Empires of the Indus – The Story of a River

“In this water, I invoke the presence of divine waters from the rivers Ganga, Yamuna, Godavari, Saraswati, Narmada, Sindhu and Kaveri”

As a kid, I have heard my father recite this shloka (hymn) everyday before he took a bath. However, I had hardly realised the importance of this Vedic hymn at that time.

Rivers are an important source for the development of any community. Around the world, almost every famous city in the past or present are by the banks of a river. In India, we consider all our rivers as divine and worship them. Even the word ‘India’ is derived from  the  word ‘Indus’ or ‘Sindhu’.

As I grew older, from the school’s social studies curriculum I learnt that the Indus Valley civilizations – Harappa and Mohenjodaro – lie in Pakistan. My knowledge of the region was also very vague. I knew that their big cities like Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad were similar to our cities and the rest , I assumed, consisted of feudal gun-toting tribesmen. That was before I read this book.

I bought Alice’s book since I had been told that it was a ‘best seller’ in the travel category. The book chronicles her Indus river journey and describes in detail the history, culture and important events that took place on the banks of this ancient river. As a historian and traveller, Alice leads one through different periods of history and its significance to the sacred Sindhu River – the bedrock of our very ancient civilization.

In the initial chapters one learns the importance of Pakistan’s low caste Hindus (Shudras) who keep the sewers clean in the fabric of Pakistan’s society. The chapter then describes the period of vivisection of India and Pakistan and reveals the stories of the refugees. At this stage, it did not speak much about the river itself. However, as one reads further, it becomes quite clear on what Alice is trying to achieve. She provides the socio-political events as a context to explain its impact on the Indus. Going through the travails of Sindh, the follies of the British and the power struggle in present Pakistan government, the tale is so absorbing that one feels that he is a silent spectator during the Pakistan’s  evolution.

Her journey is in reality as a set of travelogues interspersed with history. The volume of her travels is so huge that each chapter can become a story by itself. Whether it’s the rise of Sikhism or Buddhism or Islam on the banks of the river or the conquests of Alexander or Ghazni, the river becomes an important backbone to every tale.

Until she explained the similarities between Islam and Buddhism – intense religious learning, non-idolatry worship– one could have never believed that such a concept can exist. Swat, a place that has become a victim to Taliban was once known as Uddiyana, an ancient thoroughfare of trans-Asian Silk Road. This and many other similar facts unfolds the roots to early Vedic and Buddhist history of India. In fact, if  the Taliban had read this book they would never have destroyed the huge carving of Maitreya Buddha in Swat.

The famous Alexander and Puru’s battle on the banks of Indus has been often told with glorification of either of the great Kings. A much distorted (read Americanised) Hollywood movie, where Alexander speaks with a North American accent, was released a few years back. To understand the actual facts on how Alexander met his match at the Indus river and used his military tactics to defeat Puru’s huge army is a captivating tale in this book.

The migration of early Vedic civilizations from the Indus to the banks of Ganga, a more fertile region, the tempting but unsubstantiated claim of the Aryan-Dravidian theory and the distorted theory that the Aryans were early migrants from Europe depict the extent of research that has been done for the book.

As she travels further north into the vast spaces of Tibet and Ladakh in her quest to seek the source of Indus, civilizations and cultures are left behind and the river and the landscape takes over. The Indus is Senge Tsampo (Lion’s mouth) here, her guides are Drokpas, the terrain are mountains and valleys.  The last few pages narrate the end of her journey, to the source of a river that was known as ‘Saaransh’ (flowing for ever) in the ancient Vedas, and ends with a warning that the river might be ‘dammed out of existence’ due to man’s costly mistakes.

You can’t read this book in a day. Nor can you finish reading it just one time. Close the book now. I can guarantee that you’ll reopen it; maybe to read about a tribe or history of a conqueror or life of a Wajiristan’s tribal or about the ‘older than vedic age’ and yet surviving Kalash culture or about the Indus river herself. Awards or no awards, its a very spellbinding tale of a river that gave a name – India – to our country.