Rajasthan’s geography 01: Mountain System of Central India
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Rajasthan’s geography 01: Mountain System of Central India
The Mountain System of Central India
There are two dis tinctly marked declivities or slopes in Central India : the chief is that from west to east, from the great rampart, the Aravalli (interposed to prevent the drifting of the sands into the central plains, bisected by the Chambal and his hundred arms) to the Betwa ; the other slope is from south to north, from the Vindhya, the southern buttress of Central India, to the Jumna.
Extending our definition, we may pronounce the course of the Jumna to indicate the central fall of that immense vale which has its northern slope from the base of the Himalaya, and the southern from that of the Vindhya mountains.
It is not in contemplation to delineate the varied course of the magnificent Nerbudda, though I have abundant means ; for the moment we ascend the summit of the tropical 1 Vindhya, to 1 Hence its name, Vindhya, ' the barrier,' to the further progress of the sun in his northern declination. [Skr. root, bind, bid, ' to divide.']
descend into the valley of the Nerbudda, we abandon Rajasthan and the Rajputs for the aboriginal, races, the first proprietors of the land. These I shall leave to others, and commence and end with the Chambal, the paramount lord of the floods of Central India [16].
The Chambal River
The Chambal has his fountains in a very elevated point of the Vindhya, amidst a cluster of hills on which is bestowed the local appellation of Janapao. It has three co- equal sources from the same cluster, the Chambal, Chambela, and Gambhir ; while no less than nine other streams have their origin on the south side, and pour their waters into the Nerbudda.
The Sipra from Pipalda, the little Sind 1 from Dewas, and other minor streams passing Ujjain, all unite with the Chambal in different stages before he breaks through the plateau.
The Kali Sind, from Bagri, and its petty branch, the Sodwia, from Raghugarh ; the Niwaz (or Jamniri), from Morsukri and Magarda ; the Parbati, from the pass of Amlakhera, with its more eastern arm from Daulatpur, uniting at Pharhar, are all points in the crest of the Vindhya range, whence they pursue their course through the plateau, rolling over precipices,2 till engulfed in the Chambal at the ferries of Nunera and Pali. All these unite on the right bank.
On the left bank his flood is increased by the Banas, fed by the perennial streams from the Aravalli, and the Berach from the lakes of Udaipur ; and after watering Mewar, the southern frontier of Jaipur, and the highlands of Karauli, the river turns south to unite at the holy Sangam,' Rameswar. Minor streams contribute (unworthy, however, of separate notice), and after a thousand involutions he reaches the Jumna, at the holy Triveni,4 or ' triple-allied ' stream, between Etawa and Kalpi.
1 This ii the fourth Sind of India. We have, first, the Sind or Indus ; this little Sind ; then the Kali Sind, or ' black river ' ; and again the Sind rising at Latoti, on the plateau west and above Sironj. Sin is a Scythio word for river (now unused), so applied by the Hindus. [Skr. Sindhu, probably from the root syand, ' to flow.']
2 The falls of the Kali Sind through the rocks at Gagraun and the Par- bati at Chapra (Gugal) are well worthy of a visit. The latter, though I encamped twice at Chapra, from which it was reputed five miles, I did not see.
3 Sangam is the point of confluence of two or more rivers, always sacred to Mahadeva.
4 The Jumna, Chambal, and Sind [triveni, ' triple braid '].
The course of the Chambal, not reckoning the minor sinuosities, is upwards of five hundred miles ; 1 and along its banks specimens of nearly every race now existing in India may be found : Sondis, Chandarawats, Sesodias, Haras, Gaur, Jadon, Sakarwal, Gujar, Jat,2 Tuar, Chauhan, Bhadauria, Kachhwaha, Sengar, Bundela ; each in associations of various magnitudes, from the substantive state of the little republic communes between the Chambal and Kuwari3 [17].
The Western Desert
Having thus sketched the central portion of Rajasthan, or that eastward of the Aravalli, I shall give a rapid general 4 view of that to the west, conducting the reader over the ' Thal ka Tiba,' or ' sand hills ' of the desert, to the valley of the Indus.
The Luni River
Let the reader again take post on Abu, by which he may be saved a painful journey over the Thal.5 The most interesting object in this arid ' region of death ' is the ' salt river,' the Luni, with its many arms falling from the Aravalli to enrich the best portion of the principality of Jodhpur, and dis- tinctly marking the line of that extensive plain of ever-shifting sand, termed in Hindu geography Marusthali, corrupted to Marwar.
The Luni, from its sources, the sacred lakes of Pushkar and Ajmer, and the more remote arm from Parbatsar to its em- bouchure in the great western salt marsh, the Rann, has a course of more than three hundred miles.
In the term Eirinon of the historians of Alexander, we have the corruption of the word Ran or Rann,6 still used to describe that extensive fen formed by the deposits of the Luni, and the equally saturated saline streams from the southern desert of Dhat. It is one hundred and fifty miles in length ; and where broadest, from Bhuj to Baliari, about seventy : 7 in which direc-
1 [650 miles.]
2 The only tribes not of Rajput blood. 3 The ' virgin ' stream.
4 I do not repeat the names of towns forming the arrondissements of the various States ; they are distinctly laid down in the boundary lines of each.
5 Thai is the general term for the sand ridges of the desert. [Skr. slhala, ' firm ground.']
6 Most probably a corruption of aranya, or desert ; [or irina, irina, ' desert, salt soil '], so that the Greek mode of writing it is more correct than the present.
7 [The area of the Rann is about 9000 square miles : its length 150, breadth, 60 miles. Bhuj lies inland, not on the banks of the Rann.] tion the caravans cross, having as a place of halt an insulated oasis in this mediterranean salt marsh. In the dry season, nothing meets the eye but an extensive and glaring sheet of salt, spread over its insidious surface, full of dangerous quicksands : and in the rains it is a dirty saline solution, up to the camels' girths in many places. The little oasis, the Khari Kaba, furnishes pasture for this useful animal and rest for the traveller pursuing his journey to either bank.
The Mirage
It is on the desiccated borders 1 of this vast salt marsh that the illusory phenomenon, the mirage, presents its fantastic appearance, pleasing to all but the wearied traveller, who sees a haven of rest in the embattled towers, the peaceful hamlet,2 [18] or shady grove, to which he hastens in vain ; reced- ing as he advances, till " the sun in his might," dissipating these " cloud-capp'd towers," reveals the vanity of his pursuit.
Such phenomena are common to the desert, more particularly where these extensive saline depositions exist, but varying from certain causes. In most cases, this powerfully magnifying and reflecting medium is a vertical stratum ; at first dense and opaque, it gradually attenuates with increased temperature, till the maximum of heat, which it can no longer resist, drives it off in an ethereal vapour. This optical deception, well known to the Rajputs, is called sikot, or ' winter castles,' because chiefly visible in the cold season : hence, possibly, originated the equally illusory and delightful ' Chateau en Espagne,' so well known in the west.3
1 It is here the wild ass {gorkhar) roams at large, untamable as in the day of the Arabian Patriarch of Uz, " whose house I have made the wilder- ness, the barren land (or, according to the Hebrew, salt places), his dwelling. He scorneth the multitude of the city, neither regardeth he the cr3ing of the driver " (Job xxxix. 6, 7). 2 Purwa.
3 I have beheld it from the top of the ruined fortress of Hissar with un- limited range of vision, no object to diverge its ray, save the miniature forests ; the entire circle of the horizon a chain of more than fancy could form of palaces, towers, and these airy ' pillars of heaven ' terminating in turn their ephemeral existence. But in the deserts of Dhat and Umrasumra, where the shepherds pasture their flocks, and especially where the alkaline plant is produced, the stratification is more horizontal, and produces more of the watery deception. It is this illusion to which the inspired writer refers, when he says, " the mock pool of the desert shall become real water " [Isaiah xxv. 7]. The inhabitants of the desert term it Chitram, literally ' the picture,' by no means an unhappy designation.
The Desert
From the north bank of the Luni to the south, and the Shaikhavat frontier to the east, the sandy region com mences. Bikaner, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer are all sandy plains, increasing in volume as you proceed westward. All this portion of territory is incumbent on a sandstone formation : soundings of all the new wells made from Jodhpur to Ajmer yielded the same result : sand, concrete siliceous deposits, and chalk.
Jaisalmer is everywhere encircled by desert ; and that portion round the capital might not be improperly termed an oasis, in which wheat, barley, and even rice are produced. The fortress is erected on the extremity of a range of some hundred feet in elevation, which can be traced beyond its southern confines to the ruins of the ancient Chhotan erected upon them, and which tradition has preserved as the capital of a tribe, or prince, termed Hapa, of whom no other trace exists. It is not unlikely that this ridge may be connected with that which runs through the rich provuice of Jalor ; consequently an offset from the base of Abu.
Though all these regions collectively bear the terra Marusthali, or ' region of death ' (the emphatic and figurative phrase for the desert), the restrictive definition applies to a part only, that under the dominion of the Rathor race [19].
From Balotra on the Luni, throughout the whole of Dhat and Umrasumra, the western portion of Jaisalmer, and a broad strip between the southern limits of Daudputra and Bikaner, there is real solitude and desolation. But from the Sutlej to the Rann, a space of five hundred miles of longitudinal distance, and varying in breadth from fifty to one hundred miles, numerous oases are found, where the shepherds from the valley of the Indus and the Thai pasture their flocks. The springs of water in these places have various appellations, tar, par, rar, dar, all expressive of the element, round which assemble the Rajars, Sodhas, Mangalias, and Sahariyas,1 inhabiting the desert.
1 Sehraie [in the text], from sahra, ' desert.' Hence Sarrazin, or Saracen, is a corruption from sahra, ' desert,' and zadan, ' to strike,' contracted. Rahzani, ' to strike on the road ' (rah). Rahbar, ' on the road,' corrupted by the Pindaris to labar, the designation of their forays. [The true name is Sahariya, which has been connected with that of the Savara, a tribe in Eastern India. Saracen comes to us from the late Latin Saraceni,of which the origin is unknown ; it cannot be derived from the Arabic Sharqi, ' eastern ' (see New English Dictionary, s.v.).]
I will not touch on the salt lakes or natron beds, or the other products of the desert, vegetable or mineral ; though the latter might soon be described, being confined to the jasper rock near Jaisalmer, which has been much used in the beautiful arabesques of that fairy fabric, at Agra, the mausoleum of Shah Jahan's queen.
Neither shall I describe the valley of the Indus, or that portion eastward of the stream, the termination of the sand ridges of the desert. I will merely remark, that the small stream which breaks from the Indus at Dara, seven miles north of the insulated Bakhar, and falls into the ocean at Lakhpat, shows the breadth of this eastern portion of the valley, which forms the western boundary of the desert. A traveller proceeding from the Khichi or flats of Sind to the east, sees the line of the desert distinctly marked, with its elevated tibas or sand ridges under which flows the Sankra, which is generally dry except at periodical inunda- tions. These sand-hills are of considerable elevation, and may be considered the limit of the inundation of the ' sweet river,' the Mitha Maran, a Scythic or Tatar name for river, and by which alone the Indus is known, from the Panjnad to the ocean [20].
1 The confluent arms or sources of the Indus.
