The Land of the Seven Rivers: a Short Review
I came across the book by Sanjiv Sanyal: ‘ Land of the Seven Rivers: A brief history of India’s geography’ while discussing something on similar lines with a friend. The cover itself seemed to attract me, I got my hand on the book soon and felt compelled to finish it once I started. The history of India written from an Indian perspective seemed a nice idea. The language of the book is lucid and the content is vivid which on reading transports the mind immediately back in time, to the Indus valley days, with merchants trading on the ports of Lothal and Dholavira.
The book, divided into 8 chapters is not very long but the content seems comprehensive. In fact, on reading the book one feels like cruising on a river flowing through time. Starting from the tectonic shifts that pushed the Indian peninsula towards the Asian plate, the author describes the country in a rather geological way with the description of mountains and forests on the peninsula, followed briefly by the migration of humans into the Indian subcontinent. Of course, there is a huge debate regarding the Aryan invasion theory, with the current understanding favoring the non-invasive migration of the Aryan population into the subcontinent. While there is a certain divide between the North and the South Indian genes, the current mixing of the population in many years since, the author argues, makes it insignificant. There could be South Indian genes in someone from Kashmir and equally the North Indian genes could be found in Tamil Nadu.
The text is chronological in nature and each chapter is dedicated to a certain phase of the civilization. The conflict between the Harappan civilization and the existence of Vedic literature is evident, and the author puts a lot of exciting details regarding the two. Especially the story of the river Saraswati is described and how at present, with satellite information, general consensus has become that the dry bed of Ghaggar is the lost river Saraswati itself!
Some very interesting aspects about our early history are described in a beautiful manner such as the appearance of the Lions and the Tigers in the subcontinent and the human fascination with these powerful animals, with the warrior clans such as Rajputs still using the surname Singh which if translated to English means the Lion.
The story moves from the Indus valley days to the days when the civilization moves further East and South from the Indus valley. The development of cities such as Varanasi as important centers of trade and culture on the one hand and the stories of the merchants from other places as far as Rome coming to the ports of India using the ancient trade routes is quite a lively description.
As the civilization developed, not only items but also civilization was transported to distant lands. Be it the story of the princess of Ayodhya sailing to distant Korea, or the Shakti peeths established in South Asia, the Ramayana being performed in Bali, there are numerous stories in the book which make us wonder, what deep connections we had with the outside even in ancient times. The traders, just like the businessmen now, used to travel to far off places and used to exchange goods as well as ideas. The presence of Hindu temples in Rome or the presence of the greek items in Kochi are evidence of the knowledge of trade routes of our forefathers. In the second book by the same author: ‘Ocean of Churn’{which I review in part II of this article}, this is the central theme.
As the journey enters the medieval and later the British era, the familiar things start appearing. The arrival of Vasco da Gama on the port of Calicut, or the British in the court of Jehangir are a few stories we already know quite well, but even then the detailed description is really enjoyable.
This book is comprehensive in the sense that it doesn’t talk about our history divided into fragments such as ancient, medieval, and modern, rather the approach is that the civilization is continuous with a few things not changing at all even at present. The transport routes dating from ancient times to the present day are described in detail. He mentions the Uttara and the Dakshina path, the ancient trade routes, and how even today they survive as (National Highway) NH1, NH2, and NH7.
One thing I like about Sanjiv Sanyal is the way he intertwines the story, with one end in the past and the other end connected to the present. This is really impressive at least for me as sometimes I also wonder what if I travel back in time and see for myself what the conditions were back then. In one instance, in this book he writes about him being in front of the river Yamuna, feeling sad about its state at the present, and immediately thinks about the fate of the river Saraswati while dying. Would the ancient Harappans feel the same way he feels now! There are many instances like this even in the second book. The description of the effort by the famous Air force pilot Biju Patnaik in rescuing Indonesia from the ongoing civil war and then linking it to the ancient brotherhood between the two countries and the story of women lighting up lamps and floating paper boats in the river on the occasion of Karthik Purnima even at the present day in the state of Odisha or Kalinga as it was known historically serve the examples of the thing I am talking about.
Overall this book is an interesting read. Being short, this is not meant for academic purposes, rather the intended audience is the general public, people who feel proud ff their glorious past. I’ll review another book: “The Ocean of Churn” as a continuation to this one. I recommend reading both the books, as “The ocean of churn” serves as a natural continuation to the picture being presented in “The Land of the seven rivers”.
Update: To read the review of the next book, “Ocean of Churn” click here.
