Ancient Hindus were aware of Conservation

Water is one of the most essential matter for living things on earth. Beyond water, we never assume lives on the earth. People were very alert to conserve water sources in ancient epoch too. Hindu mythology denotes this kinds of practices, so it also suggests worshiping rivers and trees with high priority.

Holey Seti river in summer, Nepal

 In 1986, I was on a journey from Guwahati, a northeastern city to Varanasi, a religious city of India by a train. It was about midnight, I found saffron attired old and the fat man was sitting on the seat in front of me. He was in the companion of three other disciples. He was telling them that the sin would be in the climax in “kalyug”, Varun Deva, a deity of water according to the Hindu mythology would absorb water from the earth to punish men and later he recreates another renewed earth for new morale men again. He further told that before of new creation the great water crisis will have occurred here and people will die of thirst. Powerful class of people will engage to fight wars to capture the sources of water. Ultimately the earth will be sinking in a great flood. The fable was very interesting for me at that time. But I am remembering repeatedly after three decades, at this time.

Rivers are cited in as the deity in Hindu mythologies and they are worshiped by the followers since ancient time and trees are also has been giving similar status in these texts. It shows the interconnection of water and forest. We can imagine that the essential values of rivers and forest were identified by the people, thousands of year ago. Those people were well aware of the water crisis. Rigveda cites about ten holey rivers Ganga, Yamuna, Saraswati, Parusni(Ravi), Asikni(Chenab), Marudvrdha, Vitasta(Jhelum), Arjikiya, Sonoma, Satadru(Sutlej). We find some trees in the Veda text as Ashvatta, Pippa, Bhanga,    Karanja, Karkandu, Khadira, Nyagrodh etc. River Saraswati is the subject of research because the river and its exact locations are still unidentified. We will write about the existence of this river in our another post on this blog later.

Seeing the present crisis of water, Sometimes I think, really the earth is going to be full of sin as a hermit told his decipels in train before three decades. Really the world is in grip of evil? But no, although the situation is not easy, it is not the time to be a pessimist.

  

 With the passing of time, people are losing the essential relation between water sources and forest but they are still doing worship of trees and rivers without the proper knowledge. The tradition is running only the basis of culture.

Global warming, rapidly increasing population and migrating toward the developing area are the major causes of the water crisis. Except the snow feeding rivers, other tributaries are depending on forest feeding system. Deforestation is leading to the dry of water sources. Thousands of hectares of arable lands are going to be change into the desert.

Water crisis means not only the need for fresh and healthy drinking water but the need for irrigation and sanitation, also increasing toward the serious point.  The geography does not provide equal access of water everywhere. I have seen that the people living in High Mountain in Nepal expenses more time to fetch drinking water. People of the southern plane of Nepal are facing a crisis of drinking water, sanitation, and irrigation. 

Dry land in Cauvery basin (image from Cauvery calling)

Cauvery River of south India is fighting against the end. The river basin of Cauvery in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka states in crisis due to lack of water. Farmers in the basin are in suffering from drought and news sources said, many of them commit suicide. Cauvery is depleted over 40 present in the last 7 decades. The forest of the basin is degraded up to 87 present and land is suffering from erosion. People are trying to upgrade the situation now and launching a movement to the plantation. The havoc is not only of Cauvery, hundreds of other rivers facing the same problem on the earth in this time.

   Libya is facing great trouble of water crisis. Political turmoil drew Libya in the ditch of water crisis. Yemen, Djibouti, Jordan and Western Sahara region is in the havoc of this water scarcity. We are in a very critical time now to do something for the future.