DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

3.4] FLOOD IRRIGATION 71
but does not agree with Aristoboulos regarding the summer rains, for he says that the
plains are watered with rain in summer, but are without rain in winter. Both writers
speak about the rising of the rivers. Nearchoa says that when they encamped near the
Achesines (Chenab) -they were obliged to shift their quarters to higher ground when the
river rose above its former level, and this was forty cubits, of which twenty filled the
channel up to the brim, and the other twenty inundated the plains. They concur also in
stating that the cities built upon mounds become as islands, as in Egypt and Ethiopia,
and that the inundation ceases after the setting of Arcturus when the waters subside.
They add that the land, while still but half dried, is sown, and though scratched into
furrows by any common labourer, it nevertheless brings what is planted to perfection
and makes the fruits of good quality.”
‘ Scratched into furrows by any common labourer * can only
mean that the land was not tilled with the plough, nor dug up, but
harrowed crudely. The Greeks used a solar calendar to describe
meteorological phenomena which the Indians still date by a lunar
calendar. ‘ Cities’ here means walled parent villages on Tells, generally
surrounded by shifting colonies of seasonal hut-clusters which the Greek
called villages. The Indus dams are not mentioned, as they had
presumably been’destroyed by the Aryans — who were then actually
settled under that name (Arioi, Arianoi; Strabo 15.2.1, 15.2.9) over an
extensive region on the west bank of the Indus, through parts of Afghanistan
and east Persia — to which last country they gave its name Iran (Ariana).
Our reasoning as to the harrow and ‘flood-irrigation is therefore
simple enough. The sign of the harrow or rake has become a hieroglyph
in the Indus script, while there is nothing which can be interpreted* as
a plough.
* Note, however, that S. Langdon (in Marshall 2.437, sign 68) finds an Indus sign
which is the Sumerian sign for ‘ plough’ though there is nothing in the ideogram which
any of us could so interpret from Indian experience. A terra-cotta object now in the
Prince of Wales Museum at Bombay (apparently Mackay plate CVIIL 3) from the
lower levels at Mohenjo-daro has been interpreted variously as a model of a chair, or a
plough-share. The latter use seems highly unlikely, as there is no way a rigid yoke-pole
could have been attached, nor a plough-handle. Any,share modelled after this object
would break off, if of wood ; there was no iron then available, while bronze would have
been too costly.