Place · sacred river · Pakistan
Parushnī / Irāvatī / Ravi
Also known as Ravi, Parushni, Iravati, Hydraotes, Ravi River
The Paruṣṇī of the Rigveda, on which the Battle of the Ten Kings was fought — the one datable event the hymns describe, where Sudās of the Bharatas broke a confederation of ten tribes against the river. Harappa stands on it, and so does Lahore. It joins the Chenab below Ahmadpur Sial.
- Periods
- Indus Valley Urbanisation, Vedic Age, Second Urbanisation, Classical and Puranic Age, Regional Flourishing, Islamic Age and Bhakti Traditions, Early Modern Age, British Colonial Age, Republic and Living Practice
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Mixed / layered — The physical place or feature is identifiable; its sacred origin or association belongs to a textual or living tradition.
- Location
- 31.200, 73.600 (approximate)
Worth knowing
Two cities a thousand years and two hundred kilometres apart, on the same water: the Harappan capital that gave the civilisation its name, and the Mughal, Sikh and colonial capital of Punjab. The Ravi has since shifted away from Lahore’s old walls, and the stretch below the city is among the most polluted reaches in the basin.
Connections (3)
- River adjacencyHarappa
Harappa stands on the Ravi, and the city is the reason the whole civilisation carries its name — it was dug first, in the 1920s, before anyone knew how much else there was. The Paruṣṇī of the Rigveda is the same water, described a thousand years later by people who left no cities: the clearest case in the basin of one river carrying two utterly different kinds of evidence.
- River adjacencyLahore Fort & Shalimar
Lahore sits on the Ravi two hundred kilometres upstream of Harappa, and was the capital of Punjab under the Mughals, under Ranjīt Singh and under the British. The fort and the Shalimar gardens were laid out on the river’s bank; the channel has since moved away from the old walls, and the reach below the city is now among the most polluted in the basin.
- River flowAsiknī / Chenab
The Ravi joins the Chenab below Ahmadpur Sial, having run past Harappa and Lahore and given up most of its water to canals on the way. It is the smallest contribution of the three that reach the Chenab, and since the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty allotted the Ravi to India, what crosses the border to make that confluence is a fraction of what the Rigveda knew.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Ravi River”, “Battle of the Ten Kings” and “Rigvedic rivers”.
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