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5 The Sikh Homeland The Name: 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, people began to exclude the Indus from the count (since it marked only the western boundary of the province) and renamed it after the remaining five rivers as Pentopotamia or the panj-ab, the land of the five waters.2 Climate and Landscape The climate of the Punjab 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. and lbe theme of the Bhagavad Gita. Because of its association with Krishna, this land was reputed to he free ofsorrow-nirdu~. lt was also lbe /Jrahmiivarta, the land of the holy singers where many of the great classics of Sanskrit literature were written. Manu refers to it as the land frequented by gods (ii, 17). The Chinese traveller Hmian Tsang, who visited the Punjab in the 7th century AD, refers to it as the suklu:ibhumi, the land of contennnenl. f. Bhatiana, area in southwestern Puajab extending from Hissar to Bikaner, which was the home of Bhatti Rajputs; hence bha/ilmli, the land of the Bhattis. g. Hariana, comprising Hissar, Rohta.k, and the southern pans of the old states ofJind and Patiala. This tract of desert was at one time irrigated by the Sarasvari and was very green; hence hariana., the green land. 2 Two other names by which parts of the Punjab were known in ancient times were: a. Madra Desha, the land of the m<1dras. So named after Madri, the mother of the Pandavas. Madra Desha extended from the Beas to the Oienab or the Jhelum. Its capital was at Sakala, probably present-day Saugla. In the Bicitra Niifak, Guru Gobind Singh also speaks of the Punjab as the Madra Desha. U- Dowson, Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mytlw/,ogy and Religion, p. 183.) b. Uttarapath, or the northern country. This name appears in Buddhist literature.