Re: [cybalist] SV: Re: avestan and vedic

Dr. S. Kalyanaraman wrote

> I am indeed grateful for the erudite postings in the
> mailing list on this topic. It helps a lot in
> clarifying the mist.
>
> The vedic texts show no evidence whatsoever of
> migration into the sindhu region while there is
> evidence of internal movements within the region
> stretching from the Sindhu to the Ganga-Yamuna doab.
> Is it not interesting the collapse of the bronze age
> ca. 1200 BCE coincides with the final sequence of
> desiccation of the 1600 km. long river Sarasvati (from
> Ropar to the Rann of Kutch and on through the little
> Rann upto the Gulf of Khambat in the Arabian Sea,
> called Sindhu saagara)? [This could have led to
> movements east of the river towards the Ganga-Yamuna
> doab, south of Saurashtra hugging the Arabian coast,
> west and north-west of Sindhu into Afghanistan.] Could
> Haraqvaiti be a name adapted from this grander
> Himalayan river course in NW Bharat? If so, could
> post-vedic movements be postulated out of Bharat?

From my understanding the Haraqvaiti is found mainly in the earliest
Vedas, and disappears from later texts. If the river in fact refers
to the Herat, which flows out of the Hindu Kush, through the Afghani
city of the same name, then it shows that the earliest Indo-Aryans
were familiar with that part of the world. As I understand, it
almost
totally disappears from later texts, which seem more centred to the
east on the Indus-Ganges doab rather than Sapta Sindhu, it would seem
to suggest a shift in the Indian centre of power to the east, rather
than a movement out of Bharat into Afghanistan. This movement in the
centre of power continued into historic times with the eventual rise
of Maghada and the eventual emergence of the Mauryan Dynasty.

Archaeologically, there is evidence of Harrappan movements out of
India (a Harrappan trading city has been found on the Oxus i.e. Amu
Darya), but there is no movement of any other group out of India
Bharat either before that, or after that until the Rise of the
Mauryans. Pillar edicts of Asoka have been found in Afghanistan, but
that is too late for what you are proposing.

Hope this helps

Regards

John