1.
River
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A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of water, small rivers can be referred to using names such as stream, creek, brook, rivulet, and rill. There are no official definitions for the term river as applied to geographic features. Many names for small rivers are specific to geographic location, examples are run in parts of the United States, burn in Scotland and northeast England. Sometimes a river is defined as being larger than a creek, but not always, Rivers are part of the hydrological cycle. Potamology is the study of rivers while limnology is the study of inland waters in general. Extraterrestrial rivers of liquid hydrocarbons have recently found on Titan. Channels may indicate past rivers on other planets, specifically outflow channels on Mars and rivers are theorised to exist on planets, a river begins at a source, follows a path called a course, and ends at a mouth or mouths. The water in a river is confined to a channel. In larger rivers there is also a wider floodplain shaped by flood-waters over-topping the channel. Floodplains may be wide in relation to the size of the river channel. This distinction between river channel and floodplain can be blurred, especially in areas where the floodplain of a river channel can become greatly developed by housing. Rivers can flow down mountains, through valleys or along plains, the term upriver refers to the direction towards the source of the river, i. e. against the direction of flow. Likewise, the term describes the direction towards the mouth of the river. The term left bank refers to the bank in the direction of flow. The river channel typically contains a stream of water, but some rivers flow as several interconnecting streams of water. Extensive braided rivers are now found in only a few regions worldwide and they also occur on peneplains and some of the larger river deltas. Anastamosing rivers are similar to braided rivers and are quite rare
2.
Sanskrit language
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Sanskrit is the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, a philosophical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and a literary language and lingua franca of ancient and medieval South Asia. As a result of transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia and parts of Central Asia, as one of the oldest Indo-European languages for which substantial written documentation exists, Sanskrit holds a prominent position in Indo-European studies. The body of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as scientific, technical, philosophical, the compositions of Sanskrit were orally transmitted for much of its early history by methods of memorization of exceptional complexity, rigor, and fidelity. Thereafter, variants and derivatives of the Brahmi script came to be used, Sanskrit is today one of the 22 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, which mandates the Indian government to develop the language. It continues to be used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals and Buddhist practice in the form of hymns. The Sanskrit verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- may be translated as refined, elaborated, as a term for refined or elaborated speech, the adjective appears only in Epic and Classical Sanskrit in the Manusmṛti and the Mahabharata. The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit, with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved, Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini, around the fourth century BCE. Sanskrit, as defined by Pāṇini, evolved out of the earlier Vedic form, the present form of Vedic Sanskrit can be traced back to as early as the second millennium BCE. Scholars often distinguish Vedic Sanskrit and Classical or Pāṇinian Sanskrit as separate dialects, although they are quite similar, they differ in a number of essential points of phonology, vocabulary, grammar and syntax. Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, a collection of hymns, incantations and theological and religio-philosophical discussions in the Brahmanas. Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the Rigveda Samhita to be the earliest, for nearly 2000 years, Sanskrit was the language of a cultural order that exerted influence across South Asia, Inner Asia, Southeast Asia, and to a certain extent East Asia. A significant form of post-Vedic Sanskrit is found in the Sanskrit of Indian epic poetry—the Ramayana, the deviations from Pāṇini in the epics are generally considered to be on account of interference from Prakrits, or innovations, and not because they are pre-Paninian. Traditional Sanskrit scholars call such deviations ārṣa, meaning of the ṛṣis, in some contexts, there are also more prakritisms than in Classical Sanskrit proper. There were four principal dialects of classical Sanskrit, paścimottarī, madhyadeśī, pūrvi, the predecessors of the first three dialects are attested in Vedic Brāhmaṇas, of which the first one was regarded as the purest. In the 2001 Census of India,14,035 Indians reported Sanskrit to be their first language, in India, Sanskrit is among the 14 original languages of the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution. The state of Uttarakhand in India has ruled Sanskrit as its official language. In October 2012 social activist Hemant Goswami filed a petition in the Punjab. More than 3,000 Sanskrit works have been composed since Indias independence in 1947, much of this work has been judged of high quality, in comparison to both classical Sanskrit literature and modern literature in other Indian languages
3.
Rigveda
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The Rigveda is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns. It is one of the four sacred texts of Hinduism known as the Vedas. The text is a collection of 1,028 hymns and 10,600 verses, a good deal of the language is still obscure and many hymns as a consequence seem unintelligible. The hymns are dedicated to Rigvedic deities, for each deity series the hymns progress from longer to shorter ones, and the number of hymns per book increases. In the eight books that were composed the earliest, the hymns predominantly discuss cosmology, Rigveda is one of the oldest extant texts in any Indo-European language. 1700–1100 BC has also been given, some of its verses continue to be recited during Hindu rites of passage celebrations such as weddings and religious prayers, making it probably the worlds oldest religious text in continued use. This redaction also included some additions and orthoepic changes to the Vedic Sanskrit such as the regularization of sandhi, the Padapatha and the Pratisakhya anchor the texts fidelity and meaning, and the fixed text was preserved with unparalleled fidelity for more than a millennium by oral tradition alone. In order to achieve this the oral tradition prescribed very structured enunciation, involving breaking down the Sanskrit compounds into stems and inflections and this interplay with sounds gave rise to a scholarly tradition of morphology and phonetics. The Rigveda was probably not written down until the Gupta period, the oral tradition still continued into recent times. The text is organized in 10 books, known as Mandalas, of varying age, the family books, mandalas 2–7, are the oldest part of the Rigveda and the shortest books, they are arranged by length and account for 38% of the text. Within each book, the hymns are arranged in collections each dealing with a deity, Agni comes first, Indra comes second. They are attributed and dedicated to a rishi and his family of students, within each collection, the hymns are arranged in descending order of the number of stanzas per hymn. If two hymns in the collection have equal numbers of stanzas then they are arranged so that the number of syllables in the metre are in descending order. The second to seventh mandalas have a uniform format, the eighth and ninth mandalas, comprising hymns of mixed age, account for 15% and 9%, respectively. The first and the tenth mandalas are the youngest, they are also the longest books, of 191 suktas each, however, adds Witzel, some hymns in Mandala 8,1 and 10 may be as old as the earlier Mandalas. The first mandala has an arrangement not found in the other nine mandalas. The ninth mandala is arranged by both its structure and hymn length, while the first eighty four hymns of the tenth mandala have a structure different than the remaining hymns in it. Each mandala consists of hymns called sūkta intended for various rituals, the sūktas in turn consist of individual stanzas called ṛc, which are further analysed into units of verse called pada
4.
Historical Vedic religion
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The religion of the Vedic period was the religion of the Indo-Aryans of northern India. It is a predecessor of modern Hinduism, though significantly different from it. The Vedic liturgy is conserved in the portion of the four Vedas. The religious practices centered on a clergy administering rites, the complex Vedic rituals of Śrauta continue in coastal Andhra. The commonly proposed period of earlier Vedic age is dated back to 2nd millennium BCE, the Vedic religion was the religion of the Indo-Aryans, and existed in northern India from c.1750 to 500 BCE. The Indo-Aryans were a branch of the Indo-European language family, which originated in the Kurgan culture of the Central Asian steppes, the Vedic beliefs and practices of the pre-classical era were closely related to the hypothesised Proto-Indo-European religion, and the Indo-Iranian religion. According to Anthony, the Old Indic religion probably emerged among Indo-European immigrants in the zone between the Zeravshan River and Iran. It was a mixture of old Central Asian and new Indo-European elements. At least 383 non-Indo-European words were borrowed from this culture, including the god Indra, Indra was the subject of 250 hymns, a quarter of the Rig Veda. He was associated more than any other deity with Soma, a stimulant drug probably borrowed from the BMAC religion and his rise to prominence was a peculiar trait of the Old Indic speakers. The oldest inscriptions in Old Indic, the language of the Rig Veda, are not in northwestern India and Pakistan, but in northern Syria. The Mitanni kings took Old Indic throne names, and Old Indic technical terms were used for horse-riding and chariot-driving, the Old Indic term rta, meaning cosmic order and truth, the central concept of the Rig Veda, was also employed in the Mitanni kingdom. Old Indic gods, including Indra, were known in the Mitanni kingdom. David Gordon White cites three other scholars who have emphatically demonstrated that Vedic religion is partially derived from the Indus Valley Civilizations. Texts dating to the Vedic period, composed in Vedic Sanskrit, are mainly the four Vedic Samhitas, the Vedas record the liturgy connected with the rituals and sacrifices performed by the 16 or 17 Śrauta priests and the purohitas. According to traditional views, the hymns of the Rigveda and other Vedic hymns were divinely revealed to the rishis, in addition the Vedas are said to be apauraṣaya, a Sanskrit word meaning uncreated by man and which further reveals their eternal non-changing status. The mode of worship was worship of the elements like fire and rivers, worship of gods like Indra, chanting of hymns. The priests performed the rituals for the noblemen and wealthy commoners Vaishyas
5.
Gandhara
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Gandhara is also an ancient name for Kandahar, Afghanistan. Gandhāra was an ancient Indic kingdom situated in the region of Pakistan. It encompassed the Peshawar valley and later extended to both Jalalabad district of modern-day Afghanistan as well as Taxila, in Pakistan. During the Achaemenid period and Hellenistic period, its city was Charsadda. It is mentioned in the Zend Avesta as Vaēkərəta, the sixth most beautiful place on earth and it was known as the crown jewel of Bactria and also held sway over Takṣaśilā. Gandhara existed since the time of the Rigveda and formed part of the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC, after it was conquered by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1001 AD, the name Gandhara disappeared. During the Muslim period, the area was administered from Lahore or from Kabul, during Mughal times, it was an independent district which included the Kabul province. The name Gāndhāra occurs later in the classical Sanskrit of the epics and it is recorded in Avestan as Vaēkərəta. The Gandhari people are a tribe mentioned in the Rigveda, the Atharvaveda, one proposed origin of the name is from the Sanskrit word gandha, meaning perfume and referring to the spices and aromatic herbs which they traded and with which they anointed themselves. Some authors have connected the modern name Kandahar to Gandhara, Herodotus records that those Iranic tribes, which were adjacent to the city of Caspatyrus and the district of Pactyïce, had customs similar to the Bactrians, and are the most warlike amongst them. These are also the people who obtain gold from the ant-hills of the adjoining desert, on the identity of Caspatyrus, there have been two opinions, one equating it with Kabul, the other with the name of Kashmir. The boundaries of Gandhara varied throughout history, sometimes the Peshawar Valley and Taxila were collectively referred to as Gandhara, sometimes the Swat Valley was also included. The heart of Gandhara, however, was always the Peshawar Valley, the kingdom was ruled from capitals at Kapisa, Pushkalavati, Taxila, Puruṣapura and in its final days from Udabhandapura on the River Indus. Evidence of the Stone Age human inhabitants of Gandhara, including stone tools, the artifacts are approximately 15,000 years old. More recent excavations point to 30,000 years before the present, the region shows an influx of southern Central Asian culture in the Bronze Age with the Gandhara grave culture, and the nucleus of Vedic civilisation. This culture flourished from 1500 to 500 BC and its evidence has been discovered in the hilly regions of Swat and Dir, and even at Taxila. The name of the Gandhāris is attested in the Rigveda and in ancient inscriptions dating back to Achaemenid Persia, the Behistun inscription listing the 23 territories of King Darius I includes Gandāra along with Bactria and Sattagydia. In the book Histories by Herodotus, Gandhara is named as a source of tax collections for King Darius, the Gandhāris, along with the Balhika, Mūjavants, Angas, and the Magadhas, are also mentioned in the Atharvaveda, as distant people
6.
Kurukshetra
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Kurukshetra is a city in the state of Haryana, India. It is also known as Dharmakshetra, according to the Puranas, Kurukshetra is a region named after King Kuru, the ancestor of Kauravas and Pandavas, as depicted in epic Mahabharata. The population of Kurukshetra was 964,655 in 2016, before the establishment of a refugee camp named Kurukshetra in 1947, Thanesar was the name of the tehsil headquarters and the town. Thanesar or Sthaneswar is a town located adjacent to what is now the newly created Kurukshetra city. Thanesar derives its name from the word Sthaneshwar, which means Place of God, the Sthaneshwar Mahadev Temple, whose presiding deity is Lord Shiva, is believed to be the oldest temple in the vicinity. Local hearsay identifies the legendary Kurukshetra with a place near Thanesar, a few kilometers from Kurukshetra is the village known as Amin, where there are remnants of a fort which is believed to be Abhimanyus. In most ancient Hindu texts, Kurukshetra is not a city, the boundaries of Kurukshetra correspond roughly to the central and western parts of state of Haryana and southern Punjab. Thus according to the Taittiriya Aranyaka 5.1.1, the Kurukshetra region is south of Turghna, north of Khandava, east of Maru and west of Parin. In early July 2013 the Haryana Department of Archaeology and Museums announced that the excavated remains of a Buddhist stupa in Kurukshetra were ready to be displayed for the public. It is written in Puranas that Kurukshetra is named after King Kuru of the Bharata Dynasty, the Vamana Purana tells how King Kuru came to settle here. He chose this land at the banks of Sarasvati River for embedding spirituality with eight virtues, austerity, truth, forgiveness, kindness, purity, charity, yajna, Lord Vishnu was impressed with the act of King Kuru and blessed him. God gave him two boons, one that this land forever will be known as a Holy Land after his name as Kurukshetra, the land of Kurukshetra was situated between two rivers — the Sarasvati and the Drishadvati. This land has been known as Uttarvedi, Brahmavedi, Dharamkshetra and Kurukshetra at different periods, when King Kuru came on this land it was called Uttarvedi. Over the period this land has been ruled by many empires, the Bharata Dynasty came and settled here. According to the Hindu mythology, the Battle of Mahabharata was fought on this land, by the archaeological grounds it has been proved that Ashoka the Great made Kurukshetra a centre of learning for people from all over the world. It reached the zenith of its progress during the reign of King Harsha, the climate of the district is very hot in summer and cold in winter with rains in July and August. In 2012, Kurukshetra banned the sale, possession and consumption of meat within the limits of the Municipal Corporation owing to its religious significance and it is supposed to be the worlds largest man-made pond. The worlds largest chariot of bronze is placed in purushotam bagh in the center of Brahma Sarovar and it is believed that when Duryodhan lost Mahabharta war, he tried to hide in this lake
7.
Yajurveda
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The Yajurveda is the Veda of prose mantras. An ancient Vedic Sanskrit text, it is a compilation of ritual offering formulas that were said by a priest while an individual performed ritual actions such as those before the yajna fire, Yajurveda is one of the four Vedas, and one of the scriptures of Hinduism. The exact century of Yajurvedas composition is unknown, and estimated by scholars to be around 1200 to 1000 BCE, the Yajurveda is broadly grouped into two – the black Yajurveda and the white Yajurveda. The term black implies the un-arranged, unclear, motley collection of verses in Yajurveda, in contrast to the white which implies the well arranged, the black Yajurveda has survived in four recensions, while two recensions of white Yajurveda have survived into the modern times. The earliest and most ancient layer of Yajurveda samhita includes about 1,875 verses, the middle layer includes the Satapatha Brahmana, one of the largest Brahmana texts in the Vedic collection. The youngest layer of Yajurveda text includes the largest collection of primary Upanishads and these include the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the Isha Upanishad, the Taittiriya Upanishad, the Katha Upanishad, the Shvetashvatara Upanishad and the Maitri Upanishad. Yajurveda is a compound Sanskrit word, composed of yajus and veda, monier-Williams translates yajus as religious reverence, veneration, worship, sacrifice, a sacrificial prayer, formula, particularly mantras muttered in a peculiar manner at a sacrifice. Johnson states yajus means prose formulae or mantras, contained in the Yajur Veda, michael Witzel interprets Yajurveda to mean a knowledge text of prose mantras used in Vedic rituals. Ralph Griffith interprets the name to mean knowledge of sacrifice or sacrificial texts, carl Olson states that Yajurveda is a text of mantras that are repeated and used in rituals. The Yajurveda text includes Shukla Yajurveda of which about 16 recensions are known, only two recensions of the Shukla Yajurveda have survived, Madhyandina and Kanva, and others are known by name only because they are mentioned in other texts. These two recensions are nearly the same, except for few differences, in contrast to Shukla Yajurveda, the four surviving recensions of Krishna Yajurveda are very different versions. The samhita in the Shukla Yajurveda is called the Vajasaneyi Samhita, the name Vajasaneyi is derived from Vajasaneya, patronymic of sage Yajnavalkya, and the founder of the Vajasaneyi branch. There are two surviving recensions of the Vajasaneyi Samhita, Vajasaneyi Madhyandina and Vajasaneyi Kanva, there are four surviving recensions of the Krishna Yajurveda – Taittirīya saṃhitā, Maitrayani saṃhitā, Kaṭha saṃhitā and Kapiṣṭhala saṃhitā. A total of eighty six recensions are mentioned to exist in Vayu Purana, the Katha school is referred to as a sub-school of Carakas in some ancient texts of India, because they did their scholarship as they wandered from place to place. The best known and best preserved of these recensions is the Taittirīya saṃhitā, some attribute it to Tittiri, a pupil of Yaksa and mentioned by Panini. The text is associated with the Taittiriya school of the Yajurveda, the Kāṭhaka saṃhitā or the Caraka-Kaṭha saṃhitā, according to tradition was compiled by Katha, a disciple of Vaisampayana. Like the Maitrayani Samhita, it offers more detailed discussion of some rituals than the younger Taittiriya samhita that frequently summarizes such accounts. The Kapiṣṭhala saṃhitā or the Kapiṣṭhala-Kaṭha saṃhitā, named after the sage Kapisthala is extant only in some large fragments and this text is practically a variant of the Kāṭhaka saṃhitā
8.
Indra
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Indra is a Vedic deity in Hinduism, a guardian deity in Buddhism, and the king of first heaven called Saudharmakalpa in Jainism. His mythologies and powers are similar, though not identical to those of the Indo-European deities such as Zeus, Jupiter, Perun, Thor, in the Vedas, Indra is the king of Svarga and the Devas. He is the god of lightning, thunder, storms, rains, Indra is the most referred to deity in the Rigveda. He is celebrated for his powers, and the one who kills the great symbolic evil named Vritra who obstructs human prosperity, Indra destroys Vritra and his deceiving forces, and thereby brings rains and the sunshine as the friend of mankind. In Buddhism, Indra has been a popular deity, referred by many names and he is featured in Buddhism somewhat differently than Hinduism, such as being shown as less war oriented and one paying homage to the Buddha. Indra rules over the much sought Devas realm of rebirth within the Samsara doctrine of Buddhist traditions, however, like the Hindu texts, Indra also is a subject of ridicule and reduced to a figurehead status in Buddhist texts, shown as a god that suffers rebirth and redeath. In the Jainism traditions, like Buddhism and Hinduism, Indra is the king of gods, Indras iconography shows him wielding a lightning thunderbolt known as Vajra, riding on a white elephant known as Airavata. In Buddhist iconography the elephant sometimes features three heads, while Jaina icons sometimes show the elephant with five heads, sometimes a single elephant is shown with four symbolic tusks. Indras heavenly home is on or near Mount Meru, the etymological roots of Indra are unclear, has been a contested topic among scholars since the 19th-century, one with many proposals. The significant proposals have been, root ind-u, or rain drop, based on the Vedic mythology that he conquered rain, root ind, or equipped with great power. Root idh or kindle, and ina or strong, root indha, or igniter, for his ability to bring light and power that ignites the vital forces of life. This is based on Shatapatha Brahmana, root idam-dra, or It seeing which is a reference to the one who first perceived the self-sufficient metaphysical Brahman. This is based on Aitareya Upanishad, roots in ancient Indo-European, Indo-Aryan deities. Later scholarship has linked Vedic Indra to the European Aynar, Abaza, Ubykh, colarusso suggests a Pontic origin and that both the phonology and the context of Indra in Indian religions is best explained from Indo-Aryan roots and a Circassian etymology. Indra is also called Śakra frequently in the Vedas and in Buddhism, Indra has many epithets in the Indian religions, notably Śakra, Vṛṣan, Vṛtrahan, Meghavāhana, Devarāja, Devendra, Surendra, Svargapati, Vajrapāṇī and Vāsava. Indra is of ancient but unclear origin, the similarities between Indra of Hindu mythologies and of Thor of Nordic and Germanic mythologies are significant states Max Muller. Michael Janda suggests that Indra has origins in the Indo-European *trigw-welumos smasher of the enclosure, brave and heroic Innara or Inra, which sounds like Indra, is mentioned among the gods of the Mitanni, a Hurrian-speaking people of Hittite region. Indra as a deity had a presence in northeastern Asia minor and this tablet mentions a treaty, but its significance is in four names it includes reverentially as Mi-it-ra, U-ru-w-na, In-da-ra and Na-sa-at-ti-ia
9.
Vritra
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In the early Vedic religion, Vritra is a serpent or dragon, the personification of drought and adversary of Indra. In Hinduism, Vritra is identified as an Asura, Vritra was also known in the Vedas as Ahi. He appears as a blocking the course of the rivers and is heroically slain by Indra. According to the Rig Veda, Vritra kept the waters of the world captive until he was killed by Indra, the combat began soon after Indra was born, and he had drunk a large volume of Soma at Tvashtris house to empower him before facing Vritra. Tvashtri fashioned the thunderbolt for Indra, and Vishnu, when asked to do so by Indra, Vritra broke Indras two jaws during the battle, but was then thrown down by Indra and, in falling, crushed the fortresses that had already been shattered. For this feat, Indra became known as Vritrahan slayer of Vritra, vritras mother, Danu, was then attacked and defeated by Indra with his thunderbolt. In one of the versions of the story, three Devas - Varuna, Soma and Agni - were coaxed by Indra into aiding him in the fight against Vritra whereas before they had been on the side of Vritra. In one verse of a Rig-Vedic hymn eulogising Sarasvati, she is portrayed as the one who slayed Vritra, mention of this occurs nowhere else. Hymn 18 of Mandala IV provides the most elaborate account of the Vedic version, the verses describe the events and circumstances leading up to the battle between Indra and Vritra, the battle itself, and the outcome of the battle. As per the given to King Yudhishthira in Mahabharata, Vritra was a demon created by Tvashta to avenge the killing of his son by Indra. Vritra won the battle and swallowed Indra, but the other Gods forced him to vomit Indra out, the battle continued and Indra was eventually forced to flee. Indra used the foam from the waves of the ocean to kill him at twilight, srimad Bhagavatam recognizes Vritra as a bhakta of Vishnu who was slain only due to his failure to live piously and without aggression. This story runs thus, SB6.9.11, After Visvarupa was killed, his father, Tvashta and he offered oblations in the sacrificial fire, saying, O enemy of Indra, flourish to kill your enemy without delay. SB6.9.12, Thereafter, from the side of the sacrificial fire known as Anvaharya came a fearful personality who looked like the destroyer of the entire creation at the end of the millennium. SB6.9. 13-17, Like arrows released in the four directions, tall and blackish, he appeared like a burnt hill and was as lustrous as a bright array of clouds in the evening. The hair on the body and his beard and moustache were the color of melted copper. He appeared unconquerable, as if holding the three worlds on the points of his blazing trident, dancing and shouting with a loud voice, he made the entire surface of the earth tremble as if from an earthquake. As he yawned again and again, he seemed to be trying to swallow the whole sky with his mouth and he seemed to be licking up all the stars in the sky with his tongue and eating the entire universe with his long, sharp teeth
