Creation of Thar Desert!

‘Itihaas’ is misinterpreted as ‘Mythology’ by ignorant translators. Mythology deals with myths and stories while Itihaas means “it thus happen”. Both Ramayana and Mahabharata were called Itihaas because their writers Maharishi Valmiki and Maharishi Ved Vyasa were contemporaries of those times and recorded the history as it happened.

The Great Indian Thar desert is the 17 largest land in the subtropical desert and also one of the most populated. About 40% of the total population of Rajasthan lives in the Thar Desert. The Thar desert has a fairly high population density of 83 persons per square km. Overall, it has a total population of around 16,600,000 or 16 million (According to the 2011 census). Compared with the Sahara Desert which is large as the United States has a population of around 2.5 million and a population density of 0.4 per square kilometer.

The Thar Desert stretches between the Aravali Hills in the northeast to the Great Rann of Kutch along the coast and the Flood Plains of the Indus River in the West and Northwest. It is believed that the Thar Desert is the most civilized desert in the world, ask why?

The reason is that out of all the deserts in the world the Thar has roads, infrastructures, and human settlements dating back thousands of years. In fact, the study suggested that civilization flourished in the Thar region about 50,000 years ago. The Thar Desert marks the border with India and Pakistan. About 85% of the desert is in India and the rest in Pakistan.

In India alone, The Thar Desert extends its boundaries to Gujarat, Haryana, and Punjab. Thousands of years ago, the Saraswati river crossed the Thar Desert and routed to the Indian Ocean. However, some studies suggested that the rising dry climatic condition in the Thar had dried the river.

According to the Epic Ramayana, Lord Rama created the Thar desert during his exile, in search of his wife Sita. Lord Rama had to cross the ocean from today's Rameshwaram to reach Lanka. He prayed to the ocean deity for a few days so that the ocean water could subside and give way to Lord Rama and his army to march to Lanka. However, when the oceans failed to pay attention to Lord Rama's humble request, Lord Ram hopelessly summoned one of his divine weapons to dry up the ocean.

Anticipating his end was near, the oceanic deity appeared before Lord Ram and begged for mercy. He Suggested the correct way to solve Lord Rama’s problem and since the divine weapon could not be gone in vain once summoned, the ocean deity asked Lord Rama to release the divine weapons to the northward where a place called Drumatulya is located.

He argued that a cruel gang of thieves lives in that area. Lord Rama did what was suggested and the weapon hit the area where the Thar desert is today. After a while, the water of the place dried up but Rama blessed the region saying it would be conducive to raising cattle and also to produce butter, milk, and clarified fruits and roots as well as useful herbs. Click Here for the link of Sanskrit shloka depicting this story.