Was there a Western Ocean in North India

WAS THERE A WESTERN OCEAN IN NORTH INDIA?

Kavikulaguru Kalidasa is known to be the greatest poet of Nature. People hailed him as ‘nisarga Kalidasa’. His descriptions of various facets of Nature are refreshing and enlivening at the same time. So also his descriptions of land and people of India are quite authentic. Either the route of Raghu’s world conquest-Digvijaya or the path of Rama’s return journey from Srilanka to Ayodhya or the descriptions of the various kings taking part in Indumati’s marriage, each is filled with authentic information. Scholars of Indian history are to check and correct their mistakes in the light of the information provided by Kalidasa- whether Emperor Pushyamitra Sunga ever became king or continued to be called as ‘senapati’ till his end, whether there was any dividing of Vidarbha into two provinces or whether the ‘uragapura’ of Pandyas in South India existed-these and other questions are settled to-day beyond doubt only with the help of the information provided by Kalidasa.

In the light of the above facts, we are startled and shocked to read Kalidasa’s mention of ocean on the western side of India at the foot-hills of Himalayas. This description occurs in the beginning of Kumarasambhava. Kalidasa begins his mahakavya with the description of the glorious Himalayas.

Astyuttarasyaam disi devattatmaa,
Himaalayonaama nagaadhiraajah,
Purvaaparau toyanidhi vagaahya
Sthitah prithivyaah maanadandah (I.I)

situated in the northern direction is The Himalayas, the Lord of the mountains, the divine person, stretching into the Eastern and Western Oceans as the measuring rod of the earth. The significance of the statement is usually lost in the first reading of the verse, Where were the oceans in North of India? What are the Eastern and Western Oceans at the foot of the Himalayas? Again Kalidasa speaks of the four oceans surrounding the earth in his Raghuvamsa.

Payodhariibuta catussamudraam
jugopa gorupadharaamivorviim. (II.3). What is the authority for Kalidasa’s information?

Mallinatha quotes Brahmandapurana as authority.

Kailaaso Himavaan caiva gakshine varsha parvatam. Purvapascimagaa vetaav arnavaantar upasthitam.

Other puranas also testify to the existence of the western ocean. But what is the historical evidence? What do the Vedic evidence reveal? When did the western ocean exist?

Prof. A. A. Macdonell has this to say: “The ocean was probably known only from hearsay, for no mention is made of the numerous mouths of the Indus, and fishing, one of the main occupations on the banks of the Lower Indus at the present day, is quite ignored…..The word which later is the regular name for ‘ocean’ (samudra) seems, therefore, in agreement with the etymological sense (‘collection of waters’), to mean in the Rgveda only to the lower course of the Indus, which, after receiving the waters of the Punjab, is so wide that a boat in mid-stream is invisible from the bank……indeed the word Sindhu (river) in several passages of the Rgveda has practically the sense of the ‘sea’. Metaphors such as would be used by a people familiar with ocean are lacking in the Rgveda…….The Atharveda, on the other hand, contains some passages showing that its com­posers were acquainted with the ocean.” Pp.122, 122, History of Sanskrit Literature.

In the work “The Religions of India”, Prof. E. W. Hopkins declares thus: “Some scholars believe that this people had already heard of the two oceans. (i.e., the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea). This Point again is doubtful in the extreme. No descriptions imply a knowledge of ocean, and the word for ocean means merely a ‘confluence’ of waters, or in general a great oceanic body of water like the air. As the Indus is too wide to be seen across, the name may apply in most cases to this river.”

Ragozin, in her book entitled Vedic India, asserts that the word ‘Samudra’ in Rgveda means “not the sea or ocean, but the broad expanse formed by the re-union with the Indus of the ‘five rivers’, whose waters are brought to it by the Pancanada.” (pp. 268)

Thus Vedic scholars of the West totally negate the existence of ocean itself. Then what to talk about the existence of two oceans, one on the west and other on the Eastern direction? Now what does the Rgveda actually tell us?

There are innumerable suktas in the Rgveda where the word samudra is used in the sense of ocean.

Rgv. X. 1365 “Vaatasyaashvo vaayoh sakhaato deveshito munih, ubhau samudraavaa ksheti yasca purva utaaparah.

Rgv. XI. 33.6   “Raayah samudraanscaturo asmabhyam saama vishvatah aa parasva sahasrinah

Rgv.X, - 47.2 Svaayudham svavasam suniitham catuhsamudram dharunam rayiinam, caturkrityam shamsyam bhuurivaaramasmabhyam citram vrishanam rayim daah.

Rgveda. VII. 95,2 “Ekaacetat saraswatii nadiinaam shuciryatii giribhya aa samudraat. (Of the rivers, the sarasvati-the sacred stream that flows from the mountains in to the sea-alone knows this……)

Rgv. VIII.6,4
Rgv. VIII.92.22
Rgv. III. 36,7
Rgv. V. 85,6
Rgv. I. 13.2 and many more.

The first sukta explicitly refers to the two oceans, the Eastern and Western. It refers to God Kesin, or the Sun dwelling in both the “Eastern and the Western Samudras”

Prof. A.C. Das has, in his classical works, Rgvedic India and Rgvedic Culture conclusively proved on geological basis and Rgvedic evidence the existence of the oceans in Rgvedic times. The learned Professor indignantly says about the bias of the Western scholars thus: “This is a glaring instance and proof positive of the way in which wrong judgements are sometimes formed through bias and pre-conceived ideas.”

Prof. A. Berriedale Keith of Edinburgh University has differed with Prof. A. C. Das in these words...“I am afraid your speculations on the age of the Rgveda do not convince. I do not think your geographical evidence needs or perhaps even admits the explanation which you have given. The fact that for many generations no one has felt the difficulties you have raised and that the fact most of us now do not appreciate them is an argument of considerable weight against their validity” Scholars generally disagree with each other on the basis of evidence. But for the first time an argument is struck down solely on the basis of majority of the biased scholars’ standing and status in the world of scholarship. We must frankly confess that we were shocked at the observation like the above from the learned and renowned Professor.

Geological surveys show that, in a remote age, a sea actually covered a very large portion of modern Rajaputana, extending as far as south and east as the Aravalli mountains, which geologists have designated by the name of the Rajaputana Sea. (Imperial Gaz. of the Ind. Emp.,)Vol. I. pp. I-2.

The upheaval of the Middle and Northern Himalayas had taken place before man flourished on our globe. With the elevation of the Middle Himalayas was produced a deep trough at its foot on the southern side. What ever may be the causes of this upheaval and depression, there is no question that a deep trough did exist at the foot of the Himalayan range in ancient geological times. (Geology of India by Wadia, pp 248)

Coming to the question of existence of Western Ocean at the foot-hill of the Himalayas, we are fortunately aided by H.G. Wells, who in his ‘The Outline of History’ reiterates what has been said in the various Suktas of Rgveda. He has even given maps of India at the times of the two oceans. He assigns this period to the NEANDERTHAL AGE, at the Maximum of the Fourth Ice Age (About 50,000 years ago). The Western ocean continued to exist up to the later Paleolithic Age (35,000 to 25,000 years ago). The whole of Northern India and Rajaputana and the greater part of the Punjaba are shown in the first map as covered by a vast and continuous sea which was connected with the Arabian sea on the west and the Bay of Bengal on the east. The second map shows the uninterrupted continuity of the sea that separated the Punjab and the Himalayas from Southern India broken only by the formation of land in East­ern Rajaputana, and points at the existence of a sea over a large portion of the Gangetic trough (Which was undoubtedly “the Eastern Sea” of the Rgveda) and of another sea or gulf over Western Rajaputana and the whole of the province of Lower Sindh. Both the maps generally agree with the different distribution of land and water in the Punjab, as it was in Rgveda times, and this indirectly proves the hoary antiquity of the Rgvedic hymns.

Thus Kalidasa had passed on the hoary memories of the past ages through his mahakavys. If Kalidasa could remember at a later date of the geography of ancient India, how could the authors of Rgveda fail to re­member and mention about their native home, if indeed they had come from out side into India, as the self-styled historians claim? Let the learned readers decide for themselves.