New archaeological findings and River Saraswati
Dr Dinesh Agarwal
Saraswati River Discovered
It is well known that in the Rig Veda, the honour of the greatest and the holiest of rivers was not bestowed upon the Ganga, but upon Saraswati, now a dry river, but once a mighty flowing river all the way from the Himalayas to the ocean across the Rajasthan desert. The Ganga is mentioned only once, while the Saraswati is mentioned at least 60 times. Extensive research by the late Dr Wakankar has shown that the Saraswati changed her course several times, going completely dry around 1900 b.c. The latest satellite data combined with field archaeological studies have shown that the Rig Vedic Saraswati had stopped being a perennial river long before 3000 b.c.
As Paul-Henri Francfort of CNRS, Paris recently observed, “...we now know, thanks to the field work of the Indo-French expedition that when the proto-historic people settled in this area, no large river had flowed there for a long time.”
The proto-historic people he refers to are the early Harappans of 3000 b.c. But satellite photos show that a great prehistoric river that was over 7 km. wide did indeed flow through the area at one time. This was the Saraswati described in the Rig Veda. Numerous archaeological sites have also been located along the course of this great prehistoric river thereby confirming the Vedic accounts. The great Saraswati that flowed “from the mountain to the sea” is now seen to belong to a date long anterior to 3000 b.c. This means that the Rig Veda describes the geography of north India long before 3000 b.c. All this shows that the Rig Veda must have been in existence no later than 3500 b.c. (Aryan Invasion of India: The Myth and the Truth by N.S. Rajaram)
The Ganga is mentioned only once, while the Saraswati is mentioned at least 60 times.
River Saraswati in Rig Veda
The river called Saraswati is the most important of the rivers mentioned in the Rig Veda. The image of this ‘great goddess stream’ dominates the text. It is not only the most sacred river, but also the goddess of wisdom. She is said to be the mother of the Vedas.
A few Rig Vedic hymns which mention Saraswati river are presented below:
“Ambitame naditame devitame Saraswati (II.41.16)
(The best mother, the best river, the best goddess, Saraswati)
“Maho arnah Saraswati pra cetayati ketuna dhiyo visva vi-rajati (I.3.12)
(Saraswati, like a great ocean, appears with her ray; she rules all inspirations)
“Ni tva dadhe vara a prthivya Ilays-pade sudinatve ahnam: drsa-dvatyam manuse Apayayam Saraswatyam revad agne didhi (III.23.4)
(We set you down, oh sacred fire, at the most holy place on earth, in the land of Ila, in the clear brightness of the days. On the Drishadvati, the Apaya and the Saraswati rivers, shine out brilliantly for men)
“Citra id raja rajaka id anyake sarasvatim anu; parjanya iva tatanadhi vrstya sahasram ayuta dadat (VIII.21.18)
(Splendour is the king, all others are princes, who dwell along the Saraswati river. Like the rain-god abounding with rain, he grants a thousand times ten thousand cattle)
“Saraswati like a bronze city: ayasi puh; surpassing all other rivers and waters: visva apo mahina sindhur anyah; pure in her course from the mountains to the sea: sucir yati girbhya a samudrat (VII.95.1-2)”
All this indicates that the composers of the Vedic literature were quite familiar with the Saraswati river, and were inspired by its beauty and its vastness that they composed several hymns in her praise and glorification. This also indicates that the Vedas are much older than the Mahabharata period which mentions Saraswati as a dying river.
While the direct connection between the late Indus script (1600 b.c.) and the Brahmi script could not be definitely established earlier, more and more inscriptions have been found all over the country in the last few years, dating 1000 b.c., 700 b.c., and so on.
Decipherment of Indus Script
Dr S.R. Rao, who has deciphered the Indus script, is former head of Archaeological Survey of India, a renowned marine archaeologist, has been studying archaeology since 1948, and has discovered and excavated numerous Indus sites. He has authored several monumental works on Harappan civilisation and Indus script. To summarise his method of decipherment of Indus script, he assigned to each basic letter of Indus the same sound-value as the West Asian letter, which closely resembled it. After assigning these values to the Indus letters, he proceeded to try to read the inscriptions on the Indus seals. The language that emerged turned out to be an ‘Aryan’ one, belonging to the Sanskrit family. The people who resided at Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro, and other sites were culturally Aryan and this is confirmed by the decipherment of the Harappan script and its identity with Sanskrit family. The Harappan culture was a part of a continuing evolution of the Vedic culture, which had developed on the banks of Saraswati river. And it should be rightly termed as Vedic-Saraswati civilisation.
Among the many words yielded by Dr Rao’s decipherment are the numerals: aeka, tra, chatus, panta, happta/sapta, dasa, dvadasa and sata (1,3,4,5,7,10,100) and the names of Vedic personalities like Atri, Kasyapa, Gara, Manu, Sara, Trita, Daksa, Druhu, Kasu, and many common Sanskrit words like, apa (water), gatha, tar (saviour), trika, da, dyau (heaven), dashada, anna (food), pa (protector), para (supreme), maha, mahat, moks, etc.
While the direct connection between the late Indus script (1600 b.c.) and the Brahmi script could not be definitely established earlier, more and more inscriptions have been found all over the country in the last few years, dating 1000 b.c., 700 b.c., and so on, which have bridged the gap between the two. Now it is evident that the Brahmi script evolved directly from the Indus script.
(Sources: Decipherment of the Indus Script, Dawn and Development of Indus Civilisation and Lothal and the Indus Civilisation.)
The people who resided at Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro, and other sites were culturally Aryan and this is confirmed by the decipherment of the Harappan script and its identity with Sanskrit family.
New Archaeological Findings
Since the first discovery of buried townships of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro on the Ravi and Sindhu rivers in 1922, respectively, numerous other settlements, now numbering over 2,500 stretch from Baluchistan to the Ganga and beyond and down to Tapti. Various archaeologists have unearthed a valley, covering nearly a million-and-a-half sq.km. And, the fact which was not known 80 years ago, and which archaeologists now know, is that about 75 per cent of these settlements are concentrated not along the Sindhu or even the Ganga, but along the now dried up Saraswati river. This calamity—the drying up of the Saraswati—and not any invasion was what led to the disruption and abandonment of settlements along Saraswati river by the people who lived a Vedic life. The drying up of the Saraswati river was a catastrophe of vast magnitude, which led to a massive outflow of people, especially the elite, who probably went to Iran, Mesopotamia and other neighbouring regions for livelihood. Around the same time (2000-1900 b.c.), there were constant floods or/and prolonged droughts along the Sindhu river and its tributaries which forced the inhabitants of the Indus Valley to move to other safer and greener locations, and hence a slow but continuous migration of these highly civilised and prosperous Vedic people took place. Some of them moved to south-east, and some to north-west, and even towards European regions. For the next 1,000 years and more, dynasties and rulers with Indian names appear and disappear all over West Asia confirming the migration of people from East to West.
Saraswati River Discovered
It is well known that in the Rig Veda, the honour of the greatest and the holiest of rivers was not bestowed upon the Ganga, but upon Saraswati, now a dry river, but once a mighty flowing river all the way from the Himalayas to the ocean across the Rajasthan desert. The Ganga is mentioned only once, while the Saraswati is mentioned at least 60 times. Extensive research by the late Dr Wakankar has shown that the Saraswati changed her course several times, going completely dry around 1900 b.c. The latest satellite data combined with field archaeological studies have shown that the Rig Vedic Saraswati had stopped being a perennial river long before 3000 b.c.
As Paul-Henri Francfort of CNRS, Paris recently observed, “...we now know, thanks to the field work of the Indo-French expedition that when the proto-historic people settled in this area, no large river had flowed there for a long time.”
The proto-historic people he refers to are the early Harappans of 3000 b.c. But satellite photos show that a great prehistoric river that was over 7 km. wide did indeed flow through the area at one time. This was the Saraswati described in the Rig Veda. Numerous archaeological sites have also been located along the course of this great prehistoric river thereby confirming the Vedic accounts. The great Saraswati that flowed “from the mountain to the sea” is now seen to belong to a date long anterior to 3000 b.c. This means that the Rig Veda describes the geography of north India long before 3000 b.c. All this shows that the Rig Veda must have been in existence no later than 3500 b.c. (Aryan Invasion of India: The Myth and the Truth by N.S. Rajaram)
The Ganga is mentioned only once, while the Saraswati is mentioned at least 60 times.
River Saraswati in Rig Veda
The river called Saraswati is the most important of the rivers mentioned in the Rig Veda. The image of this ‘great goddess stream’ dominates the text. It is not only the most sacred river, but also the goddess of wisdom. She is said to be the mother of the Vedas.
A few Rig Vedic hymns which mention Saraswati river are presented below:
“Ambitame naditame devitame Saraswati (II.41.16)
(The best mother, the best river, the best goddess, Saraswati)
“Maho arnah Saraswati pra cetayati ketuna dhiyo visva vi-rajati (I.3.12)
(Saraswati, like a great ocean, appears with her ray; she rules all inspirations)
“Ni tva dadhe vara a prthivya Ilays-pade sudinatve ahnam: drsa-dvatyam manuse Apayayam Saraswatyam revad agne didhi (III.23.4)
(We set you down, oh sacred fire, at the most holy place on earth, in the land of Ila, in the clear brightness of the days. On the Drishadvati, the Apaya and the Saraswati rivers, shine out brilliantly for men)
“Citra id raja rajaka id anyake sarasvatim anu; parjanya iva tatanadhi vrstya sahasram ayuta dadat (VIII.21.18)
(Splendour is the king, all others are princes, who dwell along the Saraswati river. Like the rain-god abounding with rain, he grants a thousand times ten thousand cattle)
“Saraswati like a bronze city: ayasi puh; surpassing all other rivers and waters: visva apo mahina sindhur anyah; pure in her course from the mountains to the sea: sucir yati girbhya a samudrat (VII.95.1-2)”
All this indicates that the composers of the Vedic literature were quite familiar with the Saraswati river, and were inspired by its beauty and its vastness that they composed several hymns in her praise and glorification. This also indicates that the Vedas are much older than the Mahabharata period which mentions Saraswati as a dying river.
While the direct connection between the late Indus script (1600 b.c.) and the Brahmi script could not be definitely established earlier, more and more inscriptions have been found all over the country in the last few years, dating 1000 b.c., 700 b.c., and so on.
Decipherment of Indus Script
Dr S.R. Rao, who has deciphered the Indus script, is former head of Archaeological Survey of India, a renowned marine archaeologist, has been studying archaeology since 1948, and has discovered and excavated numerous Indus sites. He has authored several monumental works on Harappan civilisation and Indus script. To summarise his method of decipherment of Indus script, he assigned to each basic letter of Indus the same sound-value as the West Asian letter, which closely resembled it. After assigning these values to the Indus letters, he proceeded to try to read the inscriptions on the Indus seals. The language that emerged turned out to be an ‘Aryan’ one, belonging to the Sanskrit family. The people who resided at Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro, and other sites were culturally Aryan and this is confirmed by the decipherment of the Harappan script and its identity with Sanskrit family. The Harappan culture was a part of a continuing evolution of the Vedic culture, which had developed on the banks of Saraswati river. And it should be rightly termed as Vedic-Saraswati civilisation.
Among the many words yielded by Dr Rao’s decipherment are the numerals: aeka, tra, chatus, panta, happta/sapta, dasa, dvadasa and sata (1,3,4,5,7,10,100) and the names of Vedic personalities like Atri, Kasyapa, Gara, Manu, Sara, Trita, Daksa, Druhu, Kasu, and many common Sanskrit words like, apa (water), gatha, tar (saviour), trika, da, dyau (heaven), dashada, anna (food), pa (protector), para (supreme), maha, mahat, moks, etc.
While the direct connection between the late Indus script (1600 b.c.) and the Brahmi script could not be definitely established earlier, more and more inscriptions have been found all over the country in the last few years, dating 1000 b.c., 700 b.c., and so on, which have bridged the gap between the two. Now it is evident that the Brahmi script evolved directly from the Indus script.
(Sources: Decipherment of the Indus Script, Dawn and Development of Indus Civilisation and Lothal and the Indus Civilisation.)
The people who resided at Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro, and other sites were culturally Aryan and this is confirmed by the decipherment of the Harappan script and its identity with Sanskrit family.
New Archaeological Findings
Since the first discovery of buried townships of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro on the Ravi and Sindhu rivers in 1922, respectively, numerous other settlements, now numbering over 2,500 stretch from Baluchistan to the Ganga and beyond and down to Tapti. Various archaeologists have unearthed a valley, covering nearly a million-and-a-half sq.km. And, the fact which was not known 80 years ago, and which archaeologists now know, is that about 75 per cent of these settlements are concentrated not along the Sindhu or even the Ganga, but along the now dried up Saraswati river. This calamity—the drying up of the Saraswati—and not any invasion was what led to the disruption and abandonment of settlements along Saraswati river by the people who lived a Vedic life. The drying up of the Saraswati river was a catastrophe of vast magnitude, which led to a massive outflow of people, especially the elite, who probably went to Iran, Mesopotamia and other neighbouring regions for livelihood. Around the same time (2000-1900 b.c.), there were constant floods or/and prolonged droughts along the Sindhu river and its tributaries which forced the inhabitants of the Indus Valley to move to other safer and greener locations, and hence a slow but continuous migration of these highly civilised and prosperous Vedic people took place. Some of them moved to south-east, and some to north-west, and even towards European regions. For the next 1,000 years and more, dynasties and rulers with Indian names appear and disappear all over West Asia confirming the migration of people from East to West.
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