Welcome to Punjabi Lore, in this chapter we will explore the birth of Punjab, its culture and its people. Before we begin, I hope you are all keeping well with the current coronavirus crisis. I begun researching this topic during a studying break in my University library…I was walking through the isles and a book on Punjabi history caught my eye so I opened it. The break turned into a long one as I kept on reading. I eventually started taking notes as I kept coming back to the same book. I had never been exposed to fact based non-biased information about history from my own background. At school we never learned about colonialism and most history was told from a Western perspective. So this was refreshing to see!
While I have some time stuck at home, I figured I should make a video on YouTube to explore my background and heritage as I have been curious about the history behind Punjab and Sikhism. I hope we can explore and learn this journey together.
If you are curious to learn more, I would recommend the book ‘A History of Sikhs’ by Khushwant Singh since this has been my main sources for this video. Without further ado let’s explore the birth of Punjab.
Geography
In the beginning, around 35 million years ago, the Indian subcontinent collided with the Eurasia plate creating vast mountain ranges. The Punjab is geographically distinct from the rest of the subcontinent, shaped in a scalene triangle. The shortest side is to the north, composed of the massive Himalayas which separate it from the Tibetean plateau.
The Western side is bounded by the river Indus where it flows down to meet Punjab’s rivers at a place name ‘panj-nad’ or 5 streams. West of the Indus runs a chain of rugged mountains, the Hindu Kush and the Sulaiman. These mountains to the west have several passes such as the Khyber Pass which were important in shaping Punjab’s history, serving as inlets for the people of Afghanistan and beyond.
The Punjab, except for the salt range in its centre, is an extensive plain sloping gently down from the mountains in the north and the west towards the desert in the south. Across this flat land, flow six large rivers: the Indus, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and the Sutlej. In the tracts or ‘doabs’ between these rivers lives the community who describe themselves as the people of The Punjab.
When the Aryans came to India there were seven rivers in the Punjab, so they named it ‘Sapta Sindhva’, the land of the seven seas. The Persians took the name from the Aryans and called it the ‘Hafta Hindva’.
Sometime later, after the seventh river, the Sarasvati, had dried up, and people began to exclude the Indus from the count (since it marked only the western boundary of the province) it was renamed after the remaining five rivers. Panj meaning five and ab meaning rivers in Persian. Giving the name Punjab or the land of five rivers.
The climate of this fertile area of land ranges from bracing cold in the winter to scorching heat in the summer. Extremes of temperature and the two monsoons produce a variety of seasons and a constantly changing landscape.
The spring is traditionally ushered in early in the month of February. It is the Punjab’s blossom time, when, in the words of Guru Nanak, ‘all is seemly; the woodlands are in flower and loud with the humming of bumble bees. The countryside is an expanse of mustard yellow, broken by solid squares of green sugarcane. If the winter monsoon has been good, a crop of wheat, barley, gram, oilseeds, and tobacco will cover the land with lush abundance.
With the coming of spring the peasants would wind brightly coloured turbans round their heads, put on waistcoats covered with pearl buttons, tie bells round their ankles, and dance the bhangra to the beat of the drum.
This simple folk music originating by farmers performing moves on the spot to finish their job in a pleasurable way would later be infused as a martial dance known as Gatka to defend the very fields it originated from. Bhangra would also heavily influence the Bollywood film industry and music from around the world in years to come.
However, there was little rest for the peasants. Cotton was to be picked and the land ploughed again for sowing wheat and gram. In fact, in modern times the Indian Punjab is often referred to as the ‘Granary of India’ proving 20% of India’s wheat and 9% of India’s rice. Globally this represents 2% of the worlds cotton, 2% of its wheat and 1% of its rice. As we can see Punjab was a very fertile land attracting many communities and cultures for the years to come…
Jhoty 