Rediscovering River Saraswati

On 13^th August 2014, Union water resources and river development minister Uma Bharti while responding to a calling attention motion in Lok Sabha said that there is enough scientific evidence on the presence of the river Saraswati in some parts of the country through which it flowed about five to six thousand years ago and this is not a myth.

She also mentioned that Central government is taking up the issue very seriously to trace 

the route of the Vedic river.

Union minister Uma Bharti, also had instructed officials of the Central Groundwater 

Board to test water samples from a well inside the Allahabad Fort (a 16th-century building located close to the confluence of the Ganga and Yamuna) in the city.

As per local lore, the Saraswati flows beneath the deep well, known as ‘Saraswati Koop’.

But over the past 30-35 years, by using aerial and satellite remote sensing data, palaeochannels  have been systematically mapped to discover the course of  River Saraswati.

Till date following agencies had worked to discover the course of River Saraswati-

1. Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI) in Jodhpur.
2. Geological Survey of India (GSI) in Jaipur.
3. Space Application Centre in Ahmedabad.
4. Regional Remote Sensing Centre in Jodhpur.
5. Rajasthan Groundwater Board.
6. Central Ground Water Board.
7. ONGC.

Last year, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) carried out a project to plot the course of the Saraswati using satellite data.

As per scientists of ISRO, who have worked extensively on the project for decades in their study mentioned

• Ample scientific evidence from remote sensing to archaeological excavations reveals beyond doubt that Vedic Saraswati river was flowing in northwestern India, sub-parallel to the Indus River around 6000 BC.
• It became a seasonal trickle around 3000 BC due to climatic and tectonic changes in the Himalayan region.
• In this study it was concluded that Saraswati originated from Bandarpunch, or Har-ki-dun, a glacier in the Garhwal Himalayas and finally discharged into the Gulf of Khambat on the Gujarat coast.
• As per ISRO today, the Saraswati is represented by the Ghaggar river that flows on its palaeochannel in Haryana.
• In the study around 14 wells were dug near the Ghaggar river area.  Carbonated water from these wells when was tested by Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, they found it was 8,000-14,000 years old.

Previous studies on this subject

More than 100 years ago, British engineer C F Oldham reached the same conclusion and believed the Ghaggar river occupied the bed of a much bigger river, possibly the Saraswati.

Allahabad Museum study:

Archaeologists from Allahabad Museum, says that these researches are all hypotheses and that to establish the existence of the river. To find the course of the river more exhaustive research on the ground will be required.

Archaeologists from Allahabad Museum have found at Bhoresaida (few kilometres from Kurukshetra) a dried-up river bed in 2006, nearly 80 feet below ground.

As Allahabad Museum archaeologists, thephenomenon known as “river capturing” is important reason for disappearance of River Saraswati.

In river capture, larger river takes over a smaller one, changing smaller rivers course and size.

In the case of River Saraswati, it was captured by Yamuna and brought east, while the remaining was taken over by Sutlej (river on the western side of Saraswati’s bed).

Vedic etymology, also supports the phenomenon of ‘river capturing’ in case River Saraswati.

The Rig Veda had mentioned seven rivers which flowed from the Himalayas towards the Arabian Sea.

While Indus was the westernmost, Saraswati was the easternmost.

It has also been observed that many prosperous towns of Harappan culture (3000-1500 BC) existed along banks of what may have been the Saraswati.

Many references exist about the Saraswati river meeting the Arabian Sea along the existing Kori Creek. Recent investigations have revealed that more than one river helped build up the deltaic deposits in the Rann.

From above studies and evidences, the route mapped out so far, validated through collateral data such as geomorphic anomalies, drilling data of tubewells, age of ground water, archaeological data and old maps, shows the river originated in Kailash Mansarovar and emerged on the plains from the foothills of the Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh.

Saraswati is believed to have had three tributaries: Sutlej arising from Mount Kailash, Drishadvati from Shivalik Hills and the old Yamuna. Together, they flowed along a channel, presently identified as that of the Ghaggar river, also called Hakra river in Rajasthan and Nara in the Sindh region in Pakistan.

It then flowed through the Ghaggar valley in Haryana and the Thar desert, on to Hakra in the Cholistan desert (Sindh, Pakistan), before reaching the Rann of Kutch through the Nara Valley and emptying into the Arabian Sea.