DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

4.2]
CONTINUED FOREIGN CONTACTS 89
body to the common gaze is precisely represented in seals of the
same locality and period (Ward loc. tit. Chapter L) ; both are sometimes
winged. Just what this signifies is not dear, perhaps recoil of some
Aryans from India. The second wave seems also to be represented in
the Rgveda, by an occasional Persian name, and perhaps Persian
historical characters. The ‘ kinless’ chief Susravas of RV. 1.53.9-10,
who fought and won against twenty opposing kings, is almost certainly
the Iranian Kavi Husravas shown to us avenging a father’s death in the
Avesta ; Turanyu and Turvayana (‘ swiftly advancing’) might indicate
Turanians, whoever they really were. RV. 8.6.46 praises Tirindira,
who is connected with a Parsu, hence might be a Persian. The land of
the seven rivers is known to the Avesta as one of the Aryan regions. Of
the original seven great rivers, two dried up ; the Drsadvati of the Rgveda
is the dry bed of the Ghaggar, while the Sarasvati (which then met it
and the Indus to flow to the sea) had, by the time of the exegetical
works called the Brahmanas, begun to terminate in the desert. Today,
it is a small river in the East Punjab ; its name might have been
transferred from the Iranian Harahvaiti, the Ara-qattu of an inscription
by Tiglath-Pileser III. In that case, the original Sarasvati is the Hilmand
; a fact which archaeologists would do well to keep in mind for future
use in spite of inconclusive finds as at Mundigag. The name IravatI
shifted from the Ravi to the main Burmese river ; the little Candrabhaga
which flows past Pandharpur was named after the Chenab.
Such transfers of name are common.
There are less marked but unmistakable traces of other contacts
with older culture, whether within India or outside. For example RV.
5.45.1-3 describes the Sun-god as he bursts the mountain, throws open
the doors ; the scene is precisely depicted on Meso-potamian seals (fig.
17). where two doors without any building are shown as being thrown
Fig, 17. The Sun-god bursts
the mountain, the gates
are thrown open.