The Lost river-The lost civilization.

I have been reading "The Lost River" by Michel Danino.It is a book which tries to trace the now "dead" river-Sarswati. It combines quotes from   religious texts which mentions Sarswati along with archaeological finds since early 20th century and ratifies it with satellite imaging to draw a persuasive image of the river flowing from the Himalayas  and then through the Indian mainland to the Rann of kutch before meeting the sea.Lot of the facts in the book are well known but i dont think anyone has done such a good job of bringing together all those facts and explain it to a layman.Having said that this book will really appeal to keen students of history and may appear too dry for some.

The revelation that really hit me from this book( though this book is not the first one to make that claim) was the contribution of Sarswati to what we popularly know as the " Indus Valley Civilization". The contribution was to such an extent that the author uses the term "Indus-Sarswati valley civilization' to describe the Indus valley civilization. The contribution of Sarswati is borne from the fact there are more sites found now on what is now recognized as the Sarswati bed as compared to the sites found in and around the Indus.More research is needed to draw out the details but the big picture on the path of Sarswati and its contribution to the pre historic civilization seems to stand the test of scrutiny.

The book goes into the details of  life of people who lived in that great civilization. Those details were the real triggers for today's blog. One thing that stuck the author is the lack of too many grand structures-either as residences of the rich and powerful or as places of worship. There definitely were some structures which could have belonged to the people who ran the city or were merchants but the were not ostentatious as compared to other dwellings in the city.This is stark contrast to corresponding dwellings in Mesopotamia or Roman civilizations which had remarkable  structures build for the rich and powerful but the poor lived in rather abject conditions.In contrast the Indus valley folks had private bathrooms in each home which was a luxury in the other  peer civilizations.There are even traces of a private bathroom on a first floor of a house which is  a pointer to the engineering marvel of our ancestors and  also to the quality of their life.

The other startling point is the lack of any traces of an army. There are not many weapons that have been found. The ones that have been found can largely be classified as hunting weapons.The Kshtriya clan is completely missing from the scene. Who was guarding the borders? who was  implementing the writ of the state? infact who was running the state? where was the state-since there are no structures which denote that the powerful leaders lived or met and decided upon things important for the city? Was the civilization a utopia?. The author goes on to argue that the idealism and utopian lifestyle aided and abetted other far reaching natural phenomenon is ripping apart the civilization . It is a fascinating thing tot think about. We were able to create such a society and then where have we landed today?