The Indus Valley Civilization was established around 6000 BCE. Two main cities of the Harappan civilization Harappa and Mohenjadaro were built around 2600 BCE, and thrived till around 1900 BCE, when they were abandoned. This period corresponds to what is known as the Mature Harappan Phase.
The earliest coins however, were minted much later in the 6th / 5th century BCE.
The Indus Valley Civilization is sometimes called the Sarasvati Culture, the Sarasvati Civilization, the Indus Sarasvati Civilization or the Sindhu Sarasvati Civilization and it is tempting to equate Indus Valley and Vedic cultures.
In the Manu Smriti, the Drishadvati and the Saraswati rivers define the boundaries of the Vedic state of Brahmavarta. It says ''the land created by the Gods, which lies between the two divine rivers Saraswati and Drishadvati''. Also, Sarasvati formed the northern boundary of Kuru Pradesh, and the Drishadvati flowed in southern Kuru Pradesh.
Mahabharata mentions Drishavati several times and mentions the southern boundary of Kuru Pradesh was Guru Drona's ashram (present day Gurgaon at one end and Rohtak and Jhajjar at the other), therefore Drishavati flowed south of these cities.
The names of two Vedic rivers are Sindhu and Saraswati. River Sindhu is the lord of 11 rivers of which 7 were major rivers, hence the name Sapta Sindhu. Kalibangan and Mathura on the present Yamuna are indications of old Yama/Yamuna/kaali/hali nadi (Kalindi) associated with Yamuna, Kalibhangan, Ghaggar belt. The Kalindi/Yamuna belt was the cradle of early Vedic civilization sometime in the 3rd millennium BCE.
For the Vedic people, Agni/soma/agnish Toma (the unicorn) had prime significance in their sacrificial/ritual life. They praised agni and the sun god in every way possible.
Several scholars have overlooked the existence of Kalindi (Ghaggar/old vedic Yamuna) river and called it as Sarasvati. The Rig Veda shows Yamuna's link with Kalindi through channels/distributaries and Sutlej joining Ghaggar upto 2500 BCE. The name Yamuna continued to be use till the collapse of the Mature Harappan Phase.
Trade with Sumer has been established in the Vedic scripts.
There are remarkable parallels between the Sarasvati hieroglyphs and the symbols used on ancient Indian punch marked coins and, on the sign, graphs employed on Sohgaura copper plate inscription.
Punch marked coins are the earliest Indian archaeological ''documents'' that exist. (600-500 BC)
To date about 1000 cities of the Indus Valley Civilization have been found, mainly in the general region of the Ghaggar-Hakra river and its tributaries and include Lothal, Dholivara, Ganweriwala and Rakhigarhi. Only about 100 of the more than 1000 have been discovered on the Indus and its tributaries. The Sutlej River, in Harappan times flowed into Ghaggar-Hakra river.
The word ''India'' and Hindu are derived from the Indus River, and the Bindi on the forehead is a mark of this Dindhu/Hindu/Vindu (Saraswati is the goddess of light, water and learning). In ancient times Hindustan referred to those regions east if the Indus River.
The collapse of the Harappan culture which began around 3900 years ago, has been linked to rapid weakening of the summer monsoon, along with the reorganization of the rivers due to the tectonic movements making people move to the fertile Yamuna-Ganga River belt and to southern areas of India. In the later Vedas, Brahmanas, Puranas and the epics, it is mentioned that due to the location change of active settlements from the Indus basin to the Ganga Yamuna basin, the prominence of Saraswati was taken up by the Ganga River.
Through Balarama (elder brother of Krishna) the Mahabharata gives evidence of the life of the Harappans in two ways. First the shift from Mathura (Kalibangan/Kalindi) to Dwaraka (Mohenjodaro/Indus) to avoid Jarasandha (drought) and secondly, the shift from Dwaraka in search of tirtha (holy water) along the Yamuna-Gangetic basin.
The Script. One of the puzzling mysteries of the ancient world is the writing system of the Indus-Sarasvati civilization. The writing is too short mostly being four or five symbols long. There are over 4200 inscriptions found on seals, tablets and pottery.
The importance of the ''Unicorn'' is evident as three quarters of the seals found in the region have this inscribed. The Unicorn Bull is the most common motif on the Indus seals, representing the iconography of Krishna-Vishnu. This Vedic symbol is a bull combined with horse head with one stiff horn, a symbol of Krishna the ruler of Sarasvati Province. Even the Greek and Roman sources trace back on their coin motif of the same Unicorn Bull with a ritual offering Soma filter stand in front of it The influence is visible on the Greek and Romans as and when they came into contact with the language and script.
India's first script which we can read is written in Brahmi. Many of the Asian scripts such as Burmese, Tibetan, Cham, Malayan, Javanese, Sumatran were all derived from Brahmi. There is a relationship between Brahmi, which has 48 letters and the Indus script which has more than 340 symbols. The primary characters of the Indus script (accounting to 80 percent symbols) totaling 39 is close to the letters in Brahmi. Also letters of Brahmi could be combined to produce modified symbols (about 200 and 300). The probability of the relationship. though not proved is high. Brahmi was therefore either derived from of was extensively influenced by the Indus script. The iconography found on Harappan seals were found in abundance on the punch marked coins of India. Many also survive on later coins of Ujjain and Eran and on the coins of the Janapadas
The period between the Harappan and Gangetic cultures is not distinctly different, but has a continuity of change in iconography, culture and script. Brahmi and Kharosthi evolved from the Indus script and the Indus script was in use along with Brahmi/Kharosthi, even up to 1st century AD.
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The Devanagari and the Brahmi script both have developed from the Sarasvati script. After the end of the Sarasvati civilization around 1900 BC, Devanagari, Brahmi, Kharosthi have remained as independent. Ashoka, the emperor gave popularity of the Brahmi script as it was the official language and easy to write the Prakrit language. But the Guptas, whose language was Sanskrit adopted a variant of the ancient Devanagari Brahmi script. Some important signs of the Devanagari are not available in the Brahmi, but the same is available in the Sarasvati script.
Dr Jha and Rajaram in their research quote verses 23,27 and 28 of the Mahabharata refer to the Supreme bull (Vrsamuttamam) as Krishna-Vishnu. In the verse 342.73, Mahabharata discloses that an earlier version of the Nirukta (text containing meaning of the Vedic mantras) was buried due to floods. The text was recovered with the help of Krishna, who was the ruler.
Now that we have authentic information on the Hindu Panchang. In the Hindu Panchang of September 2021, the Vikram Samvat is 2078 and the Kali Samvat is 5123 years from the year 2021, takes us to the year 3102 BC, the year when Krishna died. After the death of Krishna, and destruction of Dwarka, Arjun coronated the grandson of Krishna, Yuyudhan as the administrator of the Sarasvati Province.
Mahabharata says 36 years before the death of Krishna, the Mahabharata war took place. This stands at 3138 BC. The Harappans were not different than Krishna himself, where the medium of conversation was Sanskrit. The iconography has been retained in South India too. Although there is no consensus amongst all historians, as some feel it was in the 7th to 8th millennium.
Sanauli, the new Harappan Site. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) recently excavated burial site in Uttar Pradesh's Sanauli. This unearthed ''sacred chambers'' decorated ''coffins'', rice and dal in pots, animal bones buried with bodies. shields and swords and copper made horse drawn chariots along with warrior. The coffin top is engraved with Pashupati and Aswath leaf sign. All these are Vedic practices.
Indus Valley/ Harappan Script on ancient coins. The punch used to produce these coins differed from the ordinary dyes, in that they covered a portion of the surface of the coin with many symbols representing animals, man, woman, elephant, bull goat, peacock. turtle, snake, fish, frog, all recognizable at first glance. The Greek coins however present us with the portrait of the king, display his name and titles in two languages. However, some of the symbols on both are the same.
The symbols on the punch marked coins of ancient India
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