Rigvedic earthquakes as localizing and chronological criterion

Abstract

The Samhita of Rigveda has been carefully analyzed to check all mentions of earthquakes in it referring either to the past or to the present of its authors, either in the mountains or on the plains. It has turned out that all chronological layers of the text contain numerous descriptions of earthquakes thus pointing at the submountainous regions of the Indus – Ganga Plain of the North-Western Hindustan as the homeland of Rigvedic Rishis and their ancestors. The decreasing number of earthquakes’ mentions in the late Rigvedic hymns proves the fact of the Rigvedic Indo-Aryans’ movement from the mountains onto the plains. Archaeologically recorded earthquake in Early Harappan Kalibangan–upon–Sarasvati fortified settlement in the core of Rigvedic habitat dates the text of Rigveda around 2 700 BCE. This chronology corroborates the author’s dating of the Rigveda text between 3 300 and 2 600 BCE made on the basis of several mutually supporting criteria developed by the author (such as the sword argument, the fortresses’ argument, the buffalo argument, Pashupati argument, the glacier argument etc.).