Physical Geography during Vedic-Civilization: A Literature Survey

Abstract

Geography is fossilized within the shade of History. Historical events, historical societies, and even paleo-ritual realms bear the thought of Geography, the culture of folk-geography and the film of geo-society. From mid 2nd to mid 1st millennium BCE (or the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age), the Vedic society belonged to Hindus of Northern and North-western part of Indian
subcontinent. Though this time period is controversial yet a chronological transition could be traced from the late Harappa period to the rising of Mahajanapadas (early Indo-Aryan Kingdoms in India); the Vedic age (when Veda was composed) would be demarcated. To deal or to evaluate the Vedic-Geography, the analysis of Vedic literature has much importance. In Vedic literature
(Rig-Sama-Yajur and Atharva), an important hidden geographical scenario could be demarcated with respect to its; physical, social, culture, economic, traditional, folk, medical, behavioral, ritual, religious believes. The purpose of this paper is to frame and find the geographical overview, especially physical sites of Vedic time period. For this purpose helps from literary surveys has
been sought after. The key findings of this paper are: the geographical periphery of Vedic civilization, its riverside world, biodiversity, climatic scenario and the oceanic world. These have vitally contributed to the proper analysis of paleo-geography of great importance which in turn gives an explicit frame of contemporary geography.