The Great Drought: going back on the chronology of ancient Indian dynasties

Vishvamitra looks at Rama who breaks the bow, winning the hand of Sita in marriage.

Around 12 years ago I wrote an article proposing a comparison between archaeology and Indian historical tradition, with some interesting results, see here. I followed there the genealogies of Pargiter (given in Ancient Indian Historical Tradition), but recently I have read a post by Benjamin Lloyd, on Viśvāmitra and his synchronisms, that place him at the time of Rāma Jāmadagnya or Paraśurāma but also of Rāma Dāśarathi, the king of Ayodhya, instead of 33 generations earlier, as in Pargiter's table. Lloyd's idea is that the Ikṣvāku genealogy, strangely longer than the other genealogies, is actually a mistaken collation of different and parallel genealogies into a single lineage, ignoring that some kings of the list are actually contemporary. So, around the same age can be placed not only Viśvāmitra and the two Rāmas, but also Triśaṅku, Divodāsa Pañcāla, his descendant Sudās, Arjuna Kārtavīrya and Māndhātṛ, as is clear also from another post of Lloyd, giving all synchronisms and tables. 

If we accept this theory, also figures present in Ṛgveda and other Vedic texts like Trasadasyu become part of a similar age (only 4 generations earlier), instead of being a different person as in Pargiter's theory, and the period of crisis and invasions of Arjuna Kārtavīrya is not different from that of Sudās Paijavana and his Battle of the Ten Kings. Not only, the mentions of the Great Drought of 12 years become almost completely related with the same period, that is given as the transition between Tretā and Dvāpara. Pargiter accepted (p.177 of AIHT) that Rāma Dāśarathi lived in that transition, but when the Mahābhārata (I.2, see here) places also Rāma Jāmadagnya in the same period, he had to deny it.

Why did I write 'almost completely'? Because in Nirukta (II.10) and Bṛhaddevatā (VII.155-VIII.2), a drought of 12 years is caused by the consecration as king of the Kuru Śantanu instead of his elder brother Devāpi, who, having a skin disease (according to the Bṛhaddevatā), decided to retire to practice austerities. The idea of the drought is certainly suggested by RV X.98, that is analyzed there, because that hymn is a prayer for rain, but there is no specific mention of the length of the drought. Also in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa (IV.20) it is said that in the kingdom of Śantanu there was no rain for twelve years, because the rightful king should have been the elder brother Devāpi, who retired to the woods, with no mention of skin disease. In Mahābhārata (V.147), instead, there is no mention of the drought, but only of the skin disease, that is presented as a right reason to exclude him from kingship. Now, Śantanu is clearly placed 4 generations before the Mahābhārata battle, at the end of Dvāpara Yuga and not at the transition between Tretā and Dvāpara. We can suppose that the idea of the 12 years' drought here has been adopted by the authors of the Nirukta and Bṛhaddevatā (and following that, of the Viṣṇu Purāṇa) because it was in the tradition, but in the Mahābhārata that drought is placed in a different period.

Let's see the various occurences of it.

1) Saṃvaraṇa. MBh I.163:

“And Saṃvaraṇa, that bull among men with due rites took Tapatī's hand on that mountain-breast which was resorted to by the celestials and the Gandharvas. The royal sage, with the permission of Vasiṣṭha, desired to sport with his wife on that mountain. And the king caused Vasishtha, to be proclaimed his regent in his capital and kingdom, in the woods and gardens. And bidding farewell unto the monarch, Vasiṣṭha left him and went away. Saṃvaraṇa, who sported on that mountain like a celestial, sported with his wife in the woods and the under-woods on that mountain for twelve full years. And, O best of the Bhāratas, the god of a thousand eyes poured no rain for twelve years on the capital and on the kingdom of that monarch. Then, O chastiser of enemies, when that season of drought broke out, the people of that kingdom, as also the trees and lower animals began to die fast. And during the continuance of that dreadful drought, not even a drop of dew fell from the skies and no corn grew. And the inhabitants in despair, and afflicted with the fear of hunger, left their homes and fled away in all directions. And the famished people of the capital and the country began to abandon their wives and children and grew reckless of one another. The people being afflicted with hunger, without a morsel of food and reduced to skeletons, the capital looked very much like the city of the king of the dead, full of only ghostly beings. On beholding the capital reduced to such a state, the illustrious and virtuous and best of Ṛṣis, Vasiṣṭha was resolved upon applying a remedy and brought back unto the city that tiger among kings, Saṃvaraṇa, along with his wife, after the latter had passed so long a period in solitude and seclusion. After the king had entered his capital, things became as before, for, when that tiger among kings came back to his own, the god of a thousand eyes, the slayer of Asuras, poured rain in abundance and caused corn to grow.”

As in the story of Devāpi, here the rightful king leaves kingship for the woods (although not for ascetic practice...) and so Indra stops rain for 12 years. Another passage, MBh I.89, mentions Saṃvaraṇa in relation to a great drought but also a war:

“While Saṃvaraṇa the son of Ṛkṣa, O king, was ruling the earth, there was a very great loss of people, so we have heard. The kingdom was shattered by manifold destructions in this way: struck by death for starvation, by want of rain and diseases, and the troops of the enemies attacked the Bhāratas. And shaking the Earth, so to say, with a fourfold army (i.e. made of chariots, elephants, knights and infantrymen), the Pañcāla marched against him (Saṃvaraṇa), and, having quickly conquered the Earth, he defeated him in battle with ten Akṣauhiṇis (troops of tenths of thousands of soldiers).”  

According to Pargiter, this Pañcāla king is none other than Sudās, defeating the alliance of the Ten Kings on the River Paruṣṇī (Ravi), where Saṃvaraṇa would be the king of the Pūrus. There is no mention here of sporting in the woods: the drought is associated with the rule of Saṃvaraṇa, and it is after the war that he takes shelter in the forests on the Sindhu, near the mountains. And there he is reached by Vasiṣṭha. A hint of the age of the son or descendant of Ṛkṣa is given also in RV VIII.68, where we find as patrons of the poet-priest a 'son of Ṛkṣa' and Indrota son or descendant of Atithigva, which is an epithet of Divodāsa, the famous ancestor of Sudās (with 5 generations of distance). Another hymn of the 8th book, RV VIII.74, mentions a Śrutarvan son or Ṛkṣa and also the river Paruṣṇī.

2) Viśvāmitra. MBh XII.139: 

"Towards the end of Tretā and the beginning of Dvāpara, a frightful drought occurred, extending over twelve years, in consequence of what the gods had ordained. At that time which was the end of Tretā and the commencement of Dvāpara, when the period came for many creatures superannuated by age to lay down their lives, the thousand-eyed deity of heaven poured no rain. The planet Bṛhaspati began to move in a retrograde course, and Soma abandoning his own orbit, receded towards the south. Not even could a dew-drop be seen, what need then be said of clouds gathering together? The rivers all shrank into narrow streamlets. Everywhere lakes and wells and springs disappeared and lost their beauty in consequence of that order of things which the gods brought about. Water having become scarce, the places set up by charity for its distribution became desolate. The Brahmanas abstained from sacrifices and recitation of the Vedas. They no longer uttered Vashats and performed other propitiatory rites. Agriculture and keep of cattle were given up. Markets and shops were abandoned. Stakes for tethering sacrificial animals disappeared. People no longer collected diverse kinds of articles for sacrifices. All festivals and amusements perished. Everywhere heaps of bones were visible and every place resounded with the shrill cries and yells of fierce creatures. The cities and towns of the earth became empty of inhabitants. Villages and hamlets were burnt down. Some afflicted by robbers, some by weapons, and some by bad kings, and in fear of one another, began to fly away. Temples and places of worship became desolate. They that were aged were forcibly turned out of their houses. Kine and goats and sheep and buffaloes fought (for food) and perished in large numbers. The Brahmanas began to die on all sides. Protection was at an end. Herbs and plants were dried up. The earth became shorn of all her beauty and exceedingly awful like the trees in a crematorium. In that period of terror, when righteousness was nowhere, O Yudhishthira, men in hunger lost their senses and began to eat one another. The very Ṛṣis, giving up their vows and abandoning their fires and deities, and deserting their retreats in woods, began to wander hither and thither (in search of food). The holy and great Ṛṣi Viśvāmitra, possessed of great intelligence, wandered homeless and afflicted with hunger."

The description reminds the one above from MBh I.63, but is more detailed, and is not focused on one town only, but on several towns and regions, we can suppose of North India. 

3) Sārasvata. The detail of wandering Ṛṣis reminds MBh IX.50, where the 12 years drought makes them forget the Vedas, but the young Sārasvata preserve them thanks to the Sarasvatī river: 

"a drought, O king, occurred that extended for twelve years. During that drought extending for twelve years, the great rishis, for the sake of sustenance, fled away, O monarch, on all sides. Beholding them scattered in all directions, the sage Sārasvata also set his heart on flight. The river Sarasvatī then said unto him, 'Thou needst not, O son, depart hence, for I will always supply thee with food even here by giving thee large fishes! Stay thou, therefore, even here!' Thus addressed (by the river), the sage continued to live there and offer oblations of food unto the Ṛṣis and the gods. He got also his daily food and thus continued to support both himself and the gods. After that twelve year's drought had passed away, the great Ṛṣis solicited one another for lectures on the Vedas. While wandering with famished stomachs, the Ṛṣis had lost the knowledge of the Vedas. There was, indeed, not one amongst them that could understand the scriptures. It chanced that someone amongst them encountered Sārasvata, that foremost of Ṛṣis, while the latter was reading the Vedas with concentrated attention.”

This story is a wonderful example of a crisis of cultural and even religious heritage due to a natural crisis, but the historical context is not clear. It is said that Sārasvata was son of the fabulous Ṛṣi Dadhīca. However, in Viṣṇu Purāṇa III.3, he is the Vedavyāsa (arranger of the Vedas) in the '9th' Dvāpara Yuga after Vasiṣṭha and before Tridhāman and Trivṛṣan: this last name corresponds to the name of the father of Tryaruṇa Traivṛṣṇa in RV V.27.1, and the Aikṣvāku king Tryaruṇa son of Tridhātu (a name taken from Pañcaviṃśa Brāhmaṇa 13.3.12, quite similar to Tridhāman, cp. Tridhanvan below) is a contemporary of Viśvāmitra according to Lloyd. We can add that Trayyāruṇa is the Vedavyāsa of the 15th Dvāpara Yuga. Apparently, there is some historical sequence in this list of Vedavyāsas, who are projected on a mythical sequence of different Dvāpara Yugas, but are rather to be placed in the same, the last, Dvāpara Yuga. 

4) Satyavrata Triśaṅku. According to Purāṇic genealogies, the son of Trayyāruṇa is Satyavrata Triśaṅku, the king who helped Viśvāmitra's wife during the famine. So says VP IV.3:

“Purukutsa had a son by Narmada named Trasadasyu, whose son was Sambhūta, whose son was Anaraṇya, who was slain, by Rāvaṇa in his triumphant progress through the nations. The son of Anaraṇya was Pṛṣadaśva; his son was Haryyaśva; his son was Sumanas; his son was Tridhanvan; his son was Trayyāruṇa; and his son was Satyavrata, who obtained the appellation of Triśaṅku, and was degraded to the condition of a Caṇḍāla, or outcast. During a twelve years' famine Triśaṅku provided the flesh of deer for the nourishment of the wife and children of Viśvāmitra, suspending it upon a spreading fig-tree on the borders of the Ganges, that he might not subject them to the indignity of receiving presents from an outcast. On this account Viśvāmitra, being highly pleased with him, elevated him in his living body to heaven.”

In this account, we have the mention of Rāvaṇa, the terrible king of Lanka, who in his raid in the subcontinent (or in Lanka itself) was vanquished by the Haihaya king Arjuna Kārtavīrya, then imprisoned and later released, and, as is well known, he was killed by Rāma Dāśarathi. As also Lloyd remarks, here we have a clear synchronism of Arjuna and Rāma, and so we have to place also Arjuna in the period of the transition between Tretā and Dvāpara; also his act of burning the earth with its settlements and the following invasion, together with Haihayas, of Western raiders (identified as Śakas, Yavanas, Kāmbojas, Pāradas and Pahlavas in Vāyu Puraṇa 26.121-128, invading the kingdom of Bāhu, 8 generations after Triśaṅku) can be connected to the same period. This harmonizes with the date (2000 BCE) given to the beginning of the so-called "Malwa Culture" (see here, p.227), which was also in Maheshwar (identified with the royal town of Arjuna, Māhiṣmatī), and with the presence of objects similar to Iranian ones in Malwa sites, like spouted pots (see here). Iranian or Central Asian affinities were found also in the Cemetery H culture starting from 1900 BCE. These western peoples can also be those mentioned in RV VII.18 like the Pakthas. So, this period of climatic crisis brought various invasions, especially from Central Asia, but also internal movements like that of the Haihayas from Malwa and of Rāvaṇa from the South. A drought is also connected with Lomapāda, the king of Aṅga in Eastern India, friend of Daśaratha, the father of Rāma (see MBh. III.310), but without mention of 12 years, that we find instead in the story of another figure contemporary of Rāma according to Lloyd, Māndhātṛ.

5) Māndhātṛ. MBh III.126:

“When there was a drought, which continued for twelve consecutive years, the mighty king caused rain to come down for the growth of crops, paying no heed to Indra, the wielder of the thunder-bolt, who remained staring (at him). The mighty ruler of the Gandhara land, born in the lunar dynasty of kings, who was terrible like a a roaring cloud, was slain by him, who wounded him sorely with his shafts. O king! he of cultured soul protected the four orders of people, and by him of mighty force the worlds were kept from harm, by virtue of his austere and righteous life. This is the spot where he, lustrous like the sun, sacrificed to the god. Look at it! here it is, in the midst of the field of the Kurus, situated in a tract, the holiest of all. O preceptor of earth! requested by thee, I have thus narrated to thee the great life of Mandhata, and also the way in which he was born, which was a birth of an extraordinary kind.”

It is significant that a Mandhātṛ is also cited in Ṛgveda (I.112, VIII.39, VIII.40), and he (called Māndhātṛ Yauvanāśva) is the poet of X.134 according to the Anukramaṇī, a hymn very similar to X.133 (sharing the meter mahāpaṅkti, phraseology and dedication to Indra), that is ascribed to Sudās and has also a refrain similar to RV VIII.39-40 and partially the same śakvarī and mahāpaṅkti meter. X.133 speaks of war, and the śakvarī meter is mentioned in the hymn of the battle of the Ten Kings, VII.33.4, as the meter of the cry that attracted Indra to fight on the side of Sudās (see the translation of Jamison and Brereton). So, we can suppose that they belong to the same age of Sudās, the king of the great battle, who is also a contemporary of Māndhātṛ in Lloyd's table. 

We will conclude with the story of Agastya: 

6) Agastya. MBh XIV.95:

"In olden days, O king, Agastya of great energy, devoted to the good of all creatures, entered into a Dīkṣā extending for twelve years. […] As Agastya, however, was engaged in that sacrifice of his, the thousand-eyed Indra, O best of the Bhāratas, ceased to pour rain (on the Earth). At the intervals, O king, of the sacrificial rites, this talk occurred among those Ṛṣis of cleansed souls about the high-souled Agastya, viz., 'This Agastya, engaged in sacrifice, is making gifts of food with heart purged of pride and vanity. The deity of the clouds, however, has ceased to pour rain. How, indeed, will food grow? This sacrifice of the Ṛṣi, ye Brahmanas, is great and extends for twelve years. The deity will not pour rain for these twelve years."

Agastya is known as brother of Vasiṣṭha, and is mentioned in MBh III.96, in connection with king Śrutarvan, Vadhryaśva (restored in the critical edition instead of Vradhnaśva) and Trasadasyu (III.96.12c-13a: agastyaś ca śrutarvā ca vadhryaśvaś ca mahīpatiḥ trasadasyuś ca). The famous Vadhryaśva is the father of Divodāsa Pañcāla, and Trasadasyu Paurukutsa can be the Aikṣvāku king already mentioned or, as Lloyd proposes, his descendant Tryaruṇa, called Trasadasyu in RV V.27.3.

Maybe it is due to this context that most of the hymns ascribed to Agastya in the Ṛgveda (I.165-191) end with the sentence: “May we know refreshment and a community having lively waters.” (vidyā́meṣáṃ vṛjánaṃ jīrádānum). And maybe significant is also his hymn to food and its juices (rasa), the so-called Annastuti (RV I.187), especially understandable in a period of famine and drought. 

So, we have finally to wonder if there is a possible scientific dating of this Great Drought. We have indeed some elements. In a paper by Berkelhammer et al. of 2012, "An Abrupt Shift in the Indian Monsoon 4000 Years Ago", we read: 

"Using a new high-resolution (~5 years/sample) speleothem stable isotope record from northeast India that spans the early and mid-Holocene, a number of abrupt changes in the oxygen isotopic composition of precipitation (δ 18 O p) are documented. The most dramatic of these events occurred ~4000 years ago when, over the course of approximately a decade, isotopic values abruptly rose above any seen during the early to mid-Holocene and remained at this anomalous state for almost two centuries. This event occurs nearly synchronously with climatic changes documented in a number of proxy records across North Africa, the Middle East, the Tibetan Plateau, southern Europe, and North America. We hypothesize that the excursion could represent a shift toward an earlier Indian Summer Monsoon withdrawal or a general decline in the total amount of monsoon precipitation. [...] the tight age constraints of the record show with a high degree of certainty that much of the documented deurbanization of the Indus Valley at 3.9 kyr B.P. occurred after multiple decades of a shift in the monsoon’s character but before the monsoon returned to its previous mid-Holocene state." "The most isotopically enriched values of the entire record occur between 4071 B.P. (±18 years) and 3888 B.P. (±22 years) during which the calcite remained enriched by ~0.8‰ relative to modern values (1.5‰ relative to the background values of the time) for a period of 183 years. The isotopic changes at this time manifested as a two-step process where values experienced a small steplike rise between ~4315 and 4303 years B.P. and experienced a second and more precipitous rise between ~4071 and 4049 years B.P. The abrupt shift occurred over approximately two decades, after which the values stabilized at this relatively enriched state for ~180 years before rapidly returning to previous background values at 3888 years B.P." "The monsoon over northeast India appears to have experienced an abrupt excursion at 4000 years B.P., the magnitude of which, in terms of both amplitude and length, exceeds any other event during either the most recent 600 years or throughout the early to mid-Holocene."

In this diagram from the paper (p.77) we see how around 4000 years BP we have a sudden fall of precipitation. In a supplementary list of dates the date of the sharp diminution of rain is 4055 BP, a sharp increase in 3941 BP, followed by another decrease, and finally a stable increase from 3899 BP. The lowest point is between 4049 and 4037 BP. Taken exactly, since BP is based on 1950 CE, this suggests a special drought in South Asia between 2099 and 2087 BCE. The error given is 30 years. Also a paper by Dixit of 2014 ("Abrupt weakening of the summer monsoon in northwest India ~4100 yr ago"), about the Kotla Dahar lake in Haryana, gives a similar date: "An abrupt 4‰ increase in δ18Oa occurred at ca. 4.1 ka, documenting a sharp reduction in Indian Summer Monsoon intensity."

So, it seems that the great drought of 12 years was in the 21st century BCE. We can also suppose that it is a stereotypical drought that refers to different episodes until 1900 BCE when precipitations came back (which can be alluded in the stories that stress the end of the drought). So, it can refer to several generations, but we have seen how the period involved appears to be mostly that between Triśaṅku and Rāma, that in my chronology is to be placed between the 21st and 20th century BCE. This drought is also placed in the same period (2200-2000/1900 BCE) where there was a strong aridity in the Near East and Central Asia, that likely caused migrations of people from the most arid regions, like the invaders mentioned in the Battle of the Ten Kings and in the Purāṇas. All this tends to confirm the historicity of several events described in the Mahābhārata and Purāṇas, and the chronology based on the date of Mahābhārata war in 1432 BCE. And this denies that Indo-Aryans could have arrived during the 2nd millennium BCE, although some Iranic populations could have arrived into South Asia in that period.    

Update 30/1/2023

I have found today a 2018 article by Gayatri Kathayat et al., Evaluating the timing and structure of the 4.2 ka event in the Indian summer monsoon domain from an annually resolved speleothem record from Northeast India, that gives a similar picture but more precise and without the recovery of 'normal' monsoon. In comparison with the previous paper, it says:

"The 4.2 ka event in the KM-A record (Berkelhammer et al., 2012) manifests as a two-step change marked by an initial increase in the δ 18O values (∼ 0.6 ‰) between ∼ 4.31 and 4.30 ka, followed by another abrupt increase between ∼ 4.07 and 4.05 ka. The period between 4.05 and 3.87 ka in the KM-A profile is characterized by the most enriched δ 18O values over the entire record (∼ 1.5 ‰ higher than the background values before the event; Fig. 7), delineating ∼ 180 years of substantially weaker ISM. This multi-centennial period of enriched δ 18O values was terminated abruptly by a sharp return (< 20 years) to depleted δ 18O values, implying a resumption of stronger monsoon. The ML.1 and ML.2 δ 18O profiles during the contemporaneous period with the KM-A record, however, exhibit no step-like increase around ∼ 4.3 ka but instead an abrupt increase in the δ 18O values at ∼ 4.01 ka, which are superimposed over a gradually increasing trend over the entire length of the records. The timings and magnitude of this abrupt increase in the δ 18O values in both the ML.1 and ML.2 profiles are comparable to those observed in the KM-A profile (within the combined age uncertainties of both records; Fig. 7). A key difference between the KM-A, ML.1, and ML.2 δ 18O profiles, however, is the absence of a sharp decrease in the δ 18O values at ∼ 3.87 ka in our records, which marks the termination of the 4.2 ka event in the KM-A record.

The interval marking the onset of the 4.2 ka event in our record (∼ 4.255 ka) is indicated by a transition from pluvial (inferred by the lower δ 18O values) to variable ISM (dry–wet) conditions, with the latter superimposed by a few short-term (< decade) droughts (Fig. 8). Subsequently, the period between 4.07 and ∼ 4.01 ka is marked by persistently lower δ 18O values, implying stronger ISM (Fig. 8). The latter was terminated by a rapid increase in the δ 18O values (∼ 1.0 ‰, Fig. 5), suggesting an abrupt weakening of the ISM at ∼ 4.01 ka that occurred within a period of ∼ 10 years. Notably, as discussed above, the ML.1 and ML.2 δ 18O profiles show gradual increasing trends over the entire length of the record, which was punctuated by two multi-decadal weak monsoon events centered at ∼ 3.970 (∼ 20 years) and ∼ 3.915 ka (∼ 25 years), respectively (Fig. 8). These aspects of our ISM reconstruction differ from previous proxy records from the ISM domain, which typically portray the 4.2 ka event as a multi-century drought (e.g., Berkelhammer et al., 2012; Dixit et al., 2014). Our new data, however, demonstrate that prominent decadal to multi-decadal variability, together with the intermittent occurrence of multi-decadal periods of low rainfall, was the dominant mode of ISM variability during the period coeval with the 4.2 ka event."

So, here is confirmed a sudden and intense drought lasting approximately 10 years, around 2000 BCE. Here is the image showing a comparison with the previous analysis in the same cave, showing how the drought is placed later after a more humid period: the drastic change should have been catastrophic.