One opinion very common among the scholars of our country is that ancient Indians have not been good at historiography. This critical remark emerges from the fact that our country is steeped in unbelievable mythological fund. As such, the historians had copious material from which they could cull out stories to be reproduced in the shape of history. Ancient Indians stuck to mythology but paid little attention to history. On the other hand, other ancient civilizations like the Greek and the Iranians or the Egyptians did maintain historical record of sorts which became the basis for their national history.
The one very prominent exception to this generalization is of Pandit Kalhana who wrote the famous history called Rajatarangini. But he makes a mention of about five other historians of Kashmir who had preceded him and whose works were within his reach to be utilized in his work. A close study of Rajatarangini will show that had not Kalhana added the historical element to his composition, Rajatarangini would have been just another piece of mythology. Even Jawaharlal Nehru has conceded that Kalhana is the first and the most significant historian of India.
The point is that our mythology is intertwined with history. Or to put it in right perspective, we have derived history from mythology. The fact is that ancient man was not aware of geophysical changes that take place owing to action and interaction of elements. Whenever something cataclysmic happened because of geographical reasons, the ancient man attributed it to the wrath of the nature. So to him the Mother Nature was benign as well as wrathful. We have the widespread myth that Kashmir was an enormous ocean and there was no habitation whatsoever. The mythology says that seer Kashyapa prayed for hundreds of years and then Vishnu assumed the shape of a unicorn (varah) who struck his horn at the mountain at a place now called after him as Varahmul (Baramulla), made an aperture and then water flowed down till the valley became dry. This is the mythological story in Nilamata Purana and from there historians like Kalhana, Jonaraja and others including Muslim historians carried the story.
But a student of geology and geography will put forward a scientific principle of cause and effect. Kashmir certainly could be a huge ocean because it is girded on all sides by mountains and the enormous glaciers when melting in part during summer sent down waters that filled this ocean. But then by a geological change, most probably a big earthquake happened in immemorial times that split the mountain near Baramulla and made way for the water to flow down till valley became dry.
Aryans, after they established themselves in northern India, had to make many exploits. One important innovation on their part was to assign elements, big or small, to deities and heavenly bodies. They tried to make nature and its positive elements subservient to man’s need and desire. In the first place the Sun occupied primary position in his chemistry of nature formation. For a long time ancient man worshipped the Sun as the Creator and Preserver. Ancient man glorified in calling himself the son of Surya or descending from Surya. Bhagwan Ramchandar ji claimed to be the descendent of the line of Sun God and then many Rajput ruling dynasties of great eminence in the foothills of the Himalayas or in the sands of Rajasthan also called themselves as Suryavanshi and Suryaputri.
Tawi, that skirts the hillock on which Jammu city is perched, is also called Suryaputri or the daughter of the Sun. We have more Tawi rivers, in Poonch and Rajouri Districts and also in Himachal besides the Jammu Tawi or Tuv in local dialect. Nilamata Purana speaks of Tohi, and eminent Sanskrit scholar of Jammu, Prof. Ved Ghai believes that it is the ancient name of Tawi. Phonetic changes do take place and mostly under set rules and that is what we call a dialect. For example, in Kashmiri the original name of Jhelum is Vitasta which we find in chronicles but in local dialect it is called Vyeth.
Yes, there is the legend that a saintly person worshiped Sun God for long time and he got a female child who, when she grew, was a great beauty and the parents gave her the name of Toshi Bhaskara meaning the daughter of the Sun. Therefore Toshi (Tawi) came to be called the Daughter of the Sun.
It is a fact that the rivulets or nullahs called Tawi in Poonch, Rajouri, Jammu and Himachal all emerge from the eastern Shivaliks and in early morning the rays of the rising sun falling on the water make it sparkle. Early Aryans had always attributed divine sanctity to nature’s manifestations like rivers, mountains, trees (forests), gorges, springs and lakes. If our forefathers were not very clever at history they surely were very clever at geography and topography. They have sung in praise of nature’s objects and given a new dimension to the geography that surrounded them. Which of our rivers is not sacred to us? It is because India is an agricultural country and our great habitats have sprung on the banks of rivers. That is our early geography.
In the same way Tawi of Jammu, or other Tawis, too, enjoys, great sanctity with the people of this land. It has historicity and it has sanctity. Shri Dwarkanath Shastri, a learned Sanskrit scholar from Jammu wrote Tawi Shatkam in 1980 in praise of the Tawi or Tav rivers and thus rejuvenated the tradition and epitomized it in his verses.
But alas! How sad that we find irresponsible people polluting the waters of Tawi and making it the dumping ground for garbage. The purpose of sanctifying the Tawi or other rivers was just to keep people away from polluting the water or the banks of the river. People have lost the history and mythology of the river and now we depend on the Government to use its powers to keep Tawi out of pollution and desecration.
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