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{{EngvarB|date=October 2019}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2021}}
[[File:Sarasvati river.jpg|thumb|Vedic and present-day
1 = ancient river<br/>
2 = today's river<br/>
3 = today's [[Thar desert]]<br/>
4 = ancient shore<br/>
5 = today's shore<br/>
6 = today's town<br/>
7 = dried-up Harappan
[[File:Painted_Grey_Ware_sites_map_1.svg|alt=|thumb|Cemetery H, Late Harappan, OCP, Copper Hoard and Painted Grey ware sites]]
The '''Sarasvati River''' ({{IAST3|Sárasvatī-nadī́}}) is a [[myth|mythologized]] and [[Apotheosis|deified]] ancient [[Rigvedic rivers|river first mentioned in the Rigveda]]{{sfn|Kinsley|1998|p=11, 13}} and later in [[Vedic]] and post-Vedic texts. It played an important role in the [[Historical Vedic religion|Vedic religion]], appearing in all but the fourth book of the [[Rigveda]].
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Rigvedic and later Vedic texts have been used to propose identification with present-day rivers, or ancient riverbeds. The [[Nadistuti]] hymn in the [[Rigveda]] (10.75) mentions the Sarasvati between the [[Yamuna]] in the east and the [[Sutlej]] in the west, while [[Mandala 7|RV 7]].95.1-2, describes the Sarasvati as flowing to the [[samudra]], a word now usually translated as 'ocean',{{refn|group=lower-alpha|name="95.1-2"}} but which could also mean "lake."{{sfn|Witzel|2001|p=93}}<ref name="Klaus"/><ref name="DOW"/><ref name="Bhargava 1964 5">{{cite book |first=M.L. |last=Bhargava |year=1964 |title=The Geography of Rigvedic India |publisher=Lucknow |page=5}}</ref>{{refn|group=lower-alpha|name="samudra"}} Later Vedic texts such as the [[Tandya Brahmana]] and the [[Jaiminiya Brahmana]], as well as the [[Mahabharata]], mention that the Sarasvati dried up in a desert.
Since the late 19th century, numerous scholars have proposed to identify the Sarasvati with the [[Ghaggar-Hakra River]] system, which flows through modern-day northwestern-[[India]] and eastern-[[Pakistan]], between the Yamuna and the Sutlej, and ends in the [[Thar desert]]. Recent geophysical research shows that the supposed downstream Ghaggar-Hakra paleochannel is actually a paleochannel of the Sutlej, which flowed into the [[Nara Canal|Nara river]], a [[Distributary|delta channel]] of the [[Indus River]]. Around 10,000-8,000 years ago, this channel was abandoned when the Sutlej diverted its course, leaving the Ghaggar-Hakra as a system of monsoon-fed rivers which did not reach the sea.{{sfn|Giosan et al.|2012}}{{sfn|Maemoku|Shitaoka|Nagatomo|Yagi|2013}}{{sfn|Clift et al.|2012}}{{sfn|Singh et al.|2017}}
The Indus Valley Civilisation prospered when the monsoons that fed the rivers diminished around 5,000 years ago.{{sfn|Giosan et al.|2012}}{{sfn|Clift et al.|2012}}{{sfn|Singh et al.|2017}}{{refn|group=lower-alpha|In contrast with the mainstream view, {{harvtxt|Chatterjee|Ray|Shukla|Pande|2019}} suggest that the river remained perennial till 4,500 years ago.}} and [[ISRO]] has observed that major [[Indus Valley civilization]] sites at [[Kalibangan]] ([[Rajasthan]]), [[Banawali]] and [[Rakhigarhi]] ([[Haryana]]), [[Dholavira]] and [[Lothal]] ([[Gujarat]]) lay along this course.{{sfn|Sankaran|1999}}<ref group=web name=PIB>[http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelcontent.aspx?relid=94098 Mythical Saraswati River], Press Information Bureau, Government of India, 20 March 2013.{{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161009182551/http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelcontent.aspx?relid=94098 |date=9 October 2016}}</ref> When the monsoons that fed the rivers further diminished, the Hakra dried-up some 4,000 years ago, becoming an intermittent river, and the urban Harappan civilisation declined, becoming localized in smaller agricultural communities.{{sfn|Giosan et al.|2012}}{{refn|group=lower-alpha|name="Giosan"}}{{sfn|Clift et al.|2012}}{{sfn|Maemoku|Shitaoka|Nagatomo|Yagi|2013}}{{sfn|Singh et al.|2017}}
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Identification of a mighty ''physical'' Rigvedic Sarasvati with the Ghaggar-Hakra system is therefore problematic, since the Gagghar-Hakra had dried up well before the time of the composition of the Rigveda.{{sfn|Wilke|Moebus|2011}}{{sfn|Giosan et al.|2012|p=1688-1689}}{{refn|group=lower-alpha|name="Giosan"}}{{sfn|Clift et al.|2012}}{{sfn|Maemoku|Shitaoka|Nagatomo|Yagi|2013}}{{sfn|Singh et al.|2017}} In the words of Wilke and Moebus, the Sarasvati had been reduced to a "small, sorry trickle in the desert" by the time that the Vedic people migrated into north-west India.{{sfn|Wilke|Moebus|2011|pp=310–311}} Rigvedic references to a physical river also indicate that the Sarasvati "had already lost its main source of water supply and must have ended in a terminal lake (samudra) approximately 3000 years ago,"{{sfn|Witzel|2001|p=93}}{{refn|group=lower-alpha|name=Witzel1}} "depicting the present-day situation, with the Sarasvatī having lost most of its water."{{sfn|Witzel|2001|p=81}}{{refn|group=lower-alpha|name=Witzel1}}{{sfn|Mukherjee|2001|p=2, 8-9}} Also, Rigvedic descriptions of the Sarasvati do not fit the actual course of the Gagghar-Hakra.<ref name="Thapar2004"/><ref name="Kocchar"/>
"Sarasvati" has also been identified with the [[Helmand River|Helmand]] in ancient [[Arachosia]], or {{Transliteration|peo|Harauvatiš}} ({{
The identification with the Ghaggar-Hakra system took on new significance in the early 21st century,<ref name="EB"/> with some [[Hindutva]] proponents suggesting an earlier dating of the Rigveda; renaming the Indus Valley Civilisation as the "Sarasvati culture", the "Sarasvati Civilization", the "Indus-Sarasvati Civilization" or the "Sindhu-Sarasvati Civilization,"<ref name="Singh2008">{{cite book|author=Upinder Singh|title=A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century|year=2008|publisher=Pearson Education India|isbn=978-81-317-1677-9|pages=137–8}}</ref><ref name="Maisels2003">{{cite book|author=Charles Keith Maisels|title=Early Civilizations of the Old World: The Formative Histories of Egypt, The Levant, Mesopotamia, India and China|date=16 December 2003|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-83731-1|page=184|chapter=The Indus/'Harappan'/Sarasvati Civilization}}</ref><ref name="CushRobinson2008">{{cite book|author1=Denise Cush|author2=Catherine A. Robinson|author3=Michael York|title=Encyclopedia of Hinduism|year=2008|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0-7007-1267-0|page=766}}</ref> suggesting that the Indus Valley and [[Vedic period|Vedic cultures]] can be equated;{{sfn|Danino|2010|p=258}} and rejecting the [[Indo-Aryan migration hypothesis|Indo-Aryan migrations theory]], which postulates an extended period of migrations of Indo-European speaking people into the Indian subcontinent between ca. 1900 BCE and 1400 BCE.{{refn|group=lower-alpha|name=IE}}{{refn|group=lower-alpha|name="scale"}}
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: ''As on a [[chariot]], the flood flows on, surpassing in majesty and might all other waters.''
: ''Pure in her course from mountains to the ocean, alone of streams Sarasvati hath listened.''
: ''Thinking of wealth and the great world of creatures, she poured for [[Nahusa]] her [[milk]] and fatness."''}} but which could also mean "lake."{{sfn|Witzel|2001|p=93}}<ref name="Klaus"/><ref name="DOW"/><ref name="Bhargava 1964 5"/>{{refn|group=lower-alpha|name="samudra"|According to Bhargava (1964) "samudra" stands for a huge inland lake, of which there were four or seven in Rigvedic sources. He translates ''sagara'' as "ocean". In this view the "lowlands" of Kashmir and Kuruksetra were ''samudra'', but the sea in which the Ganga fell is a ''sagara''.<ref name="Bhargava 1964 5"
* [[Mandala 10|RV 10]].75.5, the late Rigvedic [[Nadistuti sukta]], enumerates all important rivers from the Ganges in the east up to the Indus in the west in a clear geographical order. The sequence "Ganges, [[Yamuna]], Sarasvati, [[Shutudri]]" places the Sarasvati between the Yamuna and the [[Sutlej]], which is consistent with the Ghaggar identification.{{refn|group=lower-alpha|name=Witzel1}}
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* Verses in [[Mandala 6|RV 6]].61 indicate that the Sarasvati river originated in the hills or mountains (giri), where she "burst with her strong waves the ridges of the hills (giri)". It is a matter of interpretation whether this refers only to the Himalayan [[foothills]], where the present-day Sarasvati (Sarsuti) river flows, or to higher mountains.
The Rigveda was composed during the latter part of the late Harappan period, and according to Shaffer, the reason for the predominance of the Sarasvati in the [[Rigveda]] is the [[late Harappan]] (1900-1300 BCE) population shift eastwards to [[Haryana]].<ref name="ReferenceA"
=== Ghaggar-Hakra River ===
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5 = today's shore<br/>
6 = today's town<br/>
7 = dried-up Harappan
{{main|Ghaggar-Hakra River}}
While there is general agreement that the river courses in the Indus Basin have frequently changed course, the exact sequence of these changes and their dating have been problematic.{{sfn|Schuldenrein et al.|2004}}
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==== Drying-up and dating of the Vedas ====
The Vedic description of the goddess Sarasvati as a mighty river, and the Vedic and Puranic statements about the drying-up and diving-under of the Sarasvati, have been used by some as a reference point for a [[Historical revisionism|revised]] dating of the Vedic culture.<ref name="EB-Sarasvati">{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sarasvati|title=Sarasvati | Hindu deity|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|date=2 May 2023 }}</ref> Some see these descriptions as a mighty river as evidence for an earlier dating of the Rigveda, identifying the Vedic culture with the Harappan culture, which flourished at the time that the
[[Michel Danino]] places the composition of the Vedas therefore in the third millennium BCE, a millennium earlier than the conventional dates.{{sfn|Danino|2010|p=256}} Danino notes that accepting the Rigveda accounts as a mighty river as factual descriptions, and dating the drying up late in the third millennium, are incompatible.{{sfn|Danino|2010|p=256}} According to Danino, this suggests that the Vedic people were present in northern India in the third millennium BCE,{{sfn|Danino|2010|p=256, 258}} a conclusion which is controversial amongst professional archaeologists.{{sfn|Danino|2010|p=256}}{{refn|group=lower-alpha|name=Witzel2|Witzel: "If the RV is to be located in the Panjab, and supposedly to be dated well before the supposed 1900 BCE drying up of the Sarasvatī, at 4000-5000 BCE (Kak 1994, Misra 1992), the text should not contain evidence of the domesticated horse (not found in the subcontinent before c. 1700 BCE, see Meadow 1997,1998, Anreiter 1998: 675 sqq.), of the horse-drawn chariot (developed only about 2000 BCE in S. Russia, Anthony and Vinogradov 1995, or Mesopotamia), of well developed copper/bronze technology, etc."{{sfn|Witzel|2001|p=31}}}} Danino states that there is an absence of "any intrusive material culture in the Northwest during the second millennium BCE,"{{sfn|Danino|2010|p=256}}{{refn|group=lower-alpha|Michael Witzel points out that this is to expected from a ''mobile'' society, but that the [[Gandhara grave culture]] is a clear indication of new cultural elements.{{sfn|Witzel|2005}} Michaels points out that there are linguistic and archaeological data that shows a cultural change after 1750 BCE,{{sfn|Michaels|2004|p=33}} and Flood notices that the linguistic and religious data clearly show links with Indo-European languages and religion.{{sfn|Flood|1996|p=33}}}} a biological continuity in the skeletal remains,{{sfn|Danino|2010|p=256}}{{refn|group=lower-alpha|name="scale"}} and a cultural continuity. Danino then states that if the "testimony of the Sarasvati is added to this, the simplest and most natural conclusion is that the Vedic culture was present in the region in the third millennium."{{sfn|Danino|2010|p=258}}
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