Book Title: Indian Antiquary Vol 62
Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications
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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ DECEMBER, 1933
Now density of population is dependent on permanent factors, such as fertility of soil, water for irrigation and drainage, a reasonable climate and rainfall. Trade in turn is depen. dent on population, and on other factors, such as accessibility by land or water.
The movements of the British, the Mughals and the Marāhās are typical of all movement, racial and cultural, in India, the objectives and the routes by which they are attained are more or less the same. I say more or less' because all generalizations are ipso facto wrong. In India there are some physical factors which are not permanent, the rivers for example.
The plains of the Indus and the Ganges are covered with almost unfathomable silt. Borings 1,000 feet deep have failed to touch rock bottom. In such a plain the bed of a large river may be twenty or even thirty miles wide, and the river is free to oscillate within these limits. The Indus is the worst offender. I shall not recite the full dossier of its crimes. Its waters at one time flowed into the Rann of Cutch. One fine day it appears to have gone west, near the Sukkur dam. Perhaps it was demoralised by the desertion of its principal consort, the Jamunā, which is proved to have formerly flowed into the depression now known as the HakțĀ.
I shall not dilate upon the causes of this river shifting, a common phenomenon all over India. There is evidence of climatic changes within historic times and before history began, but its interpretation is debated. The hand of man had certainly something to do with it, digging irrigation channels and clearing silt. Deforestation, too, may have been a contributory factor, and rivers are apt to choke their own courses with the silt they bear. But the results are important to the archæologist, for the shifting of rivers involves the shifting of human habitation, and accounts for the deserted cities which are scattered all over the Indus basin and the delta of the Ganges.
Malaria, again, is a factor to reckon with. Of the history of malaria we know little, but we do know that vast tracts of country both in N. and S. India have been thrown out of occupation, even in the past century or two, by its ravages.
But these variations do not invalidate my contention that the routes followed by British, Mughals and Marathās are a constant factor in the genesis and growth of Indian civilization. The general pattern is simple, a sort of distorted 'Z'. Approaching by land from the northwest, the first thrust is through the Ganges valley, the second from Agra (or Delhi or Allahabad) through Mālwā or Ajmer toward some seaport in Gujarat; the third diagonally across the Peninsula towards Madras. Other thrusts, down the Indus valley to the sea, across the Deccan towards Masulipatam, or into the fertile valleys of Kashmir or Central India, are subsidiary. The deserts of Rājpūtāna and the broken country that intervenes between the valleys of the Ganges and the Godavari are avoided, except by refugees, for "the hills contain the ethnological sweepings of the plains”. This pattern emerges in most phases of Indian history and culture.
Consider Languages (Fig. 5). Indo-Aryan speech falls into two main categories, "Inner" and "Outer". Linguistic evidence indicates that the centre of diffusion of the "Inner " languages (the purest form) lies in the “Mid-land " (Madhyadesa) astride the Ganges-Indus waterhead, the home of W. Hindi. Westward and north-westward they pass through Panjābi to the "Outer” languages of the Indus Valley, eastward through the “Mediate " E. Hindi to the “Outer " languages of Bihār, Bengal, Orissa and Assam. But southward (along the middle stroke of the 'Z') they break through the "Outer " ring to the sea (Gujarati), separating "Outer " Sindhi from Marathi.
In Peninsular India, Marathi, advancing south-east (part of the way along the lower stroke of the 'Z') is brought up short by Dravidian resistence. The "Outer " languages of the Indus Valley are up against non-Indian influences, the Iranian speech of Afghān and Baloch, and the Dardic languages which survive from Kashmir to Kāfiristān. In the 'no man's land' between the Ganges and the Godavari pre-Aryan tongues of the Dravidian and Austric families still hold their own.
