Saraswati : The Lost River?

The legend of the mighty Saraswati River has lived in India since time immemorial. The ancient Hindu scriptures, Vedas, recorded thousands of years ago, are full of tempting hymns about the flow of life. Vast and splendid, the sacred waters of Saraswati must flow from the Himalayas to the sea, feeding the earth along the way. But as the centuries passed and no one could find it.

"The river Saraswati has shattered the mountain peaks with her fast and powerful waves, just as easily as one uproots the lotus stems; let us invoke her, who strikes what is far and near, with holy hymns and prayers". This is the description of the Saraswati River as it is written in the Rig Veda, a sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns, dating from at least the second millennium BC.

The Saraswati is described as a river larger than the Indus and the Ganges which flowed from the mountains to the ocean. As none of the rivers in India fit this description, Saraswati has often been dismissed as a mere legend or simply as a product of poetic imagination.

However, In recent years, Geologists, Historians, and Archaeologists have tried to determine if the great Saraswati really existed. According to the Vedic sacred texts, the Saraswati River was so powerful and majestic that it inspired the Rig Veda to compose on its banks and it is even raised to the level of God. Saraswati is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, wisdom, and nature.

She is part of the Trinity of Saraswati, Lakshmi, and Parvati. The three forms help the Trinity of Brahma Vishnu, and Shiva in the creation, maintenance, and destruction of the universe. In Rig Veda, Saraswati, a name that means to have many roles is also the Goddess of the river and she is nearly always depicted sitting on the banks of a flowing river.

Michael Donino's book, The Lost River, On the trails of the Sarasvati, presents numerous topographic exploration tests, geological and climatological studies, satellite images, and isotopic analysis to support the view that the dried-up river bed of the Ghaggar-Hakra river was in fact the legendary Saraswati river and this river once held the great civilization of the Indus Harappan value, which flourished between 3519 BC.

The Vedic River Saraswati is not a myth, it was an alive river in the Vedic time and irrigated large area supporting the Vedic culture to a considerable extent. Its extinction is due to the geological changes in the subcontinent. For now, the question of the true identity of the Saraswati River remains unresolved but with each new study, scientists are getting closer and closer to unraveling this ancient mystery.