so far, I have argued that
Indo-Iranian speakers were stationed
in their original home in European
steppes till 2100 BC when they
started moving southwards. We have
their presumed presence in the oases
and deltas north of Hindukush.

72. Next, Indo-Iranians arrive in South
Afghanistan, They get introduced to
Soma/Haoma and subsets among
them take to the composition of Rv
and Avesta.
Note that Indic-speakers were not a
monolith. Among them are non-Rv
people, Rv-related people and Rv-people
themselves.

73. When do Indic speakers appear in the
subcontinent?
Swat III culture in the Swat valley
supplants an early Harappan phase
and is assigned to Rv-related people. (
A calibrated radiocarbon date from
here is 1744 BC.) Recall that this area
hosts Dardi/ Kafiri speakers.

74. We have similar new arrivals in the
Gomal valley (Baluchistan).
The Swat and Gomal arrivals are
Indo-Iranian people all right, but do
not belong to the subset of Rv-people.

75. Ramayana and Mahabharata
B. B. Lal carried out excavations in
Mahabharata- named and Ramayana-named
sites. He found that (i) The former lie to the
west of the latter ( Meerut Hastinapur vis-a-vis
Ayodhya).
 (ii) Significantly, Mahabharata-named
sites are older (PGW) than the Ramayana-named
ones ( NBP, Northern BlackWare).

76. On the face of it, this finding runs
counter to the Puranic accounts which
consistently maintain that Rama came
30 generations before Krishna.
The hypothesis of migration of
names offers a simple resolution of
the paradox.>

77. The Mahabharata-related people ( who
are connected with Rv-composers) were
the first ones to move eastwards beyond
Ghaggar. They settled there , giving old
names to their settlements.
The Ramayana-related people came in
later. They had to move further east
where they also re-used old names from
their settlements.

78. Northern Black
Polished Ware Culture
Painted Grey Ware
Culture
R v People
Late Harappan
(Jhukar) Phase
Late Harappan
(Cemetery H ) Phase
Late Harappan
(Rangpur ) Phase
Non- Rv Indic
Speakers
Rv –related Indic
Speakers
Non- Rv Indic
Speakers
Mature Harappan
Phase
Early Harappan Phase
Baluchistan
Phase
100 BC
700 BC
400 BC
850 BC
900 BC
1700 BC
2000 BC
2500 BC
3500 BC
4500 BC
7000 BC
1300 BC
2000 BC

79. Thank you