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142-576: The Indus ( / ˈ ɪ n d ə s / IN -dəs ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans- Himalayan river of South and Central Asia . The 3,180 km (1,980 mi) river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in Western Tibet , flows northwest through the disputed region of Kashmir , bends sharply to the left after the Nanga Parbat massif , and flows south-by-southwest through Pakistan , before emptying into
284-588: A few introduced species . As the altitude further declines the Indus basin becomes overall quite slow-flowing as it passes through the Punjab Plain . Major carp become common, and chameleonfish ( Badis ), mullet ( Sicamugil ) and swamp eel ( Monopterus ) appear. In some upland lakes and tributaries of the Punjab region snow trout and mahseer are still common, but once the Indus basin reaches its lower plain
426-433: A focus on Indian philosophies and Sanskrit. Though written in a number of different scripts, the dominant language of Hindu texts has been Sanskrit. It or a hybrid form of Sanskrit became the preferred language of Mahayana Buddhism scholarship; for example, one of the early and influential Buddhist philosophers, Nagarjuna (~200 CE), used Classical Sanskrit as the language for his texts. According to Renou, Sanskrit had
568-551: A greater volume of water than the Indus itself before that point. An alternative reckoning begins the river around 300 km further upstream, at the confluence of the Sênggê Zangbo and Gar Tsangpo rivers, which drain the Nganglong Kangri and Gangdise Shan (Gang Rinpoche, Mt. Kailash) mountain ranges. The 2011 remeasurement suggested the source was a small lake northeast of Mount Kailash, rather than either of
710-591: A language competed with numerous, less exact vernacular Indian languages called Prakritic languages ( prākṛta - ). The term prakrta literally means "original, natural, normal, artless", states Franklin Southworth . The relationship between Prakrit and Sanskrit is found in Indian texts dated to the 1st millennium CE. Patañjali acknowledged that Prakrit is the first language, one instinctively adopted by every child with all its imperfections and later leads to
852-658: A limited role in the Theravada tradition (formerly known as the Hinayana) but the Prakrit works that have survived are of doubtful authenticity. Some of the canonical fragments of the early Buddhist traditions, discovered in the 20th century, suggest the early Buddhist traditions used an imperfect and reasonably good Sanskrit, sometimes with a Pali syntax, states Renou. The Mahāsāṃghika and Mahavastu, in their late Hinayana forms, used hybrid Sanskrit for their literature. Sanskrit
994-564: A major role in earlier cultures of the region, including the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation where depictions of fish were frequent. The Indus script has a commonly used fish sign, which in its various forms may simply have meant "fish", or referred to stars or gods. In the uppermost, highest part of the Indus River basin there are relatively few genera and species: Diptychus , Ptychobarbus , Schizopyge , Schizopygopsis and Schizothorax snowtrout, Triplophysa loaches, and
1136-751: A major urban civilization of the Bronze Age. During the 2nd millennium BC, the Punjab region was mentioned in the Rigveda hymns as Sapta Sindhu and in the Avesta religious texts as Hapta Həndu (both terms meaning " seven rivers "). Early historical kingdoms that arose in the Indus Valley include Gandhāra , and the Ror dynasty of Sauvīra . The Indus River came into the knowledge of the Western world early in
1278-525: A million homes had been destroyed since the flooding began. The 2011 Sindh floods began during the Pakistani monsoon season in mid-August 2011, resulting from heavy monsoon rains in Sindh, eastern Balochistan, and southern Punjab. The floods caused considerable damage; an estimated 434 civilians were killed, with 5.3 million people and 1,524,773 homes affected. Sindh is a fertile region and often called
1420-454: A natural part of the earliest Vedic language, and that these developed in the centuries after the composition had been completed, and as a gradual unconscious process during the oral transmission by generations of reciters. The primary source for this argument is internal evidence of the text which betrays an instability of the phenomenon of retroflexion, with the same phrases having sandhi-induced retroflexion in some parts but not other. This
1562-479: A negative evidence to Pollock's hypothesis, but it is not positive evidence. A closer look at Sanskrit in the Indian history after the 12th century suggests that Sanskrit survived despite the odds. According to Hanneder, On a more public level the statement that Sanskrit is a dead language is misleading, for Sanskrit is quite obviously not as dead as other dead languages and the fact that it is spoken, written and read will probably convince most people that it cannot be
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#17327646613551704-546: A pan-Indo-Aryan accessibility to information and knowledge in the ancient and medieval times, in contrast to the Prakrit languages which were understood just regionally. It created a cultural bond across the subcontinent. As local languages and dialects evolved and diversified, Sanskrit served as the common language. It connected scholars from distant parts of South Asia such as Tamil Nadu and Kashmir, states Deshpande, as well as those from different fields of studies, though there must have been differences in its pronunciation given
1846-418: A population that lives in a desert [where], without the river, there would be no life? I don't know the answer to that question," he says. "But we need to be concerned about that. Deeply, deeply concerned." U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke said, shortly before he died in 2010, that he believed that falling water levels in the Indus River "could very well precipitate World War III." Over the years factories on
1988-578: A refined and standardized grammatical form that emerged in the mid-1st millennium BCE and was codified in the most comprehensive of ancient grammars, the Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight chapters') of Pāṇini . The greatest dramatist in Sanskrit, Kālidāsa , wrote in classical Sanskrit, and the foundations of modern arithmetic were first described in classical Sanskrit. The two major Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and
2130-538: A restrained language from which archaisms and unnecessary formal alternatives were excluded". The Classical form of the language simplified the sandhi rules but retained various aspects of the Vedic language, while adding rigor and flexibilities, so that it had sufficient means to express thoughts as well as being "capable of responding to the future increasing demands of an infinitely diversified literature", according to Renou. Pāṇini included numerous "optional rules" beyond
2272-461: A result, the government banned fishing from Guddu Barrage to Sukkur . The Indus is second among a group of ten rivers responsible for about 90% of all the plastic that reaches the oceans. The Yangtze is the only river contributing more plastic. Frequently, Indus River is prone to moderate to severe flooding. In July 2010, following abnormally heavy monsoon rains, the Indus River rose above its banks and started flooding. The rain continued for
2414-478: A significant amount of sediment, which aids in building land in estuarine regions. However, this sediment raises the height of riverbeds, thereby causing flooding. International conventions governing water sharing have led to complex political disputes. Sanskrit Sanskrit ( / ˈ s æ n s k r ɪ t / ; attributively 𑀲𑀁𑀲𑁆𑀓𑀾𑀢𑀁 , संस्कृत- , saṃskṛta- ; nominally संस्कृतम् , saṃskṛtam , IPA: [ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm] )
2556-439: A similar phonetic structure to Tamil. Hock et al. quoting George Hart state that there was influence of Old Tamil on Sanskrit. Hart compared Old Tamil and Classical Sanskrit to arrive at a conclusion that there was a common language from which these features both derived – "that both Tamil and Sanskrit derived their shared conventions, metres, and techniques from a common source, for it is clear that neither borrowed directly from
2698-564: Is "sindhu". In Sanskrit, its range of meanings includes: stream, river; Indus; flood; sea or ocean; region or country in the vicinity of the Indus, Sindh, people of Sindh." The modern name in Urdu is Sindh ( Urdu : سندھ ) or Daryā-i-Sindh ( Urdu : دریائے سندھ , lit. 'The River Sindh'), contrasting to the Province of Sindh ( Urdu : صوبہِ سندھ , romanized : Sūba-i-sindh ). The Ladakhis and Tibetans call
2840-711: Is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages . It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age . Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism , the language of classical Hindu philosophy , and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism . It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in
2982-723: Is a river that crosses at least one political border , either a border within a state or an international boundary. Bangladesh has the highest number of these rivers, with at least 58 major rivers that enter the country from the Republic of India , including two of the world's largest rivers, the Brahmaputra and the Ganges . The Naf River is the only river that flows via Bangladesh into Myanmar . The hydrologic and political effects of rivers that cross significant boundaries are enormous. Rivers have positive effects in that they carry
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#17327646613553124-565: Is a subspecies of the South Asian river dolphin . The Indus river dolphin formerly also occurred in the tributaries of the Indus river. According to the World Wildlife Fund it is one of the most threatened cetaceans with only about 1,816 still existing. It is threatened by habitat degradation from the construction of dams and canals, entanglement in fishing gear, and industrial water pollution. There are two otter species in
3266-516: Is akin to that of Latin and Ancient Greek in Europe. Sanskrit has significantly influenced most modern languages of the Indian subcontinent , particularly the languages of the northern, western, central and eastern Indian subcontinent. Sanskrit declined starting about and after the 13th century. This coincides with the beginning of Islamic invasions of South Asia to create, and thereafter expand
3408-399: Is derived from the Indus River. In ancient times, "India" initially referred to those regions immediately along the east bank of the Indus, where are Punjab and Sindh now but by 300 BC, Greek writers including Herodotus and Megasthenes were applying the term to the entire subcontinent that extends much farther eastward. The lower basin of the Indus forms a natural boundary between
3550-683: Is especially critical since rainfall is meagre in the lower Indus valley. Irrigation canals were first built by the people of the Indus Valley civilisation , and later by the engineers of the Kushan Empire and the Mughal Empire . Modern irrigation was introduced by the British East India Company in 1850 – the construction of modern canals accompanied with the restoration of old canals. The British supervised
3692-452: Is found in the writing of Bharata Muni , the author of the ancient Natya Shastra text. The early Jain scholar Namisādhu acknowledged the difference, but disagreed that the Prakrit language was a corruption of Sanskrit. Namisādhu stated that the Prakrit language was the pūrvam ('came before, origin') and that it came naturally to children, while Sanskrit was a refinement of Prakrit through "purification by grammar". Sanskrit belongs to
3834-456: Is protected from river flooding by constructing around 600 km long levees . The right bank side is also leveed from Guddu barrage to Lake Manchar . In response to the levees construction, the river has been aggrading rapidly over the last 20 years leading to breaches upstream of barrages and inundation of large areas. Tarbela Dam in Pakistan is constructed on the Indus River, while
3976-532: Is rare in the later version of the language. The Homerian Greek, like Ṛg-vedic Sanskrit, deploys simile extensively, but they are structurally very different. The early Vedic form of the Sanskrit language was far less homogenous compared to the Classical Sanskrit as defined by grammarians by about the mid-1st millennium BCE. According to Richard Gombrich—an Indologist and a scholar of Sanskrit, Pāli and Buddhist Studies—the archaic Vedic Sanskrit found in
4118-479: Is taken along with evidence of controversy, for example, in passages of the Aitareya-Āraṇyaka (700 BCE), which features a discussion on whether retroflexion is valid in particular cases. The Ṛg-veda is a collection of books, created by multiple authors. These authors represented different generations, and the mandalas 2 to 7 are the oldest while the mandalas 1 and 10 are relatively the youngest. Yet,
4260-630: Is the Panjnad River which is formed by the successive confluences of the five Punjab rivers, namely the Chenab , Jhelum , Ravi , Beas , and Sutlej rivers. Its principal right-bank tributaries are the Shyok , Gilgit , Kabul , Kurram , and Gomal rivers. Beginning in a mountain spring and fed with glaciers and rivers in the Himalayan , Karakoram , and Hindu Kush ranges, the river supports
4402-505: Is the "largest contiguous irrigation system developed over the past 140 years" anywhere in the world. This has reduced the flow of water and by 2018, the average annual flow of water below the Kotri barrage was 33 billion cubic metres (43 × 10 ^ cu yd), and annual amount of silt discharged was estimated at 100 million tonnes (98 × 10 ^ long tons). As a result, the 2010 Pakistan floods were considered "good news" for
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4544-589: Is the predominant language of one of the largest collection of historic manuscripts. The earliest known inscriptions in Sanskrit are from the 1st century BCE, such as the Ayodhya Inscription of Dhana and Ghosundi-Hathibada (Chittorgarh) . Though developed and nurtured by scholars of orthodox schools of Hinduism, Sanskrit has been the language for some of the key literary works and theology of heterodox schools of Indian philosophies such as Buddhism and Jainism. The structure and capabilities of
4686-540: The Bhagavata Purana , the Panchatantra and many other texts are all in the Sanskrit language. The Classical Sanskrit with its exacting grammar was thus the language of the Indian scholars and the educated classes, while others communicated with approximate or ungrammatical variants of it as well as other natural Indian languages. Sanskrit, as the learned language of Ancient India, thus existed alongside
4828-542: The 1819 Rann of Kutch earthquake . The Induan Age at the start of the Triassic Period of geological time is named for the Indus region. Accounts of the Indus valley from the times of Alexander's campaign indicate a healthy forest cover in the region. The Mughal Emperor Babur writes of encountering rhinoceroses along its bank in his memoirs (the Baburnama ). Extensive deforestation and human interference in
4970-582: The Achaemenid empire ( Persian language hind India), and Avestan hiṇdu , həṇdu "river," (natural) frontier; with same Proto Indo-Iranian language -root as Sanskrit sindhu (river), specifically the River Indus; hence also the region of the Indus, the province Sindh (which also developed into Hellenistic Greek Σίνθος ("the River Indus"). This river's traditional name in Sanskrit and Tibetan
5112-576: The Arabian Sea near the port city of Karachi . The river has a total drainage area of circa 1,120,000 km (430,000 sq mi). Its estimated annual flow is around 175 km/a (5,500 m/s), making it one of the 50 largest rivers in the world in terms of average annual flow . Its left-bank tributary in Ladakh is the Zanskar River , and its left-bank tributary in the plains
5254-580: The Dalai Lama , the Sanskrit language is a parent language that is at the foundation of many modern languages of India and the one that promoted Indian thought to other distant countries. In Tibetan Buddhism, states the Dalai Lama, Sanskrit language has been a revered one and called legjar lhai-ka or "elegant language of the gods". It has been the means of transmitting the "profound wisdom of Buddhist philosophy" to Tibet. The Sanskrit language created
5396-613: The Indo-European family of languages . It is one of the three earliest ancient documented languages that arose from a common root language now referred to as Proto-Indo-European : Other Indo-European languages distantly related to Sanskrit include archaic and Classical Latin ( c. 600 BCE–100 CE, Italic languages ), Gothic (archaic Germanic language , c. 350 CE ), Old Norse ( c. 200 CE and after), Old Avestan ( c. late 2nd millennium BCE ) and Younger Avestan ( c. 900 BCE). The closest ancient relatives of Vedic Sanskrit in
5538-652: The Iranian Plateau and the Indian subcontinent ; this region embraces all or parts of the Pakistani provinces Balochistan , Khyber Pakhtunkhwa , Punjab and Sindh and the countries Afghanistan and India. The first West Eurasian empire to annex the Indus Valley was the Persian Empire , during the reign of Darius the Great . During his reign, the Greek explorer Scylax of Caryanda was commissioned to explore
5680-671: The Jhelum River to Ropar on the upper Sutlej. The coastal settlements extended from Sutkagan Dor at the Pakistan- Iran border to Kutch in modern Gujarat , India. There is an Indus site on the Amu Darya at Shortughai in northern Afghanistan, and the Indus site Alamgirpur at the Hindon River is located only 28 km (17 mi) from Delhi. As of now, over 1,052 cities and settlements have been found, mainly in
5822-630: The Nanga Parbat massif . It flows swiftly across Hazara and is dammed at the Tarbela Reservoir . The Kabul River joins it near Attock . The remainder of its route to the sea is in the plains of the Punjab and Sindh, where the flow of the river becomes slow and highly braided. It is joined by the Panjnad at Mithankot . Beyond this confluence, the river, at one time, was named the Satnad River ( sat = "seven", nadī = "river"), as
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5964-699: The Rigveda had already evolved in the Vedic period, as evidenced in the later Vedic literature. Gombrich posits that the language in the early Upanishads of Hinduism and the late Vedic literature approaches Classical Sanskrit, while the archaic Vedic Sanskrit had by the Buddha 's time become unintelligible to all except ancient Indian sages. The formalization of the Saṃskṛta language is credited to Pāṇini , along with Patañjali's Mahābhāṣya and Katyayana's commentary that preceded Patañjali's work. Panini composed Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight-Chapter Grammar'), which became
6106-532: The Rigveda , a collection of 1,028 hymns composed between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE by Indo-Aryan tribes migrating east from the mountains of what is today northern Afghanistan across northern Pakistan and into northwestern India. Vedic Sanskrit interacted with the preexisting ancient languages of the subcontinent, absorbing names of newly encountered plants and animals; in addition, the ancient Dravidian languages influenced Sanskrit's phonology and syntax. Sanskrit can also more narrowly refer to Classical Sanskrit ,
6248-531: The Rāmāyaṇa , however, were composed in a range of oral storytelling registers called Epic Sanskrit which was used in northern India between 400 BCE and 300 CE, and roughly contemporary with classical Sanskrit. In the following centuries, Sanskrit became tradition-bound, stopped being learned as a first language, and ultimately stopped developing as a living language. The hymns of the Rigveda are notably similar to
6390-551: The Taunsa Barrage near Dera Ghazi Khan which also produces 100,000 kilowatts of electricity. The Kotri Barrage near Hyderabad is 915 metres (3,000 ft) long and provides additional water supplies for Karachi. The extensive linking of tributaries with the Indus has helped spread water resources to the valley of Peshawar , in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa . The extensive irrigation and dam projects provide
6532-512: The classical period , when King Darius of Persia sent his Greek subject Scylax of Caryanda to explore the river, c. 515 BC . Etymologically, English language word "Indus" comes from Late Latin Indus (1598), specifically a use of classical Latin Indus (inhabitant of India, Indian) from ancient Greek Ἰνδός "inhabitant of India, Indian, the River Indus" from Achaemenian Old Persian "hindu," denoting an eastern province of
6674-475: The ecosystems of temperate forests , plains, and arid countryside. The northern part of the Indus Valley, with its tributaries, forms the Punjab region of South Asia, while the lower course of the river ends in a large delta in the southern Sindh province of Pakistan. The river has historically been important to many cultures of the region. The 3rd millennium BC saw the rise of Indus Valley Civilisation ,
6816-406: The sandhi rules, both internal and external. Quite many words found in the early Vedic Sanskrit language are never found in late Vedic Sanskrit or Classical Sanskrit literature, while some words have different and new meanings in Classical Sanskrit when contextually compared to the early Vedic Sanskrit literature. Arthur Macdonell was among the early colonial era scholars who summarized some of
6958-500: The verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- is a compound word consisting of sáṃ ('together, good, well, perfected') and kṛta - ('made, formed, work'). It connotes a work that has been "well prepared, pure and perfect, polished, sacred". According to Biderman, the perfection contextually being referred to in the etymological origins of the word is its tonal—rather than semantic—qualities. Sound and oral transmission were highly valued qualities in ancient India, and its sages refined
7100-463: The "breadbasket" of the country; the damage and toll of the floods on the local agrarian economy was said to be extensive. At least 1.7 million acres (690,000 ha; 2,700 sq mi) of arable land were inundated. The flooding followed the previous year's floods, which devastated a large part of the country. Unprecedented torrential monsoon rains caused severe flooding in 16 districts of Sindh. In Pakistan currently there are six barrages on
7242-414: The 13th century, a premier center of Sanskrit literary creativity, Sanskrit literature there disappeared, perhaps in the "fires that periodically engulfed the capital of Kashmir" or the "Mongol invasion of 1320" states Pollock. The Sanskrit literature which was once widely disseminated out of the northwest regions of the subcontinent, stopped after the 12th century. As Hindu kingdoms fell in the eastern and
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#17327646613557384-485: The 1909 The Imperial Gazetteer of India gave it as "just over 1,800 miles". A shorter figure of 2,880 km (1,790 mi) has been widely used in modern sources, as has the one of 3,180 km (1,980 mi). The modern Encyclopedia Britannica was originally published in 1999 with the shorter measurement, but was updated in 2015 to use the longer measurement. Both lengths are commonly found in modern publications; in some cases, both measurements can be found within
7526-532: The 7th century where he established a major center of learning and language translation under the patronage of Emperor Taizong. By the early 1st millennium CE, Sanskrit had spread Buddhist and Hindu ideas to Southeast Asia, parts of the East Asia and the Central Asia. It was accepted as a language of high culture and the preferred language by some of the local ruling elites in these regions. According to
7668-425: The Classical Sanskrit language launched ancient Indian speculations about "the nature and function of language", what is the relationship between words and their meanings in the context of a community of speakers, whether this relationship is objective or subjective, discovered or is created, how individuals learn and relate to the world around them through language, and about the limits of language? They speculated on
7810-532: The Dravidian languages borrowed from Sanskrit vocabulary, but they have also affected Sanskrit on deeper levels of structure, "for instance in the domain of phonology where Indo-Aryan retroflexes have been attributed to Dravidian influence". Similarly, Ferenc Ruzca states that all the major shifts in Indo-Aryan phonetics over two millennia can be attributed to the constant influence of a Dravidian language with
7952-521: The Dravidian words and forms, without modifying the word order; but the same thing is not possible in rendering a Persian or English sentence into a non-Indo-Aryan language. Shulman mentions that "Dravidian nonfinite verbal forms (called vinaiyeccam in Tamil) shaped the usage of the Sanskrit nonfinite verbs (originally derived from inflected forms of action nouns in Vedic). This particularly salient case of
8094-554: The Himalayas and entrenched itself while they were rising. The Indus River feeds the Indus submarine fan , which is the second largest sediment body on Earth. It consists of around 5 million cubic kilometres of material eroded from the mountains. Studies of the sediment in the modern river indicate that the Karakoram Mountains in northern Pakistan and India are the single most important source of material, with
8236-532: The Himalayas providing the next largest contribution, mostly via the large rivers of the Punjab (Jhelum, Ravi, Chenab, Beas and Sutlej). Analysis of sediments from the Arabian Sea has demonstrated that before five million years ago the Indus was not connected to these Punjab rivers which instead flowed east into the Ganga and were captured after that time. Earlier work showed that sand and silt from western Tibet
8378-476: The Indo-Aryan language underwent rapid linguistic change and morphed into the Vedic Sanskrit language. The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit . The earliest attested Sanskrit text is the Rigveda , a Hindu scripture from the mid- to late-second millennium BCE. No written records from such an early period survive, if any ever existed, but scholars are generally confident that
8520-519: The Indo-European languages are the Nuristani languages found in the remote Hindu Kush region of northeastern Afghanistan and northwestern Himalayas, as well as the extinct Avestan and Old Persian – both are Iranian languages . Sanskrit belongs to the satem group of the Indo-European languages. Colonial era scholars familiar with Latin and Greek were struck by the resemblance of
8662-699: The Indus River and its two tributaries the Jhelum River and the Chenab River independently of upstream control by India. The Indus Basin Project consisted primarily of the construction of two main dams, the Mangla Dam built on the Jhelum River and the Tarbela Dam constructed on the Indus River, together with their subsidiary dams. The Pakistan Water and Power Development Authority undertook
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#17327646613558804-497: The Indus River basin: the Eurasian otter in the northeastern highland sections and the smooth-coated otter elsewhere in the river basin. The smooth-coated otters in the Indus River represent a subspecies found nowhere else, the Sindh otter ( Lutrogale perspicillata sindica ). The Indus River basin has high diversity, being the home of more than 180 freshwater fish species, including 22 which are found nowhere else. Fish also played
8946-423: The Indus river. Most scholars believe that settlements of Gandhara grave culture of the early Indo-Aryans flourished in Gandhara from 1700 BC to 600 BC, when Mohenjo-daro and Harappa had already been abandoned. The Rigveda describes several rivers , including one named "Sindhu". The Rigvedic "Sindhu" is thought to be the present-day Indus River. It is attested 176 times in its text, 94 times in
9088-506: The Indus: Guddu Barrage , Sukkur Barrage , Kotri Barrage (also called Ghulam Muhammad barrage), Taunsa Barrage , Chashma Barrage and Jinnah Barrage . Another new barrage called " Sindh Barrage " is planned as a terminal barrage on the Indus River. There are some bridges on River Indus, such as Dadu Moro Bridge, Larkana Khairpur Indus River Bridge, Thatta-Sujawal bridge, Jhirk-Mula Katiar bridge and recently planned Kandhkot-Ghotki bridge. The entire left bank of Indus river in Sind province
9230-417: The Muslim rule in the form of Sultanates, and later the Mughal Empire . Sheldon Pollock characterises the decline of Sanskrit as a long-term "cultural, social, and political change". He dismisses the idea that Sanskrit declined due to "struggle with barbarous invaders", and emphasises factors such as the increasing attractiveness of vernacular language for literary expression. With the fall of Kashmir around
9372-433: The Muslim rulers. Hindu rulers such as Shivaji of the Maratha Empire , reversed the process, by re-adopting Sanskrit and re-asserting their socio-linguistic identity. After Islamic rule disintegrated in South Asia and the colonial rule era began, Sanskrit re-emerged but in the form of a "ghostly existence" in regions such as Bengal. This decline was the result of "political institutions and civic ethos" that did not support
9514-403: The Rann of Kutch during its floods breaching flood banks . The major cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation , such as Harappa and Mohenjo-daro , date back to around 3300 BC, and represent some of the largest human habitations of the ancient world. The Indus Valley Civilisation extended from across northeast Afghanistan to Pakistan and northwest India , with an upward reach from east of
9656-420: The Saṃskṛta language, both in its vocabulary and grammar, to the classical languages of Europe. In The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World , Mallory and Adams illustrate the resemblance with the following examples of cognate forms (with the addition of Old English for further comparison): The correspondences suggest some common root, and historical links between some of
9798-406: The South India, such as the great Vijayanagara Empire , so did Sanskrit. There were exceptions and short periods of imperial support for Sanskrit, mostly concentrated during the reign of the tolerant Mughal emperor Akbar . Muslim rulers patronized the Middle Eastern language and scripts found in Persia and Arabia, and the Indians linguistically adapted to this Persianization to gain employment with
9940-447: The Vedic Sanskrit in these books of the Ṛg-veda "hardly presents any dialectical diversity", states Louis Renou – an Indologist known for his scholarship of the Sanskrit literature and the Ṛg-veda in particular. According to Renou, this implies that the Vedic Sanskrit language had a "set linguistic pattern" by the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Beyond the Ṛg-veda, the ancient literature in Vedic Sanskrit that has survived into
10082-451: The Vedic Sanskrit's bahulam framework, to respect liberty and creativity so that individual writers separated by geography or time would have the choice to express facts and their views in their own way, where tradition followed competitive forms of the Sanskrit language. The phonetic differences between Vedic Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit, as discerned from the current state of the surviving literature, are negligible when compared to
10224-459: The alphabet, the structure of words, and its exacting grammar into a "collection of sounds, a kind of sublime musical mold" as an integral language they called Saṃskṛta . From the late Vedic period onwards, state Annette Wilke and Oliver Moebus, resonating sound and its musical foundations attracted an "exceptionally large amount of linguistic, philosophical and religious literature" in India. Sound
10366-589: The banks of the Indus River have increased levels of water pollution in the river and the atmosphere around it. High levels of pollutants in the river have led to the deaths of endangered Indus river dolphin. The Sindh Environmental Protection Agency has ordered polluting factories around the river to shut down under the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act, 1997. Death of the Indus river dolphin has also been attributed to fishermen using poison to kill fish and scooping them up. As
10508-558: The basis for Pakistan's large production of crops such as cotton, sugarcane and wheat. The dams also generate electricity for heavy industries and urban centres. The Indus River is sacred to Hindus. The Sindhu Darshan Festival is held on every Guru Purnima on the banks of the Indus. The ethnicities of the Indus Valley (Pakistan and Northwest India) have a greater amount of ANI (or West Eurasian) admixture than other South Asians, including inputs from Western Steppe Herders , with evidence of more sustained and multi-layered migrations from
10650-440: The capacity to understand the old Prakrit languages such as Ardhamagadhi . A section of European scholars state that Sanskrit was never a spoken language. However, evidences shows that Sanskrit was a spoken language, essential for oral tradition that preserved the vast number of Sanskrit manuscripts from ancient India. The textual evidence in the works of Yaksa, Panini, and Patanajali affirms that Classical Sanskrit in their era
10792-1453: The catfish Glyptosternon reticulatum . Going downstream these are soon joined by the golden mahseer Tor putitora (alternatively T. macrolepis , although it often is regarded as a synonym of T. putitora ) and Schistura loaches. Downriver from around Thakot , Tarbela , the Kabul –Indus river confluence, Attock Khurd and Peshawar the diversity rises strongly, including many cyprinids ( Amblypharyngodon , Aspidoparia , Barilius , Chela , Cirrhinus , Crossocheilus , Cyprinion , Danio , Devario , Esomus , Garra , Labeo , Naziritor , Osteobrama , Pethia , Puntius , Rasbora , Salmophasia , Securicula and Systomus ), true loaches ( Botia and Lepidocephalus ), stone loaches ( Acanthocobitis and Nemacheilus ), ailiid catfish ( Clupisoma ), bagridae catfish ( Batasio , Mystus , Rita and Sperata ), airsac catfish ( Heteropneustes ), schilbid catfish ( Eutropiichthys ), silurid catfish ( Ompok and Wallago ), sisorid catfish ( Bagarius , Gagata , Glyptothorax and Sisor ), gouramis ( Trichogaster ), nandid leaffish ( Nandus ), snakeheads ( Channa ), spiny eel ( Macrognathus and Mastacembelus ), knifefish ( Notopterus ), glassfish ( Chanda and Parambassis ), clupeids ( Gudusia ), needlefish ( Xenentodon ) and gobies ( Glossogobius ), as well as
10934-527: The close relationship between the Indo-Iranian tongues and the Baltic and Slavic languages , vocabulary exchange with the non-Indo-European Uralic languages , and the nature of the attested Indo-European words for flora and fauna. The pre-history of Indo-Aryan languages which preceded Vedic Sanskrit is unclear and various hypotheses place it over a fairly wide limit. According to Thomas Burrow, based on
11076-421: The construction of one of the most complex irrigation networks in the world. The Guddu Barrage is 1,350 m (4,430 ft) long – irrigating Sukkur , Jacobabad , Larkana and Kalat . The Sukkur Barrage serves over 20,000 km (7,700 sq mi). After Pakistan came into existence, a water control treaty signed between India and Pakistan in 1960 guaranteed that Pakistan would receive water from
11218-585: The construction of the Chashma-Jhelum link canal – linking the waters of the Indus and Jhelum rivers – extending water supplies to the regions of Bahawalpur and Multan . Pakistan constructed the Tarbela Dam near Rawalpindi – standing 2,743 metres (9,000 ft) long and 143 metres (470 ft) high, with an 80-kilometre (50 mi) long reservoir. It supports the Chashma Barrage near Dera Ismail Khan for irrigation use and flood control and
11360-614: The context of a speech or language, is found in verses 5.28.17–19 of the Ramayana . Outside the learned sphere of written Classical Sanskrit, vernacular colloquial dialects ( Prakrits ) continued to evolve. Sanskrit co-existed with numerous other Prakrit languages of ancient India. The Prakrit languages of India also have ancient roots and some Sanskrit scholars have called these Apabhramsa , literally 'spoiled'. The Vedic literature includes words whose phonetic equivalent are not found in other Indo-European languages but which are found in
11502-807: The controversial Kalabagh dam is also being constructed on Indus river. Pakistan is also building Munda Dam . Many Buddhist monasteries in Ladakh , Indus-Sarasvati Valley Civilisation sites along the banks of Indus and Sarasvati River ( Ghaggar-Hakra River ) and in Indus Sagar Doab , Indus River Delta , various dams such as Baglihar Dam , Sindhu Darshan Festival held every year at Leh , Sindhu Pushkaram festival held every 12 years at confluence of Indus and Zanskar River at Nimoo once every 12 years for 12 days starting from when Jupiter enter into Kumbha rasi (Aquarius), etc. are tourism opportunities. Transboundary river A transboundary river
11644-632: The course of the Indus. It was crossed by the invading armies of Alexander . Still, after his Macedonians conquered the west bank—joining it to the Hellenic world, they elected to retreat along the southern course of the river, ending Alexander's Asian campaign. Alexander's admiral Nearchus set out from the Indus Delta to explore the Persian Gulf , until reaching the Tigris . The Indus Valley
11786-601: The crystallization of Classical Sanskrit. As in this period the Indo-Aryan tribes had not yet made contact with the inhabitants of the South of the subcontinent, this suggests a significant presence of Dravidian speakers in North India (the central Gangetic plain and the classical Madhyadeśa) who were instrumental in this substratal influence on Sanskrit. Extant manuscripts in Sanskrit number over 30 million, one hundred times those in Greek and Latin combined, constituting
11928-467: The detailed and sophisticated treatise then transmitted it through his students. Modern scholarship generally accepts that he knew of a form of writing, based on references to words such as Lipi ('script') and lipikara ('scribe') in section 3.2 of the Aṣṭādhyāyī . The Classical Sanskrit language formalized by Pāṇini, states Renou, is "not an impoverished language", rather it is "a controlled and
12070-471: The differences between the Vedic and Classical Sanskrit. Louis Renou published in 1956, in French, a more extensive discussion of the similarities, the differences and the evolution of the Vedic Sanskrit within the Vedic period and then to the Classical Sanskrit along with his views on the history. This work has been translated by Jagbans Balbir. The earliest known use of the word Saṃskṛta (Sanskrit), in
12212-409: The distant major ancient languages of the world. The Indo-Aryan migrations theory explains the common features shared by Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages by proposing that the original speakers of what became Sanskrit arrived in South Asia from a region of common origin, somewhere north-west of the Indus region , during the early 2nd millennium BCE. Evidence for such a theory includes
12354-490: The early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture , and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in
12496-481: The ecology of the Shivalik Hills has led to a marked deterioration in vegetation and growing conditions. The Indus valley regions are arid with poor vegetation. Agriculture is sustained largely due to irrigation works. The Indus river and its watershed have a rich biodiversity. It is home to around 25 amphibian species. The Indus river dolphin ( Platanista indicus minor ) is found only in the Indus River. It
12638-471: The ecosystem and population of the river delta as they brought much-needed fresh water. Any further utilization of the river basin water is not economically feasible. Vegetation and wildlife of the Indus delta are threatened by the reduced inflow of fresh water, along with extensive deforestation, industrial pollution and global warming . Damming has also isolated the delta population of Indus River dolphins from those further upstream. Large-scale diversion of
12780-548: The first language of the respective speakers. The Sanskrit language brought Indo-Aryan speaking people together, particularly its elite scholars. Some of these scholars of Indian history regionally produced vernacularized Sanskrit to reach wider audiences, as evidenced by texts discovered in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. Once the audience became familiar with the easier to understand vernacularized version of Sanskrit, those interested could graduate from colloquial Sanskrit to
12922-484: The five rivers are Jhelum , Chenab , Ravi , Beas and Sutlej , all of which finally flow into the Indus. The Indus also supports many heavy industries and provides the main supply of potable water in Pakistan. The total length of the river varies in different sources. The length used in this article is 3,180 km (1,980 mi), taken from the Himalayan Climate and Water Atlas (2015). Historically,
13064-504: The former group is absent and the latter are rare. Many of the species of the middle sections of the Indus basin are also present in the lower. Notable examples of genera that are present in the lower plain but generally not elsewhere in the Indus River basin are the Aphanius pupfish, Aplocheilus killifish, palla fish ( Tenualosa ilisha ), catla ( Labeo catla ), rohu ( Labeo rohita ) and Cirrhinus mrigala . The lowermost part of
13206-661: The former head of the China Meteorological Administration, said the recent fast pace of melting and warmer temperatures will be good for agriculture and tourism in the short term, but issued a strong warning: Temperatures are rising four times faster than elsewhere in China, and the Tibetan glaciers are retreating at a higher speed than in any other part of the world... In the short term, this will cause lakes to expand and bring floods and mudflows... In
13348-412: The foundation of Vyākaraṇa, a Vedānga . The Aṣṭādhyāyī was not the first description of Sanskrit grammar, but it is the earliest that has survived in full, and the culmination of a long grammatical tradition that Fortson says, is "one of the intellectual wonders of the ancient world". Pāṇini cites ten scholars on the phonological and grammatical aspects of the Sanskrit language before him, as well as
13490-490: The general region of the Ghaggar-Hakra River and its tributaries. Among the settlements were the major urban centres of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, as well as Lothal , Dholavira , Ganeriwala , and Rakhigarhi . Only 40 Indus Valley sites have been discovered on the Indus and its tributaries. However, it is notable that majority of the Indus script seals and inscribed objects discovered were found at sites along
13632-537: The gods Varuna, Mitra, Indra, and Nasatya found in the earliest layers of the Vedic literature. O Bṛhaspati, when in giving names they first set forth the beginning of Language, Their most excellent and spotless secret was laid bare through love, When the wise ones formed Language with their mind, purifying it like grain with a winnowing fan, Then friends knew friendships – an auspicious mark placed on their language. — Rigveda 10.71.1–4 Translated by Roger Woodard The Vedic Sanskrit found in
13774-431: The historic Sanskrit literary culture and the failure of new Sanskrit literature to assimilate into the changing cultural and political environment. Sheldon Pollock states that in some crucial way, "Sanskrit is dead ". After the 12th century, the Sanskrit literary works were reduced to "reinscription and restatements" of ideas already explored, and any creativity was restricted to hymns and verses. This contrasted with
13916-486: The intense change that must have occurred in the pre-Vedic period between the Proto-Indo-Aryan language and Vedic Sanskrit. The noticeable differences between the Vedic and the Classical Sanskrit include the much-expanded grammar and grammatical categories as well as the differences in the accent, the semantics and the syntax. There are also some differences between how some of the nouns and verbs end, as well as
14058-432: The largest cultural heritage that any civilization has produced prior to the invention of the printing press. — Foreword of Sanskrit Computational Linguistics (2009), Gérard Huet, Amba Kulkarni and Peter Scharf Sanskrit has been the predominant language of Hindu texts encompassing a rich tradition of philosophical and religious texts, as well as poetry, music, drama , scientific , technical and others. It
14200-412: The linguistic expression and sets the standard for the Sanskrit language. Pāṇini made use of a technical metalanguage consisting of a syntax, morphology and lexicon. This metalanguage is organised according to a series of meta-rules, some of which are explicitly stated while others can be deduced. Despite differences in the analysis from that of modern linguistics, Pāṇini's work has been found valuable and
14342-514: The literary works. The Indian tradition, states Winternitz , has favored the learning and the usage of multiple languages from the ancient times. Sanskrit was a spoken language in the educated and the elite classes, but it was also a language that must have been understood in a wider circle of society because the widely popular folk epics and stories such as the Ramayana , the Mahabharata ,
14484-555: The long run, the glaciers are vital lifelines of the Indus River. Once they vanish, water supplies in Pakistan will be in peril. "There is insufficient data to say what will happen to the Indus," says David Grey, the World Bank's senior water advisor in South Asia. "But we all have very nasty fears that the flows of the Indus could be severely, severely affected by glacier melt as a consequence of climate change ," and reduced by perhaps as much as 50 per cent. "Now what does that mean to
14626-511: The modern age include the Samaveda , Yajurveda , Atharvaveda , along with the embedded and layered Vedic texts such as the Brahmanas , Aranyakas , and the early Upanishads . These Vedic documents reflect the dialects of Sanskrit found in the various parts of the northwestern, northern, and eastern Indian subcontinent. According to Michael Witzel, Vedic Sanskrit was a spoken language of
14768-429: The more advanced Classical Sanskrit. Rituals and the rites-of-passage ceremonies have been and continue to be the other occasions where a wide spectrum of people hear Sanskrit, and occasionally join in to speak some Sanskrit words such as namah . Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini , around the fourth century BCE. Its position in the cultures of Greater India
14910-401: The most advanced analysis of linguistics until the twentieth century. Pāṇini's comprehensive and scientific theory of grammar is conventionally taken to mark the start of Classical Sanskrit. His systematic treatise inspired and made Sanskrit the preeminent Indian language of learning and literature for two millennia. It is unclear whether Pāṇini himself wrote his treatise or he orally created
15052-602: The most archaic poems of the Iranian and Greek language families, the Gathas of old Avestan and Iliad of Homer . As the Rigveda was orally transmitted by methods of memorisation of exceptional complexity, rigour and fidelity, as a single text without variant readings, its preserved archaic syntax and morphology are of vital importance in the reconstruction of the common ancestor language Proto-Indo-European . Sanskrit does not have an attested native script: from around
15194-483: The next two months, devastating large areas of Pakistan. In Sindh , the Indus burst its banks near Sukkur on 8 August, submerging the village of Mor Khan Jatoi. In early August, the heaviest flooding moved southward along the Indus River from severely affected northern regions toward western Punjab , where at least 1,400,000 acres (570,000 ha) of cropland was destroyed, and the southern province of Sindh. As of September 2010, over two thousand people had died and over
15336-597: The numbers are thought to signify a wish to be aligned with the prestige of the language. Sanskrit has been taught in traditional gurukulas since ancient times; it is widely taught today at the secondary school level. The oldest Sanskrit college is the Benares Sanskrit College founded in 1791 during East India Company rule . Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial and ritual language in Hindu and Buddhist hymns and chants . In Sanskrit,
15478-403: The oral transmission of the texts is reliable: they are ceremonial literature, where the exact phonetic expression and its preservation were a part of the historic tradition. However some scholars have suggested that the original Ṛg-veda differed in some fundamental ways in phonology compared to the sole surviving version available to us. In particular that retroflex consonants did not exist as
15620-431: The other." Reinöhl further states that there is a symmetric relationship between Dravidian languages like Kannada or Tamil, with Indo-Aryan languages like Bengali or Hindi, whereas the same relationship is not found for non-Indo-Aryan languages, for example, Persian or English: A sentence in a Dravidian language like Tamil or Kannada becomes ordinarily good Bengali or Hindi by substituting Bengali or Hindi equivalents for
15762-398: The plural, and most often used in the generic sense of "river". In the Rigveda, notably in the later hymns, the meaning of the word is narrowed to refer to the Indus river in particular; for example, in the list of rivers mentioned in the hymn of Nadistuti sukta . The Rigvedic hymns apply a feminine gender to all the rivers mentioned therein, except for the Brahmaputra . The word "India"
15904-414: The possible influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is only one of many items of syntactic assimilation, not least among them the large repertoire of morphological modality and aspect that, once one knows to look for it, can be found everywhere in classical and postclassical Sanskrit". The main influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is found to have been concentrated in the timespan between the late Vedic period and
16046-439: The previous 1,500 years when "great experiments in moral and aesthetic imagination" marked the Indian scholarship using Classical Sanskrit, states Pollock. Scholars maintain that the Sanskrit language did not die, but rather only declined. Jurgen Hanneder disagrees with Pollock, finding his arguments elegant but "often arbitrary". According to Hanneder, a decline or regional absence of creative and innovative literature constitutes
16188-480: The problems of interpretation and misunderstanding. The purifying structure of the Sanskrit language removes these imperfections. The early Sanskrit grammarian Daṇḍin states, for example, that much in the Prakrit languages is etymologically rooted in Sanskrit, but involves "loss of sounds" and corruptions that result from a "disregard of the grammar". Daṇḍin acknowledged that there are words and confusing structures in Prakrit that thrive independent of Sanskrit. This view
16330-609: The regional Prakrit languages, which makes it likely that the interaction, the sharing of words and ideas began early in the Indian history. As the Indian thought diversified and challenged earlier beliefs of Hinduism, particularly in the form of Buddhism and Jainism , the Prakrit languages such as Pali in Theravada Buddhism and Ardhamagadhi in Jainism competed with Sanskrit in the ancient times. However, states Paul Dundas , these ancient Prakrit languages had "roughly
16472-497: The relationship between various Indo-European languages, the origin of all these languages may possibly be in what is now Central or Eastern Europe, while the Indo-Iranian group possibly arose in Central Russia. The Iranian and Indo-Aryan branches separated quite early. It is the Indo-Aryan branch that moved into eastern Iran and then south into South Asia in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Once in ancient India,
16614-459: The river Senge Tsangpo (སེང་གེ་གཙང་པོ།), Baltis call it Gemtsuh and Tsuh-Fo , Pashtuns call it Nilab , Sher Darya and Abbasin , while Sindhis call it Sindhu , Mehran , Purali and Samundar . The Indus River provides key water resources for Pakistan's economy – especially the breadbasket of Punjab province , which accounts for most of the nation's agricultural production, and Sindh. The word Punjab means "land of five rivers" and
16756-411: The river and its delta are home to freshwater fish, but also several brackish and marine species. This includes pomfret and prawns . The large delta has been recognized by conservationists as an important ecological region. Here, the river turns into many marshes, streams and creeks and meets the sea at shallow levels. Palla fish ( Tenualosa ilisha ) of the river is a delicacy for people living along
16898-454: The river is also determined by the seasons – it diminishes greatly in the winter while flooding its banks in the monsoon months from July to September. There is also evidence of a steady shift in the course of the river since prehistoric times – it deviated westwards from flowing into the Rann of Kutch and adjoining Banni grasslands after the 1816 earthquake. As of 2011, Indus water flows in to
17040-524: The river is the Sênggê Kanbab ( Sênggê Zangbo ) or "Lion's Mouth", a perennial spring not far from the sacred Mount Kailash , marked by a long low line of Tibetan chortens . There are several other tributaries nearby, which may form a longer stream than Sênggê Kanbab, but unlike the Sênggê Kanbab, are all dependent on snowmelt . The Zanskar River , which flows into the Indus in Ladakh, has
17182-636: The river now carried the waters of the Kabul River, the Indus River and the five Punjab rivers. Passing by Jamshoro , it ends in a large delta to the South of Thatta in the Sindh province of Pakistan. The Indus is one of the few rivers in the world to exhibit a tidal bore . The Indus system is largely fed by the snow and glaciers of the Himalayas , Karakoram and the Hindu Kush ranges. The flow of
17324-457: The river's water for irrigation has raised far-reaching issues. Sediment clogging from poor maintenance of canals has affected agricultural production and vegetation on numerous occasions. Irrigation itself is increasing soil salinization, reducing crop yields and in some cases rendering farmland useless for cultivation. The Tibetan Plateau contains the world's third-largest store of ice. Qin Dahe,
17466-436: The river. The population of fish in the river is moderately high, with Sukkur , Thatta , and Kotri being the major fishing centres – all in the lower Sindh course. As a result, damming and irrigation have made fish farming an important economic activity. The Indus is the most important supplier of water resources to the Punjab and Sindh plains – it forms the backbone of agriculture and food production in Pakistan. The river
17608-562: The role of language, the ontological status of painting word-images through sound, and the need for rules so that it can serve as a means for a community of speakers, separated by geography or time, to share and understand profound ideas from each other. These speculations became particularly important to the Mīmāṃsā and the Nyaya schools of Hindu philosophy, and later to Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism, states Frits Staal —a scholar of Linguistics with
17750-496: The same relationship to Sanskrit as medieval Italian does to Latin". The Indian tradition states that the Buddha and the Mahavira preferred the Prakrit language so that everyone could understand it. However, scholars such as Dundas have questioned this hypothesis. They state that there is no evidence for this and whatever evidence is available suggests that by the start of the common era, hardly anybody other than learned monks had
17892-477: The same work. An extended figure of circa 3,600 km (2,200 mi) was announced by a Chinese research group in 2011, based on a comprehensive remeasurement from satellite imagery, and a ground expedition to identify an alternative source point, but detailed analysis has not yet been published. The ultimate source of the Indus is in Tibet , but there is some debate about the exact source. The traditional source of
18034-556: The semi-nomadic Aryans . The Vedic Sanskrit language or a closely related Indo-European variant was recognized beyond ancient India as evidenced by the " Mitanni Treaty" between the ancient Hittite and Mitanni people, carved into a rock, in a region that now includes parts of Syria and Turkey. Parts of this treaty, such as the names of the Mitanni princes and technical terms related to horse training, for reasons not understood, are in early forms of Vedic Sanskrit. The treaty also invokes
18176-615: The social structures such as the role of the poet and the priests, the patronage economy, the phrasal equations, and some of the poetic metres. While there are similarities, state Jamison and Brereton, there are also differences between Vedic Sanskrit, the Old Avestan, and the Mycenaean Greek literature. For example, unlike the Sanskrit similes in the Ṛg-veda, the Old Avestan Gathas lack simile entirely, and it
18318-559: The surface. In November 2011, satellite images showed that the Indus river had re-entered India and was feeding the Great Rann of Kutch , Little Rann of Kutch and a lake near Ahmedabad known as Nal Sarovar . Heavy rains had left the river basin along with the Lake Manchar , Lake Hemal and Kalri Lake (all in modern-day Pakistan) inundated. This happened two centuries after the Indus river shifted its course westwards following
18460-653: The turn of the 1st-millennium CE, it has been written in various Brahmic scripts , and in the modern era most commonly in Devanagari . Sanskrit's status, function, and place in India's cultural heritage are recognized by its inclusion in the Constitution of India 's Eighth Schedule languages . However, despite attempts at revival, there are no first-language speakers of Sanskrit in India. In each of India's recent decennial censuses, several thousand citizens have reported Sanskrit to be their mother tongue, but
18602-529: The two points previously used. The Indus then flows northwest through Ladakh (Indian-administered Kashmir) and Baltistan and Gilgit (Pakistan-administered Kashmir), just south of the Karakoram range. The Shyok , Shigar and Gilgit rivers carry glacial waters into the main river. It gradually bends to the south and descends into the Punjab plains at Kalabagh , Pakistan. The Indus passes gigantic gorges 4,500–5,200 metres (15,000–17,000 ft) deep near
18744-408: The variants in the usage of Sanskrit in different regions of India. The ten Vedic scholars he quotes are Āpiśali, Kaśyapa , Gārgya, Gālava, Cakravarmaṇa, Bhāradvāja , Śākaṭāyana, Śākalya, Senaka and Sphoṭāyana. In the Aṣṭādhyāyī , language is observed in a manner that has no parallel among Greek or Latin grammarians. Pāṇini's grammar, according to Renou and Filliozat, is a classic that defines
18886-564: The vernacular Prakrits. Many Sanskrit dramas indicate that the language coexisted with the vernacular Prakrits. The cities of Varanasi , Paithan , Pune and Kanchipuram were centers of classical Sanskrit learning and public debates until the arrival of the colonial era. According to Lamotte , Sanskrit became the dominant literary and inscriptional language because of its precision in communication. It was, states Lamotte, an ideal instrument for presenting ideas, and as knowledge in Sanskrit multiplied, so did its spread and influence. Sanskrit
19028-476: The west. Originally, the delta used to receive almost all of the water from the Indus River, which has an annual flow of approximately 180 billion cubic metres (240 × 10 ^ cu yd), and is accompanied by 400 million tonnes (390 × 10 ^ long tons) of silt. Since the 1940s, dams, barrages and irrigation works have been constructed on the river. The Indus Basin Irrigation System
19170-502: The Ṛg-veda is distinctly more archaic than other Vedic texts, and in many respects, the Rigvedic language is notably more similar to those found in the archaic texts of Old Avestan Zoroastrian Gathas and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey . According to Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton – Indologists known for their translation of the Ṛg-veda – the Vedic Sanskrit literature "clearly inherited" from Indo-Iranian and Indo-European times
19312-408: Was a spoken language ( bhasha ) used by the cultured and educated. Some sutras expound upon the variant forms of spoken Sanskrit versus written Sanskrit. Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang mentioned in his memoir that official philosophical debates in India were held in Sanskrit, not in the vernacular language of that region. According to Sanskrit linguist professor Madhav Deshpande, Sanskrit
19454-427: Was a spoken language in a colloquial form by the mid-1st millennium BCE which coexisted with a more formal, grammatically correct form of literary Sanskrit. This, states Deshpande, is true for modern languages where colloquial incorrect approximations and dialects of a language are spoken and understood, along with more "refined, sophisticated and grammatically accurate" forms of the same language being found in
19596-472: Was adopted voluntarily as a vehicle of high culture, arts, and profound ideas. Pollock disagrees with Lamotte, but concurs that Sanskrit's influence grew into what he terms a "Sanskrit Cosmopolis" over a region that included all of South Asia and much of southeast Asia. The Sanskrit language cosmopolis thrived beyond India between 300 and 1300 CE. Today, it is believed that Kashmiri is the closest language to Sanskrit. Reinöhl mentions that not only have
19738-686: Was also the language of some of the oldest surviving, authoritative and much followed philosophical works of Jainism such as the Tattvartha Sutra by Umaswati . The Sanskrit language has been one of the major means for the transmission of knowledge and ideas in Asian history. Indian texts in Sanskrit were already in China by 402 CE, carried by the influential Buddhist pilgrim Faxian who translated them into Chinese by 418 CE. Xuanzang , another Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, learnt Sanskrit in India and carried 657 Sanskrit texts to China in
19880-459: Was later dominated by the Mauryan and Kushan Empires , Indo-Greek Kingdoms , Indo-Scythians and Hepthalites . Over several centuries Muslim armies of Muhammad ibn al-Qasim , Mahmud of Ghazni , Muhammad of Ghor , Timur and Babur crossed the river to invade Sindh and Punjab , providing a gateway to the Indian subcontinent. Indus is an antecedent river , meaning that it existed before
20022-563: Was reaching the Arabian Sea by 45 million years ago, implying the existence of an ancient Indus River by that time. The delta of this proto-Indus river has subsequently been found in the Katawaz Basin , on the Afghan-Pakistan border . In the Nanga Parbat region, the massive amounts of erosion due to the Indus river following the capture and rerouting through that area are thought to bring middle and lower crustal rocks to
20164-442: Was visualized as "pervading all creation", another representation of the world itself; the "mysterious magnum" of Hindu thought. The search for perfection in thought and the goal of liberation were among the dimensions of sacred sound, and the common thread that wove all ideas and inspirations together became the quest for what the ancient Indians believed to be a perfect language, the "phonocentric episteme" of Sanskrit. Sanskrit as
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