Preface

It has been observed in the previous book titled ‘Origin of Hindu √ The Name’ that the dictum of going, moving forward became the central tenet of a huge number of human beings who essentially were the residents of India. Those people were termed as the Hindu. Even when the root of this concept is logically proven, then also a question arises and remains unanswered. Why did the act of going, moving forward become so important that a large number of people needed to accept it as the guiding principle of their lives? Nobody put a sword on their necks to adopt that way of life and nobody hanged a lollipop in front of their hungry cavum oris for that purpose. No tangible evidence has been found of any such occurrences, not even in the folklore or in the legends. That adherence, in all probability, was voluntary and self-imposed.

 

For that happening, two broad categories of influences might be credited to, physical and/or cerebral.

 

The physical environment of the land in reference was shaped by the actions and interactions of the geological forces.

 

Concerned cerebral input must have originated from some knowledge base. Structured and recorded knowledge base that is unique to India has been found in the Vedas and its annotations.

Chapter One – Introduction

Mainstream academicians let us know that the traceable history of the Ganga Plain can throw light up to a period of 2500 years BP. Before that period many references may be found, the presence of which is undeniable, but the time range of their coming into existence may not be conclusively finalized with the presently available tools and techniques. The most important ones of such type of references are the Vedas, the Ramayan and the Mahabharat.

 

When the description of the historical accounts of around 2500 years BP is looked into, then it comes to knowledge that the standard of the human settlements in that place mesmerized even the visitors from the most matured and advanced Greek empire of that time. That chapter of the recorded history must have had its antecedents. A very advanced human society cannot appear from the thin air overnight. But till date a verifiable sketch of the events before that period of that land could not be drawn.

 

Traceable history of some of the other parts of the Indian subcontinent can throw light much farther back in time, in the form of the Indus Civilisation, for which archaeological evidences are present.

 

Various caves in India, like Bhimbetka in the Central Indian Highland in Madhya Pradesh and Billa Surgam in the Andhra Pradesh, stand witness to the presence of human beings at such a period, which seems to be unbelievably old.

 

Leaving all such pan-India happenings aside, when the spotlight of history is directed to the Ganga Plain, then 2500 years BP is the period around which traceable historical accounts may be found. Naturally, an indeterminate phase of the historical timeline of that area is present where the searchlight based on the scientific findings could be focused.

 

Up to the chapter four of this work, the focus has been concentrated on the scientific findings that have been accumulated till date related to the Ganga Plain. In the succeeding two chapters, effort has been put to apply those scientific findings to untangle the mysterious past of that area.

 

Human beings, by their biological construct, are capable of moving. All over the world, people have been moving from place to place since time immemorial. It is quite obvious for the question to come to mind that why such action was assumed so much of importance in the Vedic Indian context? That is a very natural question, which should appear in the minds of the interested. The childlike simplicity associated with that physical action may sometimes create derision about that way of life itself.  A deep search may be needed to find out the importance of that physical action in the context of ancient India to find out a viable answer to that query. Can a physical investigation be installed today in that regard that may provide unquestionable proof? The answer to that question is ‘no’. Installation of an enquiry of that type is not feasible. Whatever to be investigated has to be done through the process of logical deduction based on the foundation of accepted findings, vetted by the scientific community. That process necessarily has to be a conceptual one.

 

How many entities may be assigned to the act of human movement? The answer is, basically, two. One is the human being, the wanderer, and the other is the geographical area that needs to be trodden. No historical account is available that shows that any or all the human beings present within the territory of India were of such unique construct that mobility was a problem for them. Very early in the history of the human existence, people created settlements in a major part of that land and that process embraced the nearby island systems also. Experts tell us that some findings suggest that the presence of people on that land may be traced back up to around 40000 years BP. The caves of Billa Surgam at Banganapalli in the Kurnool District of the present-day Indian state of Andhra Pradesh contain evidences of the existence of such people. It is said that those evidences indicate the presence of human beings in that area during the middle or upper Paleolithic era. That is a very old time. The paleolithic era started 2.5 million years ago (25 lakh years). The middle of the Paleolithic era mathematically indicates 1.2 million (12-lakh) years BP. In a subject-specific reference, that period refers to 300000 years BP to 50000 years BP. Those people overcame all the hurdles that appeared in their journey. Thus, their physical ability to move was beyond any question.

 

The remaining entity that is involved in the process of human movement is the geography of the concerned territory on which people move. To understand the importance of the dictum of moving forward, one needs to make a mental sketch of the condition of that land that was present at the time of the perceived Vedic period, based on the accepted scientific findings. That perspective has been given little attention till date.

Chapter Two – Creation of the Ganga Plain

An outline of the Ganga Basin

 

A shroud of mysteries is associated with the geography of India that lies in between the Himalayas and the Vindhyas. On the cerebral front, the sudden appearance of an unparalleled intellectual attainment in the form of the Vedas did happen that could not be linked to any traceable human settlement. Neither any antecedent of those creations could be found. On the geological front, after applying all the tools, techniques, knowledge, etc., which is at the disposal of the modern man, the formation of the present structure of that area could not be explained fully. That difficulty of explanation becomes more evident when the geographical developments are tried to be tallied with the geological timeline.  That area is known as the Ganga Plain.

    

An ancient Indian creation known as Vishnu Puran (time of creation and origin cloaked in mystery, but no doubt is there that it is a very old creation) contains the following:

 

हिमालयं समारभ्य यावदिंदुसरोवरम् ।

तं देवनिर्मितं देशं हिंदुस्थानं प्रचक्ष्यते ।।

 

Which in English may be expressed as, “The land created by the Gods and stretching from the Himalayas to the ‘Indu Ocean’ is called Hindusthanam”.

 

Professor Indra Bir Singh (I B Singh), Department of Geology, Lucknow University, published a paper titled ‘Geological Evolution of Ganga Plain – An Overview’, in the Journal of ‘The Palaeontological Society of India’, in Volume 41, pages 99-137. From the pages 99 and 101 of that publication, it may be learnt that the Ganga basin, a dented formation on which the Ganga Plain proper is formed, covers an area approximately 250,000 square kilometres that is situated within Longitude 77°E and 88°E and Latitude 24°N and 30°N. The drainage basin of the Ganga Plain covers an area of 10,60,000 square kilometres.

 

The Ganga Plain is the major constituent of the Indo-Gangetic Plain and constitutes more than half of the Indo-Gangetic plain. That basin is an elongated sedimentary area with a west to east orientation. Structurally, at present that area is a flat and monotonous one, and the River Ganga and its various tributaries make up the drainage of that area.

 

The 'Ganga Plain proper' is confined within the Aravalli-Delhi-Haridwar ridge in the west, and the Monghyr-Saharsa ridge and the Rajmahal Hills on the east. The influence of the River Ganga reaches further east, but that area has a little different character and guardianship. That area shall be given appropriate attention in a separate writing.

 

The lesser or Outer Himalayas, also known as the Siwalik Hills, which is situated on the southernmost edge of the Himalayas, makes up the northern boundary of that plain.

 

On the south, the boundary of that area is marked by the Bundelkhand Granite-gneiss, Delhi Super Group, the Central Indian Tectonic Zone (CITZ), and the Chotanagpur Granite Gneiss Complex (CGGC), etc. In short, it may be said that the southern limit of the Ganga Plain is demarcated by the northern end of the South Indian Craton as expressed by its peripheral bulge.

 

Formation process of the continents with a focus to India

 

In the process of finding out proper explanations of the happenings in the surroundings, man has created some theories that fit into the schema of the events that have left traces through the past. Alfred Wegener introduced one of such theories that explain the formation of the present structure of the earth in the year 1912. The main idea introduced in that theory was termed the ‘Continental Drift’. That idea was later modified and rephrased as ‘Plate Tectonics’.

  

On the basis of such theories and from the ideas that may be generated from the information provided by the 'Earthguide' at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and also from the information provided by the Encyclopaedia Britannica, one may develop a concept about the shaping of the outermost layer of the Earth and the relative positioning of its different pieces have happened through the following process:

 

Prior to around 200 million (20 Crore according to the Indian number system) years ago, almost the entire landmass of the earth was unified in one structure, a supercontinent that has been termed as Pangaea (Pangea) by the scientists. The position of the Pangaea was presumably in the Southern Hemisphere of the earth, mainly. Around 200 million years ago that supercontinent started to break up.

 

The northern portion of Pangaea that presumably did break away from the main structure has been termed as Laurasia. In later period, the parts originated from that chunk created the continents of North America, Europe and a large part of Asia. The present countries of Europe and those in the Northern part of Asia (including all the geographical features) clubbed together are situated on a huge plate that is known as Eurasia.

 

That process of rearrangement of the land mass of the earth is shaping and reshaping the geography of this planet repeatedly.

 

 

The land mass that was left in Pangaea after the breaking up of Laurasia has been termed as Gondwana by the experts. Broadly speaking, Gondwana consisted of the present-day South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, and India. The word ‘broadly’ has been used to accommodate the islands and archipelago formations.

 

It is said that the Indian Plate started drifting away from Africa, particularly from Madagascar, at around 80 million (8 Crore) years ago. That drifting process continued and at around 50 million (5 Crore) years ago the Indian Plate started colliding with the Eurasian Plate, and in that process the Himalayas started to be formed on the collision line.

 

That theory also lets us know that the process of rearrangement of the upper crust of the earth is not unique and during its lifetime, the same process has been repeated over and over again. According to some experts of that subject, the present movement of the plates indicates that the consolidation process has restarted.

 

The oldest conceptualised consolidated form of the earth's crust has been named as Rodinia, and that structure is estimated to have existed around 1 billion (100 Crore) years ago. Another such formation is believed to have existed around 600 million (60 Crore) years ago.  

 

Formation of the present Indian landmass

 

The breaking up process of the Pangaea that started around 200 million (20 Crore) years ago, created most of the landmass of the Northern Hemisphere. The remaining part of Pangaea that has been termed as Gondwanaland later created present-day South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia and India.  

 

During the existence of Pangaea, the water cover of the earth was mainly boundless. It was that process of breaking up of the Pangaea that created separate oceans, which may be seen today.  

 

The water body that is imagined to have existed between Gondwanaland in the south and Laurasia in the north has been referred to as the Tethys Sea. Unlike the present-day Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, which exist in a north-south direction, Tethys was the sea with an east-west orientation. The Tethys Sea used to flow through the equator, and due to the main flow of the world’s ocean water in an east-west direction, the climatic condition of the earth was completely different from what it is today. 

 

 

It is estimated that the collision of the Indian Plate with the Eurasian Plate started around 50 million (5 Crore) years ago, which in the course of time, among many other things, created the Himalayas. Remnants of the Tethys Sea that earlier separated the Indian Plate from the Eurasian Plate were first enclosed by the moving Indian Plate, and slowly, after the collision, its shallow seabed went extinct. The ocean on the south of India was termed as ‘ इंदु सरेावरम् ’ (‘Indu Saroborom’) by the ancient Indians. When translated in English, ‘ इंदु सरेावरम् ’ becomes 'Indian Ocean'.  

 

The existence of the Krol Basin (a geological formation) in the north of Delhi shows the trace of the presence of a passive oceanic basin.

 

 

Kohistan–Ladakh Arc

 

In the northern-most tip of India, where the Indian Plate meets the Eurasian Plate, there lies the Ladakh Plateau. That is the highest plateau in India. To the geologists, that region has a separate identity.

 

In the western direction of Ladakh, there lies another similar region presently called Kohistan. To the geologists, these two regions are parts of one single unit, and they have named it Kohistan-Ladakh Arc (KLA). The word ‘Arc’ indicates the presence of volcanic activities. The formation of that region had happened following a very special geological process. In that area, one oceanic crust has gone under the other, which the geologists call a subduction process. That phenomenon indicates that on both sides of that region there were oceans.

 

That process of subduction created a volcanic arc (chain of volcanoes). The age of that geological formation is much older than the age of the other parts of the Himalayas.      

 

That place (Ladakh area) has separate importance because the collision of the Eurasian Plate with the Indian Plate finds another player there that is the Kohistan-Ladakh Arc. In that area, the rock formations, which are visible on the ground as outcrops, are directly seeded to the mantle of the Earth.

 

There are many divergent opinions among the experts about the sequence of the collisions that happened in that area, i.e., which plate collided with which plate first, etc. Keeping those discussions aside, it may safely be commented that the collision/s happened.

 

 

Collision of the Indian and Eurasian Plates

 

The Indian Plate that broke away from the Gondwanaland ultimately reached its current position and collided with the Eurasian Plate by traversing around 2000-3000 kilometers from its starting point on the other side of the Equator.

 

During its course of journey that started from the Gondwanaland, suddenly in the early phase of its drifting, the Indian Plate moved

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Texte: Dibyendu Chakraborty
Bildmaterialien: Dibyendu Chakraborty
Cover: Dibyendu Chakraborty
Lektorat: Dibyendu Chakraborty
Korrektorat: Dibyendu Chakraborty
Übersetzung: Dibyendu Chakraborty
Satz: Dibyendu Chakraborty
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 30.10.2020
ISBN: 978-3-7487-6274-4

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Widmung:
In memory of Late Doctor Dinesh Chandra Chakraborty, My Grandfather and author of the book ‘A Treatise on Kala-Azar’ Lived at Kaloha, Tangail, present day Bangladesh And Late Bishnu Pada Chakraborty, My Father and Former Assistant Registrar The University of Burdwan, West Bengal, India