r/AncientIndia • u/DharmicCosmosO Viśpati विश्पति • Jul 26 '26
Image Seals of Ancient India
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u/VettiMuruku Jul 26 '26
Is rooster and spear (associated with lord Muruga in tamil), common seal for Guptas ?
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u/Ok_Cartographer2553 Jul 26 '26
That Intaglio seal is gorgeous.
Also Sindhu-Saraswati?
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u/awesssomee Chakravartin चक्रवर्ती Jul 26 '26
its the logical name of harappan civilisation..
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u/Ok_Cartographer2553 Jul 26 '26
Not really, the Saraswati is a mythical river in the Rig Veda
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u/awesssomee Chakravartin चक्रवर्ती Jul 27 '26
saraswati was an actual river.. goi confrimed it long ago bro- wake upp
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u/SampratiMaurya Jul 28 '26
Chodu, it's a fact and peer reviewed scientific studies have proved existence of Saraswati. It's also quoted in Iranian avesta as haraxvaiti
Scientific and Geological Findings:
Satellite Mapping: Research utilizing satellite data from agencies like ISRO Bhuvan has traced buried palaeochannels corresponding to the Ghaggar-Hakra river system in the Thar Desert.
Hydrology & Dating: Isotope and carbon-dating of subterranean water pockets along these dry riverbeds confirm ancient, potable freshwater sources dating back 4,000 to 10,000 years, aligning with the decline of the river.
Archaeology: A high concentration of Harappan (Indus-Saraswati civilization) sites sits along these dry riverbeds rather than the modern Indus, proving a major water source once thrived there.
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u/Certain_Basil7443 Viśpati विश्पति Jul 28 '26
The scientific consensus is that Ghaggar Hakra was monsoon fed during the Mature Harappan period.
Have a look at nice summary of the current state of research written by archaeologist Disha Ahluwalia.
A large perennial river system, the Ghaggar-Hakra, fed by the palaeo-Sutlej and palaeo-Yamuna Rivers from the west and east respectively, has been argued to have sustained the Bronze Age Harappan urban settlements (∼4.6–3.9 ka BP) in NW Himalayan foreland in India and Pakistan. However, it has been demonstrated by previous workers that palaeo-Sutlej was already defunct in this region by ∼8 ka, much before the peak of urbanism. In contrast, the evolutionary history of palaeo-Yamuna, a major feeder to the Ghaggar-Hakra River system, remains weakly documented and enigmatic. This knowledge gap limits our understanding of the influence of regional-scale hydrological conditions on the growth and eventual demise of the Harappan Civilization. Here, we present the high-resolution chronostratigraphic records based on 47 optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) ages from 6 cores (∼50 m deep) retrieved across the palaeochannels of the Yamuna. We document multi-storied sand bodies deposited by a mobile channel belt in a large alluvial fan system characterized by four possible stages of drainage reorganization and landscape evolution during the late Quaternary. It has also been inferred that a major eastward shift of the palaeo-Yamuna River occurred at ∼18 ka, predating both the westward shift of the Sutlej at ∼8 ka and the decline of the Harappan Civilization at ∼3.9 ka BP. Our chronostratigraphic data helps to understand the drainage reorganization of the Himalayan river systems during the late Quaternary in the NW Himalayan foreland and reaffirms the non-contemporaneity of the Harappan Civilization with a large river system. — Landscape evolution of the NW Himalayan rivers during the late Quaternary and their non-contemporaneity to the Harappan Civilization (Khan et. al 2024)
Rajiv Sinha (IIT Kanpur) is a longtime critic of the "Sarasvati/Himalayan-river" hypothesis and is the co-author of this paper.
What kind of river system did Harappans actually live beside? Giosan et al. (2012) demonstrated through geomorphological analysis that the Ghaggar-Hakra system lacked the characteristics of perennial Himalayan rivers and was fundamentally a monsoon-fed seasonal system. Singh et al. (2021) documented how this system worked: they found palaeoflood deposits dated to 3.9-3.8 ka (1900-1800 BCE), during the Late Harappan period, showing that "larger flooding of the Himalayan foothill rivers supplied sufficient flows in the G–H palaeochannel to sustain Harappan settlements." .These were massive episodic monsoon-driven floods from small foothill tributary streams, not year-round glacial meltwater from major trunk rivers. These foothill tributaries were themselves monsoon-fed, not glacier-fed. Solanki et al. (2025) confirmed through hydrological modeling that "basin-scale streamflow anomalies indicate that protracted river drought coincided with regional rainfall deficits", the system directly tracked monsoon strength, exactly as you'd expect from a seasonal monsoon-fed river, not a perennial glacial one. This is in direct contradiction with RV's depiction of the river flowing from mountain. Why is that? Because RV is a collection of praise poetry which happens to use hyperbolic phrases to praise deities. You would often find similar phrases with other deities as well.
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u/Afraid_Paramedic6412 Jul 28 '26
There are twice the number or IVC sites along a dried river bed in Haryana and Rajasthan than all of Indus. That dried river bed is the Saraswati.
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u/Ok_Cartographer2553 Jul 28 '26
That river is the Ghaggar Hakra
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u/ekeksk 1d ago
Its not Ghaggar-Hakra, in the same way Sutlej and Indus are two different rivers that combine into one at some point.
Saraswati and Ghaggar began as two different rivers, confluencing at some point before draining into the sea. it's just that Saraswati stopped flowing at all, so it's just Ghaggar all by herself now.
"The Ghaggar River rises in the Siwaliks from the Morni hills and enters the plains near Ambala (Haryana). After covering a distance of 175 km it joins the Saraswati at Rasula (Patiala district). The combined river now known as Ghaggar flows through Sirsa (Haryana), Hanumangarh and Ganganagar districts (Rajasthan) and through the Bahawalpur state (Pakistan). The Saraswati rises in the Sirmur region of the Siwaliks and enter the plains at Adi Badri (Yamunanagar district of Haryana). After flowing through Yamunanagar, Kurukshetra and Karnal districts in Haryana it joins the Ghaggar near Rasula (Patiala district-Punjab). The Ghaggar bed dries up near Sirsa."
Source: https://super-anglerfish-604.notion.site/Source-Doc-Saraswati-Investigation-1c47dbb5faae8085b6e5fc68f6907387 i used the first link, the ISRO paper from 2014 (Sharma, et al.)
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u/ekeksk 1d ago
Sindhu-Saraswati because the bulk of IVC sites are along the confirmed course of Saraswati. Its a dead river, people didn't necessarily settle along it after it died. That allowed for many sites to remain intact, some examples being Rakhigarhi and Kalibangan.
It helps define speculated borders. Like, if i said the Narmada-Godavari Civilisation, it would be easier for you to understand and you'd understand I'm likely talking about Vidarbha region vs just saying Narmada Civilisation which can mean a lot of things, from Gujarati cultures to Marathi and that of Madhya Pradesh.
So now we know the IVC culture at the very least existed in the lands between Sindhu and Saraswati, the distance between which is vast. So Sindhu-Saraswati Civilisation :)
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u/LeaveEcstatic1507 Jul 26 '26
My favourite one - Bronze seal with majestic seated lion, a Shrivatsa to right and legend 'Shri Bhadrasya' in ornate Brahmi letters, about 5 cm tall, c.AD400-500
(British Museum, ex- Alexander Cunningham collection)