If the present trend of global warming continues and the temperature goes up by a few degrees, India’s northern plains and Deccan plateau may turn into hell. And Tibet will go back to the future
A large number of people died and more people may die this summer due to heat waves across the northern plains and the Deccan plateau of India. The ancient literatures — the Vedas and the Puranas — describe the swarg (heaven), the patal (valley) and narak (hell). During the Vedic period, the Devas and the Asuras fought battle after battle to take possession of the Devlok, the heaven — the most suitable and liveable land in Tibet — the land in and around Kailash, Manasarovar and the Meru Mountains.
Hot environmental conditions intensified across north India in the last week of May, 2018 with the mercury hovering between 46 and 50 degrees Celsius across the landscape. In the absence of adequate forests in the Vindhyas and Aravallis, the rocky hills radiated infra-red radiation, generating tremendous heat and warming the air.
In Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, temperature exceeded 47 degrees Celsius, breaking the previous record. At few sites, the temperature touched the 50 degrees Celsius mark. Several cities such as Barmer, Sri Ganganagar, Kota, Jhansi and Allahabad were the warmest with temperatures touching/crossing 47 degree Celsius.
Several people succumbed to sunstroke as most parts of the northern plains simmered at record temperatures. The last decade was the warmest during the last few hundred years. like this year, India was struck by a severe heat wave in May 2015, causing the deaths of at least 2,500 people in various regions. Around 2,320 people died in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where temperatures crossed 46 degrees Celsius; Khammam recorded a scorching 48 degrees Celsius.
A score of human death this year may reach an unprecedented high due to heat waves and storms in northern India. The stable climate is perturbed and this extreme environment is an indicator of climate change. The northern plains and the Deccan Plateau are turning into hell and not, not liveable, especially if the summer temperature further increases by few celsius. The debate of global warming is a topic hotly discussed round the table.
In 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) mentioned that the greatest single impact on climate change had been the human migration — with millions of people displaced by the advancement of the “Ice Age” or the abrupt rise in temperature or shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and droughts. In the ancient time, people had no technological options and they had to migrate searching for a suitable environment. Various analysts explained advancement and collapse of civilisations with the climate change and natural calamities — being the prime factors. It appears logical that the destruction of Devlok — a land where Devas, a tribe of the Aryans lived — or the decline of the Saraswati-Indus valley civilisation or migration of the Aryan were due to climate change.
Several historians believed that the Aryans lived in some lands in the northern part of Europe or Asia before the “Ice Age” when climate was suitable there. The period from 23,000 to 9,000 BCE was the “Ice Age” when people from the Arctic region migrated to the South. The glaciation ended in 8,500 BCE and the climate became moderately hot by 7,600 BCE. It is possible that during the hot period (7,600-6,400), some people moved to the North or in the mountains to avoid heat.
The presence of the Aryans and the development of their civiliation in the Pamir Mountains, upper Indus Valley and Caucasus mountains during this period is guessed. Some Indian historians believe that Devas established their Devlok during this period but the mini Ice Age around 6,200 BCE create some doubts. The 8,200 year event is the term that climatologists have used for a sudden decline in global temperatures that occurred approximately 8,200 years before the present, and which lasted for the three centuries (6,360-6,030 BCE). The 8,200 year cooling was a significant exception to general trends of the Holocene climatic optimum.
The Pamir, the Himalayas and Tibet could be extremely cold, almost the temperature of the glacial age. The climate in this region was not suitable for people during this period. In the backdrop of this fact, there is less possibility of the existence of Devlok in the Tibetan region during this period.
let’s agree with the ancient literature and several authors that Tibet was Devlok in the past. But whenIJ The climate started getting warmer from 6,000 BCE and reached to its unprecedented peak, highest since man stepped out from Africa, around 5,850 BCE when a very long warm period prevailed for over six hundred years. During this period of 6,000-5,400 BCE, the earth was warmest in the previous one hundred fifty thousand years, before man stepped out Africa.
Scientists established a fact that the salt water of the Mediterranean Sea entered the Caspian Sea (a fresh water lake before this event) in this period. The climate of Tibet turned cool but pleasant with plenty of soft grasslands. Plenty of water, lakes and rivers and extensive pasture lands attracted the pastoralists Aryans. Migration of the Aryans from their lands near Aral or Caspian Sea to the Pamir Mountains and then to Tibet appears logical.
This was the period when cow and horse rearing reached its peak. Deva-civilisation flourished in the best environment in Tibet when the Indian plains and Deccan plateau were were so warm that they were called hell. Tremendous heat, explosion in the population of reptiles, harmful bacteria and virus in warm environment made this land not liveable whereas the high Himalayas and the land around Mansarovar and Kailash in Tibet with wonderful pastureland, ungulates, and cattle were heaven.
Devas occupied this land, pushing the Asuras down the Himalayas. The tribes fought battle after battle to take possession of the most liveable land — the swarg, the Devlok. At times, Devas lost to Asuras but later regained their territory.
The climate in the Devlok remained relatively stable for over 600 years till the cold period began when progenies of Devas-Manvas came down from the Devlok and the Himalayas to the Indo-Gangetic plains. Due to the presence of heavy snow in Tibet and the high Himalayas, the land turned hostile. The hell in the plains of northern India became liveable. The great civilisation flourished in the Indo-Gangetic plains for a long period.
But nature has its own way to complete the cycle. If the present trend of global warming continues and the temperature goes up by few degree Celsius, the northern plans and Deccan Plateau of India may turn into hell again while Tibet may gain its previous glory. The climate change data after the Ice Age has been developed by the climate experts in the world. Are we entering in another era of Hot AgeIJ
(The writer is Member, National Board for Wild life)