Free Land of seven rivers: History of India's Geography by Sanjeev Sanyal

Pakistani Punjab) and even parts of adjoining provinces. This is a very large
     area.
    Having traversed much of this terrain
     and read and re-read the text, I have come to a somewhat different conclusion. The
     Vedas clearly mention a wider landscape watered by
     ‘thrice-seven’ rivers 22 . While one does not have to take it literally as referring to twenty-one
     rivers, it is obvious that the Sapta-Sindhu is a sub-set of the wider Vedic
     landscape. In my view, the Indus and its tributaries were not a part of the
     Sapta-Sindhu. The Indus has long been considered a ‘male’ river
     in Indian tradition and would have not been called a sister. Indeed, it is notable
     that the Indus and its tributaries are never described as ‘of seven
     sisters’. My hunch is that the Sapta-Sindhu refers only to the Saraswati
     and its own tributaries. Take for instance the following stanza:
‘Coming together,
     glorious, loudly roaring—
Saraswati, Mother of Floods, the
     seventh—
With copious milk, with fair streams strongly flowing,
Fully swelled by the volume of their waters’ 23
    My reading of this stanza is that it
     talks of how six rivers emptied into the Saraswati, the seventh. There are several
     old river channels in the region, some of which still flow into the Ghaggar during
     the monsoon season. These include the Chautang (often identified as the Vedic river
     Drishadvati) and the Sarsuti. The Sutlej and the Yamuna were probably also counted
     among the Saraswati’s sisters.
    If my hunch is right, it would mean that
     the Sapta-Sindhu was a much smaller area covering modern Haryana and a few of the
     adjoining districts of eastern Punjab. Incidentally, this area also corresponds to
     what ancient texts refer to asBrahmavarta—the Holy
     Land—where Manu is said to have re-established civilization after the
     flood. The texts define the Holy Land as lying between the Saraswati and the
     Drishadvati—again roughly Haryana and a bit of north Rajasthan, but
     excluding most of Punjab. So why was this small area so important? The people of the
     Sapta-Sindhu were obviously part of a cultural milieu that covered a much larger
     area. What was so special about these seven rivers? In my view the importance of the
     Land of the Seven Rivers probably derives from it being the home of the Bharatas, a
     tribe that would give Indians the name by which they call themselves.
THE BHARATAS
    Although the Rig Veda is concerned
     mostly with religion, the hymns do mention one event that is almost certainly
     historical. This is often called the ‘Battle of the Ten Kings’
     that occurred on the banks of the Ravi river in Punjab. 24 It appears that ten powerful tribes ganged up against the Bharata tribe and its
     chieftain Sudasa. 25 The confederacy appears to have mainly consisted of tribes from what is now
     western Punjab and the North West Frontier Province (both now in Pakistan). In
     contrast, the Bharatas were an ‘eastern’ tribe from what is now
     Haryana. 26 Despite the odds, the Bharatas crushed the confederacy in the battle. There are
     descriptions of how the defeated warriors fled the battlefield or were drowned in
     the Ravi.
    As I stand on the edge of the Ghaggar
     river in Haryana, I imagine the Bharata tribesmen fording the river on their way to
     the great battle. As described in the Rig Veda, the warriorswould have been dressed in white robes, each with his long hair tied in a knot on
     his head. There would have been horses neighing, bronze weapons shining in the sun
     and perhaps the rhythmic sound of sage Vashishtha’s disciples chanting
     hymns to the gods. The Saraswati was a sizeable river then, not the stream that I
     see before me. Perhaps there would have been rafts ferrying men and supplies across
     the river. As I stand watching the river, a few soldiers from the nearby army camp
     wade knee-deep through the Ghaggar. They are Sikh soldiers, their hair knotted on
     top of their heads. There are no