Indus valley civilization
is the well known word for every historians, It started on the banks of the
river Indus and is is the most ancient and
highly developed civilization of this planet. In Rig Veda, the river Sindhu
is praised in many verses. Although some historians believe that the word
Sindhu means a sea, the widely held view is that it refers to the Indus River.
Therefore, Sindhu may be taken to mean the Indus River
which is described as donor of gifts and owner of fertile fields. Our country came
to be called Hindustan or India;
these words are derived from the name Indus or
Sindhu. The Sindh province
of Pakistan derives its
name from this river. Its name also figures in the national anthem of India. A unique
feature of this civilization is that it still survives despite numerous
setbacks.
The root of the river Indus belongs to the Vedic Land.
It originates at the Tibetan Plateau in the vicinity of Lake Mansarovar
and fed with glaciers and rivers in himalayas. It flows through Pakistan, India
and Tibet
countries. It flows through the Ladakh region of Jammu and
Kashmir and then flows in south direction along the entire length
of Pakistan and merges in
Arabian sea near the port city of Karachi
in Sindh. The total length of the river is 3,180km and is the longest river in Pakistan.
The
Indus forms the delta of Pakistan
and India
mentioned in the Vedic Rigveda as Sapta Sindhu and the Iranian Zend
Avesta as Hapta Hindu (both terms meaning "seven rivers"). The
river has been a source of wonder since the Classical Period, with King Darius
of Persia
sending Scylax of Caryanda to explore the river as early as 510 BC.
Ancient greeks referred Indians as the people of Indus.
The word Punjab means "land of five rivers" and the five rivers are
Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej, all of which finally merge in Indus.
The
developed civilization of India
is said to be Indus Valley Civilization when the major cities such as Harappa
and Mohenjo-daro
around 3300 BC represent the largest human habitations of the ancient world.
The river’s annual flow is about 272 billion cubic yards (207 billion cubic
metres)—twice that of the Nile River and three times that of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers combined.
The entire basin covers an area of
about 384,000 square miles of open land, of which 204,000 lie in Pakistan. In
addition, there are about 29,000 square miles which lie outside the Indus basin
but are dependent on the Indus river system
for their water requirements and irrigation supplies. But for the Indus waters,
the fate of agriculture in Pakistan
would have been very uncertain.
The Indus river dolphin (Platanista
gangetica minor) is a subspecies of freshwater river dolphin found in the Indus
river (and its Beas and Sutlej tributaries) of Pakistan. From the 1970s until
1998, the Ganges River
dolphin and the Indus dolphin were regarded as
separate species; however, in 1998, their classification was changed from two
separate species to subspecies of a single species.
The Ganges river dolphin has been
recognized by the government of India
as its National Aquatic Animal.
Both subspecies have been very adversely affected by human use of the river
systems in the subcontinent.
Indus
river dolphins are one of only four river dolphin species and subspecies in the
world that spend all of their lives in freshwater. They are believed to have
originated in the ancient Tethys
Sea. When the sea dried
up approximately 50 million years ago, the dolphins were forced to adapt to its
only remaining habitat—rivers. Only about 1,100 exist today in the lower parts
of the Indus River
in Pakistan.
Numbers declined dramatically after the construction of an irrigation system.
Most dolphins are confined to a 750 mile stretch of the river and divided into
isolated populations by six barrages. They have adapted to life in the muddy
river and are functionally blind. They rely on echolocation to navigate,
communicate and hunt prey including prawns, catfish and carp.
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