Missing Connections (original) (raw)
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International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences, 2019
Rivers are the back bone of human civilization. History says that various prominent civilizations like the Nile River valley, the Indus River valley, the Yellow River valley etc, formed around rivers. That is why every culture, civilization, folk and literature has a strong bonding to the rivers. In India, rivers are venerated as Goddesses. Indians worship River as a mother. Like a mother, each river has a pleasant (saumya) and an unpleasant (urga) forms. Considerably good amount of literature is available related to rivers explaining its beauty but only hand full of poets have seen the other side of the coin where it is devastating many lives. The objective of this paper is to focus on the two different versions of the river in literature.
Rivers as entanglements of nature and culture
The general proposition put forward in this introductory chapter is that rivers should be regarded as dynamic entanglements of nature and culture. If considered purely as natural systems, their cultural dimension gets excluded. If considered as cultural artefacts through and through, their wild aspect is neglected. It goes on to argue that those branches of archaeology which take ‘land’ as their subject (whether the ‘landscape’ or ‘wetland’ variety) should encompass dynamic liquid flows – including flows of solid material eroded, carried and deposited by water – within their remit.
River Cultures in World History—Rescuing a Neglected Resource
Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2019
This paper argues that historians have all but ignored the study of rivers and their impact on the development of human society. Apart from a somewhat terse acknowledgment of the importance of rivers in the development of ancient civilizations, from the Huang He to the Ganges, the Nile, and the Amazon, historians have by and large limited themselves to studying individual rivers, while ignoring the potential of comparative analysis of rivers. I call for a broader engagement by historians of all aspects of rivers, including their role in transportation, fishing, agriculture, industry, recreation, and the environment, people’s cultural response to rivers, and the legal regimes that have grown up around them, with special reference to the role of rivers as political boundaries.
Routledge eBooks, 2017
Rivers and their watersheds constitute some of the most dynamic and complex landscapes. Rivers have sustained human communities, and human societies have utilized and altered river flows in a number of ways for millennia. However, the level of human impact on rivers, and on watershed environments, has become acute during the last hundred years or so. This book brings together empirical research and theoretical perspectives on the changing conditions of a range of river basin environments in the contemporary world, including the history and culture of local societies living in these river basins. It provides theoretical insights on the patterns and nature of the interaction between rivers and their use by human communities. The chapters are written from a variety of positions, including environmental science, hydrology, human ecology, urban studies, water management, historical geography, cultural anthropology and tourism studies. The case studies span different geographical regions, providing valuable insight on the multifaceted interactions between rivers and our societies, and on the changing riverscapes in different parts of the world. Specific detailed examples are included from Australia,
Environmental History in the Making, 2016
Looking at the changing nature of river economy this paper tries to examine the relation between economy and environmental history. Bihar province in mid-Ganga basin has the natural advantage of many rivers converging the Ganga. During the seventeenth and the eighteenth century the province went on to get linked with the maritime economy and trade, and the center of commercial activities shifted from Ganga-Yamuna doab to eastern part of the Ganga basin. Using Patna as the case study, the paper argues that region's orientation from west to east had grave implication on the river morphology. After 1765 when the British East India Company got the land revenue rights of the region it sought permanence in the administrative and revenue policies and to achieve this it encouraged construction of embankments and railways. It created obstruction to the natural fl ow of the fl ooding Ganga. 'Water system' has been the central theme over the recent years for the environmental historians interested in understanding the impact of natural phenomenon on a region, specially the river. 1 In many of these researches, river historians often see 1 Till very late the social scientists integrated nature, specially water, in analysis of historical and social development as a background only, because they believed that social science is a subject concerned with social facts, and a social fact could only be explained by another social fact. But now environmental historians have begun to deconstruct the non-social facts such as water to explain the society. See Terja Tvedt and Richard Coopey (eds.), A History of Water , Series II , Volume 2 , Rivers and Society : From Early Civilizations to Modern Times , (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2010), pp. 3-26. Donald Worster is also very critical of the creation of some sort of wall around history as he says 'Somewhere, it seems, a great lawgiver has inscribed on a tablet of stone that water cycles, deforestation, animal populations, soil nutrient gains and losses are reserved for Science, while History must confi ne itself to tariffs, diplomatic negotiation, unionmanagement confl ict, race and gender. Science is supposed to deal with Nature; the scientists even
Rivers have just lost a great voice of theirs: My times and trysts with India's Water Wisdom
It's an article in memory of, and as a tribute to, India's veteran water expert Prof. Ramaswamy R. Iyer who took his heavenly abode on September 9 this year (2015). The article narrates, in a memoir style, Iyer Sir's strong stands on Rivers as to how he always considered them as ecological entities and warned against any plans to treat them as pipelines in the name of development.
The Gangā (Ganges in anglicised form) river perceived as the liquid energy of Shiva and eulogised in mythologies as the river of immortality has always been symbolised as river of grace and Hindu integrity. According to the common saying the Gangā river is the identity of the cultural history of India’s civilisation since at least ca. BCE 2000, recording the history of Aryanisation. Metaphorically and metaphysically, the ancient mythologies refer to water as the container of life, strength, and eternity, but most commonly she is perceived as the purifier. Running water in general and the waters of the Gangā in particular are described as bestowing sanctity and miracles. The unique characteristics of the Gangā refer to its serene landscape in the Himalaya; its healing and medicinal qualities and source of livelihood for millions of people settled along its course. This personality of the Gangā attracted pilgrims since the ancient past and still continued in the religious festivities, especially at the sacred places along confluence points at its tributaries. Today the river faces threats of pollution and needs awakened values to maintain its holiness. Keywords: Gangāisation, intrinsic value, mythology, Hindu belief systems, festivities, sacred places.
Celeste Ray (ed.) 2020, Sacred Waters: A Cross-cultural Compendium of Hallowed Springs and Holy Wells. London & New York: Routledge, 2020
The ancient Indian (Hindu) mythologies refer to water as the container of life, strength, and eternity, but most commonly it is perceived as the purifier and site for sacred places. The three most common factors enhancing the popularity of sacred places along rivers (tirthas) and water pools (kundas) are: their unique natural landscape and beauty, the unusual physical features of the body of water, and the watery place's association with some great sage or site-based mythology. The psychic attachment to a place and the maintenance of its associated cultural traditions and water-related rituals reflects the belief in divine manifestations there and the site's intrinsic values; this is maintained by a huge mass of festivities and rituals even today. The Ganga (the Ganges River) is the sacred fluid, an essential element for all the Hindu rites and rituals. The Ganga is known as "the mother who bestows prosperity (sukh-da), and secures salvation (moksha-da);" she represents joy in this life and hope for the life to come. This essay described the Ganga, the river's waterfront sacred places, and related sacred waters. The ancient Indian (Hindu) mythologies refer to water as the container of life, strength, and eternity, but most commonly it is perceived as the purifier and site for sacred places. The three most common factors enhancing the popularity of sacred places along rivers (tirthas) and water pools (kundas) are: their unique natural landscape and beauty, the unusual physical features of the body of water, and the watery place's association with some great sage or site-based mythology. The psychic attachment to a place and the maintenance of its associated cultural traditions and water-related rituals reflects the belief in divine manifestations there and the site's intrinsic values; this is maintained by a huge mass of festivities and rituals even today. The Ganga (the Ganges River) is the sacred fluid, an essential element for all the Hindu rites and rituals. The Ganga is known as "the mother who bestows prosperity (sukh-da), and secures salvation (moksha-da);" she represents joy in this life and hope for the life to come. This essay describes the Ganga, the river's waterfront sacred places, and related sacred waters. Keywords: the Ganga, tirtha, kunda, metaphysical context, mythology