Hi Dan,
Unfortunately, I have next to nothing to add to the
interesting etymological question. However, I cannot
help pointing out a review that must be interesting
for a geologist intrigued by the Saraswati debates. I
refer to A. B. ROY�s review of �Saraswati: The River
that Disappeared� by K. S. Valdiya (at CURRENT
SCIENCE, VOL. 83, NO. 7, 10 OCTOBER 2002 902)
http://tejas.serc.iisc.ernet.in/~currsci/contents.htm
In his review A.B.Roy once again reaffirms his belief
in the existence of the �Mighty Saraswati River� in
Rajasthan:
�All these very explicit geological evidences firmly
establish the fact about the existence of a mighty
Himalayan river in the Thar Desert region of western
Rajasthan. The geological description of this
prodigious river system matches well in all aspects
with the Saraswati River, which finds so vivid a
portrayal in the Rig Vedic hymns.
The recent geomorphologic and geological studies in
northern Gujarat and western Rajasthan have thus
greatly helped in lifting the veil of uncertainties
over the existence of the Vedic river, so Saraswati
can no longer be considered as a legendary tale of a
mythical river. �
However, after this promising start Roy goes into a
vigorous attack against the established �Mighty
Saraswati River� story, this time elaborated by
Valdiya:
�The weakest link of the present book is the
uncritical acceptance of the �popular� view regarding
the location of the Vedic Saraswati. It is now well
known that R. D. Oldham was one of the earliest to be
on the trail of the Vedic river after he read Max
M�ller�s translation of the Rigveda (J. Asiat. Soc.
Bengal, 1886, 55, 322�343). When he came across a
small rain-fed stream called �Sarsuti� in the northern
reaches of the River Ghaggar, he thought that it could
be the remnant stream of the Vedic Saraswati. The name
presumably suffered distortion with the passage of
time. More than the uncritical acceptance of Oldham�s
assumption on the remnant of the Vedic Saraswati, the
findings of a very large number of Harappan cultural
sites around the dry channels of the
Ghaggar�Hakra�Nara seem to have greatly influenced the
author�s highly flavoured viewpoint. Apparently, it is
have constrained the author to accept the dry and
rain-fed river basin as the channel of the river
referred to in the Rigveda
without any reservation. The recognition of the
Ghaggar�Hakra�Nara channel as that of the Vedic
Saraswati by the author, like many others, is clearly
based on the firm belief that the Harappan and the
Vedic cultures were not only contemporary but also
identical. In fact, in the entire book beginning from
the page one, the author used the names, Saraswati
(the Vedic river) and Ghaggar (the dry channel
of a rain-fed river), quite synonymously. This
uncritical acceptance of the �popular view� to say the
least, not only is questionable but also has pinched
much of the charm out of the book. Even the title of
the book may help raising eyebrows of some sceptic
readers who may know about a number of rivers by the
same name. Surprisingly, all of these rivers seem to
have disappeared from the present-day scenario. It may
be worth specifically mentioning about the presently
non-existent Saraswati River at the Triveni Sangam
near Allahabad. There are other �Trivenis� in our
country with one missing river bearing the name
Saraswati. Certainly, the author is not talking about
these missing rivers!�
Besides reminding his readers of the many �Saraswati�
rivers (and hence affirming that also river-names
migrate), Roy unwittingly lets the cat out of the bag:
�The debate on the relative antiquity of the Vedic and
the Harappan cultures is important as it is the only
way, in absence of any other scientific means, to find
out the age of events relating to migration and final
extinction of the Vedic Saraswati.�
I have already commented the going in circles-style
reasoning of the indigenists. Here Roy asserts that,
in the absence of any other scientific means, �Vedic
Saraswati� must be dated by archaeology. But that is
just the problem for the indigenists. In the light of
the archaeological evidence, the indigenist view is a
non-starter. Appeals to the �Mighty Saraswati River�
became popular precisely to overcome the objectionable
archaeological evidence and turn it evidence in favour
of the indigenist view. But now we are told that the
magical trick, dating by the �Mighty Saraswati� is
entirely dependent on archaeology� Anyway, to defend
his own idea of the �Mighty Saraswati River� flowing
in Rajasthan during Harappan times, Roy has this to
say:
�It may sound curious that all the geological and
geomorphologic evidences about the mighty Himalayan
river come from western Rajasthan and northern
Gujarat. In this context, it will be too na�ve to
assume that the entire history of the mighty Himalayan
river in Rajasthan as implied in the book, is only a
part of pre-Vedic proto-history. That the author
preferred to remain elusive on the issue
is clear from his remark (p. 83): �In my humble
opinion, the proximity in space and time of Dwarka and
Prabhas of the Mahabharata with the Harappan port
cities of Dholavira and Lothal has a great bearing on
the relationship between Harappan and Vedic cultures.�
There is hardly any doubt that the statement of the
author would leave a �not-so-informed� reader totally
nonplussed on the possible
link between the destruction of the Harappan cultural
sites in the Gujarat region with the extinction of the
Himalayan river that flowed through in the Thar
Desert region in the north.
The author makes a brief discussion on the tectonic
movements that shook the region west of the Aravalli
Mountains possibly during the last 10,000 years.
Nonetheless, virtually no attempt was made to relate
these movements with the actual process of migration
and extinction of the Vedic river. The statement
that the shifting of the river course took place over
the past 1.5 million years, has no scientific basis.
He mentions about the river Lavanavati (Luni), but did
not consider the fallacy in the name of the river. No
flowing river can have saline water. On the other
hand, we might say that it was only because of the
withdrawal of the water from the channel, the riverbed
turned into pools of saline water. Water flows through
the present Luni �channel� only during heavy rains.
The very name of the river, Lavanavati, is indicative
of the fact that the transformation
must have been witnessed by the civilized man, and
therefore it cannot be a part of the proto-history.�
At the end of the review Roy takes issue with attempts
to �revive� the Saraswati River:
�Certain statements made by the author in the book may
not stand scientific scrutiny. Some of these �wrong�
statements may even send off-beam signals to readers
who may be interested in trapping the �flowing sweet
water channel� in solving
the acute water crisis in the region. On page 4, the
author writes about the �subterranean flow of
freshwater in abundance�. Even the most remote
possibility of this may help strengthening the
conviction (based only on faith!) of certain
people that the Vedic Saraswati had plunged
underground and is now having a subterranean flow.
Those who may be willing to subscribe to this view
with the hope of getting perennial water supply, may
take note of the fact that the isotopic study of the
groundwater collected from the �Saraswati
palaeo-channels� indicated that the sampled water was
only 22,000 to 6,000 years old (referred to in the
book being reviewed). These old dates (albeit that
these are not very well constrained dates!) only help
to disprove the fact about subterranean flow in
replenishing the present day groundwater reserve.�
Unfortunately for Roy, he seems to have forgotten why
and how Harappan civilization was identified with the
�Saraswati civilization� in the first place: most of
the Harappan sites were supposed to lie on the
Ghaggar-Hakra paleochannels. Is Roy going to relocate
them to somewhere else, then? Well, that is easier
said than done! Or should we rather conclude that the
Great Saraswati Seeking has turned out to be a Wild
Goose Chase?
Best regards, Juha Savolainen
--- "Daniel J. Milton <
dmilt1896@...>"
<
dmilt1896@...> wrote:
> Being a geologist rather than a linguist, I'm
> entertaining myself
> by looking into the Sarasvati question. If I come
> to any conclusions
> I'll post them (but from what I've read so far I'm
> likely to end up as
> confused as when I started).
> In one study,"Did the Sarasvati ever flow to the
> Sea?" by G. L.
> Pohssehl, I read:
> "The image created by the Rgveda for the
> Sarasvati River is of a
> powerful, full flowing river, not easily reconciled
> with the literal
> meaning of the name, 'Chain of Pools'."
> Would someone explain this etymology? Have
> others been suggested?
> Dan Milton
>
>
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