The land that resonates a wonder civilization

If someone had offered me a Time Machine i would have requested it to take me to 8000 BCE(before the common era)...

About the end of the last glacial age some 10,000 to 12,000 years ago(approx), temperature rose and the ice sheets started retreating over much of North America and Eurasia, as did the glaciers in the mountainous regions such as the Himalayas. A sight probably scary but exciting when waters deliriously roared down the Himalayas, bouncing on the Shivaliks and flooding the plains below. Hundreds of paleochannels small and large might have been flowing across the plains below. It might have been without purpose that nature's fury at the time might have cooled down gradually to give birth to one of most amazing, exciting, peace loving civilization that stood the test of time & fate. Although the civilization got buried under the heaps of sand the culture it taught stands even today as a testimonial to its ancestors who laid its foundation.

My grandfather Dr J Shivananda Sastry a firm believer in God was a sincere worshiper. He performed puja(form of worship) daily to the house deity and the saligrama. Kalasha puja is one among the rituals that are performed during the puja. It is done at the beginning of the complete puja ritual. It is done to worship water which will be poured over the idols. Since i was a kid I grew listening to the mantra recitations which my grand father used to do while performing the puja. The recitations were extracted from the four [Rig, Yajur, Sama, Atharvana] vedas. One of the hymns recited during this kalasha puja is of my interest in this article.

इमं मे गंगे यमुने सरस्वती सुतुद्रि स्तोमं सचात परुस्न्य अ |
असिक्न्य मरुद्व्र्धे वितस्तयार्जिकिये स्र्नुःय अ सुसोमय ||

Imam me gange yamune sarasvati sutudri stomam sacata parusny a |
asiknya marudvrdhe vitastayarjikiye srnuhy a susomaya ||

I never knew what it meant till yesterday. It literally means the following

O Ganga, Yamuna, Sarasvati, Shutudri(Sutlej), Parushni(Ravi), hear my praise! Hear my call, O Asikni(Chenab), Marudvridha (Maruvardhan), Vitasta(Jhelum) with Arjikiya and Sushoma

The hymn is part of the Nadi sukta in Rig Veda which specifically contains praise for the rivers in Ancient India. The hymn is followed by the enumeration of Indus(sindhu) and its tributaries in the west.

Source: Wikipedia

It in fact paid tribute to the great rivers (most of them we still see on the landscape) which once flowed full throttle and were probably the life lines of civilization which our ancestors were part of. The most amazing aspect of this hymn is it enumerates the list of rivers that flowed from the himalayas down to foot plains from east to west in the same order without any omissions and mistakes. A land that is bracketed by Ganga on the east and Sindhu on the west covers more than 1000 KM. It might look very simple to enumerate such a list in this modern day because of the sophistication science provides us(satellite imagery). Could we imagine how was it possible about 5000 years ago when people were defining formal methods to develop bronze tools. The people who composed the hymn were no village bard, but the most intelligent, rational beings probably existing during the time. I do not know how did they manage to enumerate all the rivers in the correct order(may be because of tight network of groups who inhabited these waters), i leave it open to the readers to find it out.

The most important of the above is the fact that the hymn which enumerates the rivers in the correct order is still recited today in spite of the fact that some of the rivers/tributaries mentioned in the hymn are dead and buried under the sands(probably seasonal flow exists).

Although i never asked my grand father why it was recited, but i feel that the hymn was recited to remember all the rivers that once were the lifelines of one of the most amazing, woderful, most remembered civilizations of all times probably from which we derive all our culture, thought, intelligence. We were a great land 5000 years back and we stood as role model to the entire world. We still are a great land and lets stand united and show to the world that we are still the role models.