Kalyanaraman wrote: �It is fine to read the critique
contained in the book review.
Won't it be a good idea to read KS Valdiya's cute
little book and
quote from it too see what he has to say after 50
years of
geological studies?
On the numbers of sites on River Sarasvati, read
Gregory L. Possehl,
A Gazetter of Sites (over 250 pages) in Indus Age --
The Beginnings.
The list includes three sites on the river which are
larger either
Mohenjodaro or Harappa (100 ha. each): Rakhigarhi (225
ha.),
Gurnikalan (200 ha.), Hasni (200 ha.), Ganweriwala
(120 ha.). One
can speculate until the sites are fully excavated and
documented.�
My response: Well, I can well understand that you were
not pleased when I posted a message where I provided
commentary and analysis of A.B.Roy�s review of
�Saraswati � the River that Disappeared� by K.S.
Valdiya. After all, you are on print for claiming in
your letter (�The Week�, September 1, 2002, Letters)
that:
��Much water has flowed in the rivers of research
since Prof. Irfan Habib's lecture at the Indian
History Congress two years ago. My work published in
2001 titled Sarasvati (Bangalore, Babasaheb Apte
Smarak Samiti; to be followed by five more volumes)
and the following works-Saraswati: the river that
disappeared by K.S. Valdiya, 2002, and Vedic Sarasvati
edited by B.P. Radhakrishna and S.S. Merh,
1999-establish beyond doubt that the river Saraswati
is ground truth���
Indeed, �The Week� had chosen the Saraswati issue for
the topic of its cover story (August 18, 2002) when it
published the �Rebirth of Saraswati� by Kartikeya
Sharma (
http://www.the-week.com/22aug18/cover.htm).
Among other interesting bits of information, the
article contains a pretty picture of you at the
computer terminal (shot at your "Sarasvati Sindhu
Research Centre"?)�:)
And avid readers of Indian newspapers and magazines
could not have missed that Jagmohan, the Union
Minister for Culture and Tourism nominated you as one
of the four official �Saraswati seekers� � the other
members of the committee are Dr. Baldev Sahay (former
Deputy Director of ISRO's Space Application Centre,
Ahmedabad), V.M.K. Puri (a glaciologist who was
formerly with the Geological Survey of India, Lucknow)
and Madhav Chitle (former Secretary, Ground Water
Management, and coordinator for Global Water
Partnership).
Given your reliance on Valdiya�s �Saraswati � the
River that Disappeared�, a highly critical review of
it by a professional geologist similarly interested in
identifying the �Mighty Saraswati River� is not
apparently good news for you.
My reason for citing Roy�s review extensively was
simple enough. Roy�s review (and a similar earlier
critique by Roy and Jhakar) makes plain that the
identification of the legendary �Mighty Saraswati
River� with the Ghaggar-Hakra-Nara paleochannels (not
to speak of identifying the �Mighty Saraswati River�
with the paleochannels of Ghaggar!) rests on flimsy
foundations.
As I explained in my earlier post, I have distilled
the reasoning of many typical Saraswati-stories into a
transparent argument (for the identification of the
"Mighty Saraswati River" with the Ghaggar-Hakra-Nara
paleochannels) and showed then that this argument
fails in its purpose. As far as I can judge on the
basis of Roy�s review, Valdiya has not strengthened
this line of argument one bit. If you disagree and
feel that Valdiya�s book contains the makings of a
rebuttal to my challenge, I would be only too glad to
learn the content of such a rebuttal.
But I do not think that you have grasped the nature of
my challenge, because you protest that the majority of
the Harappan sites are on the Ghaggar-Hakra-Nara
paleochannels. If you read carefully my challenge, you
will find that I conceded � albeit only for the sake
of the simplicity of the argument � that the majority
of the Harappan sites are located on the
Ghaggar-Hakra-Nara. Hence your appeal to Possehl et
al. is irrelevant.
Regards, Juha Savolainen
--- "S.Kalyanaraman <
kalyan97@...>"
<
kalyan97@...> wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Juha Savolainen
> <juhavs@...> wrote:
> > > 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
>
> It is fine to read the critique contained in the
> book review.
>
> Won't it be a good idea to read KS Valdiya's cute
> little book and
> quote from it too see what he has to say after 50
> years of
> geological studies?
>
> On the numbers of sites on River Sarasvati, read
> Gregory L. Possehl,
> A Gazetter of Sites (over 250 pages) in Indus Age --
> The Beginnings.
>
> The list includes three sites on the river which are
> larger either
> Mohenjodaro or Harappa (100 ha. each): Rakhigarhi
> (225 ha.),
> Gurnikalan (200 ha.), Hasni (200 ha.), Ganweriwala
> (120 ha.). One
> can speculate until the sites are fully excavated
> and documented.
>
> About Haraxwaiti. Many Croats claim that they are
> descendants from
> this region. Sarasvati > Haraxwaiti > Hravat >
> Kravat > Croat.
> Counter? Nationalism!
>
>
__________________________________________________
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