Wednesday, June 05, 2013

Fwd: Fw: The Sarasvati River : Its Origins



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Vijay Rajiva
Date: Tue, Jun 4, 2013 at 3:17 AM
Subject: Fw: The Sarasvati River : Its Origins
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'The Sarasvati River : Its Origins'

Dr. Vijaya Rajiva


There are 3 major issues that have dominated Indic Studies in the last twenty years or so :

1. The demise of the Aryan Invasion Theory of India

2. The deciphering of the Indus Script

3. The discovery of the lost river Sarasvati

We shall focus on the third issue and its significance.

Indic scholars have written on this topic and organised lectures and conferences and their central concern has been the discovery of the Sarasvati mentioned some 70 times in the Rig Veda and which disappeared in the post Vedic period. It became regarded as a mythical heavenly river which met the Yamuna and the Ganges at Prayag and has become the site of the Kumbha Mela.

However, since archaeology and the earth sciences have been able to locate the paleo channels of this ancient river through satellite photography, they are of the opinion that the Sarasvati was a broad glacial river that originated in the Himalaya and flowed more than 3,500 years BCE.

There have been some dissenting voices which claimed that the Sarasvati was a small monsoon fed river . The most recent of the dissenting voices is that of Dr. Giosan and his colleagues and their view has been presented in a paper 'fluvial landscapes of the Harappan Civilisation' (Jan.2012).

Eminent geologist and scientist of the Jawaharlal Nehru Research Centre,  Dr. K.S. Valdiya has written what can be described as a convincing  refutation of the basic presuppositions and arguments of the paper by Giosan et al in his most recent article 'The river Saraswati was a Himalayan river ' (2013). He has also presented his own research on the question that the river was a glacial fed river originating in the Himalaya.

This refutation has enormous significance for Indic Studies (READ MORE)

VR





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