Talk:Sarasvati River

Entry

I have moved sources and links into the entry, since no one else has done so. The statement " TheHelmand River in Afghanistan, which historically bore the name 'sarasvati' " does not tell us who gave it this identification with the Rig Veda river, nor when. Was it so called by locals at an early date? Or was the identification made by an Indian or Arab geographer? Why should we think this has relevance? This is pabulum as it stands. Wetman 01:36, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Plaska

In the Mahabharata, Skanda Purana and other texts the Sarasvati is associated with the Plaska tree. Some have argued that Plaska could be a Ficus species, probably ficus lacor or ficus infectoria. Kalyanaraman, S. (1999) The River Sarasvati: Legend, Myth and Reality

Sutlej Flowed to the Southwest to join Beas not Saraswati

Vipasa or beas was a much longer river until about a 1000 years ago, when Sutlej changed course abandoning its old channel in southwestern Punjab near Bathinda and took a westerly turn from east of Ludhiana towards Harike beyond there it now flows in the old channel of Beas down to Pakistan, there is a dried up channel from the old Beas river bed just to the west of Ferozepur as the Beas now joins Sutlej at Harike instead of taking a U-turn like bend from Kasur before coming back to the present Sutlej channel(old beas channel) south-west of ferozepur as it did about a millenium ago, people living downstream from the confluence of sutlej and beas still call the river Beas, even though Sutlej is clearly the larger river, also they call the dried up channel west of ferozepur near Kasur, sukka Beas(dried up Beas). Geologists have discovered that Beas joined Satluj west south-west of Abohar near Sulemanke and Hindumalkot before Sutlej changed its course towards Harike to meet Beas several hundered kilometers upstream. Saraswati was clearly Ghaggar as is clear from the enormous course of Ghaggar which is several kilometers wide even in the mountainous Shivalik belt which is very unsual for a small seasonal river, Saraswati has been wrongly identified by some vested interests as originating from adi badri in Yamunanagar district of Haryana.

Kurukshetra is a mythical battlefield said to be hundered kilometers in area, it is true if we look at the present day drishdavati and ghaggar but not the present day Saraswati which was known as Sarsa(there is another river named sarsa near present day bilaspur/anandpur in Himachal/Punjab) until a few decades ago when swamis and politicians that are busy destroying the ancient heritage with their own hands with their theories.

There was never a town named Kurukshetra, the town that is now called Kurukshetra is holy part of the city of Thanesar, where there existed several tirths or temples, the place was called Sthaneswar which is mentioned in several ancient Indian texts and was the site of one of the biggest temples that was destroyed by Mahmud of Ghazni, it was also the capital of Harsha and later on of the Hindu Shahis after they lost afghanistan and western punjab to Mahmud. After 1947 some people with the active abetment of the government of Punjab and later Haryana started calling the town kurukshetra which is very dishonest and an insult to Indian heritage as Kurukshetra was a vast battlefield between Saraswati and drishdavati and not a small town.

Now the question of Saraswati/ghaggar/hakra having such a large channel right from the lower hills to the Rann of Kutch. Geologists have uncovered evidence of a large earthquake in the region where Ghaggar originates, it is very close to the point where Giri a river that originates from himalayan glaciers in himachal takes a sharp south-easterly turn after flowing westward much of its course. It then goes on to join Yamuna just before it enters the plains. This eathquake seems to have blocked the course of Saraswati between the glaciers and the present day source of Ghaggar, so Giri could very well be the old channel and waters of Saraswati that flowed into present day ghaggar channel down to the plains. This is nothing new geologists and archeologists have known this for more than half a century now.

So, yes Saraswati was a major river, and it is possible that it flowed all the way to the Rann of Kutch via the Nara channel in Sindh as ghaggar/hakra flowed west and then southwest before turning south to flow into the present day Nara Channel. It should also be noted that the entire dried up river bed of Hakra/Nara lies in Pakistan briefly touching the Bulge of indo-pak border west of Jaisalmer and did not re-enter the present day Rajasthan after leaving Ganganagar district as some of these people are suggesting. Some have even gone to the extent of bringing it down to Bikaner and Jaisalmer itself, when the river bed is clearly to the north and west. The Nara channel continued on to the west of Dholavira(indus valley site) in Gujarat and finally entering Kutch and the sea. March 24, 2007

Also, Sthaneswar/thanesar which is now called kurukhsetra is one of the 51 shaktipeeths as Sati's(Wife of Lord Siva) ankle fell there, 'Sthanu' is the manifestation of Shiva that has been worshipped at Sthaneshwar since time immemorial. The huge temple/tirth that was destroyed by Mahmud contained the shrine dedicated to this manifestation.

"Perennial" and Himalaya-fed, after all?

User:Anandcv added added info on a recent publication, Chatterjee et al. (2019), On the existence of a perennial river in the Harappan heartland, Nature, to the lead. I've copied it into the body of the article, with some copy-edits. As to be expected, the OIT and Vedic enthusiasts embrace this study as proof for their Vedic Sarasvati civiliastion [1] [2]. Well, maybe the Ghaggar was Himalaya-fed, after all. But it does not mean the IVC was Vedic; after all, the Ghaggar had dried-up by the time the Aryans arrived. But Harappan people may have contributed stories to the Vedic lore, when the two populations mixed in northern India. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:14, 1 December 2019 (UTC) typos corrected. Kautilya3 (talk) 20:52, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Not really. Even if Ghaggar had received Chenab waters, the Rigvedic Saraswati descriptions still wouldn't apply to it. So, there wasn't any IVC lore that contributed. There was a different Saraswati earlier (the Helmand-Arghandab rivers), whose name was reused for this one. An interesting question is whether Ghaggar might have been its original name after all. There is also another river called "Ghagra", which was renamed to "Sarayu" by the Vedic people. And that name too never caught on! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:14, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure, what to make out of this study, looks interesting to say the least. Mentioning the Saraswati river is already pointing to a clear bias though. We have to wait for other studies to substantiate the results and the interpretation of the same.ThaThinThaKiThaTha (talk) 10:24, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

I read the article yesterday; it's interesting. Note that the authors argue that the Ghaggar turned into a seasonal river at ca. 2500 BCE, when the Harappan civilization had just reached it's mature phase. So, maybe Himalaya-fed, but long before the demish of the IVC, and long before the Aryans arrived. It means that even at the time of the mature IVC the mighty river had become a memory. But it does give an explanation for the chnages in settlement patterns in the third millennium BCE. It's interesting. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:40, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

I am new user, I just wanted to discuss as it is an interesting topic. A paper published in Nature by researcher from IIT Kanput, Imperial College London, Uni of London, Denmark Unis etc https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01643-9. The paper establishes/asserts that this Ghaggar-Hakra palaeochannel channel was fed by Sutlej river. About 15 kya Sutlej started to change course and completely stopped feeding Ghaggar channel shortly after 8 kya and settled to the current course of Sutlej. the Sutlej makes a sharp turn in district Ropar/Rupnagar of Punjab, India. At places near Kalibangan (IVC site) the river Ghaggar or possibly Sarawati is as wide as upto 10km asserted by this paper in fig 4a drilling sample locations from GS11 to GS14 which is about 8-9km wide and showing results in Fig 5 this 8-9km wide tested samples gives dates of 150 kya to 23kya time when water was flowing that wide (more than 8-9km) through this palaeochannel. Per the data it can be said that this Ghaggar (possibly Saraswati) was a major "Grandest of Grand" river from about 1,50,000 years ago to about 23,000 years ago as indicated in figure 5 with grey fluvial channel sand (in yellow). Interestingly river Yamuna was also feeding into the same channel up until 50 kya before it started to change course and started feeding into river Ganga asserted in several other papers from 80s to today. I think given the amount of evidence we have (from several papers), it is quite established that this was infact Sarawati river which was flowing from Himalayas to the Indian ocean before the departure of Sutlej river. Remember that the Rigveda - the oldest books mention Saraswati as a Grand river where as in the newest books (book 10) Saraswati is just one of the rivers and Sindhu is now referred as Grand river.--Chena32disc (talk) 02:11, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

And how old you think that the oldest books of Rig Veda are? 10,000 years? You're referring to Singh et al. (2017). This is what the Wiki-article says, under "Objections" (against identification with the Sarasvati); read the second reference!

Ajit Singh et al. (2017) show that the paleochannel of the Ghaggar-Hakra is a former course of the Sutlej, which diverted to its present course between 15,000 and 8,000 years ago, well before the development of the Harappan Civilisation. Ajit Singh et al. conclude that the urban populations settled not along a perennial river, but a monsoon-fed seasonal river that was not subject to devastating floods.

References

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:27, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

I would be careful in dating Rigveda. The question is about Saraswati. Sutlej was also known as river Shutudri in Vedas. Yes Satluj was flowing in the paleochannel of now known Ghaggar-Harka. From the figures in the paper, Sutlej river was coming south from Rupnagar district and meeting with Ghaggar/Saraswati river. Also near Kalibangan, the river was as wide was 9-10 kms (Grandest or Grand IMO). Prior to meeting Sutlej, few other channels are also merging into Ghaggar. The war of Mahabharata has majority claim lying 5100 yBP and 7500 yBP. The Mahabharta also sort of portrays a flux state of river Saraswati. Ramayana is prior to Mahabharta, when? I am not sure. The three Vedas are prior to Ramayana ofcourse as per the Valmiki ramayana. Of course Rigveda been the oldest contain many description of Saraswati river from its Grand state to "just one of rivers".

The question is the existence of Grand Saraswati, for which we have more than enough evidence now. Sutlej was feeding Ghaggar/Saraswati 8kya and so was Yamuna 50kya. Out of curiosity, have you read Rigveda? The word Arya is not a race or not even a tribe. The tribe (let's call it a tribe) called Purus called themselves Arya in a sense of being noble than all other tribes to the west and east of them. I think there is too much politics involved with these words in the mainstream - which in my opinion is quite a waste of time.--Chena32disc (talk) 06:45, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

@Chena32disc: please don't use this page to discuss the river, this page is for improving the article and if you want to change the content you need to present sources meeting WP:RS. New editors often think these pages are forums, but they aren't. Doug Weller talk 17:55, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: I just looked at the photo on the right hand side of the wiki page and found it is outdated. The established facts from the published papers are probably more reliable than historians. There are many similarities of names between Vedic Sanskrit and Old persina or the Avesta, if we keep focus on findng similar names then we would be making things confusing. By the way, the fact is that it is the earlier books of Rigveda which shows cultural similarities with the Avesta not the older ones. There is more than enough evidence in the older books of Rigveda to establish that Saraswati was infact existing in the areas of harayana. Regardless, Wikipedia is probably not a place. Mainstream narrative is what is reflected in wikipedia how ever wrong it is.--Chena32disc (talk) 08:51, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

That's right. We can't always be sure that something is true, hence the saying WP:VNT!verifiability, not truth and we can't interpret, eg "per the data it can be said]] is against policy, see WP:NOR. If you can find a better free photo, great Doug Weller talk 11:00, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Is this point raised by Chena32disc on photo dipicted in the Lead, which serves as a summary of the article? Then, it seems valid argument, as the photo presented dipicts the text/argument in a Sub-Section of the article. Where as most of the textual content and other pictures are on Saraswati River in India. Can the picture in the lead be shuffled with some existing pic showing SR flowing in Indian region and the Helmund placed in its relevant Sub-Section?Santoshdts ^[TalkToMe] 16:53, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Deccan college-IIT Kharagpur study about an extinct river in Rann of Kutch.

Torsa Sengupta et al. (2019), Did the Harappan settlement of Dholavira (India) collapse during the onset of Meghalayan stage drought?, Journal of Quaternary Science, Volume 35, Issue 3. Abstract of the study:

Radiocarbon dating of archaeological carbonates from seven cultural stages of Dholavira, Great Rann of Kachchh (GRK), the largest excavated Harappan settlement in India, suggests the beginning of occupation at ~5500 years BP (pre‐Harappan), and continuation until ~3800 years BP (early part of the Late Harappan period). The settlement rapidly expanded under favourable monsoonal climate conditions when architectural elements such as the Citadel, Bailey, Lower and Middle Town were added between the Early and mid‐Mature Harappan periods. Abundant local mangroves grew around the GRK sustaining prolific populations of the edible gastropod Terebralia palustris. Oxygen isotope (δ18O) sclerochronology of Early Harappan gastropod shell suggests seasonal mixing of some depleted (δ18O ~ −12‰) river water in summer/monsoon months (through ancient Saraswati and/or Indus distributary channels) with seawater that periodically inundated the GRK. Evaporation from this semi‐enclosed water body during the non‐monsoon months enriched the δ18O of water/shell carbonates. The humid fluvial landscape possibly changed due to a catastrophic drought driving the final collapse of the settlement of Dholavira exactly at the onset of the Meghalayan (Late Holocene) stage (~4300–4100 years BP). Indeed, Dholavira presents a classic case for understanding how climate change can increase future drought risk as predicted by the IPCC working group.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by ChandlerMinh (talk • contribs) 14:38, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

The bolded sentence says that an eventual Sarasvati River was monsoon-fed. If you want to press a case for the existence of a Himalayan-fed SR, you'll have to try better than this... Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:09, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

mythological?

Shouldn't we say in the very first para that the location of the river, or whether it actually existed, is uncertain? --RegentsPark (comment) 21:57, 19 August 2020 (UTC)