भारत (Bhārat)¹--part: ਪੰਜਾਬ (Panjāb),² हिमाचल परदॆश³ (Himāchal Pradesh)⁴ and हरियाणा (Hariyāna)⁵ (states); चंडीगढ़ (Chanḍīgarh)⁶ and डिलली⁷ (Dillī)⁸ (union territories)

How is the land laid out?

These 151 thousand square kilometers are in northern India. There are three geophysical zones: the Himalaya Mountains of this area's northeast, the Indo-Gangetic plain and a piece of the Thar, or Great Indian, Desert near the Haryana-Punjab border in the area's southwest.

The mountains consist of three parallel ranges: the Zaskar in the extreme northeast, along Himachal Pradesh's border; the Great Himalayas, and the Lesser Himalayas, here also called the Siwalik Range. The latter reach above 4,000 meters in the Dhaola Hills. The Great Himalayas locally reach above 6,500 meters.⁹ A peak in the Zaskars reaches above 7,000 meters.¹⁰

Two ocean-reaching river systems, the Indus and the Ganga,¹¹ cover some of the area directly, and all of it through the numerous canals of ਪੰਜਾਬ (Panjāb) and हरियाणा (Hariyāna). In between them, amongst the man-made water ways, is a famous part of the Indus system--thousands of years ago--that now ends in the Thar Desert: the Ghagghar River.

The Ganga system is represented here by the Yamuna.¹² Some of its headwaters are in southwestern हिमाचल परदॆश (Himāchal Pradesh). Its main course emerges from Uttarakhand and follows the eastern border of हरियाणा (Hariyāna).

The Indus system is represented here by four of the "five waters" of Indo-Pakistani Panjāb:¹³ the Chenab, the Ravi, the Sutlej and the Beas. The Chenab begins in the Zaskars and flows in a valley of the Great Himalayas to exit हिमाचल परदॆश (Himāchal Pradesh) and enter the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The Ravi's headwaters begin in the Great Himalayas and the river itself forms the northern border¹⁴ of ਪੰਜਾਬ (Panjāb) as it enters the plain. The Beas starts in the Great Himalayas and--after being dammed to form one of the two principle bodies of water in the region--it flows through northwest ਪੰਜਾਬ (Panjāb) and joins the Sutlej. That river enters हिमाचल परदॆश (Himāchal Pradesh) from 中华 (Zhōnghuá)¹⁵ at the Shipki La Pass, cuts through the Great and Lesser Himalayas, is dammed to form the Govind Sagar, crosses the plains of central ਪੰਜਾਬ (Panjāb), and forms part of that Indian state's southwest border.

The Great Himalayan National Park in हिमाचल परदॆश (Himāchal Pradesh) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site honoring nature.

Map

Who lives there?

More than 70 million people live here (2007). More than 19 in 20 speak Hindi, Urdu or Eastern Panjabi, mutually intelligible languages that are written in three scripts and associated with three religions.¹⁶ Almost three in four people are Hindus and nearly one in four Sikhs.

There are five cities with more than a million residents: डिलली (Dillī) and its suburbs, फरीदाबाद (Pharīdābād or Farīdābād) in the area and गाजियाबाद (Gājiyābād or Ghāziābād) in nearby Uttar Pradesh (Northern State), Ludhiana, डिलली (Chanḍīgarh) and Amritsar.

There is one UNESCO World Heritage Site honoring modern culture: the Kalka-Shimla Railway.

Who was there before?

The Harappan civilzation was in Panjāb about four thousand years ago. The Harappan language and religion is unknown.

Indo-Aryans moved into this and other parts of India, probably in the second millenium BCE. Their language of Sanskrit may have been in use as far back as 1000 BCE. or earlier, and had become a liturgical and literary language by 500 BCE.

The Indo-Aryans brought their religion with them, but it had already begun to move away from common Indo-European roots. The elite form of the religion, featuring Varuna, Indra and Soma, was written down in the first millenium BCE. Over time this Vedic religion embraced more elements, and transformed into Hinduism. During the changes rival religions arose: Buddhism, Jainism and Ajivikaism being the three most important.

By the beginning of the first millenium CE, the Ajivika religion was gone and the area had a mixture of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. The conquering Iranian groups in the early first millenium CE, the Sakas and Kushanas, did not change this mix, which persisted into the second millenium.

After the second millenium, Jainism and Buddhism faded away. Islam arrived before the area was conquered by the Islamic Moghuls, and gained in importance under their rule. Many Moslems left when Pakistan was created.

Hindi dialects, including Eastern Panjabi, developed in the first half of the last millenium.

The Sikh religion started in Panjāb in the 15th century.

ਜਲੰਧਰ (Jalandhar)¹⁷ is a city of 862 thousand¹⁸ located in the plains between the Beās and Sutlej rivers, in ਪੰਜਾਬ (Panjāb). थानेसर (Thānesar)¹⁹ is a city of 155 thousand²⁰ on the Ghaggar River in हरियाणा (Hariyāna). Both cities are of historical significance.

There are three UNESCO World Heritage Sites honoring pre-modern culture, all in डिलली (Dillī): Hamayun's Tomb; the Qutb Minar and its monuments; and the Red Fort Complex.

Around the Area

north
east
southeast of Himachal Pradesh and east of Haryana
southwest
northwest

Footnotes

1. India in English.
2. Punjab in conventional English transliteration.
3. Proper rendering of the 'PR' in Pradesh in the Devanāgarī script is a conjunct with a downward left stroke attached to the bottom left of प.
4. The च is an unaspirated 'ch.' Some transliterations map this to just 'c.' Pradesh means state.
5. Haryana or Haryāna in conventional English transliteration. The last two vowels are both represented by ा, but I followed convention in only putting a macron on the middle one.
6. The च is an unaspirated 'ch.' Some transliterations map this to just 'c.'
7. Proper rendering creates a composite letter out of the two ल letters, with a single vertical line on the right.
8. Delhi in English.
9. I do not know the name of the tallest peak. De Tibba is mentioned in Hugh Swift, The Trekkers's Guide to the Himalaya and Karakoram but it's height is given at 19,600 feet, just over 6,000 meters, whereas atlases show a peak of 6,632 or 6,517 meters, depending on the atlas.
10. I do not know its name; it is northeast of the village of Kibar.
11. Ganges in English.
12. Also called the Jumna.
13. Panjāb (Punjab in English) means 'five waters.'
14. The ਪੰਜਾਬ/ (Panjāb)/ Jammu and Kashmir border is uncertain.
15. Chung-hua is an alternate transliteration. China in English.
16. Most people treat Eastern Panjabi or Panjabi as a separate language from Hindi; Eastern Panjabi is often lumped with the quite different Western Panjabi (Lahnda) and less often with Siraiki. The religious affiliation is so pronounced that some Eastern Panjabi-speaking Hindus say they speak Hindi when all their Sikh neighbors say they speak Panjabi. Urdu is also treated as a separate language from Hindi, though less frequently than Eastern Panjabi.
17. Formerly called Jullundur in English.
18. 2011 figure from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_India_by_population, accessed February 26, 2017.
19. Formerly (in transliteration) Sthanishvara.
20. 2011 figure from the side bar of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanesar, accessed February 26, 2017, which cites http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/paper2/data_files/India2/Table_2_PR_Cities_1Lakh_and_Above.pdf, which I accessed March 13, 2018. The city is not listed in 2011 figure from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_million-plus_urban_agglomerations_in_India, accessed February 26, 2017, presumably because it did not meet the definition of 'urban agglomeration,' even though its size exceeded the cutoff.
21. I do not know how the city's name was written in 100 CE or even if this, or some close variant, was the name then used.
22. Tertius Chandler, Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth, 2nd ed. (The Edwin Mellen Press, 1987), "Tables of the World's Largest Cities." In 100 CE it was smaller than Tosali, which was smaller than Angora, which had 34 thousand residents. It was larger than 湖州 (Hangzhou), which was larger than Changsha, which was larger than Ayodhya, which was larger than Tunhuang, which had 32 thousand residents. In 100 CE it was then the largest city in this part of what is now भारत (Bhārat or India). He does not indicate how he came by this estimate, nor did I find support for the prominence of the city in Joseph E. Schwartzberg, ed., A Historical Atlas of South Asia (University of Chicago Press, 1978). In 1800 it was smaller than Ichang, which was smaller than Guizhou, which was smaller than Nizampatam, which was smaller than Ellichpur, which was smaller than Jaén, which had 25 thousand residents. It was larger than Bulaq, which had 24 thousand residents.
23. I do not know the proper rendering of the city's older name.
24. Chandler, op. cit. In 622 CE the city was smaller than Coptos, which waas smaller than Samarkand, which had 45 thousand residents. It was bigger than Thessalonica, which had 40 thousand residents. In 1000 it was smaller than Kashbar, which was smaller than Qus, which had 45 thousand residents. It was larger than Balasaghun, which was larger than Hsiangyang, which was larger than Lhasa, which was larger than Ujjani, which was larger than Liaoyang, which had 40 thousand residents. In 622 and 1000 it was the largest city in this part of what is now भारत (Bhārat or India).
25. I do not know the city's name in Persian, which was the court language of the Sikh Empire.