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4
Sarasvat Drowned
Rescuing Her from Scholarly Whirlpools*
Ashok Aklujkar

N.B. Since this essay is rather long, readers may find it convenient to read the
following sections first: 2.1, 3.1-2, 4.8, 5.2-3, 8-9, 14, 20, 6.1 and Post-script.
THE current state of research regarding the issue discussed requires that reference be
made to discussions not available in the traditional print media, that is, also to discussions
in the form of posts made to electronic discussion lists and research papers, short or
long, made accessible on websites. Since the availability, contents and wording of the
posts and papers may change in the future, I should clarify that I have rechecked the
*

I prefer to make the reading of compound Sanskrit words easy by marking off their
component words through hyphens. In doing so, I try to retain the sandhi seen in my
sources. Therefore, in some cases, I succeed only in making the second or last member of
the compound stand out. The hyphens should not be seen as invariably offering guidance
regarding the syntactic relationship of the words involved.
Further, I use a dot/period inside a word to separate two consecutive vowels (rare in
Sanskrit but common in Prakrit, Hindi, etc.) or to indicate that the nature of the following
consonant has changed due to sandhi.
In my statements as well as in the statements I cite, I italicize only those non-English
words which are mentioned (as distinct from used). The titles of book length texts/works,
volumes, journals, etc. are mostly italicized only in the bibliography at the end.
The abbreviations employed are explained in the References and Abbreviations section
below. I have used the same abbreviations also in the passages I quote from other scholars,
just as I have made the transliteration in the quoted passages consistent with mine.
Where traditional commentaries are quoted, boldface type indicates commentandum words.
My thanks to Professor Hans Henrich Hock for providing copies of some of his relevant
writings and to Professors Edwin Baryant, Robin B. Kar, R.N. Iyengar and Marko Geslani
as well as Dr Nicholas Kazanas for catching typographical errors, etc. in an earlier draft.

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accuracy of my attribution in the last phase (01-10 April 2012) of finalizing the text of my
essay below.
I have cited the statements in Wikipedia articles only when they happened to give
summaries that agreed with my sense of the reading of specialized literature I had done
or provided a relevant new detail.
The information about non-traditional publications is not repeated in the References
and Abbreviations section.
Multiple author last names, as distinct from hyphenated last names, are shown by putting
the sign -&- in between.
Due to a practical difficulty, I have not reproduced the accents of Vedic words, but I
have taken them into account in providing and discussing the different possibilities of
translation.
Normally, I do not capitalize the initials of Sanskrit proper names when the names are
quoted or discussed (the reason being that the original scripts do not contain the upper
case : lower case distinction). In this essay, however, I have, again, out of a practical
consideration, used capital letters for the initial sounds of all river names, except when
such names appear as parts of passages.
Many river names have old as well as new forms. I have employed diacritical marks
while citing the names from Sanskrit sources and when the modern pronunciation or
writing is the same or virtually the same as the Sanskrit one (e.g., Gag, Yamun
etc. carry the diacritics). I have adopted this practice to facilitate computer searching and
indexing. For the same reason, I have extended the practice even to my citations from
others (except in the case of Ghaggar). Reproducing the electronic communications
exactly even in the spelling of names would have led to much unnecessary variation and
confusion.

Clarifications about the content of this essay

1.1 Some readers may be alarmed or disturbed by my title. Others, if they notice the
word scholarly in it, will realize that I am unlikely to have any real drowning in
mind. They may at the most be intrigued by my title. To assure both these groups, let
me add right away that the subtitle of my paper, made invisible like the well-known
river itself, is Linguistic Evidence for Sarasvat in the g-veda. (Sarasvat and
g-veda will be abbreviated to S and RV, respectively, in the following
discussion.)
Apart from the consideration that some relief from the constant talk of lost S and
S disappeared is overdue, what motivates me in going for a reference to drowning

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is my contention that some observations that should be at the forefront in the case of S
have been overlaid by the scholarly writings available at present. A river cannot
obviously be drowned in a literal sense, but researchers are quite capable of achieving
that feat metaphorically.
In the study of ancient India, it frequently seems that researchers try to make up for
the uncertainty created by the paucity of explicit and definitely dated evidence by
adding a tone of certainty to their writing. The writing comes across more as fulfilling
their psychological need than an accurate reflection of what the evidence justifies.
The mass of secondary literature to which this characterization can be attached has
grown over time. It is growing exponentially since it became possible to publish
research electronically. Scholar-1 depends on the conclusions of scholar-2, partly misled
by the assertiveness of language, when scholar-2 has done the same in the case of his
or her predecessors. The list of such predecessors can sometimes be so long as to defy
a determination of its source or extent. While this is unavoidable to a certain extent,
given that no scholar can be an expert in all the methods or bodies of information
involved in a field of historical research such as Indology, it is obvious that every
effort should be made to minimize the extent of the phenomenon and to recheck the
primary evidence again and again and question the validity of the frame(s) within
which the relevant discussion(s) take(s)/take place.
My claim in this essay will be that something similar to the phenomenon I have
tried to capture in the preceding lines has indeed taken place in the research on the
river S. I will, therefore, revisit the primary sources of our current historical
understanding(s).1 I hope that, as a consequence, the textual S submerged in the spirited
exchanges regarding which riverbed revealed by or to be revealed by Landsat imaging
etc. should be chosen as Ss bed will again come to the surface that the choking
weed of wrong leads and misconceptions spread over the textual S by secondary
literature will be removed and the river really expressed by the text will again find it
possible to raise its head for normal breathing.
1.2 Scholars generally agree that, although S is spoken of also in the Epic, Puric,
late Vedic and Classical Sanskrit literature, what the RV has to say about it is of crucial
importance. Not only is the RV anthology, by scholarly consensus, the oldest document
1

Many of the primary sources are utilized in Khan 1978 and Radhakrishna, Chauhan,
Bharadwaj and Kantawala 1999 (four separate articles in the same volume). Habib 2001
also cites translations of several Sanskrit passages. The difference between their approach
and coverage and my approach and coverage will become apparent as the essay proceeds.

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we have (containing compositions from different times), it contains more factual details
about the river S than any other text. In the RV, the word S occurs in at least 75 passages.
Acceptance of one more occurrence (8.54.4) would depend on whether the composition
concerned is accepted as a genuine part of the anthology.2 In addition, we come across
passages in which forms of the related lexemes sarasva(n)t and srasvata occur. All
these passages are collected in the Appendix which follows the main text of this essay.
Translations of those passages which bear directly on the main concern of the essay
are also given and selectively discussed in the Appendix.
1.3 That S in the RV refers to both a river and a divinity (deity or goddess) has
been known at least from the time of Yska, the author of the Nirukta, unlikely to be
later than the 6th century BC. Yska (2.23) observes: Sarasvatty-etasya nadvad devatvac
ca nigam bhavanti. The Vedic expressions indicative of S are as they would be in the
case of a river and also as they would be in the case of a deity. If we leave aside the
verses collected in the Appendix that do not inform us about the river even indirectly
that is, not even through a word meaning water or through words, acts and
characters we would associate with rivers or waters then our list of passages that
can help us, at least potentially, as primary sources would consist of the following (all
verse numbers not preceded by the name of any other source should be understood
as referring to the RV text; where my reason for the inclusion in river-referring passages
is not likely to be immediately clear, a hint is provided in parentheses; if that proves
to be insufficient, the Appendix should be consulted for the full text of the verse):
1.3.12, 2.41.16, 3.23.4, 5.42.12, 5.43.11, U6.52.6,3 U6.61.1, U6.61.2, U6.61.3, U6.61.8, U6.61.9
(cf. svas in the context of S in U6.61.10), U6.61.10, U6.61.12 (one expects peoples to be
settled around river banks in the ancient world), U6.61.13 (cf. vibhva-taa in 4.2), U6.61.14,

The composition I have in mind here is a Vlakhilya hymn. The Vlakhilya group of hymns,
totaling 11 and added after RV 8.48, that is, numbered 8.49-59, is not universally recognized
as a genuine part of the RV. The traditional commentators, Syaa and others referred to
by me in this essay do not comment on it. It should, however, be noted that the MBh
(3.88.9) sees a close association between the Vlakhilyas and the S: sarasvat nad sadbhi
satata prtha pjit / vlakhilyair mahrja yatream ibhi pur // O son of Pth, great
king, the S river, where the Vlakhilya seers performed sacrifices in the past, has been
worshipped continuously by good men.
3

(a) U stands for unordered, which, in turn, refers to those hymns which Hermann
Oldenberg (1888) found to be out of the expected order in the maalas, books, of the
RV. The characterization can be taken as indicating relatively later accommodation in the
development of the RV as a collection, but it does not imply that the hymn so characterized

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7.36.6, 7.95.1, 7.95.2, 7.95.4 (cf. other passages such as U6.61.9 that speak of svass of S;
3.2-7), 7.96.1, 8.54.4, 10.30.12, 10.64.9, 10.65.13, 10.75.5.

1.4 Of these, the two specified below should be set aside as containing too indirect
an indication of a river (I have given those words in parentheses which initially made
me entertain the river possibility):
U6.61.1 (paim): Just because the Pais are sometimes said to be water-faring persons,
we may think that the verse is associated with S, the river. However, there is no other
word in the verse that would give the impression that the verse speaks about or addresses
a river. The act of giving Divo-dsa to Vadhry-ava (as a son, according to the traditional
commentators Skanda, Vekaa-mdhava and Syaa), in fact, will suit S as a deity better.
10.65.13 (sindhur pa samudriya): The verse mentions several individual deities or their
groups (most probably as manifestations or aspects of the divine) and requests all of
them to pay attention to the composers words. The S appearing in the list of deities
gives no indication of being a river. If we decide to understand it as a river, the only
thing we would know about it is that it is distinct from the Sindhu or Indus and from the
referent of samudriya pa oceanic or united waters, since the latter are listed separately
in the verse. We would not come to know anything beyond the obvious, anything
distinctively useful for the present purpose.

1.5 Our list of verses that can be considered truly informative about S, the river, then
shrinks to the following (the non-conclusive nature of some entries will become clear
later):
1.3.12 (maho ara),
2.41.16 (ambitame nadtame),
3.23.4 (ni tv dadhe dadvaty payym),
5.42.12 (va patnr nadya),
5.43.11 ( no divo bhata parvatt),
U6.52.6 (sindhubhi pinvamn),
U6.61.2 (snu gir taviebhir rmibhi prvataghnm),
or every verse included therein is indeed late; cf. Talageri 2008: 117, 153-162. Each case
needs to be determined by studying the stage of language reflected in it and external
evidence if any.
(b) In the case of some of the following verses I have briefly indicated in parentheses why
they should be thought of as concerned with the river S.

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U6.61.3 (kitibhyo vanr avindo viam ebhyo asravo vjinvati),
U6.61.8 (arava roruvat),
U6.61.9 (svas),
U6.61.10 (sapta-svas),
U6.61.12 (triadhasth sapta-dhtu paca-jt vardhayant),
U6.61.13 (mahimn mahinsu ratha iva vibhvane),
U6.61.14 (payas sakhy vey ca m tvat ketry arani ganma),
7.36.6 (saptath sindhu-mt sudhr payas ppyn),
7.95.1 (pra kodas dhyas sasre viv apo mahin sindhur any),
7.95.2 (nadnm giribhya samudrt),
7.95.4 (uttar sakhbhya),
7.96.1 (asury nadnm),
8.54.4 (sapta sindhava, po vta parvatso vanaspati),
10.30.12 (pa amta ca),
10.64.9 (sarayu sindhur rmbhi maho mah pa payo madhumat),
10.75.5 (gage yamune )

These are the verses whose numbers I have put in boldface type in the Appendix.
But the criterion applied in putting them together is still rather too broad. Given the
intention to extract as much information about the geographic aspects of the S, I have
purposely decided to err on the side of more than on the side of less. Any RV verse
that contains a possibly useful detail in understanding the nature of S as a river has
found inclusion in my collection. Naturally, some verses contain details that can be
applicable to other rivers just as to the S and therefore are not very helpful in reaching
our goal in as definite a way as possible. Consequently, in the following analysis, we
need to note the less than specifically applicable phrases and to ensure that such
phrases do not play a decisive role in our understanding.
What the attestations in the RV collectively and generally convey
2.1 As can be inferred from the list above, references to S as a river are found in all
books of the RV, except 4 and 9 (in 4, it does not occur at all; in 9, it occurs only as a
deity name). Could there be any message in the absence in the two specified books?

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Absences are useful in raising interesting questions but almost never capable of
pointing to a definite conclusion in historical research. The possibility that the nonmention of S was due simply to non-relevance in books 4 and 9 increases if we note
that book 4 is credited to a single-author (Vma-deva Gautama) except for three hymns
(42-44) and that book 9 has a single-theme (Soma). In such narrowly aimed books, the
scope for touching upon diverse things will naturally be less. Therefore, we should
not read any particular significance in the fact that S does not figure in the specified
books.
The positive fact that S occurs in 8 out of 10 books should be taken to indicate that,
over a long period of time, S was a widely accepted part of the geographical and
cultural landscape or the physical foundation of the RV. That it appears in the
numerically earlier parts of books 1, 2, 3, 7, 8 and 10 (just as it appears in the numerically
later parts of some of these books, where later additions usually take place) also points
in the same direction. The inference just made, however, may be countered by drawing
attention to the fact that, in the oldest book (if Talageris evidence is so interpreted),
that is, in maala 6, the hymns 49, 50, 52 and 61 in which S appears (with unmistakable
prominence) are all compositions that appear out of the usual order;4 they must be a
late addition to an old book. But the counter-inference is not as strong as it may seem
4

Talageri (2000: 38-93, 2008: 149) determines the relative chronology of RV books as follows:
Early books 6 3 7. Middle books 4 2, Late Middle [or Early Late] book 5. Late
books 8, 9, 10. Book 1 is spread across the periods of 4, 2, 5, 8, 9, 10.
Talageris assignment of book 10 in its entirety to the final period needs to be qualified.
Just because the compositions of the descendants of the composers are nearly totally missing
from it, it does not become the latest collection. Also, there could have been unrelated
composers whose compositions found a place in the 10th book. The archaic language of
some 10th book hymns bears this out.
On the whole, researchers would do well by taking into consideration Talageris
observations along with those of Oldenberg (1888), while leaving their eyes and ears open
for other considerations that may call for circumscribing of what emerges from the
applications of their observations. Talageris should not be set aside simply because they
are based on traditional sources beyond the RV text proper. Oldenbergs should not be
followed without exception because in anthology making there can be purposes which call
for deviation from the mechanical application of number-based and prosody-based criteria.
Yet the observations of both the researchers should be taken as a starting point in the
chronological determination of RV hymns, because those observations stem from objective
data.
Witzel (1999: 360) expresses the view that books 3 and 7 are products of a time later than
that of books 2, 4, 5 and 6. Since in a 1997 paper one of his conclusions is that the bulk of

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at first sight. The diction of hymns 49, 50, 52 and 61 carries no clear signs of being
rooted in a later stage of the language. While it does not abound in obscure words, it
does have, as the discussion in 4.1-9 will show, some presence of not-so-clear words
that make us consult the occurrences in other books if they are to be understood in a
reasonably satisfactory way. Where a hymn may be suspected of being composite, at
least the diction of the verses that matter for our present purpose does not come across
as closer to later Sanskrit. It is also possible that certain hymns or verses, although old
and known when the individual maalas were taking shape, were put in the
concluding parts of all or most maalas because they, through their content, had a
closer relationship with the purpose(s) of the anthology as a whole. There are hints in the
Indian tradition that the Veda was preserved on the banks of the S (see 6.5, last
paragraph, below).
Even if the counter-inference is allowed to stand, it will at the most necessitate a
modest rephrasing of my initial deduction. It will still leave me free to say:
S was a widely accepted part of the geographical and cultural landscape or physical
foundation of the RV over a long period but not so long as would go back to the very
first formation of the oldest maala.

Further, any determination of how much later the addition of hymns 49, 50, 52 and 61
to the sixth maala was must be in keeping with the fact that there is an
unexceptionable presence of S hymns in books that are closest in time to book 6, namely
in books 3 and 7 or in books 2 and 5 (cf. note 4).
2.2 In the 23 verses that potentially have a direct role to play in the depiction and
identification of the river S in our time, we find very few verses in which S is merely a
geographic or physical entity. The statements we come across commonly contain
thoughts like the following: While revealing an impressive body of water, S stimulates
all (pious) thought (1.3.12). While being a prominent or the best river, it is also the best
mother and best goddess, capable of bestowing respect/praise on the unrespected/
unpraised (2.41.16). Along with the Dadvat and pay, it is eligible to hold the
sacred fire (3.23.4). It descends from a mountain and also from the world of light or
the RV represents only 5 or 6 generations of kings (and of the contemporary poets) of the
Pru and Bharata tribes (p. 263), it seems unlikely that he puts a great temporal distance
between what he, too, considers to be the oldest book, namely the sixth, and book 3 or 7
at least not such a distance as would be required to change the view of S significantly
for the community or group of tribes as a whole. We should also note in 2.41.16, 5.42.12
and 5.43.11, which come from the oldest or older books in Witzels reckoning, S is praised
as a river and a deity quite unambiguously.

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heaven (5.43.11). It receives waters from other streams, but can, like Indra, come as a
cherished guest at sacrificial worship (U6.52.6). Attributes such as stimulating pious
thought, bestowing honor or holding the sacred fire do not belong to a river unless the
river has transcended the stage of simply being a flow of water. The attributes are only
slightly indirect confirmations of what the passages with best goddess (2.41.16) or
world of light (5.43.11) explicitly state. In the case of 5.42.12, the commentator Syaa
even says that the verse could be about the river or the goddess (Sarasvat etan-nmik
nad vg-dev v).
Words that describe S as a part of the physical environment and also as stomya one
to be praised (U6.61.10) or havya one to be invoked, one worthy of sacrificial offerings
(U6.61.12) are likewise found in the remaining verses. In a few of these (U6.61.13-14,
7.36.6), the divinity element is not obvious, but personification that logically precedes
the divinity element is undeniable; note suvkti excellent song of praise in U6.61.2,
roruvat making a loud sound (of the type usually associated with a living creature) in
U6.61.8, svas sister in U6.61.9 and U6.61.10; duduhe nhuya milked, i.e. produced
for the progeny of Nahua in 7.95.2, sakh companion in 7.95.4, dhti (ritual) deed,
action in U7.96.1, otu havam may listen to the call in 8.54.4; dhbhi purandhy
discerning with thoughts in 10.65.13 and uhi hear, pay attention to in 10.75.5). No
wonder, the commentator Skanda, before he draws attention to U6.61.2 as an additional
instance, reports kapi as observing that only four Vedic passages (3.23.4, 8.21.18,
10.64.9 and 10.75.5) use the word S in the sense of a river and that some cite 2.41.16 as
the fifth passage doing the same. The paucity of passages in which S was meant
exclusively or predominantly as a river had obviously struck the traditional commentators.
2.3 The divinity of S is thus well-settled in the time of the RV hymns. But this
does not mean that S is merely an imagined river in heaven or was originally or primarily
a deity. In fact, in no verse is the S spoken of as flowing in heaven; one may at the most
infer such flowing as Syaa does under 7.96.1 and 10.75.1, but there, too, it is as a
devat/dev divinity, goddess that S is spoken of as descending from heaven. There
is no detail mentioned that we could use to infer that she descends in her riverine
form or that the form in which she descends is more fundamental than the riverine
form. There is, in other words, evidence for a dyau-dwelling deity called S but no
explicit evidence for a divine stream called S that led to the conception of a river on
the earth. Even if such a stream were to be assumed, just because there is in one passage
(5.43.11) the talk of S coming from dyau, it would not follow that that stream takes
precedence in the conceptual scheme of the composers over the S stream they witnessed
in their region.

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Furthermore, while Ss deification can most sensibly be viewed as resulting from

her presence on the earth (see 6.5 below), there is no indication that she, as a deity,
has a nature consisting only in the glorification of the water stream known to the RV
composers. Her divinity is not exhausted by the attributes that are directly reconcilable
with her self as a river. She is not only associated with I and Bhrat, the association
is presented as a well-known or routine matter (see 1.13.9, 1.42.9, 2.1.11, 2.3.8, 3.4.8,
5.5.8, 10.110.8 cited in the Appendix). She is also associated with practically every
other deity mentioned in the RV. Her association with the Vive-devas, the generalized
multitude of all divinities, a kind of corporeal yet unspecifiable brahman, is especially
pronounced. She can be one with all or anyone of the deities. The deification process
must have either taken a long time to evolve or must have taken place when a frame
for deification, minimally a pattern for incorporating the veneration of especially
impressive natural phenomena, was already in place. Either way, I find no RV-internal
reason to hypothesize that a divine S stream gave rise to the conception of an earthly S
stream. Nor do I find it justifiable to give priority to the divinity reading because the
Avesta has a relatable concept (see 5.14-19 below).
2.4 Another implication of the fact that the mention of S only as a divinity or also
as a divinity is more frequent than the mention of S purely as a river that the passages
collected in 1.5 are outnumbered by passages in which words not immediately
reconcilable with the river notion appear is that S had an entrenched presence as
an item in religious life definitely by the time the RV anthology was put together and
almost definitely even by the time of what we generally take to be the older part of the
anthology. I cannot enter here into a detailed analysis of all the non-river verses to
establish Ss entrenched presence or carved niche. I will rest content with drawing
attention to the fact that verses like U6.52.6, which probably come from the oldest
period or at least cannot be far removed from the oldest period (see 2.1 above), invoke
S in the company of Indra, Agni and Parjanya. The first two of these are undoubtedly
the most central sacrificial deities in the RV. The fact that S as a deity occurs in all
books of the RV except the fourth also points in the same direction.
2.5 Some scholars have discussed the entire nine-verse hymn of which 10.75.55 is
5

RV 10.75 has nine verses according to the kalya recension. In the valyana recension,
there is an additional verse between verses 5 and 6 of the kalya recension: sitsite sarite
yatra sage tatrplutso divam utpatanti / ye vai tanva vi sjanti dhrs te vai janso amtatva
bhajante // Those who immerse themselves at that place where the white river and the
black river come together ascend to the world of light (or heaven). Those wise persons
who cast off their bodies (at that place) attain immortality. That the verse is a composition

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a part as if it has a special role to play in determining the nature of S as a river. We do

learn from the hymn that the S must be between the Yamun and the utudr, but the
hymn has little else to convey about the S. Its verses 10.75.1-4 and 10.75.7-9 are about
the river Sindhu or about Sindhu as a deification of rivers, perhaps as a deification of
all known and useful rivers. The addressee of even verse 6, which comes across as a
continuation of verse 5, is Sindhu. On account of the similarity of some words and
concepts (e.g., sapta, tredh, snu) which occur also in the statements about the S (see
3.3-7, 4.6 and 5.20 below), one may feel that the verses are not really about the
Sindhu but about the S. In fact, there have been scholars who proposed that the S was
not distinct from Sindhu6 or that the S in the family books of the RV is different from
the S in the tenth book.7 But the fact of the matter is that RV 10.75 is a Nad-skta or,
even more defensibly, a Sindhu-skta, a hymn dedicated to the Indus or the
personification/Spirit of several or all rivers. (It could also have been given the more
general name Nad-skta because a crafted list of rivers is its distinctive feature).
Putting back the picture
3.1 Focusing on the physical river as distinct from the deified river or S the deity, we
can piece together the following picture of the gvedic S as definite (see the Appendix
for contexts and mostly inconsequential alternatives in translation):
of a period in which the confluence of the Gag and the Yamun had come to be regarded
as an unusually important sacred place is evident. This period is commonly held to be
later. The diction of the verse is also not as archaic as that of the other verses in 10.75. Its
plurals aplutsa and jansa could be more a result of imitation of Vedic Sanskrit than
genuine. Further, the verse does not connect with the neighboring verses in the manner in
which the remaining 10.75 verses connect. In any case, the verse makes no difference to the
argumentation in the present essay.
6

Cf. Chattopadhyaya 1976: 138-140 for a list of the earlier proponents of the S = Sindhu
view and the subsequent pages up to 194 for his own defense of that view a defense
arising more out of a historians need to rationalize the (real or apparent) oddities in the
evidence than out of the evidence in the text itself.

The reasoning adduced for both the S = Sindhu thesis and the S of maalas 2-8 = Sindhu
thesis is not at all convincing. It frequently rests on the hypothesis of Aryan invasion or
migration into India, which itself is increasingly standing in need of adequate justification.
In Chattopadhyayas case in particular, the argument frequently consists of mere assertions.
What he declares to be obvious or evident is rarely so. That Habib (2001: 68), who has
made several perceptive remarks about the Vedic S and who does not present Sindhu = S
as his own position, should not see through the holes and strains in Chattopadhyayas
argumentation is surprising; it is incongruent with the critical acumen he shows elsewhere.
In RV 10.65.13, sindhu and samudriya pa appear in addition to S. See also note 19 below.

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(a) The S flowed between the Yamun and the utudr (cf. 10.75.5), that is, in the
same general area as the rivers Dadvat and pay (dadvaty payy,
3.23.4).8
(b) It received waters from several streams or rivers (sindhubhi pinvamn, U6.52.6),
enumerated as six or seven (see 3.6).
(c) It issued forth from a parvata ( no divo bhata parvatd , 5.43.11) or from giris
(yat giribhya, 7.95.2; cf. U6.61.2; see 5.20) and flowed to a samudra ( samudrt,
7.95.2; see 5.12-13.
(d) Its noticeable aspects were surging waves (rmibhi, 10.64.9), movement (cariu
carati, U6.61.8), sound (roruvat, U6.61.8), force or strength (amas, U6.61.8, asury,
U7.96.1) and brightness (ananto ahnutas tvea, U6.61.8, dyumnebhi, U6.61.13).9
8

Cf. MBh adhyyas 3.80-81 and 9.7. For the relative nearness of the S and Dadvat, see
Mnava-dharma-stra (= Manu-smti) 2.17; MBh 3.6.2 (note the sequence in which the
Pavas, moving from Jhnav/Gag to Kuru-ketra, cross the rivers), 3.81.175, 12.148.12,
13.105.47 and Supplementary Passages 03*0389_03 (dakiena sarasvaty dadvaty-uttarea
ca, which I could not actually locate) and 14.4_2496 (= critical edn vol. 18, p. 435, sarasvatdadvatyor deva-nadyor yad antaram).
For the relative nearness of the S and pay ( paj pag), see MBh 3.81.55,154.

(a) Since some of the aspects specified below can exist in other rivers as well, the intention
of the hymn composers must be that the specified aspects are particularly prominent in the
S. Thus, movement stands for swift movement or non-straight movement, sound
for loud or resonating sound, and so on. This commonsensical inference is confirmed by
the actual expressions used elsewhere in Sanskrit literature, particularly in the MBh as the
following notes will show.
(b) For surging waves, cf. MBh 9.35.46: tatra cormimat rjann utpapta sarasvat /
(c) For speedy movement, cf. MBh 9.37.4: sarasvat oghavat (sandhi not observed in the
original). 9.37.13: vega-yukt sarasvatm Although here the adjectives are employed
with respect to the realizations of different Ss in a mythical context, they must apply to the
original or historical source of the realizations as well. That speed should be a primary
association with the S even while narrating stories about how the disappeared S re-appeared
later at various sacred places at the invitation of gods, seers and ascetics indicates that the
association was indeed strong and widely shared over a long period of time.
Note also that Oghavat, speedy, as an incarnation of the S is located in Kuru-ketra in
MBh 9.37.25, which, from all indications, should be the main running area of the Vedic S.
The same adjective is applied to the disappeared or Vinaana-lost S in MBh 3.130.3. Thus,
even the later name for the main constituent stream of the earlier Vedic S could have been
oghavat.

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(e) It had the ability to cut into mountain ridges and (hence, naturally) into its banks,
(iya umebhir bisakh ivrujat snu gir taviebhir rmibhi / prvataghnm,
U6.61.2; possibly also kodas dhyas prabbadhn in 7.95.1; see 4.2-4 below).
(f) Overall, it was a great wavy water mass (maho ara, 1.3.12), the most prominent
river or a member of the group of very prominent rivers (nadtame, 2.41.16, ati
svasr any, U6.61.9; pra y mahimn mahinsu cekite dyumnebhir any apasm apastam,
U6.61.13; apo mahin sindhur any, 7.95.1; uttar sakhibhya, 7.95.4; asury nadnm,
U7.96.1; maho mahr, 10.64.9), regular or truthful (under either interpretation,
dependable, tvar U6.61.9; cf. 2.4.18), one that made itself known through its
noticeable or extraordinary greatness (pra y mahimn mahinsu cekite, U6.61.13).10
(g) It had human settlements along (at least a part of) its course (cf. kitibhyo avan
avinda, U6.61.3; paca jt vardhayant, U6.61.12; note also the use of iyam this,
su in/among these, and e this in U6.61.2, U6.61.13 and 7.95.1, respectively,
indicating that the composer was near the S and hence, most probably, in a
community near its banks).
(h) It provided sustenance to the settlements (cf. ghtc, 5.43.11; vjinvati, U6.61.3;
As for the non-straight or crooked movement, possibly caused by the deltas or islands
between the constituent streams, note kubjimat in Paca-via-brhmaa 25.10.11.
(d) As a confirmation of the forceful flow of the primary S, we have MBh 9.35.46 tayotkiptas
trita. In this story, Trita, who had fallen in a well that was deep, dry and full of dirt,
stones (see 6.2) and vines on all of its sides, was thrown all the way up to the periphery of
the well when the S re-appeared.
(e) The noticeably high sound of the S stream might have been conveyed also by the class
name nad, one which makes a (deep, repetitious and resonating) sound, applied more
than once to the S in the RV and the MBh. Words which become synonyms in later Epic or
Classical Sanskrit frequently have precise shades of meaning in Vedic Sanskrit as is shown
in 4.8 (saras) and 5.20 (parvata, giri). These shades are frequently in keeping with their
etymologies or with their Indo-European cognates.
(f) The brightness of the flow of the S is emphasized in the MBh names of its constituent
streams: suprabh, kcank and vimalodak/vimalod (9.37.3-4, 12-26 quoted in note 14).
Recall also the constant depiction of the goddess S as wearing white clothes, which, however,
may also be due to whiteness associated with purity and knowledge.
10

Here I have deliberately restricted myself to only one translation, great, of maha/mahas.
See 5.8 for my reason. Through usage, great has become indifferent to the various
areas or ways (size, volume, quality, aspect etc.) in which something can transcend smallness,
ordinariness, lack of conspicuity etc. We can have any usage from great height to great
person or great soul.

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rya cetant bhuvanasya bhrer ghta payo duduhe nhuya, 7.95.2; ghtavat payo
madhumat 10.64.9).11
(i) This sustenance made generation and promotion of culture possible (praastim,
2.41.16; saha dhbhi purandhy, 10.65.1, which indicate awareness of the use of
mind and speech for what we would consider expressions of culture).12
3.2 Above, I have stuck as close to the literal meanings of words in an ancient text
as I could in the light of contexts of individual verses and the information available
from the traditional commentators and modern specialists. I will discuss, in 4.1-9
below, the few expressions which are not clear in themselves but can yield plausible
meanings that have a bearing on the nature of S as a river. At this point I will simply
ascertain if any justifiable extensions of the determinants collected so far are possible.
The value of these extensions as evidence will, of course, be one notch below that of
the evidence in 3.1, but it will still be significant as long as we show preference for
those understandings which fit the observations in 3.1 and the information gleanable
from the remaining passages in the Appendix and as long as we do not make arguments
that presuppose certain modern historical views about the S, that is, engage in
arguments that ultimately become circular in nature.
11

Understandably, we get more frequent evidence of the S providing material things in

those ks in which she is deified: vja strength, vigor, 1.3.10, 2.41.18, U6.61.3, U6.61.4,
U6.61.6; 7.95.6; sani gain, acquisition, U6.61.6; rdha/rdhas gift, wealth, U7.96.2; praj
progeny, 2.41.17; rai/rayi riches, goods, property, 3.54.13, 10.17.9; araa refuge, house,
6.49.7; dhana booty, treasure, property, U6.61.5; kra sarpis madhdaka milk, butter,
sweet water or honey and water, 9.67.32; anamv ia diseaseless food, 10.17.8.. See (b)
in the next note.

12

(a) In the closely related S-as-dev ks, the indications of Ss association with concepts we
would take as indicative of cultural concerns naturally abound: dh intelligence, devotion,
2.3.8, svasti state of well-being, U2.32.8; unahotra (if not intended as a proper name for
a family) auspicious offering, vra hero, brave persons in society, 3.54.13, 6.49.7. Note
also the phrases mhumanto pipyatmia rich in kindness or grace, U6.50.12; bhadram
bhadr kavat, blessed, fortunate, U7.96.3.
(b) In the case of some words, the meaning cannot easily be separated along the sustenance :
culture lines: r wealth, glory, beauty, 1.188.8; vasu 2.1.11, 8.21.17; mayas weal, congenial
or productive well-being, 1.13.9, 1.89.3, 1.164.49, 5.5.8; vrya to be chosen, precious,
1.164.49, 10.17.7.
(c) Cf. MBh 1.90.25: matinra khalu sarasvaty dvdaa-vrika satram jahra Matinra
a source says (khalu) brought about a twelve-year sacrificial session on (the bank of the
river) S.

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(a) The number of streams thought of13 as forming the S was seven; cf. sapta-svas
one having seven sisters in U6.61.10 and perhaps also sapta-dhtu having seven
bases in U6.61.1214 (see 3.3-7 below).
(b) The feeding streams, because they are spoken of as svas in U6.61.9-10, most
probably had their sources in approximately the same area as the S (see 3.5).15
(c) At least to a significant extent, the other streams flowed along with the S stream.
Otherwise, their description as sakh companion in 7.95.4 will not be a matching
metaphor.
(d) S was a nad considered to be superior to or more important than the other samesource streams; she seems to have been treated as more equal among the potential
13

I use thought of, because, in matters such as the one here, we can, at best, reconstruct
only a dominant contemporary perception through textual evidence. A community can
miss or ignore some streams as tributaries even when they happen to unite with the waters
of the river taken as the main flow. On the other hand, a historian can proceed only with
what seems dominant, probable and reasonable. The diversity or complexity in an actual
situation of the past is rarely, if at any time, accessible to him/her.

14

(a) Cf. MBh 9.37.3-4: rjan sapta sarasvatyo ybhir vyptam ida jagat / ht balavadbhir hi
tatra tatra sarasvat // suprabh kcank ca vil mnasa-hrad / sarasvat oghavat suveur
vimalodak // Two of these names occur in a slightly different form in MBh 9.37.12-26. The
list in that passage reads: Suprabh at Pukara, Kcank at Naimia, Vil at Gay,
Mano-hrad at Uttara Kosal-bhga, Oghavat at Kuru-ketra, Suveu at abha-dvpa
and Vimalod at Gaga-dvra in Haimavata Giri. Since the context here is one of accounting
through (what we would call) myths for rivers at different places of pilgrimage, we cannot
assert that these very names were in the minds of the gvedic composers who speak of Ss
sisters, but we are not forced to deny that a tradition of seven sister streams existed. Note
also MBh 9.37.27-28: ek-bhts tatas ts tu tasmis trthe samgat / sapta-srasvata trtha
tatas tat prathita bhuvi // iti sapta sarasvatyo nmata parikrtit / sapta-srasvata caiva trtha
puya tath smtam //
(b) Vekaa-mdhava U6.61.12: sapta-dhtu saptabhi chandobhi sahit saptabhir v svasbhi.
See note 21.

15

As specified in note 14, the MBh speaks of various realizations of the S at different places.
Yet when it mentions the source of the S in 3.82.5 and 9.53.11, it speaks only of Plaka or
Plaka-prasravaa (= prsra in some earlier texts). This may be taken as indicating that, in
the perception or imagination of the MBh composers, the re-appearing seven Ss
corresponded to the seven streams mentioned by the RV in the context of the S and that
the sources of the seven were fairly near each other; otherwise, they would not have been
depicted as moving together in a band. (Unlike the MBh, however, the RV speaks only of
appearance, not of re-appearance.)

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equals; cf. U6.61.9, 7.95.4. In other words, S was a name of streams moving in the
same direction and taken together as well as of one of the streams that was, for
some reason, viewed as more prominent or important (see 3.6-7 for the
usefulness of this point in understanding another RV phrase).
The prominence could be due to its (relative) size, centrality, being the recipient of
the waters of other streams, speed or appearance (or any combination of all these
attributes). It is also possible that the S was given a higher status among kindred and
adjacent streams because it was more dependable; it showed less seasonal change.
The anxiety implicit in U6.61.14 points in this direction. In addition to the material
reasons, the Ss prominence could have had its basis in the place it occupied in the
communitys culture or historical memory.
3.3 Against the points in the preceding section, two observations made (in different
contexts) by earlier scholars may be presented: saptan or seven is just an auspicious
or favored number in the RV; it only means several; the specific numerical value is
not intended. Secondly, the referent of sapta svasra should be the same as that of sapta
sindhava16 or sapta sindhu-mtara,17 since all these expressions occur in the context of
streams or rivers and the word sindhu has also been used in the context of the S in
U6.52.6, 7.36.6, 7.95.1, 8.54.4 and 10.64.9. However, the locations of the seven covered
by the phrases sapta sindhava and sapta sindhu-mtara are too distant from each other
to be thought of as sisters or as parts of a single river system. If, as in their case, the
phrase sapta svasra refers to seven major rivers, of which the S was one in all currently
known enumerations (see note 20bc), the assertion in 3.2b that the S had relatively
minor streams noticeably flowing alongside must be withdrawn.
Also, there are indications to the effect that the S was not always thought of as
associated with seven streams. The Vjasaneyi-sahit 34.11 speaks of five rivers
joining the S:
16

Cf. Geldner on 8.59/103.4 (p. II.380 note 4b): Die 7 Schwestern (9.86.36) sind die 7 sindhava
und die 7 dhenava (9.66.6c; 86.25), die Zutaten zum Soma.

17

I will not deal with the Sapta Mts separately in 3.5, for it does not seem to be the case
from the particulars available about them that they were viewed as different from the
Sapta Sindhus; cf. 1.34.8 (trir vin sindhubhi sapta-mtbhi ), which Syaa explains as:
ima me gaga [RV 10.75.5] ity-di mantrokt sapta-sakhyk gagdy nadyo mtara
utpdik ye jala-vie te sapta-mtara tai sindhubhi syandana-sva-bhvai jalai
vasatvar-nmabhi sapta-mtbhi bahu-vrhi-svara; also, 8.85/96.1 (asm po mtara
sapta tasthur nbhyastarya sindhava supr), for which no traditional commentary that
paraphrases the meanings of the words involved is available.

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paca nadya sarasvatm apiyant sasrotasa/ sarasvat tu pacadh so [= s u] dee bhavat sarit //
Five rivers sharing the same source (i.e., arising in the same general area) (or along with
their own contributing flows) close upon (i.e., form a confluence with) the S. To speak
from the other side (tu), the S in that region verily became a stream in five ways (or,
after the confluence, continued as five streams)

Here, the number of contributing streams is five instead of seven.18 Similarly, if the
interpretation of sapta-svas in 3.2d is allowed to stand, the S will actually have six
streams associated with it; it will itself be the seventh stream.
Let me now comment on these counter-considerations one by one.
3.4 Alexander Cunningham observed as early as 1882 (pp. 88-89) that it was a
common practice in India to speak of a group of rivers as having seven members. This
probably valid general observation, however, should not be taken to imply that any
group said to consist of seven members should be considered ultimately imprecise
(as a group consisting, in reality, of approximately seven members) and historically
suspect or that an attempt should be made, as Cunningham (1882: 87-88) himself made
in one instance, to bring the number down to seven. More specifically, it should be
noted that the talk of seven sisters of the S is historically the earliest we have. It occurs
in the oldest book of the earliest available text, that is, in RV U6.61.10 (and possibly
verse 12 of the same hymn). It is confirmed by a book very close to the oldest book,
namely the seventh, in 7.36.6. We do not know and in fact cannot determine if the
convention of making the number seven convey the sense of several had come into
existence at the time. Further, it is unlikely that two lists of seven streams or rivers will
be distinguished (cf. 3.5) if seven is not meant in its distinctive numerical sense.
Secondly, as far as I know, it has not been proved that saptan is used in the sense of
several, many in the RV itself. In the usages I studied, it seems precise enough, with
no indication in the mention of various groups of seven that more or fewer than seven
18

The Vjasaneyi-sahit commentator Uvaa specifies the five rivers as Dadvat, utudr,
Candra-bhg, Vip/Vip and Irvat (= Paru), that is, as four of the five usual Punjab
rivers plus the Dadvat. This list overlaps considerably with MBh 2.9.19, quoted in note
19, but cannot be considered as definitely receiving confirmation from the latter. A
significant omission is Vitast. Uvaa seems to be making as best an effort at explaining the
verse as he could within the limitations of his individual circumstances (residence in distant
Mlava or Gurjara-dea in the eleventh century, probable renaming, due to Islams spread,
of Vitast as Jehlum/Jhelum, and so on). As a consequence, Dadvat, with or without a
contemporary identification, could have taken Vitasts place in his listing.

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were meant. Having a habit or fondness for grouping with seven does not in itself
imply that the number had lost its semantic specificity. Similarly, we may not know
what the seven members intended in a group were in each case, but this absence of
knowledge on our part could be due only to the obvious reality that not everything
presupposed by the hymn composers has come down to us.
Thirdly, as recorded in note 14a, a list of the seven streams of the S is available in
the MBh although not in the RV itself. The listed items in the MBh do not give any
indication of being made up at a later time, although the accounts of their appearance
or re-appearance are found in a mythical context. There is no symmetry or any other
sign of artificiality in the formation of the item names. The impression one gets is that
the MBh is trying to account for existing names and for the tradition current in several
parts of western and central north India about the (real or presumed) re-appearance of
the S. Even if the individual names are set aside, the kernel of the tradition that there
were seven streams associated with the S will retain its validity.
Also, the expressions sapta-svas and sapta-dhtu (note 14b) are consistent with the
etymological meaning of S one possessing streams (see 4.8-9 below); there would
be no point in giving a river a name that meant one possessing a stream; every river
obviously has at least one stream. In the case of a river whose name, like the name
Dadvat, can only be a product of actual observation, it would be particularly odd if
the component saras did not refer to a distinguishing feature of the stream.
Thus, while saptan may occur in some RV passages in references not allowing us to
determine fully the items meant (or even in the indeterminate sense that several
has), it is hard to argue that it is not intended in its usual precise numerical value in
the phrases sapta svasra and sapta sindhava. For the former, see RV 1.164.3, 7.66.15,
8.41.02, 8.59/103.4, 9.66.8, 9.86.36 and 10.05.5. In all these instances, as in the S passage
U6.61.10, the use is metaphorical; svas stands for some other object such as mares
pulling the suns cart or seven thoughts, prayers or deeds (dhti) that the composers
clearly presuppose as known groups of seven. Otherwise, the riddle-style composition
will simply not work. The gvedic culture, like the later Classical Sanskrit culture,
must have been interested in classification, although the nature of its interest in
classification, the categories to which the classified items belonged and the extent to
which the classification was carried out were probably different.
The same is the case with sapta sindhava. While one could, sticking to the literal
meanings of phrases amounting to seven streams, embrace the possibility that there
was more than one enumeration of seven rivers in existence (possibly at different

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times or in different regions) or that the culture was in the habit of making groups of
seven, one will not be able to claim either that the absence of precision in the use of
saptan is proved or that the S was not thought of as having seven constituent streams
or as being one of the seven recognized rivers.19
3.5 In RV 1.71.7 and 1.102.2, sravat and nad, accompanied by the contextually
appropriate case form of saptan, take the place of sapta sindhu. The juxtaposition of the
words sapta and sindhu themselves occurs in 1.32.12, 1.34.8, 1.35.8, 4.28.1, 8.24.27 and
8.96.1. In the case of the first five of these ks, Syaa consistently draws attention to
10.75.5 as specifying which seven rivers are meant, and, in the case of 4.28.1 (sapta
sarpaa-l sindhn arit prairayet) and 8.24.27 (yad v sapta sarpaa-lsu sindhuu
tat-klev ity artha, gagy ghoa itivat), he does not say anything that would contradict
what he says elsewhere; he simply opts for the general meaning one which flows of
sindhu (see note 18 for the remaining k, 8.96.1). Under 10.75.5, although it does not
contain the phrase sapta sindhu, he informs us that Gag, Yamun, S, utudr, Paru,
Marudvdh (with Asikn as its triburary) and rjky (with Vitast and Som [
Suom] as tributaries) form a group of seven.
It is significant that the Sindhu/Indus was not a part of the Sapta Sindhu concept,
although physically it must have been a part of the area covered by the sapta sindhus
it could not have been missed, since so many rivers that join it or are likely to be to
the west of its source appear in the Sapta Sindhu list. See also 5.14-17 below.
19

(a) Macdonell-&-Keith (Vedic Index p. II.424) write that only in RV 8.24.27 sapta sindhava is
meant as a designation of a country and that, everywhere else in the RV, the seven rivers
themselves are meant. Actually, the special claim made for 8.24.27 is problematic. It seems
to rest only on the words ryt and dsasya in the verse (and hence indirectly on assuming
a conflict between the natives of a country and the newcomers). But the form ryt found
in the verse is not that of the noun rya. As the accentuation and syntax suggest, ryt is a
finite verb derived from the root /ar. This is also how Syaa and other traditional
commentators have taken it.
(b) My observation in (a) should not be taken as implying that sapta sindhu/sindhava could
not have had the value of a country-denoting noun or phrase. The ground occupied by the
seven rivers could not, after all, have been physically different from the country in which
they flowed. It is also a common practice to name an area after the river or rivers which
flow in or through it.
(c) In view of 3.5, the strongest possibility is that sapta sindhu, as a country designation,
originally or primarily stood for the region between the Gag and the rjky with the
former in the eastern part of north India and the latter in the western. It was a designation
that had in its formation a pattern similar to the one in (pacp five water flows/rivers )
Panjab/Punjab.

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The procedure of Syaa and other traditional commentators suggests that they
were quite sure about the validity of their received understanding. Further, the absence
of the Indus in the Sapta Sindhu concept, despite the presence of sindhu in the concept
name and the importance of the Indus explicitly borne out by many RV passages,
creates a situation similar to the one that lectio difficiliors in textual criticism create. Both
these points favor acceptance of the received list of seven rivers as reliable (and serve,
as we will see, like the portrayal of S, as an indication of how far-ranging and wellsettled the self-concept of the gvedic community was).20
Do sapta svas in U6.61.10 and sapta sindhu (or sapta mt; see note 17) refer to the
same physical fact or geographical phenomenon? In RV 1.164.3, 7.66.15, 8.41.02, 8.59/
103.4, 9.66.8, 9.86.36 and 10.05.5, sapta svas is a metaphor whose covert or latent
correspondent (upameya) can be different according to the context. In U6.61.10, with
the context furnished by verses 8-9 and 12-14 and no clear contradiction coming from
verse 11, there can be no doubt that the reference is to entities that are similar to the S,
that is, to entities which are streams. In other contexts, the entities meant come from
some other groupings of things or concepts. However, the property of resembling
each other or having something in common, sharing a source, remains constant. This
is as one would expect, given the employment of svas sister in the phrase, that is, in
20

(a) Induss non-inclusion in the list, however, is not an indication of its lack of importance.
In fact, like the S, it had a special importance.
(b) A list of seven rivers comprising the five rivers of the Punjab and the Sindhu and the S
exists in MBh 2.9.19: vip ca atadru ca candra-bhg sarasvat / irvat vitast ca sindhur devanadas tath // However, the verse is a part of a larger listing and does not characterize the
ones it lists as coming to number seven. While in the embedded listing the western boundary
of the region involved is not significantly different, because the rjky cannot, under any
plausible identification of that river, be very distant from the Sindhu, the eastern area
does not extend beyond Punjab.
(c) Another list of seven rivers, which is indicated as belonging to the post-disappearance
period of the S, is found in MBh 6.7.45-47: vasvokasr nalin pvan ca sarasvat / jamb-nad ca
st ca gag sindhu ca saptam // Here sindhu probably refers to a Madhya Pradesh river
mentioned in Klidsas Megha-dta. Although the number involved is seven, the phrase
sapta sindhu is not applied.
Note also MBh 3.212.021: sindhu-varja paca nadyo deviktha sarasvat / gag ca ata-kumbh
ca arayr gaa-shvay // and MBh 6.10.13a: nad pibanti bahul gag sindhu sarasvatm /
godvar narmad ca bhud ca mah-nadm // In this case, seven is only implicit, and the
combination sapta sindhu is again missing. Once again, we get a negative corroboration of
the special import of sapta sindhu.

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keeping with the basic or most common meaning of the lexeme svas. But such is not
the case with sapta sindhu. It contains no suggestion of a metaphor at the level of its
primary meaning, but the fact that sindhu of the phrase can be replaced with mt (cf.
note 17) or that sindhu and mt can be combined in a genitive tat-purua or karmadhraya relationship (cf. 3.7) indicates, that if sindhu was to be connected with a
metaphor, the one that the RV composers found suitable was the metaphor of mother.
This evidence and the contexts of the occurrence of the phrase, wherever they are
transparent enough, suggest that the major consideration behind being grouped was
ability to sustain and/or nurture. Such ability is unlikely to lead to inclusion in a
group unless it was reasonably widely recognized, that is, unless the community
concerned had taken a stock of its geographical situation beyond its immediate
environs, had analyzed itself as a community and arrived at some generalizations
about where and how it lived. This means that proximity will not be the principal
criterion behind grouping and that geographic information alone will not suffice in
putting forward groups. Some sense of how that geographic information is related to
communal living and what the communitys history has been like will be a prerequisite.
A relative ranking in terms of importance (vis--vis the streams or rivers not to be
included) thus ultimately sets sapta sindhu apart from sapta svas. While the former has
a necessary diachronic component in its formation, the latter is primarily a synchronic
concept. One is more tied to the earth, and the other is free for movement in the world
of abstractions. It also follows that the ranking involved in the former may not be
uniform. It may change according to the region and the (sub-)community involved
(compare the lists in note 19). Thus it should not surprise us that even the Indus, the
undisputed major river of the area, does not in the context at hand make it to the
league of seven.
3.6 The issue of whether the RV S had exactly and/or uniformly seven streams
associated with it can be discussed in a better way if we maintain awareness of the
following two points:
(a) A specific number of streams associated with a river is commonly a matter of
contemporary local perception and convention. Not all contributing streams are
necessarily so recognized or included in the official or common public
perception. Even whether a flow of water is to be viewed as just a stream (with or
without some proper name) or as a river depends on the nature of the stream and
its local perception, which is inevitably relative and is frequently conditioned by
conventions.
(b) It is possible that one or two of the streams known to RV composers had

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ASHOK AKLUJKAR

disappeared or lost recognition as Ss streams at the time of the Vjasaneyi-sahit

(see 3.3 and note 18). The language of the Vjasaneyi-sahit verse contains no
signs of being as old as the RV verses that allude to the constituent or associated
streams of the S.
Interpreted literally, the bahu-vrhi compound sapta-svas occurring in U6.61.10
with reference to the S in the sense one which has seven sisters should imply that the
S is over and above the seven.21 However, the MBh references (notes 9c and 14) indicate
that the S was thought of as a collectivity of seven and the stream called Oghavat was
more strongly associated with the name S than the other six streams. In other words,
six streams were viewed as joiners and the joinee was known both as Oghavat and S,
or the name S referred to a system of seven flows and also to the major or most
impressive flow of the system.22
3.7 The last observation has a possible bearing on a phrase that has been interpreted
in two different ways. Rajaram (1995, reference through Hock 2000+) translates sindhumt in 7.36.6 as mother of the Sindhu. He evidently takes sindhu-mt to be a genitive
tat-purua meaning sindho mt mother of the Indus, i.e., more important than the
Indus. This understanding can make the S the largest river known in the RV universe.
But, as Hock (2000+: 4) points out, the accent favors a bahu-vrhi, sindhur mt yasy
(that seventh) of which the Sindhu is the mother, which reverses the meaning and
makes the Indus the mother of the S.23 Since this difference of understanding would
21

Similarly in sapta-dhtu having seven roots, causes or bases of U6.61.12, the S would be a
product or outcome over and above the seven bases.

22

(a) Since the MBh (3.80.118, 3.130.3-4, etc.) explicitly speaks of the Ss disappearance, we
cannot rule out the possibility that a constituent stream of the gvedic S had been lost in its
time (or that it did not have exactly the same seven streams as S constituents as the RV).
However, since we have positive evidence for the conclusion reached in the preceding
paragraph and no confirmation of the possibility implicit in the preceding sentence namely
the possibility S was an entity over and above its seven constituents resting on a particular
compound dissolution, we should go with the conclusion, that is, choose to think of the
MBh as thinking of the S as a system of seven rivers but understanding the bahu-vrhi
compound sapta-svas if its authors were aware of the bahu-vrhi nature of the compound
as they probably were differently; the stream system signifier S, while being semantically
over and above the seven constituent flows, was factually one of the seven.
(b) A similar slippage of literal meaning occurs in bahu-vrhi compounds such as saptapara; cf. Vkyapadya/Trik 3.14.56.

23

In order not to complicate the discussion, I have assumed at this stage that mt stands for
source or cause and that Sindhu is a proper name. Other understandings of both the

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affect the picture of the S that we are trying to construct, since an understanding of
sindhu as one that flows, a stream cannot be ruled out in the context concerned and
since the number seven recurs in the form of the ordinal sapath, it may be thought
that saptath sindhu-mt should also be taken into account while we try to determine
the intent behind sapta-svas precisely. However, it is not necessary to do so. Under
either dissolution of sindhu-mt, the item referred to in saptath sindhu-mt will not be
over and above the seven that are presumed to form a group with Sindhu as the central
concept, because the element seven comes from saptath, which is external to the
compound. The justification provided above to distinguish the svas group of streams
from the mt group of streams will remain unaffected.
Still, for the benefit of future research, it should be noted that the argument
presented by Hock is not conclusive. For the S to be the seventh under the bahu-vrhi
assumption, we need to imagine a list of seven items (such as the ones in note 19) in
which the S appears in the final position,24 and, since a list of seven rivers of which the
Sindhu is the mother or source is not available either in the RV or in the reconstructions
of RV specialists, we make no progress with the bahu-vrhi derivation. If, to avoid this
uselessness, we take mt in some such sense as one without which the others would
not exist, one which is most essential, the most important, we will be presuming what
we seek to prove by insisting on the bahu-vrhi dissolution; we will only have a circular
argument to our (dis)credit.
A further problem to which Hock has not referred is that the commentators Vekaamdhava and Syaa have assumed the compound sindhu-mt to be a tat-purua.
The former writes a nadn saptam sindhn mt. The latter explains: yat
ys gagdn madhye sindhu-mt p mt-bht sarasvat etad-khy nad saptath
saptam bhavati.
As these commentators are elsewhere attentive about interpreting the RV in
accordance with the accent, it is unlikely that they did not notice that the accent on the
words are possible (sindhu occurs also in the general sense of flow, stream in the RV).
Under the tat-purua alternative, thinking of the compound as a karma-dhraya is also
possible.
24

We will also need to assume that the principle behind the order of items is garyo yad yad
uttaram each subsequent item is more important than or superior to the preceding item or
later the better. Otherwise, the S would not receive the contextually intended praise.
(Note also the use of saric.chreha mentioned in 5.9). This consideration, too, supports the
tat-purua dissolution, although indirectly.

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ASHOK AKLUJKAR

first syllable made sindhu-mt a bahu-vrhi compound. Therefore, we have to entertain

two possibilities: (a) They did not assign as decisive a role to accent as scholars like
Hock do; if there was a conflict between the meaning the context (of the specific hymn
or of the RV as a whole) supported or required and the meaning the accent made
possible, they assigned greater weight to the context. (b) The accentuation of sindhumt was different in their time.25
The text the traditional commentators knew antedates ours by centuries (in the
case of Vekaa-mdhava by about twelve hundred years). The tradition of manuscripts
and the tradition of recitation were in all probability in a better shape at their times.
The meaning seventh river mother, seventh among the sustaining (and therefore
important or prominent) rivers, making an indirect reference to the notion of sapta
sindhu-mts (= sapta sindhus; cf. note 17) fits the immediate context and the context
furnished by the RV as a whole most naturally (see note 19). It does not lead to the
handicap of list absence to which Hocks probable preference would lead as pointed
out two paragraphs ago. This conclusion also implies that saptath sindhu-mt has no
special role to play in our attempt to construct a picture of the gvedic S; it does not
tell us anything more than what an early list of seven rivers containing S, such as the
one in note 20, would. Neither the scholars who think that the S was the mightiest river
of the RV time nor the scholars who wish to pull the rug from under them and transfer
the honor to the Indus should use it as a piece of evidence favoring their position. One
can, by taking sindhu in the sense of stream, flow regard it as another articulation of
the sapta svas concept, but one can also, as indicated already, reconcile it with the
sapta sindhu concept (which alternative I prefer, since the text has mt). That it is thus
amenable to placement in two groups, again, indicates that it has no particular value
as evidence in the sub-issue (nature of S as a river) with which we are concerned at
this point.
25

(a) As far as I know, only the RV edition of rpda Dmodara Stavaekara (the last name
is also printed as Sntabalekara) has been checked against the memorized text of the
reciters. It, too, has accent on the first syllable of sindhu-mt favoring a bahu-vrhi
understanding of the compound. It should, however, be noted that Stavaekara could
consult only the RV reciters from Maharashtra.
(b) I am aware that emendations, especially in Vedic texts and particularly in the RV,
should be avoided as far as possible. However, I do not subscribe to the extreme view that
the RV text as we have it now is exactly as it was put together for the first time, either as
individual hymns or as an anthology that it is literally a tape recording. See also note
28.

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Unclear parts of the evidence

4.1 We have now arrived at a stage at which we should consider a few not-so-clear
RV cues to the nature of S as a river. Their value as evidence will naturally be lower
than that of the observations contained in 3.1-2, but, since in historical research
cumulative evidence has a role to play, we should try to ascertain the extent to which
they can help us in our quest.
A phrase yas p, which we have left out of consideration until now, occurs in
7.95.1. Taking it as a simile (upam) or metaphor (rpaka), we can make sense of the
verse half containing it in a plausible way: This S, (virtually) a metal protection or
enclosure that holds, flowed/flows forth with turbulent nourishing/refreshing
water.26 The suggestion would be that of weight (or force) and compactness of the
flow, something comparable to It hit like a hammer and It came down like a huge
block of cement. However, except for strengthening what we can infer from 3.1d-f,
there is unlikely to be any gain in determining the intention behind the use of the
expression yas p more precisely. We can, of course come up with such guesses as
the S did not allow the tributaries to overcome its own flow, or there was a dam on
the S, or the S glowed as a copper/iron fortification would, but, lacking corroboration,
the guesses will remain just that.
4.2 The phrases nadyo vibhva-ta (5.42.12) and vibhvane kt (U6.61.13) present a
challenge of another kind. Of the first, Syaa gives bh madhyamena kt fashioned
by Vibhvan, the middle of the bhus as the meaning. Vekaa-mdhava opts for
mahatm api tan-kartrya those who make even the great ones slender. In the case of
the second phrase, we find renderings such as (Skanda and Vekaa-mdhava:)
mahattvyaiva kt (Syaa:), vibhutvya parivh, guair adhik kt, prajpatin nirmit,
all amounting to saying made big/great (literally or metaphorically).
There is support for understandings of vibhvan both as a proper name (1.161.6,
3.49.1, 4.33.3, 4.33.9, 4.34.1, 4.36.5-6, 5.46.4, 5.58.4, 7.48.1-3) and as an adjectival agent
noun meaning one who/which goes far, extends, is able to penetrate/occupy (1.113.1,
1.190.2, 5.10.7, 9.98.1, 10.3.6). Given the occurrence of the same word vibhvan

26

Vekaa-mdhava: dhrayant lokasya lohamay ca nagar iti aupamikam. She is the one who
bears the world. (The word yas meaning) lohamay (made of iron/steel) and (the word
p meaning) nagar (town, city) are (a phrase of) comparison. Although some modern
specialists of the RV take ayas as signifying copper, Vekaa-mdhava seems to have
taken the word in its sense attested in later Sanskrit.

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ASHOK AKLUJKAR

accompanied by a past passive participle in the context of the same S and aps,27 one
would expect the consideration (or legend or myth) involved to be the same in both
the passages. If this expectation is justified, one could entertain the possibility that
vibhvane in the second phrase is a dative intended in the sense of an instrumental, a
case of vibhakti-viparima,28 or the possibility that a change of vibhvan to vibhvane
27

(a) Syaa on 5.42.12: apsa camasva-ratha-gavdi-obhana-karmavanta who have to their

credit such praiseworthy acts as (creation or fashioning of) ladels (or cups, flat dishes),
horses, chariots and bovines.
(b) Under U6.61.13, Skanda explains the phrase apsm apstam with anys karmavatn
sakt apastam vy-di-karmabhir atiayena karmavat More efficacious (i.e., more beneficial)
through rain etc. compared to other efficacious (i.e., beneficial) (rivers). Vekaa-mdhavas
explanation of the same is vegavatn nadn madhye atyanta vegavat (S) is exceedingly
speedy among the speedy rivers. Syaa, writing apas vegavatn nadn madhye
pastam vegavattam follows Vekaa-mdhava. All three available commentators have
taken aps (with accent on the second syllable) as an adjective meaning one associated
with action, one prone to action, efficacious and adjusted that general meaning to the
context of water streams. To make this possible, they have read an element of possession
in the meaning of the word aps.
(c) What Udgtha writes on 10.75.7, in which apasm apastam recurs, contains a more detailed
account of the explanations reproduced in (a): ubhayam etad antar.ta-matv-artham. apasm
apasvatn svdhikra-karmavatn nadn madhye apastam apasvitam atiayena svdhikrakarmavat. In both (the words) the meaning of (the suffix) matu[P] (that is, the meaning
element possession) is included. (The river Sindhu) is one which performs the actions in
its domain better than how the (other) rivers perform actions in their domains.
(d) A reflection of Vekaa-mdhavas understanding in the case of U6.61.13 is found in
what he writes under 10.75.7: atyanta vegavat vegavatbhya.

28

A change of one case ending into another is called for by considerations of syntax in many
Vedic passages. Traditional commentators recognize this need. Also in the paraphrases
offered by the modern interpreters of the RV, an awareness of the need to accept vibhaktiviparima is occasionally seen. The phenomenon is consistent with what we find in the
folk or popular verse compositions of pre-modern India. The metrical texts included in
such genres as saint poetry, bhakti poetry or Buddhist hybrid Sanskrit also display a certain
laxity of syntax that has deviation from the established case suffix employment as a relatively
frequent feature. As Vedic verse arises out of a spoken, fully living language, its sharing
this feature with the later vernacular literatures should not surprise us. The Vedic texts are
a case of marvelous and unique preservation. They are far more uniformly preserved than
the texts in the other genres to which I have just made a reference (because of a certain
philosophy about their sound). Yet they also have links with the folk tradition and the
tradition in which the compositions of saintly (or otherwise important) persons have been
preserved in India for centuries. To take liberties with grammar for the sake of meter and
to let the context lend its full might to making the text intelligible is one linking convention.

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has come about later in transmission (see note 25b). Even if these possibilities are set
aside, the common factor of the two phrases will be that broadening of some kind took
place or was brought about in the case of the S. We may think of this as a record of the
S breaking through (or between) hills (cf. 3.1d-f) or being enabled to do so at some
point, or as a myth giving credit to Vibhvan that arose out of a noticeable physical
feature of the Ss course. Of the three bhus, it is Vibhvan who is singled out for
fashioning, carving and/or chiseling in RV 3.49.1, 4.36.5 and 5.58.4.29
4.3 Another possibly problematic expression of which I have so far not taken note
is prvataghnm, occurring in U6.61.2. If, taking the usual meanings of prvata pigeon,
dove and -ghn (ghna ghan han to smite, to strike), we render the word as
striker/killer of doves, the meaning will not fit, unless we also assume that a story or
incident of dove-striking/killing (unknown or lost to us) is being utilized by the
composer. Approximately the same will be the outcome if prvata is taken to mean
turtle, in which sense it is said to occur at Vjasaneyi-sahit 24.25 (Suryakanta 1981:
426). Prvata as the name of a people (Macdonell-&-Keith pp. I.518-519) will also
suffer from non-corroboration by any story about how these people were killed. The
other words of the verse do not indicate any indubitable reason for alluding to people
killing. Although the possibility of punning cannot be entirely eliminated, it does not
at all seem necessary to invoke it.
Even the occurrence taken by Macdonell-&-Keith as referring to a specific people
can simply be understood as a people from distance or from the other shore. parvat
commonly occurs in the sense of associated with (the) outward, away or beyond (idea)
distance in the RV.30 The pattern seen in it (a prefix followed by vat) is also seen in
29

(a) Habib (2001: 50) refers to medieval attempts to join other streams to the (possible)
remnants of S by digging canals. It is conceivable that memory of the broadening of the S
or one of its constituents or substitutes had survived and that the medieval government
mentioned by Habib got the idea from the folk or learned traditions of the inhabitants of
the Haryana, Punjab or Himachal Pradesh areas.
(b) In RV 1.110.4, the bhus are said to have attained immortality (martsa santo amtatvam
nau) because they registered an impressive achievement in one year (viv am taraitvena
vghato savatsare samapcyanta dhtibhi). To those who hold that the RV contains
compositions of nomadic people, however, the possibility suggested toward the end of
4.2 will, understandably, seem laughable.

30

RV 1.34.7, 1.35.3, 1.36.18, 1.39.1, 1.47.7, 1.48.7, 1.53.7, 1.73.6, 1.92.3, 1.112.13, 1.119.8, 1.128.2,
1.130.1, 1.130.9, 1.134.4, 3.9.5, 3.37.11, 3.40.8, 3.40.9, 4.21.3, 4.26.6, 4.30.11, 4.50.3, 5.30.5,
5.53.8, 5.61.1, 5.73.1, 6.8.4, 6.44.15, 6.45.1, 7.97.2, 8.3.17, 8.5.8, 8.5.30, 8.6.36, 8.7.26, 8.8.14,
8.12.6, 8.12.17, 8.13.15, 8.30.3, 8.32.22, 8.33.10, 8.45.25, 8.50.7, 8.53.3, 8.82.1, 8.93.6, 8.97.4,

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words like udvat, nivat and pravat that, too, are attested in the RV. Particularly instructive
in this regard is 1.35.3: yti deva pravat, yty udvat devo yti savit parvato //
As a secondary adjectival derivation (taddhita) from it, prvata occurs, besides RV
U6.61.2, in RV 5.52.11, 8.100.6 and Atharva-veda 20.135.1131 in the sense one situated
at a distance, one from afar, one on the other/opposite side. This sense suffices also
for Paca-via-brhmaa 9.4.11 that Macdonell-&-Keith and some scholars before
them have cited as definite evidence of the words reference to a distinctive people.
Further, the presence of the river Yamun in the context of the passage is favorable to
a meaning like those on the other shore. Understandably, therefore, Vekaa-mdhava
explains the word prvataghn as prvraghn destroyer of both banks, one who/
which cuts through this and the yonder shore. Syaa, similarly, says: parvati dradee vidyamnasypi vkder hantr, one which destroys even distant trees etc. This
meaning suits the statement about a river nicely and agrees in spirit with the references
in 3.1d-f and the broadening detail discussed in 4.2.
While the absence of clarity about the meaning of prvataghn can thus be removed
on a more certain basis than is possible in the case of many other rare RV words, what
remains puzzling is the historical closeness of prvata to prvara/rvra that the
commentaries seem to suggest: Yska (Nirukta 2.24), a considerably ancient authority,
right away gives prvraghtinm as the gloss of prvaraghnm. His commentators
Skanda-&-Mahevara elucidate the second part of this with avram avara klam,
avara sad avatam, rephasya takrpatty. avra means that bank which is avara (i.e.,
lower/closer). That which is avara is avata, through the transformation of r into t. The
RV commentators mentioned above also show an unhesitating readiness to move from
prvata to prvara/rvra. Were they proceeding on the assumption that the vata :
vara/vra difference was only dialectal? Were at least some of them trying to account
for the contextually well-supported meaning of prvata in the Nirukta way?32 Our
9.39.5, 9.44.2, 9.65.22, 9.68.6, 9.111.2, 10.58.11, 10.63.1, 10.78.7, 10.95.14, 10.137.2, 10.144.4,
10.145.4, 10.180.2, 10.187.2. Parvat occurs also in Atharva-veda 3.4.5, 3.18.3, 4.13.2, 5.30.1,
6.34.3.
31

The last number is given as 14 in Macdonell-&-Keith pp. I.518-519, which must be an

oversight for 11.

32

(a) Syaas comm on the Paca-via-brhmaa passage specified above reads: parav
nma kacit. tat-sabandhina prvat. This should be corrected to read parvan nma. .
Cf. Vekaa-mdhava on 8.89/100.6: parvan-nmna kasyacit sva-bhtam. Syaa on the
same verse: parvan-nmakasya kasyacic.chatro sva-bhta yad vasu dhanam asti. The
explanation will, nonetheless, be without any corroboration in the gvedic tradition and

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inability to remove uncertainty in this respect should, however, not come in the way
of understanding prvataghnm as conveying that the S had a flow that could dislodge
even distant formidable objects.
4.4 One more expression, potentially problematic in the present S-as-a-river
context, is ratha, found directly in ratha iva bhat vibhvane kt (U6.61.13) and indirectly
in rathyeva yti viv apo mahin sindhur any // (7.95.1). The use of ratha in these
sentences should be distinguished from the one found in 3.54.13 (vidyud-rath maruta),
10.17.8 (sarasvati y saratha yaytha), 10.75.6 (tva sindho kubhay gomat krumu
mehatnv saratha ybhir yase), 10.75.8 (svav sindhu surath suvs) and 10.75.9 (sukha
ratha yuyuje sindhur avina). There, the usual meaning cart, vehicle, car attested in
many RV verses, fits in a straightforward way. In U6.61.13 and 7.95.1, however, ratha
and rathy appear as qualifiers of the S, not as means of transportation.
In the case of rathy, one possibility is to take it as the nominative singular of a
feminine stem rathy, joined to iva in sandhi. It would then go well with the remaining
words of the sentence because of its meaning like a cart road, like a road used for
swift movement. Alternatively, rathy can be taken as the Vedic equivalent of the
Classical Sanskrit instrumental singular rathin, as Syaa does in his second
explanation. However, then it is not clear how the idea involved is to be precisely
understood as far as the relation between the rath and rathena is concerned (see below).
will conflict with what Syaa says on several of the RV verses mentioned in note 30. But
the conflict need not be viewed as a serious problem, since the author designation Syaa
is probably a short form for the several scholars who, under Syaas leadership or general
editorship, tried to save the explications of the Veda in the time of the Vijayanagara empire.
The scholar who commented on the Paca-via-brhmaa may not be the one who
commented on the RV, although he, too, was referred to as Syaa.
(b) As can be seen from (a) and note 30, the evidence in the Indian tradition for taking
Prvata as a people, tribe or clan name is slim. It consists of a comment each from Vekaamdhava and Syaa about one deed of Indra (making available to arabha some wealth
that originally belonged to someone else). Even in the statement of this deed it is not
necessary that prvata be taken as a proper name. The wealth of a person living at a
considerable distance will fit the context equally well. Nor is it necessary that we should
move from a single distant person to his relations. Only in the comment on the Pacavia-brhmaa sabandhina is added as a plural. In the other two comments, no need
has been felt to go beyond the singular number. In view of these facts, the suggestion of
Hillebrandt reported in Macdonell-&-Keith (pp. I.518-519) that prvata is related to Paruetai
or Paroutai of Ptolemy should not be preferred, although a connection of the Ptolemy
terms with parvata ( Prvata mountain people) in Vedic vocabulary will still remain
defensible.

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Of U6.61.13, we have the following explanations available:

(a) Skanda: yath ratha sajtyebhyo nyebhyo yuddhopakaraebhyo mahs tadvat sarvato
mahat vibhvane vibhutvyaiva ca kt nirmit prajpatin. The S is great(er) in every
respect (compared to all other rivers) just as a cart/chariot is great(er) than other
means of warfare in its own category. It has been thus produced by the Creator
for nothing but vibhutva (= solely for dominance? solely for pervasion or coverage
of the ground?). There is no explicit recognition or explanation of bhat in Skandas
commentary. Probably mahat expresses his understanding of bhat.
(b) Vekaa-mdhava: ratha iva bhat mahattvya kt. Here we do not get any
explanation of how the idea of ratha is connected with bhat as an adjective of the
S.
(c) Syaa: y ca ratha iva vibhvane vibhutvya bhat parivh guair adhik kt
prajpatin nirmit. And which one (= the S) has been produced, that is, created
by the Creator, like a cart, for vibhutva (dominance? coverage?) as bhat, that is,
as excelling in qualities.
Syaas explanation can be viewed as explaining the relation between ratha and
bhat in a generalized and hence less helpful way than Skandas. His understanding
of the syntax of the verse quarter is also different. He puts bhat in the predicate part
and, unlike Skanda, does not take ratha iva bhat as an adjectival phrase in the subject
part.
The commentators have certainly realized that bhat cannot be taken in its usual
physical sense broad, expansive, high, tall, big. They have wisely suggested that it
be taken in some such sense as unusually effective or exceptionally helpful in
extending or covering an area.
This element of extraordinary efficacy in pervading or taking charge is present in
the explanations of 7.95.1 as well. In the case of that verse, Skandas commentary is
unfortunately not available at present.
Vekaa-mdhava explains the relevant verse quarter with rja-mrga iva gacchati
(The S) proceeds or goes ahead like the main road (of a town or city). In paraphrasing
thus he must have understood rathy as a feminine nominative singular.33
33

(a) I assume that the absence of sandhi in Vakata-mdhavas explanation is not introduced
by the editor. If it is, the author could also have intended rathe (locative) iva, although such
intention is less probable, given the awkwardness to which the nominative bhat would
lead.
(b) In RV 3.33.2 (indreite prasavam bhikame acch samudr rathyeva ytha / samre rmibhi

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Syaa additionally entertains the possibility that rathy could be a Vedic

instrumental singular of rathin/rath (cf. Macdonell-&-Keith p. II.206) one who possesses,
i.e., has the use of, drives, a cart or chariot. After rathyeva ( rathy iva) pratolva
vistr sat yti gacchati (The S), being spread out, moves ahead like the main road (of
a town or city), he writes: yad v, rathyeva rathineva / yath rath rathena mrgasthataru-gulmdika cr-ktya gacchati tadvat svakyena vegena sarva sapiat gacchatty
artha Or the meaning is this: rathyeva means as with/by a cart driver. Just as a cartdriver (or charioteer) moves ahead, crushing clusters of plants etc. that come in (his)
way, (the S) moves ahead grinding everything (in its path) on account of its speed.
Here, it is not clear how Syaa changes from rathin to rath (nominative singular of
the same stem) or rathena (the instrumental singular of another stem). A textual
corruption could have occurred where the available editions read rathineva.
Thus, there are difficulties with the details of all the accessible traditional
explanations. It seems better to take ratha iva bhat as a part of the subject phrase in
U6.61.13 and rathy as a nominative in 7.95.1 as most modern translators have done.
The semantic meeting ground of both the verses will be (a) swift or overpowering
movement, (b) the S moves more speedily than all other waters. This distillation is in
agreement with what we learn from the passages specified in 3.1.b-f34 and should
suffice for our present purpose.
pinvamne any vm anym apy eti ubhre // ), rathy is to be taken as a nominative dual in
view of the verb ythah, and Syaa explains accordingly: yath rathinau lakya deam
abhigacchata tadvat rathyeva rathasyemau tasyedam [Pini 4.3.120] ity-arthe rathd
yad [Pini 4.3.121] iti yat-pratyaya.
34

(a) I am not sure if the MBh Supplementary Passage 8.2.74 (75cd) adhihna mana cst
parirathy sarasvat, in which also rathy ( ratha) occurs, should be connected with the RV
passages discussed here.
(b) Witzel 2003: 114: the fact, known even to beginning Vedic students, that Vedic
bhat does not normally mean big as in Epic/Classical Sanskrit but high just as in
related words in Avestan and other IE languages. In its context this remark (confirmed
on p. 138) is preceded and followed by sentences which give the impression that the
researcher whom Witzel is criticizing at this point has no choice but to accept a translation
like high, tall, if he wishes to be correct. However, high, tall is not the exclusive or
invariable meaning of bhat even in Vedic Sanskrit as the entries in standard dictionaries
show and as Witzels inclusion of the qualification normally implies. However, normally
may be hyperbolic if the expressions with bhat recorded in the dictionaries are taken into
account in their entirety; bhat seems to have a basic sense such as expanding/expanded,
taken to the next or further degree that is to be rendered with a word appropriate to the
accompanying notion. So, all translations such as high/higher (sky), taller (mountain),

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4.5 As is frequently the case with any ancient literature, we come across a few
expressions in the case of which we have to accept more than one meaning or uncertainty
as the best possible outcome. According to my count, there are two expressions that
fall in this category: tri.adhasth in U6.61.12 and vaka in 10.64.9. Fortunately, none of
the plausible explanations of either of these poses a serious challenge to our effort to
reconstruct a picture of the S in the RV. What they can reasonably be said to convey
can be viewed as conveyed or easily implied by one or more expressions in the
references to S as a river studied above.
4.6 That tri.adhasth is to be split as tri and sadhasth, not as tri.adha and stha
(coming from root sth), is indicated by the Pada-pha of the RV as well as the AV.
Bhtlingk-&-Roth (1889: VII.618) inform us that tri.adhastha as an adjective means an
drei Stellen befindlich, dreifachen Stand habend and is found in that sense in 1.47.4
with respect to barhis sacrificial grass, in 1.156.5 with respect to Viu, in 4.50.1 with
respect to Bhas-pati, in 5.4.8, 6.8.7 and 6.12.2 with respect to Agni, and in 8.83/94.5
with respect to Soma, and, as a neuter noun meaning dreifacher Ort in 5.11.2 and
10.61.14. What could be translations of the same meanings are given by Macdonell
(1924: 114) with being in three places and Suryakanta (1981: 326) with having a triple
seat and threefold place.
As far as I could check, Monier-Williams does not deal with the compound stem
beginning with tri. However, he (1899/1951: 1140) lists sadhastha with the meaning
standing together, present as occurring in the RV and AV and with the meaning
place where people stand together, place of meeting, any place, spot, abode, home,
region, world as occurring in the Vjasaneyi-sahit. The attestations mentioned here
are given in a more specific and, therefore, more helpful way in Bhtlingk-&-Roth
(1889: VII.618): Stelle, Standort, Aufenthalt, Heimath, Raum hier vorhanden,
anwesend: RV 3.12.8, AV 6.123.1-2; vgl. VS 18.59-60.
Support for what the modern lexicographers and translators have given as the
meanings of sadhastha and tri.adhastha can be read in the explanations offered by the
traditional commentators.
Like Kuiper (1957: 309-311), I do not accept sadhastha as a signifier of standing
place. But I am not convinced that one should follow Kuiper in connecting sadhes with
raised/sharper (pitch/accent) are possible, depending on the context. The traditional
commentators whom I have cited in this section should not, therefore, be faulted for their
glosses with such words as vibhutva, parivha, adhika, mahattva and vistra. The cognates in
other IE languages do not seem to lack this semantic elasticity either.

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sdhis. I think that Whitney (1905: 373), who offered associates (?) as a translation of
sadhasth in Atharva-veda 6.123.1 was closer to the original meaning of the word. Yet
I will not suggest at this time that the meaning one who stays together in the three
worlds who pervades the three worlds, which Skanda and Syaa assign to
tri.adhasth in U6.61.12 should be set aside. The meaning fits more naturally to S, the
divinity, and the commentators do indicate that they are aware of the possibility of
taking the verse as applicable to the goddess S. However, one which has three standtogethers, one which has three co-occurrents35 would be closer to the etymological
meaning of tri.adhasth. It can be applied to S, the goddess, in some such sense as one
who has a presence on the earth, in the mid-region and in the celestial sphere
(essentially the same meaning as the one given by Skanda and Syaa; also compare
Gag as Tripathag) or one who has presence in the forms of I, Bhrat and (in a
narrower or more specific sense) S. The same etymological meaning when applied to
S as a river may refer to three confluences, three stages (source, descent through
hills, streaming on flat surface) of its course or three branches (in its lower course; see
5.6 below).
4.7 In the case of vaka (10.64.9), the difference in what the commentators and
translators say pertains to how the meanings they attribute to the word are to be derived,
not to whether the word makes sense to them. Vekaa-mdhava and Syaa may be
viewed either as leaving the word unexplained or as taking it as a synonym of river,
since they use only nadya and im nadya at the point where one expects them to offer
a gloss or paraphrase of vaka. They probably connected the word with root va, but
we cannot be sure. Udgtha, glossing with vahantya is more helpful, but the word he
has used can be understood as signifying either flowing or carrying, transporting.
Bhtlingk-&-Roth (p. VI.616) explain with etwa strkend, erfrischend. Suryakanta
(1981: 570) indicates that he takes vaka as a feminine of vakaa attested in the sense
strengthening, refreshing (which amounts to a translation of Bhtlingk-&-Roth), but
there is evidence on the same page of his dictionary to the effect that he could not have
been unaware of the possibility of connecting vaka with vaka, a very similar word
meaning, according to him, flowing or inclined to flowing. Modern understandings
of vaka have been studied by Karen Thomson (2004: 112-139, 2009: 16-10). The word
has been rendered with womb, entrails, belly, udders, flanks (of mountains),
bowels (of the earth), breast, and box. Thomson proposes fertile place or land as
the meaning.
35

I have coined the neologisms stand-togethers and co-occurrents to reflect the structure
of the Sanskrit original.

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We thus have two choices: to relate the word to root vak to grow, to swell, to be
strong or to relate it to root va to carry, transport, support in a metaphorical sense.
The latter is reconcilable with the gloss of Udgtha and the probable understanding of
Vekaa-mdhava and Syaa. Either way, the resultant meaning will fit the context.
4.8 Now, except for one detail, we have made the RV text work for us as much as
it reasonably can in terms of furnishing factual or very plausibly factual information
about the S river. This detail, staring right in our face as it were, that I have so far only
marginally touched upon (3.4) is the name S. Unlike most other river names in the
RV, S, possessing saras/saras-es, having pond(s), lake(s) or flow(s), is a transparent
name. Unless there was something distinctive (in the eyes of the contemporaries) about
the object or manner of possession, such a name would not have been given. In effect
the name becomes a descriptive term conveying marked or distinguished by ponds,
lakes or flows. Secondly, the name parallels the name of a close associate of the S,
namely Dadvat, one possessing rocks or pebbles, one marked by stones. Neither
name could have come into existence without actual observation and without a
judgment (studied or impressionistic) as to how the river to be named differed from
other known rivers.
In the light of later Sanskrit usage of saras, most researchers have understandably
taken saras in the sense of pond or lake, and sometimes even discussed whether a
river marked by ponds or lakes can be identified with one or more beds revealed as
existing under ground by Landsat imaging. Occasionally, they have also raised the
possibility that these lakes might have flowing waters on one or more sides or may in
fact be lakes in an Afghan or Iranian desert. For example, Witzel in his post of 20 May
1998 on the Indology-Liverpool discussion list writes:
NOTE that S/Haraxvaiti means (river) having ponds, certainly not a good name for a
mighty stream; that this must at least refer to a slow flowing river with many bends and
u-shaped cut-off ponds, or it may be a river disappearing in the Iranian/Indian desert
with many ponds in its lower course.

Most of this remark consists of toying with possibilities in an effort to refute two
particular attributions (mightiness and ending in a samudra, with samudra in the sense
ocean or Arabian Sea) made by some other scholars to the S. What Witzel says,
however, does not include one possibility that research on the RV as a whole invites
us to consider: Could saras not have had a meaning different from pond when the
name S came into being?
In the case of many RV words, the meaning the context warrants is close to that of

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the root word (as we would postulate the latter on the basis of related words). In saras,
the root is s/sar to flow, to speed, to extend oneself. The etymological or grammatically
fundamental meaning of saras would, therefore, be one that moves/flows.
To be sure, this meaning must have been either open to the accommodation of the
specific meaning pond, lake or was moved by the contexts of its use in the direction
of specializing in conveying the meaning pond, lake that there must have come
about a difference between saras and the other derivative of s/sar, such as sarit and
sti, but it does not follow from our postulating a direct relationship between the
meaning of the root s and the meaning of the noun saras that the accommodation or
contextual pressures were in existence when the name S came into being. This is
indicated by the fact that the cognate river names Saray/rayu and Susart do not
have such literal meanings or associations with geographical details that would
necessitate incorporation of the idea of entirely or almost entirely enclosed
accumulations of water. Ponds or lakes need such an idea.
Continuing to look for internal indications, we should also focus on the related
word sarasva(n)t which occurs in a few verses of the RV (I have collected these verses
in the Appendix). The word can be taken to stand for the male partner of S (Pacavia-brhmaa 16.5.3). However, while there is, historically, a male-to-female
movement attested in the case of Indra : Indr, Varua : Varuni et al., there is no
evidence of such a movement in the case of Sarasvat : S. If one must postulate a
relationship that is significant in terms of religious or mythic concepts, the available
texts would favor postulation of a relationship that had female to male as a direction
what I call a Elizabeth Taylor Mr. Taylor phenomenon, a phenomenon in which
the husband or male partner is given the wifes or female partners last name because
she happens to be more famous. But not only is there no such movement, the Jaiminyabrhmaa, contrary to our expectation of a husband : wife relationship, speaks of
Sarasvat as the son of S.36 It specifies Vyu, Wind, as his father, which is revealing
and helpful in the context of the issue we are discussing. Vyu is strongly associated
with movement. In other contexts, Sarasvat is associated also with the Maruts (RV
10.66.5, also RV 7.95.3 as understood by Syaa), Supara eagle, Garua (RV 1.164.52)
and manas, mind, (ata-patha-brhmaa 7.5.1.31), in whose descriptions speedy
movement is frequently mentioned. Thus, Sarasvat is a concept that is functionally
independent of S, and the component saras found in its expression is related to moving
36

My reference is based on pp. 350-351 and 361 of a Ngar electronic input based on two
partial printed editions. I do not have access to a printed edition at present. The approximate
reference to the printed editions should probably be 2.185 and 2.198.

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and speed, not to something like pond or lake that is spatially constrained and largely
stagnant.
4.9 The specialists inform us that in the Younger Avesta Haraxvait, the cognate of
S, is employed as the name of a region rich in rivers and streams (see 5.16 below). The
harax or hara[h] part of the name, therefore, is unlikely to have stood for anything other
than stream, flow in the Avestan tradition. We should expect the meaning of gvedic
saras to be at least close to this meaning if not identical with it.
Yska (9.26), who is a fairly early author, much closer to the RV than we are, takes,
while deriving the name S, the lexeme saras as a general name for water: sara ity udakanma, sarte. tadvat [= Sarasvat].
Further, Macdonell-&-Keith (p. II.434) employ the qualification later in their
remark, Saras denotes lake in the later Sahits and the Brhmaas.37
These considerations lead us to the conclusion that there is no basis for associating
the idea of ponds or lakes (in our senses of the terms) strongly with the ancient S or to
think of that idea as coming in the way of Ss being a free-flowing river that reached a
sea or an ocean.38 Even if we read the later meaning of saras in the formation of the
37

(a) The Macdonell-&-Keith remark is based on occurrences of saras in Vjasaneyi-sahit

23.47, 48; 30.16; Aitareya-brhmaa, 3.33, 6; ata-patha-brhmaa, 13, 5, 4, 9;
Chndogyopaniad, 8.5.3.
(b) It is true that Mayrhofer (KEWA, p. III.444, EWA, p. II.708) is reluctant to connect S
with the root sar move, propel forwards, and Witzel (2003: 173), using this fact, tries to
prove Kazanas wrong. However, I cannot see any plausible reason other than the influence
of discussions regarding where S ended in Mayrhofers (i) setting a straightforward semantic
aside and (ii) deciding the issue only on the basis of his sense of what the Greek cognate
hlos meant. I have given more than one reason above to conclude that saras must, in the RV
days, have primarily meant flow, stream, which is in agreement with the meaning of root
s/sar move, propel forwards. Until my reasons are shown to be inapplicable, Kazanass
(2003: 229) rejection of Mayrhofer will remain valid.
(c) Kazanas has also made two observations that support what Macdonell-&-Keith
concluded: (i) The meaning move, rush, leap of Latin salire, Greek hiall and Tocharian B
salte indicates that Greek hlos swamp and Sanskrit saras pool must be cases of a later
anomalous semantic development of specialization or restricted meaning. (ii) Iranian
harax has no kindred words in Avestan, whereas Sanskrit has -sara, sarit, sti, sarayu, etc.
s/sar is a productive root, whereas Iranian hara is not.

38

It follows from the evidence noted in 4.8-9 that Witzels objection, based on the pond
or lake understanding of saras, to the mighty nature of the S is not as strong as it may
seem at first sight. For a different understanding of mighty, see 5.8 below.

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name S, it probably rested on the feature that the river had bodies of water that came
together in some areas and moved apart in other, that had constituent streams that stood
out as if they had exclusive areas of their own, that appeared like (what we would call)
lakes (a land-locked body of water). This inference arrived at through linguistics and
semantics agrees with what we have determined above on the basis of the RV text.39
Immediate implications and some possible objections to them
5.1 Attempts to identify the gvedic S with a modern river or riverbed have been
made since the nineteenth century. The attempts have picked up speed and reached a
much higher degree of sophistication since the beginning of the twentieth century.
The main reason for this is the realization that several modern exact (or relatively
more exact) sciences and technologies paleogeography, geology, carbon dating,
Landsat imaging etc. can be used to study the S in an objective and more reliable
way. To continue to use these sciences and technologies for further historical gains,
we must first know where and for what we should be looking. Otherwise, our situation
would be like that of the neighbors subjected to a practical joke by Mulla Nasiruddin,
a wise man who loved to pretend that he was a fool and play practical jokes on
unsuspecting persons. One day Nasiruddin began to look for something intensely
outside his house. Soon the neighbors gathered around and asked him if he had lost
something. He replied, Yes, my house key. The neighbors joined him in the search.
After looking for the key in many directions and behind this and that bush, etc., a
neighbor asked Nasiruddin where he had lost the key. Nasiruddin responded, In the
house. Then the exasperated and angered neighbors naturally asked him, Why then
are you looking for the key here, outside the house. Nasiruddin responded with a
straight face, Because the light is better here. Before we discuss whether a certain
discovered bed agrees with the S in the RV or what questions we should be asking, we
have to know what the S in the RV was really like. This is what I have tried to do in the
39

It is also possible, although not as likely as the account given above, that saras in S stood for
something similar to a pond or lake in another way, namely through whirlpools or
unexpectedly deep cavern-like areas or holes (hradas) in the river. If the river was marked
by speed and by its power of erosion coming from speed (see 3.1), deep areas that could
harbor whirlpools would naturally come to dot its bed, especially in the upper course. Cf.
MBh 3.88.2a sarasvat puyavah hradin vana-mlin the merit-bestowing S which has hradas
and which wears a garland of woods. (In this verse half, the last adjective needs a plural
of wood, if the garland metaphor is to be appropriate. Therefore, hrada, too, is unlikely
to have been intended as a singularity.) See also the discussions regarding the word arma/
arman, which have a partial bearing on the geography of the S.

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preceding sections in a rigorous philological way and by taking into account the
emerging features of the gvedic S cumulatively.
5.2 What we can now be sure about is this:
(a) The gvedic S was a river that came (at least) to its lower course in streams known
for their force and speed.
(b) The streams caused much erosion as they came down from the hills and led to
fertile regions below, which, in turn, led to development of communities (cf.
3.1g-i and notes thereto).
(c) In contemporary perception, there were at least six streams in addition to the
main stream that constituted the S (cf. 3.3-6).
(d) They all originated in approximately the same area (and united with what came
to be thought of as the main stream in various ways, at various points and to
various extents).
(e) The name S commonly referred to the collectivity but, in the contexts in which
the constituent streams were separately recognized, the name could have stood
for a single stream (later probably called Oghavat; cf. 3.6, notes 9c and 14a).
To complete the picture and give ourselves the benefit of having all the certain and
nearly certain information in one place, I will anticipate some of the discussion to
come and add the following to the above:
(g) The S reached the sea or ocean to the west through one of its constituent streams
if not through what was its major stream in the northern part (cf. 5.5, 5.12).
(h) In the perception of the ancients (as inferable mainly from the Paca-viabrhmaa and the MBh), the major stream, after its confluence with the Dadvat,
could have again given rise to more than one stream (see notes 14-15 and 5.5).
5.3 An implication of my reconstruction above that would be most unsettling for
current scholarship is that the search for the lost S should not have been carried out on
the assumption that S flowed through a single bed (at least for the part needed to
bestow on it the recognition as a distinct river). The search should have focused on
that part in the Kuru-ketra and adjacent areas where relatively narrow beds of several
streams were seen fairly near each other. Looking for one wide and long stream was
understandable when the first researchers learned about a lost major or mighty river
and, in the Haryana-Rajasthan area, saw a dry bed answering their expectation and/
or the sequence in RV 10.75.5-6.40 It was then simply a matter of putting two and two

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together for them (although one wishes that the question, What is exactly or really
meant by a major or mighty river? should have occurred to them). The bed happened
to be known then as Ghaggars bed, and the examination of whether that bed could
correspond to what we learn about the S from ancient texts began.41 As I intend to
argue in another paper, the Ghaggar should really be a remnant of the ancient
Dadvat.42

40

(a) The sequence of these two events could have been the other way round. After seeing a
dry bed a question could have been asked about its identity and the locals could have told
a legend that led to the beds identification with a particular river, namely S. One needs to
study the nineteenth-century researchers reports and research papers minutely to determine
exactly how the identification came about. The issue, however, need not hold up the
discussion to follow in the present paper.
(b) Stein 1942: 173 has the following sentence: Traditional Indian belief recognizes in this
well-marked bed [= the dry river-bed of the Ghaggar or Hakra, which passes from the
easternmost Panjab through the States of Bikaner and Bahawalpur down to Sind] the course
of the sacred S, once carrying its abundant waters down to the ocean and since antiquity
lost in desert sands. We do not know, however, what Steins source for the belief was
and what the age of that source was.

41

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaggar-Hakra_River, we get the following

information about Ghaggar: The Ghaggar-Hakra River is an intermittent river in
India and Pakistan that flows only during the monsoon season. The river is known as
Ghaggar before the Ottu barrage and as the Hakra downstream of the barrage. It
originates in the Shivalik Hills of Himachal Pradesh and flows through Punjab and Haryana
states into Rajasthan; just south-west of Sirsa, Haryana and by the side of Talwara Jheel in
Rajasthan, this seasonal river feeds two irrigation canals that extend into Rajasthan. The
present-day Sarsuti (S River) originates in a submontane region (Ambala district) and joins
the Ghaggar near Shatrana in Punjab. Near Sadulgarh (Hanumangarh) the Naiwal channel,
a dried out channel of the Sutlej, joins the Ghaggar. Near Suratgarh the Ghaggar is then
joined by the dried up Dadvat (Chautang) river. For a rejection or circumscribing of
the last identification, see note 40. For more details about the Ghaggar, some of them
problematic, see note 43.

42

(a) The researchers who have worked so far on the topic under discussion seem to be
unanimous in identifying the ancient Dadvat with modern Chautang. I have not, however,
come across any sustained argumentation for doing so. For a reason that may hold only in
the case of the source area, see Kochhar 2003: 5, 2006: 3: While S is equated with the
Ghaggar, the Chautang is equated with the Dadvati on grounds of plausibility. a rishi
in Lyyana rauta-stra (10.19.8,9) could travel to the source of the Dadvati and reach
the Yamun with ease.

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5.4 The following remark of Witzel (post of 24 May 1998 on the Indology-Liverpool
forum) may be thought of as undercutting my reliance on U6.61.9-10 and 7.95.4 in
which the multiplicity of the S streams is mentioned:
The S (Ghaggar+Hakra) never was stable as the multiple channels especially in its upper
courses show. All Panjab rivers are unstable, including even the Yamun and further
east.

Here the multiplicity is spoken of as if it came about sequentially through the

phenomenon of course change. Some (Punjab) rivers and the Yamun indeed have
changed courses as the statement mentions. However, what proof do we have that this
sort of geomorphic change took place in the case of the S? Usually, a river which changes
its course is referred to by the same name or another name if, I suppose, it merges with
another river or occupies an abandoned bed that already has a name attached to it (see
5.16 for examples). If the multiple channels in the Ss upper courses came from the
changed courses of a single river, they must have come into being at different times
over a long period. How would one, especially if that one is the ancient man, think of
speaking about them as a single river? How will they be remembered as channels of a
single river? Would the words such as svas and sakh be employed for river courses
that came about at greatly separated times? It is to Witzels credit that, unlike most
other researchers, he shows awareness of the Ss association with several streams (albeit
by equating the S with the Ghaggar-Hakra). But what he mentions as multiple channels
in the upper courses can make sense only as constituent streams that were already
there right from the time of the formation of the Ghaggar (= S in the present context).
(b) In preferring the position that the S is not Ghaggar and the Chautang is not Dadvat,
I am not denying that the courses of the rivers could not have overlapped. In an area in
which the rivers have evidently changed their courses (probably more than once) and
when the ancient texts speak of the S as having several streams and of the Dradvat as
meeting the S, absolute identifications are going to be very difficult if not impossible. My
principal aim in this paper is to determine the details of the ancients perception and set the
parameters for identifying the gvedic S and, thereby, to specify which parts of the present
scholarly understanding do not fit. I will not be disappointed if my exercise does not lead
to immediate or exclusive understanding.
(c) Kochhar is the only scholar known to me who has rejected the Ghaggar = S equation
unequivocally (and equally unequivocally embraced an alternative identification). A few
others have only obliquely and partially given expression to their reservation and the
reasons for that reservation. Further, Kochhars argument consists only in making a case
for locating the S of the older RV in eastern Afghanistan. That this argument does not
work should be clear from my 5.14 below.

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Also, the courses that are still remembered with modern forms of the name S have
a better chance of being the original S, not some river like the Ghaggar whose name
bears no phonetic resemblance to S.43 In this respect, Habib (2001: 70-71 note 25) seems
to be on the right track when he gives the following account on the basis of the Indian
Atlas Sheet 48:
The Soorsuttee Nud is shown rising in Siwalik [= Shivalik] slopes taking off from Yar
Buddree N. It then runs past north of Thanesar. An Old Bed of Soorsuttee Nud takes
off at the Patiala State Border to run to the south of Tohana. The main Soorsuttee runs
into the Ghuggur, whereafter the Soorsutee loses its name.44

Habib 2001: 51:

The name Sarsuti was confined to the Thanesar stream, and to the channel after its
junction with the Markanda river. It is not applied to the Ghaghar (Ghaggar of the
maps), a perennial stream that, unlike the S, has its sources beyond the Siwaliks [= Shivaliks]
which it pierces at the well-known Chandigarh gap. The S used to run in the Old Sursettee
bed, without joining the Ghaghar. So far as one can see the junction with the Ghaghar is
the work of Firoz Shah Tughluq (1351-88). where or beyond which the Vinaana of
the sacred texts might have been situated. the name of Ghaghar should have prevailed
for the combined stream, since the Ghaghar is a perennial river, and not a seasonal one
like the Sarsuti.45
43

(a) Cf. Habibs note 27: That the Ghaghar channel was not called S, appears also from
Ab u l Fazl, A in-i-Akbari, ed. H. Blochmann, Bib. Ind., Calcutta, 1867-77, I, p. 527, where
Chatt, in Sarkar Sirhind, is placed on the Ghaghar.
(b) Note also the following information in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GhaggarHakra_River, in the section on the Sutlej, the last sentence of which indicates that the
historical S was near the Ghaggar but was not the Ghaggar itself: At Ropar the Sutlej river
suddenly turns sharply away from the Ghaggar. The narrow Ghaggar riverbed itself is
becoming suddenly wider at the conjunction where the Sutlej should have met the Ghaggar
river. There also is a major paleochannel between the turning point of the Sutlej and where
the Ghaggar riverbed widens.

44

The last sentence in this account agrees with the probable meaning of the term upamajjana
used in the Jaiminya-brhmaa. majjana iterally means immersion. With the addition of
upa, it should convey a specific kind of immersion, close to the literal sense of submersion,
which is going under another thing. In the present context, the other thing would be a
river. Going under another river then amounts to going out of sight.

45

(a) Habibs description of the Ghaggar as perennial conflicts with most other descriptions,
in which the Ghaggar is spoken of as seasonal.
(b) His statement that the S did not join the Ghaggar at an earlier time will not be correct

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5.5 It has been pointed out by more than one researcher that many rivers are spoken
of with the name S or a name clearly reminiscent of S, such as Sarsuti, Sarsati and Sirsa
in modern India. The best statement about this that I have come across is to be found
in Hock 2000: 6:
the name S has spread farther east, to West Bengal.46 But in addition, it is also
found farther south and southeast than the Vedic S. A Saurashtrian S flows into the
Arabian Sea (after forming a Trive Trtha with the Hiran and Kapil); another S is found
in Madhya Pradesh, near Mandla (forming a Trive Trtha with the Banjar and Narmada);
a S Nad, tributary of the Luni, flows near Pushkar (another trtha);47 and there is also a
S near Palampur [ Palanpur], west of Sabarmati, which flows into the Little Rann.48

We should also add Sirsa mentioned by Habib (2001: 49-50) to Hocks list, until it is
proved that this Sirsa cannot plausibly be a continuation or stream of the S and/or that
the name is not a changed form of S:
This river rises near Kalka, the railway station for Shimla, and runs northwestwards in a
long valley with the Himalayan ranges on one side and the Siwaliks [= Shivaliks] on the
other. It finally joins the Sutlej, [It] is a perennial river with a respectably long
catchment area and, in its lower course, forms a broad channel, which still bears the
name Sirsa. This name is a recognized corruption of S: Compare Sirsa in Hisar
district of Haryana, known until the fourteenth century as Sarsati. The Sirsa river too
if the Ghaggar is identified, as I do, with the Dadvat of the past. The Paca-viabrhmaa 25.10 speaks of the Dadvat as joining the S from the east near Vinaana.
(c) Habibs speculation about Firoze Shah Tughluq effecting the joining would be
unwarranted if the account in his sources is seen as an attempt to attach the glory of
Vibhvan (4.2), possibly preserved as a local legend, to Firoze Shah. The case would then
be similar to the ones in which a ruler is said to have built a city when all he did in fact was
to rename it (usually after himself). Further, if there is a possibility that the abandoning to
which Habib refers in his paragraph quoted in my next section applies (also?) to the project
meant here, then the validity of Habibs remark will be called into question. We must first
check the details of Firoze Shahs activity that may be there in Habibs sources and the
precise words the sources use before we credit Firoze Shah with the joining.
46

In Hock 2000+: 7, the wording about this S is: West Bengal has its own S or Sarsati near
Kolkata (a tributary of the Hooghly, it seems).

47

MBh 9.37.11-12 narrates that S appeared at Pukara under the name Suprabh at the call of
Brahm.

48

In the article mentioned in note 46, Hock also has: In addition, of course, there is the
Mystical S which forms a Trive Trtha with the Yamun and the Gag near Allahabad/
Prayag.

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similarly enters [the?]14th-century historical record as Sarsati. This occurs in the accounts
of an attempt of Sultan Firoz Tughluq (1351-88) to cut through a hill in order to find a
point of release for the river southwards. The contemporary work Sirat-i Firozshahi has a
description of the Sultans massive enterprise to capture the river (Sarsati) for the plains;
but the Tarikh-i Mubarakshahi (early 15th century) has a geographically more interesting
account of what the project was about: After some time he (Sultan Firoz) heard that
near Barvar (?) there is a mound of earth. A river flows by [lit. through] that big mountain
and runs into the Satuldar (Sutlej). It is called Sarsati. (The Sultan) thought that if that
earthen mountain is dug through, the river Sarsati would move into the stream and
running to Sirhind, Mansurpur, and then to Sunam, would flow perennially. The effort,
however, proved too Herculean and was abandoned. Modern topographical sheets show
that the plan was not so absurd, since the head of one of the feeders of the Choeea
Nud (Choiya), which runs through Sirhind and Mansurpur to Sunam, lies very close
indeed to this Sarsati or Sirsa river.

As a supplementation of the preceding, I will now reproduce the information I have

been able to gather about a possible partial modern representative of the lost S. This
river figures in Hocks list but has not generally been associated with the ancient S
because, unlike the Hakra, it could not be associated with the Ghaggar, the river with
which the researchers have so far been mainly occupied as the strongest contender for
the title S. The Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency (1883, p. 356) informs us thus about it:
There are seven chief Mahi Kntha rivers: the S, Sbarmati, Hthmati, Khri, Meshva,
Mjam, and Vtrak. These all rising in the eastern highlands and passing south-west,
Beginning in the north, the first river is the S. Rising in the hills above Dnta it passes
south-west, and after a course of about 112 miles loses itself in the sands to the southeast of the Ran of Cutch. Within Mahi Kntha limits, for about forty miles, it passes close
to and almost parallel with the northwest boundary of the district.

5.6 Obviously, a name transfer has taken place in the case of the rivers in Hocks list.
I would not differ from him even in holding that the transfer is due to sanctity associated
with the first or original S. However, I am not convinced about the direction of the
transfer in the most ancient accessible period (see 5.14-19) and I would not literally
accept Hocks deduction that none of the Ss he mentions is identical to the one
celebrated in the Vedas. If a tradition reports a river as lost or disappearing, obviously
what is claimed by the same tradition as the inheritor of the same name cannot be
exactly identical. If the tradition speaks of more than one inheritor, there cannot be
any exclusive identity either. But there can still be a modern river (or riverbed) that
has (or had) a genuine or organic relationship with the river reported to be lost or to
have become invisible. The Sarsuti mentioned by Habib stands a good chance of being

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identical with at least one of the streams of the Vedic S. But the S flowing in a part of
India away from the ascertainable Vedic world, namely the S in West Bengal, would,
of course, not be the S we are discussing. It is too distant. Also the one in Madhya
Pradesh may be declared non-identical for the same reason. But the S (near Prabhas)
in Saurashtra, the S near Pushkar (in Rajasthan) and the S near Palanpur (in Gujarat)
should not be removed from our consideration without a fair hearing. They have a
good chance of being the descendants of one or more of the constituent streams of the
Vedic S.
Thus, what Hock and some other scholars see as a problem is actually a confirmation
of what we learn from the Veda (and the MBh ). If a once-significant group of streams
known as S is understood to have disappeared due to such causes as earthquakes and
gradual rise in the level of the Rajasthan-Haryana land mass, several local traditions
speaking of a S in their area would naturally come into being. The reversal or doubling
up of the river band on itself in the risen areas would neither be total nor uniform.
What was once conceptualized as one, would be retained with the same name but in a
mutually disconnected way, like a necklace of several strings breaking up at various
points. Also, with differing pressures exerted on each string, their common heritage
will decrease. Some streams may even go out of existence or not leave even a
recognizable geological trace. The presence of several modern claimants to the name
S thus does not conflict with but confirms what the RV conveys to us.
We should also remain mindful of the following: The post-RV tradition speaks of
a S flowing underground. Although some remarks in published research may create
the impression that the S was a totally dried up or extinct river, there were, according
to the post-RV but still considerably ancient sources, at least three places where the S
came to the surface. These three places are called Camasodbheda, ivodbheda,
Ngodbheda in MBh 3.80.118-120. Although not so specific, Paca-via-brhmaa
25.10.1 (sarasvaty vinaane dkante) is best understood the way Syaa explains it:
sarasvat nma nad pratyak-srot pravahati / tasy prg-apara-bhgau sarva-loka-pratyakau/
madhyamas tu bhgo bhmym antar-nimagna pravahati/ nsau kenacid dyate/ tad vinaanam
ity ucyate/ tasyopakrame dakie tre dkante/
The river named S flows to the west. Anyone can see her first/eastern and last/western
parts. The middle one, on the other hand, flows hidden under the ground. No one sees
it. That is called Vinaana. At the beginning of that, on the southern bank, (the ones who
wish to participate in the sattra to be described), undergo consecration.

Obviously Syaa had confidence in what he understood from the tradition or the

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other written sources accessible to him. Revealing is also the following verse, MBh
9.34.81:
snigdhatvd oadhn ca bhme ca janamejaya/ jnanti siddh rjendra nam api sarasvatm //
O supreme king, Janamejaya, from moist herbs and ground, those with a special ability
figure out (the presence of) the S, although it is not in sight.

The special ability spoken of here is still used successfully in many parts of the world
for water divination. It is not so miraculous or rare as to make the MBh assertion
unacceptable to a hard-nosed historian.
More explicit in conveying the underground flow of the S is MBh 6.7.47a: dydy
ca bhavati tatra tatra sarasvat / The S appears and disappears at various places. Such
a statement can be made only when a river has not become extinct when it is flowing
intermittently. Recall also the tatra tatra phrase in MBh 9.37.3-4 quoted in note 14.
We should also note that the phenomenon mentioned here is plausible, since events
like earthquakes can create hidden corridors or passages for water flows. The
phenomenon is even more plausible in the case of the Himalayan rivers, because they
pass through alluvial plains which have good aquifers storing huge reservoirs of
ground water (cf. http://www.preservearticles.com/2012020322579/comparisonbetween-the-himalayan-and-the-peninsular-rivers.html). Note also Ghose-&-Kar-&Husain 1979: 446: The subsurface water in the [Jaisalmer] region is contributed mainly
by the Himalayan precipitation flowing subterraneously through the former courses
of the S. It is not at all improbable, therefore, that the S lost its surface presence near
the place of its confluence with Dadvat in the Kuru-ketra and emerged on the
south-western side of the Aravals/valls to continue as a normal river in one or
more courses (while the Dadvat, at a later time, was or was seen as entirely cut off
or as one which had lost itself in the S flow). The MBh composers seem to have known
this as traditional history. There is no reason why we should distrust or modify what
they have preserved for us at least until strong and specific objective reasons emerge
to controvert them.
5.7 As can easily be guessed from 3.1, the RV definitely knew the S as a river and
as an important and impressive river, quite possibly with a noticeable width. But
does that entitle us to propose that the S was the broadest and/or longest river known
to the gvedic composers that it was broader and longer than the Sindhu as some
have asserted, or that it was noticeably wide throughout its course?
Compare: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaggar-Hakra_River: The wide riverbed

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ASHOK AKLUJKAR

(paleo-channel) of the Ghaggar river suggests that the river once flowed full of water
during the great meltdown of the Himalayan Ice Age glaciers, some 10,000 years ago,
and that it then continued through the entire region, in the presently [ present/
preserved] dry channel of the Hakra River, possibly emptying into the Rann of Kutch. It
supposedly dried up due to the capture of its tributaries by the Indus system and the
Yamun river, and later on, additionally, the loss of water in much of its catchment area
due to deforestation and overgrazing.
Compare: Witzel in his post of 20 May 1998 on the Indology-Liverpool discussion list:
the present dry bed of the Ghagghar-Hakra is indeed cluttered with Harappan
sites. But these settlements are *on* the actual flood plain of the old S/Ghagghar-Hakra,
which speaks against an enormous river during the Harappan (or a supposed preHarappan gvedic) period. Even then, the old S-Sutlej can never have been larger
than the Indus during the millennia in question.
Compare: Witzel in his post of 24 June 2007 at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndoEurasian_research/message/7063: Incidentally, it was also reported by Indian colleagues
[probably at a conference/workshop Witzel had then recently attended] that the Indus
cities on the Ghaggar-Hakra all are found INSIDE the stream bed of this former river:
there goes another myth: the mighty S of Harappan times 49

49

If Witzels wording is based on a comprehensive consultation of all geological and

archaeological evidence pertaining to the Harappan Civilization, it provides an interesting
contrast with the summation on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaggar-Hakra_River,
which pertains to the Indus Valley Civilization: Many settlements of the Indus Valley
Civilization have been found along and inside the river beds of the Ghaggar and Hakra
rivers. some Indus sites are found inside the bed of the Ghaggar-Hakra.
Note (a) along and inside against Witzels on and (b) the use of some and Witzels
non-use of the same word. In a part of the world in which rivers have changed courses
frequently, is it not natural that some sites will be found on the banks and some on the
riverbeds? Should a researcher assign a decisive role to where the remnants of settlements
are found?
The same Wikipedia article, referring to Bryant 2001: 168 and Gaur 1983, adds: Painted
Grey Ware sites (c. 1000 BCE) have been found in the riverbed and not on the banks of the
Ghaggar-Hakra river, which suggests that river was certainly dried up by this period.
This amounts to saying that the drying up of the Ghaggar could not have been later than c.
1000 BC. The passage does not specify how ancient the situation could be, unless the existence
of Painted Grey Ware before c. 1000 BC. is made impossible by other objective pieces of
evidence. It is nearly impossible, especially when archaeologists excavate only a small part
of the earth, to establish conclusively that thing X did not exist before such and such time.

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The preceding statements are written on the assumption that the modern Ghaggar or
Ghaggar-Hakra represents the ancient S. Since I do not accept the identification (see
note 42), I do not need to make an effort to reconcile the situation inferred as obtaining
at about 10,000 BC with any preferred candidate for the S title or to assign an improbably
early date to the RV.
If the settlements exist on the actual flood plain of Ghaggar-Hakra, my view would
allow me to infer that they could have taken shape after the Ghaggar-Hakra (=
Dadvat) disappeared as a river and hence must be post-RV, since the RV knows the
Dadvat as a living river. This possibility has obviously occurred to Witzel, since he
uses the phrase pre-Harappan gvedic, but elsewhere he rejects the possibility, as
it would lead to placing the RV in too distant a past for his sense of what is likely.50
Similarly, if the Ghaggar is only the lower part of an erstwhile combined S-Dadvat
river course, the observation reported by Witzel would apply at the most to its relatively
lower or more southern part. The S itself to the north could still have settlements (not
necessarily cities) on its banks. Also, see 5.8 for the more likely meaning of mighty.
Compare: Habib 2001: 49: The Sarsuti running past Thanesar is too petty a stream to
fit the picture of a great river that the RV verses suggest. [p. 61:] a much better
solution could be offered by identifying the S of RV 10.75.5 with Sirsa R. [see 5.5], and
by holding that the other references to the size of the S [= RV 6.61.10, 12 and 13] belong
to the Sutlej-Beas R., Sirsa being a tributary of the Sutlej.

RV U6.61.10 and 12 do not have anything explicit about size. As for verse 13, it does
have words that can be interpreted as expressive of great physical size, but why they
should not be so interpreted why they should be understood as intended to express
greatness in terms of shine, efficacy and sanctity is clarified in 4.1-4 above and is
indicated by most translations as well.
Habibs solution to a problem that does not exist to begin with is similar to
Chattopadhyayas (1976: 138-194), who, in turn, has followed earlier Indologists. Just
as Chattopadhyaya et al. assign some hymns or verses that do not fit their preferred
view of the S to the Sindhu, Habib attempts in the passage quoted above to preserve
the meaning of the text by proposing that we should think of the text parts as concerned
with more than one referent. A historian may occasionally do so, but he/she should
have clear internal or contemporary evidence in support of his/her move; he/she
should not do so on the basis of a modern reconstruction or understanding of the
50

On rare occasions Witzel does indicate that 1900 BC as the oldest possible date for the RV
will not be unacceptable to him. See Witzel 1997: 263.

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ASHOK AKLUJKAR

situation. Nor should he/she do so before exhausting other possibilities of making

the text applicable to one and the same object. If one were to divide textual evidence
according to what suits ones hypothesis, there would be easy (but invalid) solutions
for most historical problems. If Habib had, on the basis of independent evidence, first
established that the Sutlej-Beas pair was the S or that the river pair once bore the
(original Sanskrit) name S of what is now its tributary, this critique would not have
been necessary.
5.8 The basic word used in describing the greatness of the S is almost always
mah/maha (cf. 3.1f). We do not find in the descriptions an adjective specifically referring
to the rivers size, volume, or mass. Dictionaries of Vedic Sanskrit (e.g., Suryakanta
1980: 520) and dictionaries of Sanskrit including Vedic lexemes in their coverage (e.g.,
Bhtlingk-Roth 1865-1868: pp. V.416-417, 608-611; Monier-Williams 1899: 794, column
1) contain very few instances in which mah can be understood as conveying physical
greatness or as conveying only physical greatness. Meanings such as strong, mighty
and abundant (German equivalents: gewaltig, mchtig and reichlich, respectively)
are far more common. The denominative root mah/mah is also primarily associated
with making great, that is, with bestowing abundantly, gladdening, praising or
glorifying. The employment of mah/maha in the description of the S can, therefore, not
only be due to reasons other than impressive physical size or features, it is, in fact,
more likely to be due to a sense of high stature or attitude of veneration, which, in
turn, can be due to the role a river plays in the life of a community and the communitys
way of looking at nature its philosophy of religious and civil life. There is no
evidence that the RV differed in this respect from the later Brahmanical or Hindu way
in which the rivers, trees etc. were objects of gratitude and veneration and man was
thought to be on a spectrum of animate forms, not as a master meant only to dominate
and exploit them. It is, therefore, quite probable that the meaning of mah/maha intended
in the references to the S was along the lines of venerable or sacred, not along the
lines of massive, huge, or gigantic. The evidence gleaned in 3.1g-i supports such
an interpretation.
5.9 It is also worth noting that the MBh, which is the next most informative text
about the S, does not primarily speak about the size of the river but about its importance
in religious life. Even in the company of rivers like the Gag, its most favorite adjective
for the S is saric.chreh (cf. MBh 3.82.5a, 9.36.47, 9.37.11, 9.37.23, 9.37.14a, 9.37.24, 9.42.12,
9.42.13, 9.43.51; also Supplementary Passage 9.*256.4, in which r alludes to beauty,
glory and/or prestige). The reasons given for her greatness are sanctity (MBh 9.53.3435) and ability to bestow religious merit (MBh 9.50.23). To these reasons, the

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Drhyyaa-rauta-stra 31.1.1 and Syaas commentary on the Paca-viabrhmaa 25.10.23 add being a sacrificial ground of the gods.51 None of these relatively
old complementary texts speaks of size or volume.
Even if the internal linkages of the kind I have pointed out and how the later tradition
understood the Veda were to be set aside (which would be an arbitrary act, to begin
with, unbecoming of a responsible historian), there would remain the fact that the
contexts can accommodate mah/maha in the sense majestic, magnificent, which also
is the sense of the Indo-European cognates of mah/maha. There are repeated references
to the waves (rmi) of white or resplendent (ubhra) waters that the S had. It is presented
as an impressive cascading river, nowhere with a phrasing that would definitely and
exclusively mean physically huge, bodily big. Also, like the Indo-European cognates,
the cognates of mah/maha within India do not convey only physical greatness. As in the
case of saras (4.8-9), the RV is closer to an older meaning of mah/maha in the present
case. This meaning is open to various modes of being great, including the social and
religious modes. It is, therefore, quite probable that, in the description of the S as
great, there is, along with impressive appearance, a recognition of its well-settled role
in society and religion.
It might be said by way of objection to my preceding statement that there indeed is
a reference to Ss noticeable breadth in U6.61.13. This reference, however, actually
suggests the opposite. As observed in 4.2-4, breadth is said to come to the S as
something subsequent. If it were a natural characteristic of most of its flow, there would
have been no use of kt and no giving of credit to Vibhvan. Given the other statements
about Ss eroding of elevated parts (3.1e) and swift moving like a cart or chariot that
crushes the bushes and plants in its path (4.4), the mythic Vibhvan may have been
credited for a natural phenomenon (very much like Skanda-Krttikeya being given
credit for creating a pass in the Himalayas). The image thus we get of the flow of the S,
at least at the upper levels as it is about to come down, is that of a relatively narrow
forceful stream, full of water in commotion, rushing down the slope, eroding its banks
and becoming wider through the contributions of the other smaller streams that
originated near her own source (cf. 3.2-3). Competition with the Sindhu in breadth is
not Ss nature.
51

The latter two texts say: No avabhtha is to be performed in the S, because it has become
deva-yajana a sacrificial ground of the gods. What is probably implied is that a man
should not pollute the S waters by taking a bath there. The texts inform us that if no other
possibility for avabhtha exists in the S region, one may take water from the S and perform
an avabhtha on its bank, but never in its stream.

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5.10 Once the ground reality on which the statements of the RV composers are
based is properly assessed, one does not need to come up with the conjecture that the
original Vedic S had the Sutlej and Yamun as its tributaries. Nor does one need to
contend with the consequent objection that if the Sutlej and Yamun drifted away
from the S this movement could have taken place in such a distant past as to bear no
believable connection with the RV composers in fact, in the view of some scholars,
in such a distant past as to rule out the existence of human beings.52 Contrast:
Kochhar (2003: 8, 2006: 4): It is certain that the settlements on the lower course of the
Ghaggar-Hakra could not have been sustained with the present volume of water. The
river therefore must have had more water in the past. There is however no justification
in assuming that the Ghaggar at that time was a mighty river, with the Sutlej and the
Yamun flowing into it. What the Harappans needed was running water, not the combined
might of two snow-fed rivers. In fact, it is likely that a mighty Ghaggar would have
precluded Chalcolithic settlements from appearing on its banks.53
Witzel (2001 and 2008: 66 and 81): a neglected contemporary piece of evidence from
the middle RV period, believed to have been composed by Vivmitra, the opponent of
Vasiha, is found in RV 3.33. Based on internal RV evidence, this hymn describes a
situation of only a few mo[n]ths or years before RV 7.95.2 (with the S flowing from the
mountains to the samudra, whatever its meaning!). The RV books 3 (Vivmitra) and 7
(Vasiha) both represent a relatively late time frame among some five known generations
of the gvedic chieftains of the Middle RV period, chiefs that belong to the noble Bharata
and Pru lineages. The autochthonous theory overlooks that RV 3.33 already speaks of a
necessarily smaller S: the Suds hymn 3.33 refers to the confluence of the Beas and Sutlej
52

53

I am not saying that the Sutlej and Yamun or even the Ghaggar did not change their
courses. If the identifications of the dried up channels with the former beds or off-shoots
of the first two is correct, it is even possible that they or the first of the two met the
Ghaggar at some point(s). My point rather is (a) that the RV does not speak of the joining
of the first two with the S proper and (b) that the geologists have so far not given us any
unambiguous evidence of such joining.
(a) A longer text making essentially the same point is available in Kochhar 2000: 134-135.
(b) Kochhars last two statements seem more assertive to me than what the available evidence
allows. Could the Harappans not have had ways of turning the water of snow-fed rivers
into running water? How can we determine their needs as precisely as Kochhar does when
we do not have any text from them that we have been able to decipher? Have some
archaeological reports not told us that under the walls that have been excavated there are
bases or platforms that have raised the walls, suggesting that the inhabitants knew how
far the floodwaters would rise?

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(Vip, utudr). This means that the Beas had already captured the Sutlej away from the
S, dwarfing its water supply. While the Sutlej is fed by Himalayan glaciers, the Sarsuti is
but a small local river depending on rain water. In sum, the middle and later RV (books
3, 7 and the late book, 10.75) already depict the present day situation, with the S having
lost most of its water to the Sutlej (and even earlier, much of it also to the Yamun). It
was no longer the large river it might have been before the early gvedic period.54

5.11 As far as I can ascertain, there is no reference in the RV to a joining of the S and
utudr or of the S and Yamun. Such joinings have been postulated by one group of
researchers in order to make a case for the largeness of the S in a certain part of a
distant past. Why did they feel the need to postulate thus? Because the difference
between the S of the present and the S of the RV was to be used to date the RV. The RV,
in their understanding, spoke of a big and long river, equaling or surpassing the Sindhu.
The S of the present, as they identified it on the basis of (bits of) geographical, geological,
hydrological, archaeological and partly historical and partly folkloric research, was a
single slender river that had water during only some months of the year nothing
close to the picture they had constructed on the basis of what they thought the RV
conveyed. The difference had to be bridged. The definite fact that tectonic changes
had taken place in north India offered a possibility of bridging. Only what happened
to the identified river because of such changes had to be made specific. A scenario that
seemed most plausible, namely that two nearby rivers of considerable size which
once made the S robust had parted company with it (the S), was chosen. (The scenario
may still remain applicable to a part of the ancient S. It is no longer needed for the
whole.)
The other group naturally asked for proof of the mingling of the Sutlej and Yamun
54

(a) All emphasis shown by the italicized words is in the original.

(b) Witzel makes a similar argument in fewer words in his 20 May 1998 post on the IndologyLiverpool list and in more words in 2003: 169-171.
(c) Actually, the assumption that RV 3.33 speaks of a confluence needs to be questioned.
The only support for the assumption is the word samre occurring in verse 2. In the rest
of the verses, utudr and Vip are spoken of as separate streams. samre, glossed by
Syaa with paraspara sagacchantyau, could also have meant flowing along or flowing
in the same direction (compare sagati, etc. for agreement, etc.). Vivmitra, the speaker
persona in most of the hymn, could have thought of two nearby rivers that he had to cross
before reaching the S area. Yska 2.24 does speak of sabheda of Vip and utudr but in
explaining him Durg informs us that the coming together of these rivers with other rivers
such as Sindhu is meant, not their coming together with each other (yatra vipchutudryau
itarbhi sindhv-dibhir nadbhi sabhinne ekbhte ity-artha.)

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with the S. It pointed out that if the mingling occurred, it must have been a very old
state of affairs, too old to be useful in dating the RV plausibly (or to be in agreement
with the carbon dating of Indus Civilization or Harappan Civilization remains as
Andrew Lawlers report of a meeting of geologists from three different groups in
www.sciencemag.org, Science vol. 332 of 1 April 2011, conveys).55 Specifically, there
were no traces of the Sutlej or Yamun (especially as glacier-fed rivers) in the claimed
S. With the same aim, the scholars in the second group, Witzel and Kochhar as quoted
in 5.10, pointed out that the RV text left no room for the Sutlejs joining the S, because
it (the text) spoke of the confluence of the Sutlej (utudr) with Beas (Vip).
It is interesting that neither group checked if the relevant RV passages could be
understood differently and if the assumption of a single river or the identification
with Ghaggar was unavoidable. The second group came close to proposing that the S
known to the RV was not large or long in particular not so large or long as to rate
above the Sindhu, but it did not really demonstrate how that proposition was textually
justified; it remained content with negating the possibility of a Sutlej-S (or SutlejYamun-S) confluence. It also did not explain why the S occupied such a high place of
honor if it was not a mighty river. (The weaknesses of a possible hypothesis, namely
that the honor was inherited or borrowed will be pointed out in 5.14-19.) If the first
group did not realize that it might not have the presumed kind of backing in the
words of the text, the second did not realize that it needed to offer a stronger, positive
kind of evidence. The first suffered from over-confidence or too much trust in the
translations and interpretations it had read; the second from not seeing beyond what
the first side presented. Neither groups moves, which result in a roundabout defense
or refutation, are really necessary if the evidence collected and discussed in 3.1-4.9
is borne in mind.
The S flowing to the ocean
5.12 To focus on the length of the S, the statements collected in 3.1c must indeed be
taken seriously. There is nothing mythical or hyperbolical in them. Particularly
informative, because of the directness of its wording, is the statement in RV 7.95.2: yat
giribhya samudrt (The S is the one) going from the hills to the ocean.
From <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaggar-Hakra_river> we learn: It has been
assumed that the S ended there [= Bahawalpur district] in a series of terminal lakes, and
55

I have a copy of a response, written by K.S. Valdiya, to the reported claims in Lawlers
report, but I do not know if the text of Valdiyas response has been published anywhere.

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some think that its water only reached the Indus or the sea in very wet rainy seasons.
However, satellite images contradict this: they do not show subterranean water in
reservoirs in the dunes between the Indus and the end of the Hakra west of Fort Derawar/
Marot.

Under my understanding of the evidence given in the next paragraph, one need not
even refer to the effort made to rationalize the RV mention of the Ss sea reach or to the
contesting of that effort.
With respect to RV 7.95.2, Witzel (2003: 168-169; 2008: 17 fn 38, 80) and Hock (2000:
59), in particular, emphasize that samudra etymologically means massed water, pool
of water (of any size) and has retained that meaning in some passages of ancient
Indian literature and in the names of some water bodies. However, neither Witzel nor
Hock (rightly, in my view) takes the position that sea, ocean could not have been the
meaning of samudra in RV 7.95.2 (the former in fact, finds a confirmation for that meaning
in RV 7.6.7). The summation of various discussions at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Samudra> leaves no doubt that the ocean was known to the RV composers and that a
common referent of the term in the view of the composers best corresponds to that of
terrestrial ocean/sea in English (to the extent the two words mean a very extensive
body of water minimally so extensive that the other shore cannot be seen by naked
eyes from the shore on which one is standing).56 Kazanas 2004 has also offered a good
argument toward the same effect. Therefore, until it is demonstrated that the meaning
ocean or sea does not fit 7.95.2 or can fit only after much intellectual acrobatics, the
best course of action to take for a researcher would be to accept ocean or sea as the
intended meaning. Articulation of a general uncertainty or demonstration to the effect
that in some passages samudra has its etymological meaning (sometimes slightly
adjusted to the context) cannot imply that the common meaning should be ruled out
in a particular passage. There is, therefore, no reason, to begin with, why the possibility
that the S, in gvedic perception, reached the Arabian Sea should be set aside.57
56

(a) Witzel has more than once cited Klaus 1986 in support of the assertion that samudra
does not always mean sea, ocean in the RV. However, he does not clarify if Klaus has
rejected that meaning as unworkable in all RV passages. As I do not have access to Klauss
paper at present, I cannot determine what Klauss position exactly is.
(b) Kazanas 2003: 228 fn 14: If Klaus had analyzed closely RV V, 55,5, VII, 6, 7 and I, 116,
4, which he merely mentions, he too would have seen that in these cases samudra denotes
ocean. Contextual analysis of the adjective samudriya (I.25.7) reveals that it denotes oceangoing boats, not canoes on local lakes and rivers; cf. also IV, 16, 7; IX, 62, 26 and 78, 3.

57

(a) Possehl (2000: 372) finds, on the basis of his archaeological work, that S was sopped
up in an inland delta in the vicinity of Fort Derawar and did not flow all the way up to the

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After the multi-stream nature of the S is brought into focus the way I have, one
more possibility of taking 7.95.2 as reflective of historical reality opens up. The
statement in that verse will be valid as long as even one constituent stream of the S
reached the Arabian Sea. That such a stream existed and exists is borne out by the
references and discussion in 5.6.
5.13 As to the possible objection regarding how this particular stream could have
been spoken of as Ss stream after the river had been spoken of as lost, note the
clarification in 5.6 (madhyama bhga antar-gata). Even ordinarily it is difficult to
determine where one river ends and another begins. To a large extent, the continued
application of a name to a river course that comes after the rivers confluence or change
of direction is a matter of the then prevailing local perspective. A convention born of
happenstance is then usually arbitrarily extended (unless there is a clear difference of
appearance in the flows before and after the confluence or there is an easily noticeable
change of direction).58
Another way in which Witzel (20 May 1998 post on the Indology-Liverpool list; cf.
Witzel 2003: 169) casts doubt on the actuality of S ending up in a sea or ocean is this:
RV style is generally quite hyperbolic: the Soma juice dripping through the sieve into a
cup is not exactly rivers rushing to the ocean. What does a S flowing into an
ocean *really* mean?

First of all, I do not think that most RV specialists would say that the style of the RV is
hyperbolic in all or most compositions. An interpreter should not make a case based
on a few instances, especially not one in which the incongruence with the subject of
description (dripping Soma) stands out so easily and leads the reader immediately to
Arabian Sea. Hock uses this finding to favor (but not to accept exclusively) the conclusion
that samudra in 7.95.2 did not refer to a sea or ocean. But this reasoning is based on the
assumption that the modern bed of Ghaggar is the bed of the ancient S and hence is
inapplicable to my view. In any case, if what Kazanas reports is correct, the sea-reach of
even this Ghaggar S is no longer to be contested; cf. also Kazanas 2003 at http://
www.omilosmeleton.gr/pdf/en/indology/RigVedicTownandOcean.pdf.
(b) Hock uses the emptying of Helmand into a large inland salt lake known as Hmn-i
Helmand as an additional piece of evidence favoring the view that samudra in 7.95.2 may
not mean sea, ocean. For the inapplicability of this, see 5.14 below.
58

The pre-modern man did not have a view from the sky or from an elevated point except in
the rare cases where the confluence happened to have a hill or mountain nearby. Therefore,
making a judgment on the basis of what a view from above revealed about the relative
extents or strengths of the rivers involved was out of the question in most cases.

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think that the comparison could not have been literally meant. Secondly, if an appeal
so general in nature as Witzel has made is to be allowed why should one try at all to
recover any history from the RV as Witzel has (rightly and extensively) tried in his
scholarly career so far? The Soma context is special. The comparison with rivers rushing
to the ocean could even have been meant to illustrate how a person who has consumed
Soma perceives ordinary sounds (an acknowledged topos in the RV). The context of
7.95.2, on the other hand, does not indicate a need for anything similar.
Similarly weak is the following argument of Kochhar (2003: 5, 2006: 3):
Later texts say that Vinaana where the S disappears into the sands was the western
boundary of ryvarta. In contrast, the RV states that the S reaches the sea. It would
thus seem that while the gvedic people were familiar with the whole course of S up to
the sea, their successors confined themselves only to the Vinaana. This is curious because
one normally expects territory to expand with time rather than to shrink.

Apart from appealing to a very general and impressionistic observation (in the last
sentence), which may or may not hold water, this reasoning suffers from not noting
that the post-RV confining pertains to a non-ordinary situation (to a river that became
inaccessible) and only to a tiny part of ritualistic religion to where certain rites
should be performed. Moreover, would the authors of the relevant sentences have
written that the S continues to flow unseen and comes up at certain points if they did
not know the area to the south and west of Vinaana? Also, the very assumption that
an area larger than the one mentioned in the RV was not known to the RV successors
is questionable. They did know the sea or ocean on the western side of their own area
of residence. See, for example, MBh
3.80.79: tato gatv sarasvaty sgarasya ca sagame / go-sahasra-phala prpya svarga-loke
mahyate / /
3.80.130: tato gaccheta rjendra sagama loka-virutam / sarasvaty mah-puyam upsante
janrdanam / /59
3.88.2: sarasvat puyavah hradin vana-mlin / samudrag60 mah-veg yamun yatra pava / /
59

Janrdanas, that is, Kas, place of residence was very near the ocean, possibly even on
an island in the ocean. Therefore the sagama meeting place mentioned here must be
near the ocean.

60

(a) There is no evidence for putting the Yamun at the place where the S meets the ocean
and ends. Therefore, the adjective samudrag should not be understood as giving us, along
with the source of the S, the two bookends or geographic contexts between which the S
flowed; its function is merely to point out of the extent of the Ss course.

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3.130.5: ea vai camasodbhedo yatra dy sarasvat / yatrainm abhyavartanta divy puy

samudrag / /
9.34.18: sarasvat pratisrota samudrd abhijagmivn / / 61
9.34.69: prabhsa parama trtha sarasvaty jagma ha / / 62

Most of these passages clearly mention that the S meets a sea or ocean. Given other
indications, the water body involved must be the western sea that we nowadays call
Arabian Sea. Just because the passages come from a later text, they cannot simply be
set aside. The possibility that they may contain an older tradition cannot be ruled out.
This is especially so, because the same text shows knowledge of the S-related Vedic
tradition and is quite open about the disappearance of the river in certain parts. Even
if geology and archaeology were to prove that the claimed south-western S is really
not a continuation of the Brahmvarta or Kuru-ketra S, what matters from the point of
view of the meaning of samudra is how the authors concerned viewed the south-western
course, not how we view it.63
Prototype in the West?
5.14 The situation we have on our hands can be summed up thus: The fact is that the
river understood by most researchers as the present-day S, that is, the Ghaggar, does
not match the picture of the S we reconstruct from the RV. One group uses this fact to
date the RV to a period when the river could have been like what the words of the RV
say. (This inference, if allowed to stand, will affect not only all the chronology of ancient
India but also the thesis/hypothesis that an ethnic community called rya invaded or
(b) At their places of origin, the S and Yamun must have been close to each other. In the
present understanding of the source of the S, namely Adi Badri, which is more likely to be
correct than incorrect, the distance from the source of the Yamun is only about ten
kilometers. But there is no record of the two rivers touching each other in their upper
courses.
(c) Regarding hradin vana-mlin employed in this verse, see note 39.
61

This is about Bala-rma who (eventually) reaches the source of the S, starting from the end
of its downward flow, that is, beginning from the (Arabian) sea.

62

(a) Prabhsa is on the ocean. It is mentioned here as the supreme pilgrimage point of S.
(b) In addition, we have the Supplementary Passage 9*218.1 samudra pacima gatv sarasvatyabdhi-sagamam / Having gone to the western ocean, (namely) the spot where the S and
the ocean come together.

63

I do not know the evidence on which the following remark of Habib (2001: 51) is based:
from early times the very tradition that speaks of its [= Ss] sanctity insists on the stream
drying up a virgin, that is, without flowing into any river or joining the sea.

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migrated to India and brought a culture and/or language to India that eventually
became the most respected and distinctive feature of India.) The other group, which
does not feel that a change in the present understanding of ancient Indian chronology
and civilizational beginnings is called for, naturally, tries to establish that what the
RV text conveys is not significantly different from the current condition of the S that
there is no big chronological divide. One way of reaching this end is to point out how
some text parts can be interpreted differently to shake the sense of certainty that the
other side has. (This is what Habib, Hock, Kochhar and Witzel, in effect, attempt with
respect to the meaning of samudra, for example.) The other way is to demonstrate that
if the interpretations or assumptions of the other group are to stand they will have to
make some further assumptions which cannot be reconciled with their desired
conclusion, namely greater antiquity for the RV, in any plausible way. (Some of these
further assumptions came from the first group as a way out of the difficulties that
were raised or were likely to be raised against their view, especially by the paleogeological and archaeological evidence.) In this class falls the appeal to the course
changing of the Sutlej and Yamun. (I have pointed out in 5.10 above that the appeal
itself was unnecessary.)
Similar challenging of an assumption is noticed when it is proposed that the name
S could have come from eastern Afghanistan64 to Kuru-ketra and that some of the RV
references such as 7.95.2 may have been inspired by or may be based upon the original
S in Afghanistan. The proposal is strengthened by pointing out (a) some similarities in
description,65 (b) the parallelism in two other river names66 and (c) the Afghan or east
Iranian Ss, that is, Haraxvaits, association with a sea-like lake (see notes 57b and 69).
As to the possible doubt arising from the Vedic Ss association with sanctity,
attention has been drawn to the view that the Iranian counterpart of S, namely Haraxvait,
refers to Ardv Sr Anhit, the Avestan mythic world river (cf. Witzel 2008: 52),
which, in turn, would suggest a Proto-Indo-Iranian myth of a cosmic or mystical S
river. With such an association, the Haraxvait also can be said to possess the necessary
sanctity.
64

The usages East Iran and eastern Iran are also found in the present context, since some
historians view the relevant part of Afghanistan as an area under Iranian control or Avestan
influence in the period concerned.

65

For example, Yasht 10.67: the bountiful, glorious Haetumant swelling its white waves
rolling down its copious flood.

66

These names are Gomat : Gomal (a tributary joining the Sindhu from the west) and Saray:
Hari Rd (thought to come from *Harayu Harolium of the Avestan tradition).

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In this context, let us first be clear about a couple of points. A transfer of names has
obviously taken place, but it could also have taken place from the east to the west. The
York : New York type link or the phenomenon in which old world residents bring
their familiar place names to the new world can in this case be explained either way.
Secondly, the information that can be gleaned from the ancient Iranian or Avestan
sources is much less than what we can glean from the RV and other ancient Indian
sources such as the Brhmaas, rauta-stras and MBh. In the relevant passages from
the Indian side that I have covered above, there is no suggestion, despite their
amplitude, of arriving at the S from some other place or of finding the S or the area
around it strange and unfamiliar. Nor is there any talk of two Ss or of a new S. One gets
the feeling that the authors of the RV hymns were in the S area for a fairly long time;
there is an air of knowing the river well, including its entire course (even if we plead
inability to determine which parvata or giri was the source or what the meaning of
samudra was) and of naming it after knowing its distinctive feature (4.8). Even
references to what happened on its banks in the past are made with specific names
(RV U6.61.1, 7.95.2, possibly also U6.61.3). Its loss as a fully accessible river and its
continued cultural role are as consistently recorded in the post-RV literature as one
can reasonably expect in the case of an ancient period of history. There is a clear sense
of continuous history. Yet there is no suggestion anywhere that the name of the central
character in this history is imported from the old world. The following remark of
Macdonell-&-Keith (p. I.323) must still be viewed as valid: In the S it is not necessary
to see any other river than [what the proponents of the original S in Afghanistan view
see as] the later S, in the middle country
These observations do not establish that those who differ from Witzel, Hock et al.
have offered a large body of evidence for the view they hold, but they do establish
that the position that the Vedic S name and some details about the Vedic S river came
from the Avestan area cannot be endorsed unless there is a separate historical
investigation robustly concluding that only a west to east movement was plausible in
the period concerned.67 In other words, if there was no hypothesis that an Aryan invasion
67

This is reflected in Hock (2000: 60): The eastern extensions of river names also agrees
with the eastern expansion of Indo-Aryan civilization. I accept that the evidence for the
expansion of the Indo-Aryan culture from the Punjab-Haryana (or Kuru-ketra) area to the
southern and eastern parts of India is stronger than the evidence for the arrival of the
Aryans from the north-west (see Kazanas 2002: 282-283 and 287 for some instances).
However, I am not convinced that this history necessarily makes the expansion of river
names from Iran or Afghanistan to Kuru-ketra in the east a valid proposition. My specific
reasons will be clear below.

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of or migration into India took place and that the Avesta preserves an older tradition
than the RV (at least as far as the Haraxvait part is concerned), the possibility that the
Kuru-ketra S was named after a western S would not have even occurred to us. The
latter two underlying hypotheses (invasion/migration and greater antiquity of the
Avestan/Iranian data) are at present under considerable strain, to say the least.
5.15 Some weaknesses of the Haraxvait S proposition have already been
pointed out in Kazanas 2004: 7, Lal 2005b: 184-188, Talageri 2008: 115-122. I have not
seen any precisely focused refutation of the counter-observations of these scholars in the
scholarly literature known to me. In the research situation, we have, on the one side,
explicit textual, positive kind of evidence, and, on the other, attempts made to achieve
a negative end, namely to argue that the documentary evidence is not as strong as it is
taken to be. The second side cannot claim to have given stronger text evidence to
establish borrowing in a specific direction, unless it also makes the claim that the
Avesta contains older, clearer and more plausible evidence and (to be able to make
this first claim) the further claim that those who gave the name S moved from the west
to the east. In other words, it must make arguments that are not circular or make
arguments that, first, independently establish the west to east movement thesis about
the Aryans or the Vedics in an irrefutable way and then appeal to that thesis while
defending the Haraxvait S proposition. However, I have neither seen arguments
for the Aryan invasion or migration thesis that are not, in the final analysis, circular,
nor a convincing demonstration of the greater antiquity of the Avesta vis--vis the RV.
If the Vedic tradition borrowed the name form S, the Avestan form Haraxvait must
have begun with an s at that time. Habib (2001: 62) acknowledges this implication,
although it is inconvenient to his view, and writes, The Arghandab68 could well have
been given the name S/Harakhvait when the proto-Vedic-Avestan language was still
undifferentiated. But to suggest that the borrowing took place in a phase in which
the s : h difference had not yet come into being between the Indo-Aryan and the
Iranian amounts to conceding the possibility that the name might not have moved
from the west to the east that the similarity of the two names is not really a definite
piece of evidence. A similar counter-consideration would apply to the Hari-rd
Saray proposition (mentioned in note 66).
5.16 Furthermore, in the statements of the proponents of the S-prototype-in-the68

Habib 2001: 62: The name Harakhvaiti applies properly to the Arghandab, a tributary of
the Helmand (Avestan, Haetumant), which is the main river, and both are separately
named in the Vendidad.

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west view, I do not find any establishment of Haraxvait as a river name and any
explanation of how the river name Haraxvait gave way to (setumant/Hetumant ) Helmand
or Arghandab. A case for Haraxvait (or its Old Persian cognate Hara[h]uvati) as a region
name can be made, I understand, on the basis of the evidence in the Younger Avesta.
The names similarity with the Greek country or governorate (satrapy) name Arachosia/
oshia can also be used to strengthen the case, especially because the Greeks had a
different name, Arachotus, for the river of the country. However, a region could have
been named after a river (cf., for example, the S Sapta-srasvata in note 14 in addition
to several North American province and town names), but a river is unlikely to be
named after a region (unless there is another region in which a river with the same
name exists and the region name can be used to distinguish that river through the
formation of a phrase or compound name (sometimes containing a taddhita type
adjective); cf. usages such as Danube in Germany, Danube in Hungary or German
Danube, Hungarian Danube). If Haraxvait or Hara[h]uvat as a region name was
used to name a river, either the occurrence of the word as a river name is only a part of
a longer original designation or there was a homophonous region name that had already
begun to function as a river name. Both postulations would undermine the words
claim to historical priority as a river name. Therefore, either the Avesta specialists
must convincingly establish that Haraxvait first occurs as a river name or the proponents
of the region to river semantic development must find a valid way of accounting for
the development that goes beyond the abbreviation of a phrase and abbreviation of
a compound name possibilities that I have mentioned just now. Until they succeed in
doing this, the Avestan counterpart of S cannot be used to argue for a west to east
transfer.
To come to my second puzzlement, if Haraxvait is to have the same referent as
Helmand or Arghandab (note 68), the new name can only be thought of as a replacement.
The difference between the claimed old name and the current name is too great to fall
in the domain of natural sound change. What we then have on our hands is a case of
the type illustrated by Paru (Irvat ) Rv, Asikn (Candra-bhg ) Chenb or
Vitast/Vyeth/Byeth/Behat Jehlum/Jhelum. This, in turn, suggests either that Haraxvait
merged with another river (or took over an abandoned bed that was then known by
the other rivers name) or that a renaming of the river took place for unknown reasons.
However, under either possibility, the evidential value of Haraxvait as a river name
will continue to be as uncertain as before. Also, no strong ground will be left for
transferring the Helmands or Arghandabs end in a lake or marshland to the Haraxvait

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and taking the Haraxvait as sharing a crucial feature with the S.69 One will have to
concede that while the name was appropriate in the case of the latter it could have
been selected for the former simply because it was already familiar. This deduction
will agree with the state our available sources reveal: the sanctity of the S is explicitly
stated and repeatedly affirmed. That of the Haraxvait is inferred from that of Anhit
and the river itself is rarely mentioned. One could, of course, appeal to the relatively
(much) poorer preservation of the Avestan tradition, but since one must also recreate
the past as best as one can with the available sources, an appeal to what has happened
to the Avestan tradition will not rise above the level of rationalization or of an appeal
to a future that is not even dimly visible. For the present, a historian must attach weight
to the commonly observed phenomenon that decrease in the strength and variety of a
cultural tradition usually occurs in communities that are distant from the center of the
culture or leave their original place of residence. The west to east name transfer
position would thus end up in a proposition that would favor the east to west people
movement position.
5.17 The prototype-in-the-west view will have some justification if it is established
beyond doubt that the gvedic people were not familiar with the Arachosia area and
could not have known rivers such as Helmand or Arghandab (with these or some
other names) and therefore could not have named a river there with the name of a
Kuru-ketra river. Such a proposition asks for the establishment of an absence. I do
not know how one can establish the necessary absence with certainty, but let us suppose
for a moment that one can establish it and assume that the gvedic people did not
have any knowledge of Arachosia. Will the assumption be so secure as to support by
itself (since the shaky nature of the other supports has already been spelled out) the
important west-to-east hypothesis?
69

(a) Additionally, note a problem that the second sentence of the following remark by
Habib (2001: 62) raises: the Helmand does not flow into the sea, but into an inland
complex of marshes and lakes (Hamun-i Helmand). Nor would its size (it is practically
entirely snow-fed, with little rains in its catchment area) make it really appear great to
those familiar with the Panjab rivers.
(b) The first sentence of Habib and some sentences of the other proponents of the prototypein-the-west view, give the impression that the (putative) western S has been invoked to
refute the antiquity claim based on the eastern or gvedic S as well as to explain why the
name S should be understood as one possessing ponds or lakes. The weakness of the
refutation of the chronological priority claim is spelled out in 5.14-17. As for the name
explanation part, it should be noted that it would be extremely unusual to have a river
name, especially a clearly descriptive name like S, chosen on the basis of how the river
ends.

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The gvedic people clearly knew the Sindhu and several rivers to its west (cf.
10.75.6; although the hymn is in the tenth maala, it contains no signs of being a late
composition). The possibility that they were unfamiliar with Arachosia, the land
between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in modern
Pakistan, is very, very slim. In fact, there is a great probability that they referred to
Arachosia with rjka ( jka), which occurs in 8.7.29 and 9.65.23, 9.113.2, or a taddhita
derivative thereof that may or may not be identical with rjky, occurring as a river
name in 8.64.11 and 10.75.5. Given the current chronological understandings, a
Prakritized form is more likely to have been in existence at the time of the Greek
coining or adaptation of the region name, just as, on the western or Avestan side, one
expects the Old Persian form Harau(v)ati, not the Avestan Haraxvait, to be current. If
the latter is a valid assumption to make, the definite similarity of Arachosia with
Harau(v)ati would not extend beyond the first two syllables. The same will be the case
with a prakritized rjka or its derivate. It will have at least as much claim to be the
source of Arachosia as Harau(v)ati.
5.18 While the discussion in 5.15-17 does not negate the linguistic relationship
between S and Haraxvait, it does make it more likely that S led to the formation of
Haraxvait, not the other way round. Even if, unexpectedly, some truly superior hints
of a west east movement come to be attributed to the Avesta, we would wonder if
the history of the rich, continuous and organic development of the S concept that we
see in the Vedic tradition should be made to rest on the few incidental allusions to
Haraxvait in the Iranian tradition. This should particularly be a matter of serious
concern with respect to the sanctity aspect. How do we know that the (so-called) original
S, that is, Haraxvait, so sparsely referred to, had such sanctity associated with it that a
people, viewed as relatively primitive nomads or tribals, coming from its banks
remembered that sanctity even after crossing the difficult mountainous terrain and
mighty rivers of north-west India over a long period? How could they determine that
none of the rivers on their way, except a river in Kuru-ketra (that too already dead,
dying or distant from having an oceanic expanse as some scholars have claimed),
deserved the name (Haraxvait ) S? Further, why does any other geographical entity
adjacent to the Vedic S not carry a name showing the influence of the Afghan or Iranian
tradition (a point also raised in Lal 2002: 9)? Are there any passages in the RV that
definitely pertain to only the senior S and express sanctity? Chattopadhyayas (1976:
180) and Kochhars (2003: 2, 2006: 1) claim that hymns 2.41, 7.36 etc. are about an Afghan
or Iranian S and that 10.75 was composed centuries later is not at all borne out
philologically or contextually. The language of 10.75 is pretty archaic at several places.

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Nor are all the hymns in the tenth book late. There is no indication in 2.41.16-18 or
7.36.6, which mention the S, that the verses come from a non-Indian or an Iranian milieu.
5.19 I will now come to the remaining, relatively more specific, defenses of the Sprototype-in-the-west view:
Habib 2001: 62: On the other hand [i.e., if S was not a name given to the Thanesar
stream in the RV days], it is equally possible that, since the names pay and Dadvat
have not actually survived as names of particular rivers (and pay,70 given its association
with Kuru-ketra, can hardly be distinguished from the Sarsuti), one may legitimately
ask if all the three names have been transferred from somewhere else, and the earlier S
joined with these two was quite another river.

As I point out in note 8, pay, in the understandably changed form pag, can
justifiably be said to occur in the MBh in association with the S and Dadvat. As I
will point out in another essay, Dadvat should be the modern Ghaggar (especially
its upper part) that Dadvats name has been replaced by the essentially
synonymous Ghaggar. The exact correspondence of the three rivers in the MBh (S,
Dadvat, pag) with three rivers in the RV (S, Dadvat, pay) makes it extremely
unlikely that what we find in the RV is just a coincidence. That pay/pag may
have become extinct or defied our efforts at identifying its modern descendant (a river
or a dry riverbed) does not weaken the correspondence. That a confirmation of 2/3rds
of the correspondence is furnished by ground realities whether we opt for S =
Sarsuti and related streams + Dadvat = Ghaggar (my preference) or S = Ghaggar
and Dadvat = Chautang (the current understanding) continues to vouch for its
validity. Taking the common element of the RV and MBh as just a coincidence will
simply not be justifiable. On the other hand, if the surmise that all the three names
have been transferred from somewhere else is to be acceptable if it is not to be just
an appeal to faith, a plausible justification must be offered for it. At least one other
similarity of name from the same Haryana or Kuru-ketra area needs to be pointed out.
Habib does not engage even in this minimal justification. Secondly, how can we be
certain that pay or pag was indistinguishable from the Sarsuti in the days of the
RV or MBh, especially when no modern identification is given for pay or pag
and the texts mention the two as distinct (albeit nearby) rivers? Habibs whole remark
is a good instance of how historians sometimes play down explicit evidence to favor a
rationalization or guess if they are enthused about a particular position.
70

The RV does not explicitly connect the pay with the Kuru-ketra. The MBh does. Unless
Habib also has the Kuru-ketra area (approximately) in mind, his introduction of the
transfer possibility would make no sense.

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Habib 2001: 62: The most natural way of reading the text here [= RV 10.64.9] would be
to take Sindhu (Avestan, Hindu) to mean Indus, S (Avestan, Harakhvaiti [= Haraxvait]
to mean Arghandab-Helmand, and Saray (Avestan, Haroiva), the Hari Rd. These
would be the major rivers to be successively met with if one proceeds from the Indus
northwestwards. But this would not be the case if one went east. Saray (the modern
Sarju) would be met far away in the east, across the Yamun and the Gag, which could
hardly be overlooked by any way-farer.

Unlike in 10.75.5-6, there are no indications in 10.64.9 of a conscious effort to use river
names in accordance with their geographical sequence. The names S, Saray and Sindhu
could also have been used for their alliterative effect or because the rivers mentioned
shared the feature of being particularly beneficial to the community. Recall the
discussion of mah/maha, majestic, magnificent in 5.8, which adjective is used also in
the verse under discussion. Note the prominence given to the idea of sustenance in
the remaining words (the full text and translation are in Appendix).71
Kochhar 2003: 7 and 12 [= 2006: 4 and 5] : On one of its [= Ghaggar systems] rivers was
bestowed the name and the sanctity of the original S. Except for Sarsuti no other river of
the system carries a gvedic name. the bulk of the RV was composed on the banks of
71

(a) If the hymn composers intention was to mention only the rivers that the community
especially valued (probably because around them agriculture developed and civilizations
prospered), he could have meant the Saray (= Hari Rd) in Afghanistan while mentioning
the S and Sindhu in Punjab-Haryana. But the evidence is insufficient to rule out the possibility
that it was in fact the Saray/a in the eastern part of north India that the composer had
in mind. In the case of an audience or readership that knew Gag and Yamun, it is not
implausible that the eastern Saray was (also) known.
(b) Compare with the straightforward consideration in (a), the convoluted nature of the
argument in Kochhar 2003: 9 (= 2006: 5): Both the Harappan and the gvedic traditions
lacked the technological capacity to venture into topical [ tropical?] forests of the Gag
plains lacking as they did iron implements. Large-scale settlement only became possible
with the advent of the Iron Age. Therefore rivers to east of Gag cannot be gvedic
rivers. On contextual grounds the gvedic Gomat has always been identified with the
Gomil of Baluchistan and not the Gomat of east Uttar Pradesh. If the gvedic people did
not know the present-day Gomati, it is even less likely that they would have known Sarju
(Saray) further to the east.
Were iron implements the only means to make a way through forests? Could the invaders/
immigrants not have practiced controlled burning of suitable terrains, for example, to
create travel paths? Furthermore, do we have ancient iron implements so strong as would
truly be useful in clearing forests as distinct from cutting down a few trees for short foot
passages, building huts etc.?

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the river Helmand; the Ghaggar was already defunct when the Indo-Aryans encountered
it; and that many rivers to the east of Sutlej (S, Yamun, Gag, Gomat and Saray)
were given gvedic names for the sake of nostalgia.

This is an unexpectedly evidence-starved argument from a scientist who has elsewhere

rightly drawn attention to the importance of findings from geology etc. He should
have asked himself: Is the thesis that the bulk of the RV was composed near Helmand
supported by any clear and consistent geographic details, particularly the details in
the form of other river names, flora and fauna (contrast Talageri 2000: 94-136 and 2008:
81-129)? Should one not ascertain if the details available in the RV regarding the S
match the Helmand fully or in a major way? Is one case of general similarity of content,
the one between Yasht 10.67 and RV U6.61.8, enough to decide an issue of momentous
importance, even when there is no evident similarity of word forms employed, even
when the passages cannot be related to each other unless the crucial ancient names,
Haraxvaits, change to another highly different name, Setumant Haetumant Helmand,
and Helmands substitution by Arghandab (see note 68) is first accepted, and even
when the very occurrence of Haetumant is indicated by the editors as not fully supported
by the manuscripts?72 Further, even if trust in the soundness of the Aryan invasion or
migration hypothesis is maintained, is the time of Aryan invasion or migration so
convincingly settled that it has to be later than the death of the Ghaggar as a functioning
river? Is the date given for the Aryans (supposed) arrival a not-later-than kind of
date, so that the desiccation of Ghaggar could not have taken place after their arrival?
Are there any reflections of nostalgia in the references to the S, Yamun, Gag, Gomat
and Saray? Should a researcher not attempt at least to list a few words or phrases
72

Yasht 10.67 (text and translation from Humbach-&-Ichaporia pp. 49-50; special characters
not shown): hae<tum> raeuu xvarananh / spaetinis varami sisp<a>mno / nii<arjh>amno paoir
vijn. towards it [= Mount Ushad] the Haetumant hurries (to meet the others),
being splendent and glorious, parading with its white surges and sending down many
floods.
RV U6.61.8: yasy ananto ahnutas tvea cariur arava / ama carati roruvat // Griffiths
translation: Whose limitless unbroken flood, swift-moving with a rapid rush, comes
onward with tempestuous roar.
Above, I have used boldface type in reproducing some expressions. They should show
that the similarity between the two passages, even when the meanings of certain words
are stretched, does not extend beyond being a rapidly moving river. If some other verses
of the same RV hymn are included, white surges and glorious could also be included as
points of similarity. Still, the similarity will remain too general to justify assertion of a
historical relationship between the two passages and to draw a historical conclusion
therefrom. There is no phonological similarity in the words used either.

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ASHOK AKLUJKAR

indicative of nostalgia? Does the thinking of Yamun and Gag as west-inspired

names have a linguistically believable reasoning behind it? And what about the more
straightforward explanation of the name Gag as related to Sino-Tibetan words such
as kong and kyang?73
Starting point
5.20 Some researchers understandably assumed that the S, like the other famous
northern rivers Gag and Yamun, must have had its source in the Himalayas. When
it was discovered that in a bed identified as a one-time carrier of the disappeared Ss
waters there were no traces of Himalayan glacier sediments, an objection was rightly
raised against the assumed Himalayan source. Partly to counter this objection, a
hypothesis of excessive rainfall followed by a dry period was advanced. As a
consequence, a different time frame had to be proposed which did not agree with the
deductions based on paleo-geological or archaeological work, and the identification
of Ss course with the discovered dry bed again ran into difficulties.74
On this background, it is important to observe that there is no explicit reference to
the Himalayas in the S passages collected in 1.5 and analyzed in 3.1. The source is
mentioned only with the terms parvata and giri.
73

74

Another reasoning which makes sense only if we assume that Kochhar knows the motives
even if they are not expressed or indicated in texts is this: The word Yamun means a twin.
When the Vedic people reached the Gag they gave it the first name which was known
from the Brhmaa literature but which hardly had any connotation in the old maalas.
Yamun was then a natural name for its tributary. This implies naming Gag first even
though Yamun was crossed earlier. The real S by this time was long forgotten. As a mark
of respect to the Vedic references it was now made into an invisible river that joined the
Gag and the Yamun.
Valdiya 1996, See Puri 1998, Radhakrishna-&-Merh 1999, Sankaran 1999 (at www.ias.ac.in/
j_archive/currsci/volindex.html), Rao 2003, Gupta 2004, Tripathi 2004 (continued in the
Correspondence section with the reaction of B.P. Radhakrishna in Current Science 88.6 of
March 2005), Bhadra 2009 and Kher 2010 (in the blog Rapid Uplift at http://
suvratk.blogspot.com/). These research publications mutually differ. They do not advance
exactly the same arguments, use the same techniques or come up with the same dates.
However, it suffices for our present purpose that several of them point out a difficulty in
accepting the historians and/or archaeologistss identification and that they do so (broadly
speaking) on the basis of the chemicals or particles found. Radhakrishna-&-Merh 1999 is
particularly useful for finding out how the assumption of a very broad river or of the
exclusive identity of the S with the Ghaggar has led the researchers in objective sciences to
sensing various problems. The book also helps in reconstructing the history of identification
efforts.

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The primary meaning of the former is an elevated rocky area having knots or
layers (parvans)75 in its elevation.76 While it is not difficult to imagine layers in any
sizable mountain, the one that was viewed as housing the source of the S must have
had an easily visible presence of rocks and layers. These details do not naturally lead
ones mind to the Himalayas, where the rocks and layers are covered by snow
throughout the year or during most of the year and much that would ordinarily stand
out is made to look smooth (albeit as one forming a slope). The details, on the other
hand, would match the hills in the lower ranges of the Himalayas.77
The word giri is even more revealing. Its older meaning is hill (see Mayrhofer,
KEWA pp. I.335-336). Researchers should also have noted that giri is used in the plural
(yat giribhya, 7.95.2). The perspective of the composer of 7.95 (and probably that of
U6.61.2 as well, since he uses snu gir) must have been that the S originates in
more than two hills (cf. 4.6). To make such a statement would be natural in the case of
a river formed by more than one stream (cf. 4.8). The gvedic or historical S, therefore,
must have had its origin in the Shivalik Hills (as some researchers have already
assumed or proposed), close to the Himalayas but not in the Himalayas proper.78
75

The evidence of related Indo-European words collected in Mayrhofer, KEWA p. II.228

shows a strong association with rock and knot. These, therefore, must be essential
elements in the older meaning of parvata, which was originally an adjective that could go
with words such as giri and adri; cf. Wackernagel 1954: (vol. II/2) 588.

76

Very probably triadhastha in U6.61.12 alluded to the same feature of Ss source. sadha/
sadhas has the meaning of seat, abode, which in the context of a mountainous area, can
plausibly be extended to platform, plateau. Cf. Mayrhofer, KEWA pp. III.424-425 for
sadhas. Although Mayrhofer does not himself so observe, sadhas seems to have an association
with water contexts.

77

Note the use of parvata in MBh 6.10.11a te sahasrao rjan parvats tu sampata / abhijt
sravanto vipul citra-snava // O king. near those (seven kula-parvatas, major mountains)
are parvatas by thousands, acknowledged as formidable, plentiful and having a variety of
peaks. Unless the mountains are like hills one after the other, they are not likely to be
thought of as too numerous to count or as a large number for the observers eye (sahasraa,
vipul). Note also that MBh 9.4.49: prasthe himavata ubhe / aru sarasvat prpya
papu sasnu ca taj-jalam //, On the pleasing plateau of the Himavat, having reached the
Aru/Red (indication of the presence of mountain minerals?) S, the sons of Dhta-rra
drank its water and bathed in it. This verse connects the S with the prastha plateau of
Himavat, not with Himavat itself. Cf. Mayrhofer, KEWA p. II.373.

78

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaggar-Hakra_River: However, recent studies show that

Bronze Age sediments from the glaciers of the Himalayas are missing along the GhaggarHakra, indicating that the river did not or could no longer have its sources in the high
mountains.

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Traces of glaciers would then become a matter of chance, depending on the riverbed
the archaeologists and geologists happened to explore.
Some may think of two MBh passages as placing the origin of the S in that part of
the Himalayan range which one expects to be snow-clad throughout the year or to be
carrying glaciers. However, MBh 9.4.49, 9.43.51 do not even indicate that they are
concerned with origin. One more passage (MBh 9.37.26-28) containing the words
haimavate girau, signifying the Himalaya, has a mythic context. It speaks of a meeting
place, not the origin, of seven Ss (see note 14). Furthermore, in those passages in which
the Epic talks about Plaka Prsravaa (3.82.5, 9.53.11), where the source of the S is
commonly placed, there is no indication that Plaka Prsravaa was a snowy or
exceptionally high place to reach.79
79

(a) A potentially useful specification of the distance between Vinaana and Plaka Prsravaa
is given in Paca-via-brhmaa 25.10.16: catu-catvriad vnni sarasvaty vinaant
plaka prsravaa, Plaka Prsravaa (the place of Ss origin) is at a distance of 44 horsejourneys from Vinaana (i.e., if one, starting from Vinaana, were to ride a horse for 44
days and nights, he would reach Plaka Prsravaa). To be able to use this specification in
any reasonably reliable way, we will need to know the value of vna as a measurement.
My inquiries suggest that the value has not so far been determined for want of evidence.
See (d) below.
(b) That the value of horse-journey is based on journey done during the day as well as
night is known from Syaa: eko hy ava ekenhortrea yvantam adhvna gacchati tvn
ekvna.
(c) Caland seems to have followed an edition in which the reading was catvriat forty
instead of catu-catvriat forty-four.
(d) Usually, the source of the S is placed at the Har-ki-dun glacier (about 10 kilometers by
the trek route from Yamunotr in the W. Garhwal/Garwhal Himalayas) and the end, in
gvedic time, at the Gulf of Khambat (which latter would be near but not identical with
the Prabhsa Trtha location mentioned in 5.13 and note 62). The same website calculates
the distance between Vinaana and Plaka Prsravaa as approximately 880 miles (=
approximately 1,416 kilometers) and remarks: If Plaka Prsravaa refers to a location
near Adh Badri, where the S river emerges at the foothills of the Siwalik [= Shivalik]
Ranges, it may be hypothesized that Vinaana refers to Shiva near Pokaran, near Jaisalmer
in the Marusthali desert. At this place, the Landsat satellite images show a palaeochannel,
after forking from the S river at Anupgarh, forms a remarkably wide, fragmented channel
in the desert near Jaisalmer. While we should note remarkably wide, fragmented channel
in this helpful article, we should bear in mind that the article is written on the assumption
that the S is the Ghaggar. What the article takes to be Vinaana may not be the Vinaana
meant by the Brhmaa and rauta-stra texts. Recall also 5.6, in which it is pointed out
that the MBh recognizes ivodbheda as the place at which the S re-emerges. The Shiva
mentioned in the article, therefore, is unlikely to be the iva in ivodbheda.

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Larger implications beginning with the main conclusion

6.1 Our study has revealed that there indeed was a river S, although even in its first
appearance it comes with a cloak of deification and mythology. We will not be justified
in thinking of it only as a metaphor for the nighttime sky or as a deity.
Nor do we need to think of the gvedic S as an entity with a nostalgia-born or
imported name.
Further, we will be justified in setting aside two assumptions of the past that the
S had a wide or impressively broad bed and that it was glacier-fed.
As a consequence, we do not any longer need to appeal to shifts in the courses of
the Sutlej and Yamun, to assuming which some scientists listed in note 74 seem to
have rightly objected (cf. 5.10).
Nor do we need to face objections based on the assumption of a single stream
objections such as Habibs and Kochhars (5.19 above), which proceed with pointing
out that the S (understood here to be the river that once flowed in the Ghaggar or
Ghaggar-Hakra riverbed) had almost dried up or become defunct by the mid-second
millennium BC. We do need to be generally mindful of the limits that hard sciences
like geology place on our surmises regarding Kuru-ketra or north India in general, at
least as long as scientists with comparable qualifications and comparable access to
data do not controvert those limits, but respect for objective evidence should come
into play only after it becomes certain that the evidence really pertains to the textual
ascertainment made.
The earlier research literature on the subject does not become entirely pointless or
useless, but it does stand in need of use with constant attention to context. The Ghaggar
and the present descendant(s) of the S (whatever its/their identity/identities may be)
will continue to exist fairly close to each other. They will also continue to hold the
promise of forming a confluence at some point, like the ancient Dadvat and ancient
S, that is, their extinct confluence may again come to light. Therefore, the general
findings of the researchers regarding the geological history of the western part of north
India will continue to be relevant (e.g., the disappearance may be due to earthquakes,
tectonic changes and/or a long arid period).80 However, with the discussion above,
80

Cf. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaggar-Hakra_River>: Paleobotanical information

also documents the aridity that developed after the drying up of the river. (Gadgil and
Thapar 1990 and references therein). The disappearance of the river may additionally have
been caused by earthquakes which may have led to the redirection of its tributaries. It has

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ASHOK AKLUJKAR

(a) the need to prove that a S matching the gvedic description flowed in the bed of
the Ghaggar throughout its course and (b) the consequent need to synchronize the wide
bed (or what is at present found or not found in that bed) with the Sutlej and Yamun
course changes disappear.
6.2 New research must be undertaken to determine the nature of the relatively
narrow streams that ground observations and Landsat imagery may indicate as forming
clumps, moving together and then, possibly, branching off underground only to
resurface at three or four places (as some MBh passages and the remarks of rautastra commentators indicate).81 Future archaeological excavations will need to
concentrate on relatively smaller dry beds in such areas as those parts of Haryana and
Punjab which are near the Shivaliks and the parts of Rajasthan that are relatable to
these parts.82 While exploring these beds, researchers will also have to bear in mind
that realignments of rivers have probably taken place in northern India more than
once.83 Further worthy of note is the following comment in http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Ghaggar-Hakra_River:
also been suggested that the loss of rainfall in much of its catchment area as well as
deforestation and overgrazing may have also contributed to the drying up of the river.
However, a similar phenomenon, caused by climate change, is also seen at about the same
period north of the Hindu Kush, in the area of the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological
Complex.
81

The notion of the ancients that the same river continued underground may have to be
replaced by the hypothesis that the original river was cut off and physically separate rivers
came into being at the points where springs were available. Until future research justifies
that replacement thoroughly, it will be prudent to give up the use of verbs like dried up
and lost or to use them with a qualification, since they may mislead researchers into
ignoring the possibility of underground continuation. As observed in 5.6, the Himalayan
rivers coming to the northern planes of India are well situated to give a slip to the human
eye (as they are to change their courses).

82

To make the same point somewhat differently, the most promising area for future search
is likely to be the one in the upper part of the map on p. 1 of Valdiya 1996 and the map on
p. 20 of Lal 2002 and p. 73 of Lal 2005a, namely the area lying to the north and to the
immediate south-east of Shatrana, roughly between the part where the atadru begins to
flow independently and the part where the Dadvat is presumed to have flown. It is
there that the map shows 3-6 short, roughly parallel streams.

83

In the case of S, there will be a methodological advantage. The geologists and archaeologists
(and scientists from the other disciplines that help them) will not be looking for a single
river channel that changed its course but a cluster of river channels that changed its course
wholly or largely. The searchers may turn out to be incorrect or feel uncertainty in the case
of a channel or two but are unlikely to be entirely wrong. Once they have determined that

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There are several dried out river beds (paleochannels) between the Sutlej and the Yamuna,
some of them two to ten kilometers wide. They are not always visible on the ground
because of excessive silting and encroachment by sand of the dried out river channels
[endnote 37 at this point refers to V.N. Misra in Gupta 1995, pp. 149-50]. Cf. my note 9d
above].

In the suggested explorations, the beds which have been referred to by the locals with
the name S or its later variants such as Sursuti, Sarsati, Sirsa etc. should be given priority.
The same will hold true in the case of rivers such as Markanda and Ton, which some
archaeologists and geologists have independently thought of as replacements of
Ghaggar in the Ghaggar : Sarasvat equation. Furthermore, greater effort should be
devoted to locate Vinaana on a firm basis and to trace its link with Plaka Prsravaa
with strategically selected excavation points (see notes 44 and 77 above).
We will also need to ask ourselves, Did the Paru : Irvat ( Rv)
identification and the Asikn (= Askesines) : Candra-bhg ( Chenab) identification
come from a change of course of the first river in each pair?84 To answer this question
satisfactorily, we will need to study the Punjab rivers in greater depth for their
geological history and also to carry out a wider study of historical records and local
traditions. A comprehensive and systematic study of older names of rivers in eastern
Afghanistan and western Pakistan will also be useful.
6.3 We know that at a certain time the S ceased to be taken as a reference point in
Vedic or Indian cultural history and that this ceasing was caused mainly by
developments beyond mans control. We should add to this knowledge the
consideration that the disappearance of the S must have taken place gradually over a
reasonably long period. If earthquakes or other causes followed in quick succession,
the pace of loss could have been relatively faster at certain junctures. Otherwise, the
effects must have been felt slowly, and the awareness of change could have been
reflected in our (surviving) sources of information that have relatively long intervals
of time in between that, in the current way of thinking, belong to different literary
periods. The indications in the prose parts of the later Sahits, the Brhmaas and
the MBh (see notes 8, 9b-d, 9f, 11c, 14 and 19 above) that I have studied in the preceding
pages support this conjecture.
they are generally on the right track, the sediments etc. found in the river beds, especially
at layers datable in the 1900-3600 BC range, will help them in choosing rightly between
various river course possibilities.
84

As recently as 18 August 2008, the Kosi river in the eastern part of north India picked up an
old channel it had abandoned over 100 years ago and changed its course within a day.

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ASHOK AKLUJKAR

Secondly, we should bear in mind that the S was a river with several contributing
streams. It was adjacent to these streams for at least a part of its course. It could also
have had more than one channel. The channels and contributing streams could have
proceeded in an interlacing manner. The river course is unlikely to have been straight
over a long stretch.85 If a large part of the river system that all these together constituted
began to dwindle back to its source area as a result of the upward movement of the
north Indian land mass, new alliances could have been formed between the streams
while disintegration was taking place. The name S could have remained in existence
only on the basis of local public memory, sometimes very precariously.86
The haphazardness made plausible by the preceding commonsensical reasoning is
what we notice on the ground in northern India. As detailed in 5.5, there are at least three
credible Ss/Sursutis in modern India, with perhaps a lower part extending into Pakistan.
What the modern discoveries made by archaeology and Landsat imaging suggest
as certain or more probable agrees, as far as I can determine, with every clear indication
in the RV and the next most informative text mentioning the S, namely the MBh. All
we need to do is to make an effort to understand the texts precisely and
comprehensively, leaving out or de-emphasizing the obviously mythic parts of the
two texts and refusing to be influenced by those inferences in modern research which
are based on secondary literature.
6.4 It has become customary to assign the RV (approximately) to 1200 BC When F.
Max Mller furnished this as a surmise, he was probably following the cautious procedure that all historians should follow: Do not go beyond what the objective or relatively
objective part of the evidence indicates; traditions, especially religious traditions, can
assign greater antiquity to objects, events and concepts than they really have.
85

This receives confirmation in the following myth found in Paca-via-brhmaa 25.10.11:

sarasvaty vai dev dityam astabhnuvan. s nyacchat. sbhyablyata. tasmt s kubjimatva. ta
bhatystabhnuvan. syacchat. Calands translation: By means of the S, the Gods propped
the sun but she could not sustain it and collapsed; hence it (the S) is full of bendings, as it
were. Then they propped it (the Sun) by means of the bhat and, thereupon, she (the S)
sustained it.
Calands note on the passage: The correct reading (as the Leyden ms. has it) must be
tasmt s kubjimatva. Syaa, however, does not indicate the presence of iva in his mss. He
explains: kubjmat kubjik vakropetbht [ vakratvope].

86

In the case of the Dadvat, said to have vanished at Tri-plaka, even the name does not
seem to have survived in its Prakrit or Apabhraa forms. A part, if not the whole, of its
dry bed seems to have received the new name Ghaggar.

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If the final or first reasonably widely noted disappearance of the S could have
taken place at about 1900 BC at the latest, the RV, which clearly knows the river as
normally active, cannot be, at least in most parts of its family books, a composition
brought about much later than 1900 BC For the if clause of this sentence, note the
following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaggar-Hakra_River: This [= drying up] is supposed
by some to have happened at the latest in 1900 BCE, but actually took place much earlier.
Kazanas 2001: 4 available at http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/pdf/en/indology/rie.pdf:87
P H [ Henri-Paul] Francfort, utilizing images from the French satellite SPOT, finds
(1992) that the large river S is pre-Harappan altogether and started drying up in the
middle of the 4th millennium [BC]; during Harappan times only a complex irrigationcanal network was being used in the southern region. The Allchins (1997) seem to be
unaware of Francforts research: they cite L Flam in J F Shroders Himalaya to the sea,
Geology , 1993, which must have been written before Francforts publication. With this
the date should be pushed back to c 3800.
Witzel (2001: 66 at http://www.ejvs.laurasianacademy.com/ejvs0703/ejvs0703article.pdf)
in his review of Talageri: In fact, the estimates of archaeologists on the exact date of the
drying up of much of the S differ considerably. Mughal proposes that the Hakra was a
perennial river in the 4th and early 3rd millennium BCE and that it had dried up about
the end of the second. Other dates range from 2500-2200 BCE to 2200-1700 BCE, and
Francfort (1985 sqq.) thinks of a much earlier period.88
87

According to the note on http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/en/indology_en.asp, This was

published in Philosophy and Chronology, 2000, ed G.C. Pande & D. Krishna, special issue of
Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research (June 2001). A shorter, slightly different
version with the title The gveda and Indo-Europeans was published in the Annals
of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute vol 80, 1999 (Pune, India, 2000). The part I
have quoted is not included in the latter, and I do not have access to the former.

88

(a) Contrast Hock (2010: 7) The argument, that of the desiccation of the S in the 2nd
millennium BC, is problematic, as noted in Hock 2000, there are empirical problems
with this claim, in so far as Mughal, the discoverer of the Harappan sites along the lower
course of the (putative) S, puts the time of desiccation toward the end of the 2nd and
beginning of the 1st millennium (1993: 94); and this date is confirmed by Shaffer-&Lichtenstein (2005) as they point out, the upper course of the (putative) S shows an
increase in settlements during the Late Harappan period (i.e. by about the mid-2nd
millennium). There is, thus, no evidence that requires the assumption that the Vedic Aryans
must have lived in present-day Haryana prior to the mid-2nd millennium BC.
It is evident from my citations in the main text above that there is more archaeologist
opinion than what Hock has presented here. For what I have selected above as the not-

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Kazanas 2003: 229: G. Possehl examined all the palaeo-environmental and geological
data relevant to the S river and concluded that this river could have flowed down to the
ocean but only before 3200 at the very latest. The Allchins are more certain about this
(1997); so is Francfort (1992) and Lal (2002). This obviously helps us to assign the RV, or
at least the hymns that laud the mighty river, to a period before 3200.
later-than date, only the upper course of the S is relevant. If during the period specified
thus, there was an increase in settlements on the banks of the S, the implication would
either be that the lower course Harappans have moved upwards or that new invaders or
immigrants have come to stay. Under the former alternative, the desiccation must have
begun some centuries earlier in the lower course; population shifts could not have occurred
very swiftly in ancient conditions (especially when Hock, like me, accepts a non-catastrophic
gradual change and, unlike me, absence of horses and chariots at least as a possibility). The
latter alternative will conflict with the no invasion/immigration view of Shaffer-&Lichtenstein, and one would wonder if they would interpret their archaeological findings
the way Hock has.
(b) Contrast: Witzel in his 20 May 1998 post on the Indology-Liverpool list: early
Indo-Aryan immigration (*maximally* starting at the end of the Indus civ., 1900 BC, and
down to c.1400 BC). Also, his Autochthonous Aryans p. 65 in the 2001 version and p. 79
in a later (2008?) version, available at the website of the Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies:
Landsat or aerial photos by themselves cannot determine the date of ancient river courses;
local geological and archaeological investigations on the ground are necessary. They still
have not yet been carried out sufficiently, though the Hakra area has been surveyed
archaeologically on the Pakistani side by M.R. Mughal (1997), and geological data are now
also available in some more detail for the Indian side (Radhakrishna-&-Merh 1999, S.P.
Gupta 1995). They establish several palaeo-channels for this river, that easily changed
course, like all Panjab rivers flowing on these flat alluvial plains. Which one of these courses
would fit the Indus period and which one the gvedic period still needs to be sorted out.
Choosing an arbitrary date of 1900 or 1400 BCE is useless in order to fix the RV (well) before
this date. The general principles and realities articulated by Witzel must be respected.
However, the situation is not as hopeless as his words may suggest. If, while valuing
Mughals work, fair weight is attached to the findings of other archaeologists, we will
probably have a large and clear enough body of data. Further, if the content of 5.2-3 and
6.2 above is kept in mind and willingness to discard some old views about the community
reflected in the RV is shown, our interpretation should move on the right tracks.
(c) Contrast: Witzel 2003: 117: Explorations along the banks of the lower S (Hakra)
have not confirmed any such precise date [as before 1900 BC ]. (Mughal 1997, cf.
Radhakrishna-&-Mehr 1999, Possehl 2002: 8 sq., 239 sq.). If the Ghaggar is not the S, the
evidence pertaining to the Hakra, viewed as the southern course of the Ghaggar, will have
only indirect relevance for the S in the Punjab-Haryana area. In the present state of our
knowledge, it will not be wrong to take the mean of what we learn from several researchers
such as Francfort and Mughal as the most probable time of Ss vanishing in our chronological
frame.

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Kazanas 2012 (personal letter of 23 May) adds to the preceding: Also Bridget Allchin
giving a date c. 3800 (1999 Some Questions of Environment . . ., in A. Meadows and P.
Meadows (eds.), The Indus River, Karachi: Oxford University Press); Sharma, J.R., et al.
2006; all in Danino, M., 2010. The Lost River, New Delhi: Penguin. See also Valdiya, K.S.,
2002. Sarasvati: The River that Disappeared . . . also 2011. The Sarasvati: Was a Major River. So
there is plenty of evidence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaggar-Hakra_river: About 80 percent of the S sites
are datable to the fourth or third millennium BCE, suggesting that the river was flowing
during (part of) this period, which is also indicated by the fact that some Indus sites are
found inside the bed of the Ghaggar-Hakra. Some estimate that the period at which
the river dried up range, very roughly, from 2500 to 2000 BC, with a further margin of
error at either end of the date-range. This may be precise in geological terms, but for the
mature Indus Valley Civilization (2600 to 1900 BC) it makes all the difference whether the
river dried up in 2500 (its early phase) or 2000 (its late phase). By contact with remnants
of the IVC like the Cemetery H culture, legendary knowledge of the event may have
been acquired.89

However, by how much the composition of the older RV hymns precedes the specified
period of 1900 BC is difficult to decide as is indicated by the summations of the
specialists of archaeology and geology quoted above. Minimally, we must maintain a
flexible mindset about the matter and keep one eye constantly on the cumulative weight
of (a) astronomical, archaeological, geological and genetic evidence, (b) realistic
statements of chronological import handed down in the Indian tradition and (c)
89

In the present context, three further specifications need to be added to the preceding
summarizing citations:
(a) Although I make a distinction between the ancient S and the ancestor of the modern
Ghaggar, the geological research applicable to the latter will largely be applicable to the
former as well, since the two rivers were near each other. It is probably revealing that
both the S and Dadvat disappear as cultural institutions at about the same time, that is,
in the post-MBh and post-Manu-smti period.
(b) We should expect the regional disturbance that led to the disappearance of the S and
the Dadvat to have happened in a more pronounced way in the northern courses of the
two rivers. The joint lower stream of them in the south probably continued in a weakened
form, some part named Ghaggar or Hakra and some with a modern form of S. See 5.5.
(c) The literary evidence gathered in the foregoing pages, particularly the evidence from
the MBh, suggests that the loss of the rivers took place in stages. The following observation
of Hock (2000f: 58-59) made in the Hakra-Ghaggar context is applicable also to the larger
area with which this essay is primarily concerned: In both Mughals and Possehls account,
there is no evidence for a catastrophic desiccation.

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accumulation of information from related ancient societies, attaching greater weight to

what we learn from the applications of objective physical sciences not affected by the theories of
linguists and historians unable to check primary sources. To be sure, there will be some
uncertainties and complications in the application of each discipline or method and
some instances of specialists of one discipline depending on those of another
uncritically,90 but what their researches collectively indicate will still lead to a better
approximation of historical truth than was possible in Mllers time. Indias history
badly needs a more scientifically determined and updated chronological frame.
6.5 That the S is a river as well as a divinity (2.2-3) has not been denied by any
reasonably well-informed person. There also have been scholarly writings delineating
the nature and history of S as a concept (e.g., Khan 1978, Ghosh 1984, Singh-&-Nath
1999, Lal 2002, Ludvik 2007 and the books and articles listed in the bibliographies of
these books). However, how the bridging, transition or transformation between the
items of the pair S as river : S as deity took place in the gvedic or early post-gvedic
period does not seem to have received as much philology-controlled discussion as
the field needs and as one would expect.
How indeed did the two aspects of S come into being? In theory, we may entertain
the possibility that a divinity (whether personified night sky or something else) was
turned into a river. However, if the deity came first, the name is unlikely to have been
S. No one is likely to name a deity as one which has flows or lakes, especially when
the name structurally parallels Dadvat, which also is graphic in its literal meaning.
Details of Ss appearance, its association with other historically attested rivers and
streams, among possibly other clues, make it highly problematic to entertain the priority
of its divine form to its earthly form.
The question that deserves serious discussion, therefore, is, What could have
been the considerations when the river to deity transformation took place in the case
of the S? One consideration, likely in the light of what we know from later Indian
history, is that river deification was a way of expressing gratitude as well as ensuring
preservation of the purity of rivers. Rivers in general and major rivers in particular are
90

There have been instances in which the archaeologists thought the linguist gave them
sound conclusions or cues (e.g., Gaur 1995), and the linguists thought that the dates given
by the archaeologists were based entirely on the criteria and methods of physical sciences
(such as the use of carbon dating technology); see Kazanas 2002: 279-280 for substantiation
with instances and pp. 288-289 for objections to the excessive trust in the reconstructions of
historical-comparative linguistics. As indirectly useful toward the same end, see Lal 1979/
1980 and Trautmann-&-Sinopoli 2002.

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mainly venerated in traditional India out of a feeling of gratitude for their vital
importance to the community and for the benefits they bring to the communities living
on their banks benefits such as water, food and, through these two, strength,
prosperity etc. Bestowing sanctity was very probably a strategy for ensuring respect
and preventing misuse (through pollution in particular).91 In the references to the S, an
awareness of what benefits the river brings to the community is definitely present (see
3.1h-i and the notes thereto).
However, the depiction of the S does not stop with personification and deification.
The latter is quite distinctive already in the RV. It is unusual for a river to be deified as
the goddess of learning (in all fields sciences, arts and crafts of all kinds), as
embodiment of the Veda and as an inspirer of all pious or cultured thinking. Yet
pointers to that very conceptual component (although not an explicit articulation of
the component) is what the RV contains; cf. dhiyvasu in 1.3.10, cetant sumatnm in
1.3.11, dhiyo viv vi rjati in 1.3.12, sdhayant dhiyam in 2.3.8, dhiya dht in U6.49.7,
dhnm avitr in U6.61.4 and saha dhbhir in 7.35.11. Stephanie Jamison in her 2009 review
of Ludwik 2007 perceptively raises the following objection against this way of
accounting for Ss transition from a river to a deity:
There is, on the one hand, an understandable tendency to select and over-emphasize
aspects in one stratum that can be related, one way or the other, to material in another
stratum, and in particular to read back into earlier texts what is going to be prominent
in later ones. On the other hand, given the concentrated focus on a single issue (in this
case, a single divinity) in a text that treats manifold matters, there is the danger of
interpreting things found associated with that divinity as significantly unique to her,
rather than being broadly characteristic of divinities in general. Ludwik would
clearly like some evidence of Ss later association with knowledge, and here she needs to
troll further than is strictly justified. She notes a connection between S and dh inspired
thought (e.g., pp. 26-28); this connection certainly exists, but it is also difficult to find a
91

(a) Note, for example, the prominence of nature constituents in the Dharma-stra
prohibition rules collected in Olivelle 2005: 81-82. Since there is no association of sin or
provision of expiation procedures in the case of transgression of these rules, they essentially
pertain to what we would call secular life.
(b) Clever use of myth intended to secure social good to get the desired behavior even
from those who do not understand logical arguments or are not interested in them is a
feature of Brahmanical thinking. One can, of course, deny its presence in the RV by sticking
to the view that the RV is a product of (primitive or almost primitive) tribes who viewed
the world mainly as run by magical powers. But then how will one account for a number of
indications to the contrary?

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gvedic divinity who lacks that connection (as she admits somewhat grudgingly, p. 28).
In other words, inspired thought is not specific to S, but an association found across the
divine spectrum. But the author needs to over-emphasize it in order to provide an ancient
basis for later development.

Jamisons words regarding what can go wrong in the methodology of Vedic

interpretation are certainly to be heeded. This, however, does not mean that Ludwik
has been proved to be following a wrong track. There is a difference between the way
dh is associated with S and with other deities. In trying to understand the deification
of the S, we should not concentrate on dh itself but on the words, especially the verbs
(cetant, viv vi rjati, sdhayant, dht and avitr) that go with dh. It will be noticed that
Ss association with dh is integral or more fundamental. While other divinities may
inspire thought or praise, S makes the creation and delivery of that thought or praise
possible; she embodies what the other deities invoke or are spoken of as expecting.
From the fact that this particular element in the conception of S is expressed in the
new as well as old books of the RV (1, 2, 6 and 7 to be precise, even if the verses in
which S is present only as a deity are left aside as I have), it follows that stratum
difference is not a crucial consideration in unraveling the process that led to S as a
divinity. What is really needed is that a researcher should give up a certain
preconception about the RV. He/she should explore the issue without assuming that
the RV is a creation of nomadic and/or primitive tribes and he/she should entertain
the possibility that the RV may be a document that a settled community aware of its
physical circumstances and cultural institutions created with a definite sense of what
practical ends the document should serve.
In the individual case of S even a historical memory of the form that the hymns
were preserved near the river S or were recited and put together on the banks of the S
may have played a role in divinization; cf. MBh 9.50.35-49 and the close association of
S, the deity, with the Veda (MBh 6.30.5, 12.192.7). Attention to the different strata of
composition is, of course, an important methodological consideration, but so is attention
to the information and clues the tradition might have preserved. Among all items of
Indias heritage, the Veda has commanded the greatest investment of human energy
and resources for its preservation. Therefore, there is bound to be something of true
historical value in what the tradition has to say about the Veda. If the tradition associates
the Veda with the S, it may have done so to acknowledge the historic role the river
played in the formation of the mantra Veda or to suggest that the S was a more
fundamental cause of the realization of the hymns than the other deities.

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6.6 The later-attested conception of the Gag as a deity can be viewed as displaying
a lower level of deification and a higher level of riverhood; Gag is presented as
flowing in heaven, on the earth and in the netherworld. On the other hand, the gvedic S
can sit in the row of gods such as Indra, Agni, the Vive-devas and I and Bhrat.
Given its habit of praising any deity as supreme or identical with brahman, Hinduism
can, of course, raise the Gag to the same level as the S. In fact, in some later stotras
devoted to the Gag it has done so. But the phenomenon is late, and the expression
comes across more as conventional than natural not as something organically and
gradually built up. The stages which are seen in literature in the case of the S as we
proceed from the ancient to the not-so-ancient (river source of nourishment
facilitator of material achievements inspirer of acquisitions subtler than the physical
identity with the Vedic or philosophical ultimate) cannot be demonstrated in the
case of the Gag. Yet it will not be wrong to say that in the career of the Gag as a
cultural institution the prototype has come from the S. Perhaps an awareness of this
historical truth is reflected in MBh 6.7.46-47:
dydy ca bhavati tatra tatra sarasvat / et divy sapta gags triu lokeu virut //.
There are many places in which the S becomes visible or invisible. These (rivers listed in
the preceding verse) are seven divine Gags, well-known in the three worlds.

Here, the author moves from the S to the Gag as if he is dealing with a well-known
relationship. In the preceding verse, gag refers to a specific river, but in the cited
verse the same name has a generalized sense of holy or important river.92
92

(a) The article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaggar-Hakra_River reports: Some claim

that the sanctity of the modern Ganges is directly related to its assumption of the holy,
life-giving waters of the ancient S. There seems to be no explicit evidence to support such
a specific (taking over life-giving waters) claim. As far as the evidence furnished by
literature and known to me goes, the prestige the Gag now has is more likely to have
come from the model the S provided than from the Ss physical gift. But the Yamun could
have brought a part of the S to the Gag. As the starting area of the Yamun and the
starting area of an eastern constituent stream of the S would be relatively close according
to the available evidence and as the upper course of the S would be less affected by the
land change below the Himalayan foothills, the eastern constituent could easily have merged
with the Yamun at a certain point. Further, since the S was well-known as a westwardflowing river, there could have been a special interest in mentioning its merger with the
eastern Yamun (MBh 9.36.35-52 indicates the special interest). Thus the legend that the S
is implicitly present at Prayga may not be without a basis in fact.
(b) The preceding point is different from the point made by some scholars claiming a
wider extent for the original or pre-disappearance S. They speak of the Yamun moving

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6.7 An implication of the in-between-the-lines reading attempted in 6.5 is that

the seeds of what is implicit in the later-attested name Brahmvarta were already there
in the period in which the RV anthology was put together, if not in all of the oldest
accessible hymns. We know that the term brahmvarta was applied to the area between
the S and the Dadvat (cf. Mnava-dharma-stra 2.17). This area is the one in which
the main part of the course of S has been located. The MBh also locates Veda recovery
(MBh 9.50.35-50) and the largest number of places of pilgrimage having an association
with the Veda in this area. The original or literal meaning of brahmvarta probably was
the place where sacred utterances recur (either as creations or as recitations of what is
traditionally handed down), although the meanings the place to which Brahmins
repeatedly return and the place where the Ultimate is realized in many ways cannot
be ruled out. As some scholars (Halbfass 1991: 41) have observed, a reflection of what
the RV anthology was supposed to achieve and of the centrality of the RV among the
Sahits is found in the RV itself. Therefore, we should not be surprised if a memory
of the banks of the S as the place at which the Veda was put together or was initially or
primarily preserved lurks behind the RV statements about the S.
6.8 If I food is taken as another way of referring to the earthly mother or fertility
goddess (recall Prvat as Anna-pr in the later texts) and Bhrat, etymologically
related to the Bharatas and referring to the divine protective power of that royalty
(Macdonell-&-Keith p. II.97) as a stand-in for prosperity or man-made material wellbeing, then the S of the RV is primarily a symbolization of mans non-material or
abstract, mental and artistic, achievements (cf. 5.8-9). The trinity of Prvat, Lakm
and S, standing essentially for nature, civilization and culture, that we see in later
Indian life, could thus be said to be present in essence in the RV in the form of the IBhrat-S trinity. The first two have changed their names, probably after marriage; S, a
true feminist, has held on to hers. The aspect of S as the goddess of arts, particularly
fine arts, is not immediately detectable in the RV, but the underlying way of thinking
about man and his world does not seem to have been very different from what we
notice in the later Veda-born and Veda-borne (or rauta) Hindu tradition.
6.9 Out of the 22 or 23 rivers mentioned in the RV, the Sindhu and the S are the
only two rivers that receive uncommon attention in the RV. A hymn each (10.75 and
eastwards from its original participation in the flow of the S. If the geological research on
which this assertion of the Yamuns shift to the east is based is sound and is not misapplied
to some other rivers dry channel, the assertion can still be made. Then, whether it clashes
with the suggestion I am making will depend on the times and precise areas of the two
moves.

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U6.61) can be said to be devoted to them.93 These hymns have structural similarities.
Every verse refers to the river being praised (except for the additional verse found in
the valyana version and shown to be a late composition in note 5). 94 Only
nominative and vocative forms are used to refer to and address the object of praise.
The language of both can be characterized as an older variety of Vedic Sanskrit. Both
praise the rivers for their contribution to material life. Both share identical adjectives
such as vjinvat and apasm apastam (see note 27) and associated notions such as
saptan seven, tri three, ratha cart, car (3.3-6, 4.6, 4.4) and hiraya gold (RV
U6.61.7 and 10.75.8). Yet indications of being a fashioner of cultural life are found only
in the verses referring to the S. That Sindhu can appear as a general noun and proper
name but S appears only as a proper noun also indicates that the S had a special
cultural significance that could not be assigned to another river.
6.10 It is reasonable to infer from the geographical references in the RV, particularly
from 10.75.5-6, that, at least at the time the RV anthology or a major part of it was put
together, the cultural universe or our world of the RV composers extended from the
Gag to Afghanistan or eastern Iran (see 5.17, 5.19, note 71). This universe must
have had much diversity and parts considered closer or distant to the cultural ideals
and, consequently, feelings of superiority or inferiority regarding certain parts. The
our world feeling may even have been a vision of only a particular sub-community.
But this vision had, as one of its elements, an awareness of belonging together. We
may differ as to how this state of affairs came about. Yet I do not think we can deny
that the composite picture of the S we have put together above, even where we have
tried not to go beyond the literal meanings of words, has in it the suggestion that the
center of the communitys cultural universe was somewhere on the banks of S.95
93

If the possibility mentioned by Kazanas (2003: 43) in the following passage is accepted,
only the S may be said to have received a hymn of her own among all the rivers mentioned
in the RV: unlike the gods who all receive praise, with regard to the rivers, only S is
lauded repeatedly. Only in X, 75 do we find praise for the Indus, if the word sindhu
denotes the Indus river and not the Spirit of the Rivers deified.

94

Verse 10.75.5 may be mentioned as an exception to what I have said here, but since it
forms a thought unit with 10.75.6, it, too, can be said to share the Sindhu mentioned in
10.75.6.

95

(a) Cf. Kazanas 2002: 281-282 with evidence of concurrence from Keith and Witzel.
(b) The following statement contained in <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GhaggarHakra_River> is a case of forced, unconvincing explanation: the reason for the
predominance of the S in the RV is the late Harappan (1900-1300 BCE ) population shift
eastwards to Haryana; the latter part of the period corresponds to the common scholarly

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Issues beyond the texts

7.1 In the foregoing discussion I have deliberately kept myself away from an issue
that has engaged and excited several researchers writing on the S: the relationship of
the history of S as a river with the history of the Indus and Harappa Civilizations.
Questions such as the following are important: Did the drying up of the S lead, directly
or indirectly, to the abandonment or ruination of places such as Harappa and MohenjoDaro? Were the settlements pre-RV or post-RV? Did the incoming Aryans destroy the
settlements?
Before I address the questions, I should provide a clarification regarding how I
view them. Almost all scholarly discussion regarding the Indus and Harappa
Civilizations, on the one hand, and the civilization gleanable from the RV, on the
other, has proceeded as if there must be a connection between the two. While I, too,
think of the connection as very probable, I would have been happier if the thought
that a connection was not inevitable had found expression in the available scholarly
literature. It is not inconceivable that in the ancient world two civilizations may exist
side by side and still not know each other. At that time, the living areas were separated
by dense forests, uncooperative mighty rivers, and so on. Communications were not
what they are now in terms of convenience and speed. It is said that some of the North
American aboriginal tribes knew nothing or very little about neighboring tribes until
the European settlers cut the forests and made roads or brought in animals like horses
that enabled them to cover long distances in relatively short times. Over the centuries,
these aborigines, although they came from the same general stock and using the same
general route, had developed some languages that had become mutually unintelligible.
Hardly any specialist of the subject Aryans and Indus Civilization(s) answers the
last question in the first paragraph of this section in the affirmative anymore, even if
he/she accepts that an invasion or migration of Aryans took place; cf. Gupta 1996: (b)opinion of the date of this text. If the population shifted towards the S as stated, that
river (assumed to be the same as Ghaggar here) must have had enough water to sustain
the newly-arrived population. As far as I know, geologists have unanimously dated the
period of adequate water in the S to a time earlier than that of the late Harappan Civilization.
If the predominance of the S was due to something other than water availability, then a
credible alternative reason must be given. It should also be specified if what we find in the
RV is a product only of the newcomers or a joint product of the newcomers and the original
inhabitants. There is no indication that the composers were newcomers or that they were
collaborating with a community they viewed as other in composing the RV hymns or
preparing the RV anthology.

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(c), 137-139, Bryant 2001: 157-160. Literature suggesting that the possibility should not
have been raised in the first place that some crucial reports and photographs of
archaeologists working on the site were ignored or suppressed also exists; cf. Singh
1995: 1-12.
As to the second question, the argument based on objective considerations offered
in Lal 2005b and Kazanas 1998, 2003 and 2007 makes it highly probable that the RV, to
a significant extent if not wholly, should either be roughly contemporaneous with or
earlier than the later Harappan settlements. The testimonies of Greek and Roman
authors and the significant absences mentioned in Kazanass publications (which latter
cannot be strong evidence in themselves) complement Lals argument.96 Further, Lal,
in the same essay as the one mentioned just now, shows how the abandonment of at
least some of the Indus or Indus-S Civilization sites is likely to be due to the drying up
of the Ghaggar in the lower part of the region concerned, that is, the part to the southwest beyond the Ghaggars confluence with the S. As I have no significant contribution
to make to the evidence and reasoning already offered, I see no need to make this
essay longer by getting into a fresh or detailed discussion of the specified three
questions. It would suffice, I hope, to assure my readers that I have thought about the
issues involved in the same textually cautious, dispassionate and methodologically
defensible way as I have about the S issue, making a particular effort to maintain an
awareness of my limitations as a scholar.97
Much literature has been devoted to arguments based on absence of a particular
species of horse or of chariot. This has been useful as signals given to us to proceed
cautiously or to go deeper in analyzing the evidence. But they are not conclusive
96

Ram Sharan Sharma in his article probably written in 2007 and available at http://
www.ercwilcom.net/indowindow/sad/godown/history/RSS, expresses the opposite
view with an argument which is not essentially different from what one finds in Witzels
writings, but is expressed less precisely and with fewer details. The same is the case with
Sharmas book of 1995 reproducing the text of a lecture given in 1994: Looking for the Aryans,
Hyderabad: Orient Longman.

97

I am mainly a researcher of Classical Sanskrit stra literature who keeps himself generally
informed about research in Vedic literature. It is only occasionally that I actually handle
Vedic texts. I have no specialists knowledge of ancient Indian geography, archaeology,
astronomy or genetics. Consequently, I am not in a strong position to determine the accuracy
of the details appearing in the writings on early Indian history coming from the vantage
points of geography etc. In this essay I have not questioned the non-textual details unless
I could detect a contradiction or diversity of conclusions in the writings of the specialists.
I have also tried to consult the relevant specialists to the extent I could.

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ASHOK AKLUJKAR

because the absences themselves have not been firmly established. One side seems to
be simply denying that the evidence of presence given by the other side exists (cf. the
quick overview of findings in Kazanas 2002: 305, which should, perhaps, now be
updated).
7.2 The ground I have covered provides an interesting instance of preservation of
history and hence of sense of history in ancient India. To judge from what I have
included in notes 8, 9, 12c, 14a, 15, 20b-c, 34a and 47 and 5.13, the Late Vedic literature,
the rauta-stras and the MBh must be said to know several details about the S and
the traditions surrounding her. It is significant that while the RV contains no sign of
the disappearance, the Brhmaas, rauta-stras and MBh leave no doubt that the
gvedic river is not fully accessible to their authors. They do not express anything
that would, even accidentally, give the impression of having slipped into a bygone
period (the one in which the S was fully present) of their communitys history. They
indicate that the desiccation of the S was gradual, which is in agreement with what
some archaeologists and geologists of our time have inferred.
7.3 In my discussion above, while I have sided with the discoveries of objective
sciences, I have also treated the realistic elements in the indigenous traditions with
respect and shown how a comprehensive and precise analysis of the relevant parts of
the RV could have saved the objective scientists from taking (what I have come to
view as) wrong turns and raising unwarranted objections. I have tried to go by what
the totality of evidence, positive as well as negative, regarding what a particular
hypothesis or view indicates, what seems probable, and how much weight should be
assigned to the oddities or inexplicables that remain so, despite our best efforts to
make sense of them. I have avoided putting scholars in monolithic groups and using
overgeneralizing, predisposing or prejudicial labels such as Western/Mleccha
scholars or nationalist/Hindutva writers. As much as is humanly possible, I have
tried to concentrate on evidence and reasoning, regardless of the source of that evidence
and reasoning. Perhaps this is where the justification of my writing on the present
topic lies (and ends). I have no great professional stake in siding with this or that view.
I can easily exercise the freedom to change my assumptions and views when the facts
change. If my paper serves as an example of the benefit of thinking outside the box, it
will do so mainly because I have not been in the box to begin with. If my effort has
succeeded in raising a few questions of importance, I will consider it rewarded.
In view of the statements made in 3.1b, 3.2a and 3.3-6, I should clarify that it
is simply a coincidence that my thinking in this essay has moved in seven streams and
has ended up in seven lake-like sections!

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Appendix
Passages Mentioning Sarasvat
Although reproductions of most gvedic passages dealing with the river S are available in several
publications (e.g. Chattopadhyaya 1976: 138-194, Khan 1978: 179-182), I have not come across a
collection of passages in their order of occurrence in the RV. Since the place of occurrence can
have a bearing on how much evidential weight a passage should have, I have presented the S
passages below in the maala, hymn and verse sequence. The procedure adopted also facilitates
my readers locating of references made in the main body of the paper and enables me to place
my argument in sharper focus, unintervened by contextually irrelevant words and translations.
Passages in which we do not come to know anything significant about or directly helpful in
understanding S as a river appear with indentation on the left and in smaller type. They are not
translated.
Even in the case of passages having a direct bearing on our understanding of the river S, I
have not offered translations of all passages, if the detail does not go beyond a mere occurrence
of the name S or its mention as a nad or stream.
Passages of immediate relevance are presented with their number in boldface type.
The word S occurring in a few of these passages is syntactically connected to the sentence
begun in the preceding verse or is to be understood in the subsequent verse. Even when the
occurrence passages thus actually consist of more than one verse, I have reproduced them here
as if only one verse was involved. In a few cases, the verses near to the collected verse may have
something to say or suggest about the S regardless of whether they are syntactically connected
or a pronoun standing for the S occurs in them. Wherever this is decidedly or probably the case,
I have included the nearby verses implicitly in my discussion above.
The passages containing the closely related words Sarasva(n)t and Srasvata are collected at
the end.
Due to a practical difficulty I have not reproduced the accents, but I have taken them into
account wherever the issue of interpreting unclear or ambiguous expressions arose.
Nasals before which a colon appears in my transliteration should be understood as standing
for nasal vowels, which are usually marked by a candra-bindu in Ngar printing.
Hymns determined to be out of their expected sequence by Hermann Oldenberg have U,
standing for unordered, in front of them.
The translations reproduced here come from Ralph T.H. Griffith. Despite their age and
despite the greater usefulness of K.F. Geldners German translations for historical research, I
have stuck with them, because, in the verses concerning the S, they do not generally differ from
Geldners translation in any essential respect (and where they do so differ, I have discussed the
difference from what Geldner as well as other RV specialists known to me have written) and

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ASHOK AKLUJKAR

because almost all researchers who have written on the S have taken them as the basis of their
observations (although they should have carefully and consistently compared the translations
with the original Sanskrit text). I do not wish that my fellow researchers should think that my
differences from them arise out of different understandings of entire verses or hymns.
Wherever unexpected capitalization of word initials is seen it should be understood as
indicating the beginning of a new line in Griffiths translation, which is printed as verses.
1.3.10: pvak na Sarasvat vjebhir vjinvat / yaja vau dhiy-vasu //
1.3.11: codayitr sntn cetant sumatnm / yaja dadhe Sarasvat //

1.3.12: maho ara sarasvat pra cetayati ketun / dhiyo viv vi rjati // S, the mighty flood, she
with the light illuminates, She brightens every pious thought.98
1.13.9: i sarasvat mah tisro devr mayobhuva / barhi sdantv asridha //
1.89.3: tn prvay nivid hmahe vaya bhaga mitram aditi dakam asridham / aryamaa
varua somam avin sarasvat na subhag mayas karat //
1.142.9: ucir devev arpit hotr marutsu bhrat / i sarasvat mah barhi sdantu yajiy //
1.164.49: yas te stana aayo yo mayobhr yena viv puyasi vryi / yo ratnadh vasuvid ya
sudatra sarasvati tam iha dhtave ka //
1.188.8: bhrate sarasvati y va sarv upabruve / t na codayata riye //
2.1.11: tvam agne aditir deva due tva hotr bhrat vardhase gir / tvam i atahimsi dakase
tva vtrah vasupate sarasvat //
2.3.8: sarasvat sdhayant dhiya na i dev bhrat vivatrti / tisro dev svadhay barhir edam
achidra pntu araa niadya //
2.30.8: sarasvati tvam asm:n avihi marutvat dhat jei atrn / tya cic.chardhanta
taviyamam indro hanti vabha aiknm //
U2.32.8: y gugr y sinvl y rk y sarasvat / indrm ahva taye varun svastaye //

2.41.16: ambitame nadtame devitame sarasvati / apraast iva smasi praastim amba nas kdhi // Best
Mother, best of Rivers, best of Goddesses, S, We are, astwere, of no repute and dear Mother,
give thou us renown.
2.41.17: tve viv sarasvati rityi devym / unahotreu matsva praj devi didihi na //
2.41.18: im brahma sarasvati juasva vjinvati / y te manma gtsamad tvari priy deveu
juhvati //
3.4.8: bhrat bhratbhi sajo i devair manuyebhir agni / sarasvat srasvatebhir arvk tisro
devr barhir eda sadantu //

3.23.4: ni tv dadhe vara pthivy iys pade sudinatve ahnm / dadvaty mnua payy
98

There could be a printing error in be light. Since one expects a translation of ketu at the
point, was the intended wording becon light? I have not been able to access any errata
added to Griffiths translation.

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sarasvaty revad agne didhi // He set thee in the earths most lovely station, in Is place, in days
of fair bright weather. On man, on pay, Agni! On the rivers Dadvati, S, shine richly.99
3.54.13: vidyud-rath maruta imanto divo mary ta-jt aysa / sarasvat avan yajiyso
dht rayi saha-vra tursa // [See 2.1.]
5.5.8: i sarasvat mah tisro devr mayobhuva / barhi sdantv asridha //

5.42.12: damnaso apaso ye suhast va patnr nadyo vibhva-ta / sarasvat bhaddivota rk daasyantr
varivasyantu ubhr // May the House-friends, the cunning-handed Artists, may the Steers
Wives, the streams carved out by Vibhvan, And may the fair Ones honour and befriend us, S,
Bhaddiv, and Rk.
5.43.11: no divo bhata parvatd sarasvat yajat gantu yajam / hava dev juju ghtc agm
no vcam uat otu // From high heaven may S the Holy visit our sacrifice, and from the
mountain. Eager, propitious, may the balmy Goddess hear our effectual speech, our invocation.100
5.46.2: agna indra varua mitra dev ardha pra yanta mrutota vio / ubh nsaty rudro
adha gn p bhaga sarasvat juanta //

U6.52.6: indro nediham avasgamiha sarasvat sindhubhi pinvamn / parjanyo na oadhbhir mayobhur
agni suasa suhava piteva // Most near, most oft comes Indra with protection, and she S, who
swells with rivers Parjanya, bringing health with herbs, and Agni, well lauded swift to listen,
like a father.
99

Surprisingly, Griffith and Geldner have not been troubled by the incongruity of taking
mnue in the sense on man and unter dem Menschengeschlect. Given that the other
words name items of geography, one would expect mnua to do the same. The passage
MBh 3.83.68 (= 3.81.55 of the Poona critical edition) to which Geldner refers is immediately
preceded by two verses which contain mnua as the name of a trtha a place of pilgrimage.
Verse 55 itself provides the potentially valuable information that pag is within one
kroa to the east of Mnua. Verse 84 of the same adhyya mentions two other trthas,
Ahan and Sudina, which names have an uncanny similarity with the words in pda b of
RV 3.23.4. MBh 3.81.154 also contains an occurrence of pag. Finally, RV Khila 5.14.1 also
has mnua as a locality name (yad indro darje mnuam vyaghath / virpa sarvasm st
sadg akya vacate //).

100

If bhata is taken as an adjective of parvatt, since adjectives normally precede nouns,

from parvata should be replaced with from a broad, tall or big parvata. But it is also
possible that bhata is meant to go with diva, and divo bhata is really an oblique reference
to bhad-div in 5.42.12 (note occurrence in the same maala and in a composition by the
same person, Atri Bhauma, in the same meter, just one hymn away). bhad-div and rk
used in 5.42.12 could be the names of two of the six or seven streams associated with the S,
since the words appear in a list with the S. The traditional commentaries indicate uncertainty
about the meanings of these words but agree in taking them as nouns: Vekaa-mdhava:
sarasvat bhad-div ca apsar, tath rk. Syaa: sarasvat etan-nmik nad vg-dev v. bhaddiv prabhta-dpti, uta api ca rk dev ca.

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ASHOK AKLUJKAR

U6.61.1: iyam adadd rabhasam a-cyuta divo-dsa vadhry-avya due / y avantam

cakhd vasa pai t te dtri tavi sarasvati //

U6.61.2: iya umebhir bisakh ivrujat snu gir taviebhir rmibhi prvataghnm avase suvktibhi
sarasvatm vivsema dhtibhi // She with her might, like one who digs for lotus-stems, hath
burst with her strong waves the ridges of the hills. Let us invite with songs and holy hymns for
help S who slayeth the Prvatas. See 4.3 for the last clause.
U6.61.3: sarasvati devanido ni barhaya praj vivasya bsayasya myina / uta kitibhyo avanr avindo
viam ebhyo asravo vjinvati // Thou castest down, S, those who scorned the Gods, the brood of
every Bsaya skilled in magic arts. Thou hast discovered rivers for the tribes of men, and, rich in
wealth! made poison flow away from them.
U6.61.4:
U6.61.5:
U6.61.6:
U6.61.7:

pra o dev sarasvat vjebhir vjinvat / dhnm avitry avatu //

yas tv devi sarasvaty upabrte dhane hite / indra na vtra-trye //
tva devi sarasvaty av vjeu vjini / rad peva na sanim //
uta sy na sarasvat ghor hirayavartani / vtraghn vai suutim //

U6.61.8: yasy ananto ahnutas tvea cariur arava / ama carati roruvat // Whose limitless unbroken
flood, swift-moving with a rapid rush, Comes onward with tempestuous roar.
U6.61.9: s no viv ati dvia svasr any tvar / atann aheva srya // She hath spread us beyond
all foes, beyond her Sisters, Holy One, As Surya spreadeth out the days.
U6.61.10: uta na priy priysu sapta-svas suju / sarasvat stomy bht // Yea, she, most dear
among dear streams, seven-sistered, graciously inclined, S hath earned our praise.
U6.61.11: papru prthivny uru rajo antarikam / sarasvat nidas ptu //
U6.61.12: triadhasth sapta-dhtu paca jt vardhayant / vje-vje havy bht // Seven-sistered,
sprung from threefold source, the Five Tribes prosperer, she must be invoked in every deed of
might. See 4.6 and note 14b for sprung from threefold source and Seven-sistered.
U6.61.13: pra y mahimn mahinsu cekite dyumnebhir any apasm apastam / ratha iva bhat vibhvane
ktopastuty cikitu sarasvat // Marked out by majesty among the Mighty Ones, in glory swifter
than the other rapid streams, Created vast for victory like a chariot, S must be extolled by every
sage. See 4.2 for Created vast for victory.
U6.61.14: sarasvaty abhi no nei vasyo mpa sphar payas m na dhak / juasva na sakhy vey ca m
tvat ketry arani ganma // Guide us, S, to glorious treasure: refuse us not thy milk, nor spurn
us from thee. Gladly accept our friendship and obedience: let us not go from thee to distant
countries.
7.9.5: agne yhi dtya m riayo dev:n acch brahmakt gaena / sarasvat maruto avinpo
yaki devn ratnadheyya vivn //
7.35.11: a no dev vivadev bhavantu a sarasvat saha dhbhir astu / am abhica am u
rtica a no divy prthiv a no apy //

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7.36.6: yat ska yaaso vvan sarasvat saptath sindhu-mt / y suvayanta sudugh sudhr
abhi svena payas ppyn // Coming together, glorious, loudly roaring S, Mother of Floods,
the seventh With copious milk, with fair streams, strongly flowing, full swelling with the
volume of their water.101 See 3.7 for Mother of Floods, the seventh.
7.39.5: gne giro diva pthivy mitra vaha varuam indram agnim / aryamaam aditi vium
e sarasvat maruto mdayantm //
7.40.3: sed ugro astu maruta sa um ya martya pad-av avtha / utem agni sarasvat
junanti na tasya rya paryetsti //

7.95.1: pra kodas dhyas sasra e sarasvat dharuam yas p / prabbadhn rathyeva yti viv apo
mahin sindhur any // This stream S with fostering current comes forth, our sure defence, our
fort of iron, As on a car, the flood flows on, surpassing in majesty and might all other waters.
7.95.2: ekcetat sarasvat nadn ucir yat giribhya samudrt / rya cetant bhuvanasya bhrer ghta
payo duduhe nhuya // Pure in her course from mountains to the ocean, alone of streams S hath
listened. Thinking of wealth and the great world of creatures, she poured for Nhua her milk
and fatness.102
7.95.3: see under Sarasvat below.

7.95.4: uta sy na sarasvat juopa ravat subhag yaje asmin / mitajubhir namasyair iyn ry yuj
cid uttar sakhibhya // May this S be pleased and listen at this our sacrifice, auspicious Lady,
When we with reverence, on our knees, implore her close-knit to wealth, most kind to those she
loveth.
7.95.5: im juhvn yumad namobhi prati stoma sarasvati juasva / tava arman priyatame dadhn upa stheyma araa na vkam //
7.95.6: ayam u te sarasvati vasiho dvrv tasya subhage vy va / vardha ubhre stuvate rsi
vjn. yya pta svastibhi sad na //

U7.96.1: bhad u gyie vaco sry nadnm / sarasvatm in mahay suvktibhi stomair vasiha
rodas //
U7.96.2: ubhe yat te mahin ubhre andhas adhikiyanti prava / s no bodhy avitr marut-sakh
coda rdho maghonm //
U7.96.3: bhadram id bhadr kavat sarasvaty akavr cetati vjinvat / gn jamadagnivat
stuvn ca vasihavat //
U7.96.4: See under Sarasvat below.
101

In the original, the plurals are juxtaposed with the singular sarasvat saptath sindhu-mt.
The notion of seven mother rivers implicit in the seventh mother river makes the transition
possible.

102

Cf. MBh: 9.40.30-34, especially 30: yatra yaje yaytes tu mahrja sarasvat / sarpi paya ca
susrva nhuasya mahtmana //

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U7.96.5: See under Sarasvat below.

U7.96.6: See under Sarasvat below.
8.21.17: indro v ghed iyan magha sarasvat v subhag dadir vasu / tva v citra due //
8.21.18: citra id rj rjak id anyake yake sarasvatm anu / parjanya iva tatanaddhi vy sahasram
ayut dadat //
8.38.10: ha sarasvatvator indrgnyor avo ve / ybhy gyatra cyate //

8.54.4:103 p viur havana me sarasvaty avantu sapta sindhava / po vta parvatso vanaspati
otu pthiv havam // May Pan, Viu, and S befriend, and the Seven Streams, this call of
mine: May Waters, Wind, the Mountains, and the Forest-Lord, and Earth give ear unto my cry.
9.5.8: bhrat pavamnasya sarasvat mah / ima no yajam gaman tisro dev supeasa //
9.67.32: pvamnr yo adhyety ibhi sambhta rasam / tasmai sarasvat duhe kra sarpir
madhdakam //
9.81.4: na p pavamna surtayo mitro gachantu varua sajoasa / bhaspatir maruto
vyur avin tva savit suyam sarasvat //
10.17.7: sarasvat devayanto havante sarasvatm adhvare tyamne / sarasvat sukto ahvayanta
sarasvat due vrya dt //
10.17.8: sarasvati y saratha yayatha svadhbhir devi pitbhir madant / sadysmin barhii
mdayasvnamv ia dhehy asme //
10.17.9: sarasvat y pitaro havante daki yajam abhinakam / sahasrrgham io atra
bhga ryaspoa yajamneu dhehi //

10.30.12: po revat kayath hi vasva kratu ca bhadram bibhthmta ca / rya ca stha svapatyasya
patn sarasvat tad gate vayo dht // For, wealthy Waters, ye control all treasures: ye bring
auspicious intellect and Amta. Ye are the Queens of independent riches S give full life to the
singer!
10.64.9: sarasvat sarayu sindhur rmibhir maho mahr avas yantu vaka / devr po mtara sdayitnvo
ghtavat payo madhuman no arcata // Let the great streams come hither with their mighty help,
Sindhu, S and Sarayu with waves. Ye Goddess Floods, ye mothers, animating all, promise us
water rich in fatness and in balm.
10.65.1: agnir indro varuo mitro aryam vyu p sarasvat sajoasa / dity viur maruta
svar bhat somo rudro aditir brahmaas-pati //
10.65.13 : pvrav tanyatur ekapd ajo divo dhart sindhur pa samudriya / vive devsa avan
vacsi me sarasvat saha dhbhi purandhy //
103

If the Vlakhilya hymns are viewed as a genuine part of the RV anthology, the hymn
number will be 54 as given here. Otherwise it will be 6 in the Vlakhilya group put in
an appendix or published separately. Griffith translates the Vlakhilya hymns at the end of
his translation of the eighth maala.

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10.75.5: ima me gage yamune sarasvati utudri stoma sacat paruy / asikny marudvdhe
vitastayrjkye uhy suomay // Favour ye this my laud, O Gag, Yamun, O utudr,
Paru and S: With Asikn, Vitast, O Marudvdh, O rjky with Suom, hear my call.
10.141.5: aryamaa bhaspatim indra dnya codaya / vta viu sarasvat savitra ca
vjinam //
10.184.2: garbha dhehi sinvli garbha dhehi sarasvati / garbha te.avinau devv dhatt
pukara-sraj //

Sarasvat
1.164.52: divya supara vyasa bhantam ap garbha daratam oadhnm / abhpato
vibhis tarpayanta sarasvantam avase johavmi //
7.95.3: sa vvdhe naryo yoasu v iur vabho yajiysu / sa vjina maghavadbhyo dadhti
vi staye tanva mmjta //104
U7.96.4: janyanto nv agrava putryanta sudnava / sarasvanta havmahe //
U7.96.5: ye te sarasva rmayo madhumanto ghtacuta / tebhir no vit bhava //
U7.96.6: ppivsa sarasvata stana yo vivadarata / bhakmahi prajm iam //
10.66.5: sarasvn dhbhir varuo dhtavrata p viur mahim vyur avin ? brahmakto
amt viva-vedasa arma no yasan tri-vartham ahasa //

srasvata
3.4.8: bhrat bhratbhi sajo i devair manuyebhir agni / sarasvat srasvatebhir arvk tisro
devr barhir eda sadantu //

References and Abbreviations

I have not specified the publication details of the editions and trs of Sanskrit texts that
can now be easily gathered by accessing the electronic catalogues of various libraries.
The only exception made is that of the editions of the Mahbhrata and of the RV and its
comm.s, as they have a direct bearing on the central concern of the essay. I have also
dropped the publication details of the reports in archaeology, geology, remote sensing
etc. that occur inside the studies I have quoted. The publications I would have liked to
consult personally but could not are Danino 2010, Davane 1982, Godbole 1963,
Kalyanaraman 2008, Valdiya 2002, 2010 and 2012, Sharma 1974 and Klaus 1986, but I have
104

The verse itself does not contain S or Sarasvat, but, since Syaa and the valyanarauta-stra think of it as concerned with Sarasvat, I have included it here; cf. Syaa:
[Introduction:] sarasvad-devatke paau sa vvdhe iti puroasya yjy. strita ca sa vvdhe
naryo yoasu yasya vrata paavo yanti sarve [valyana-rauta-stra 3.8] iti. madhyasthno vyu sarasvn staye lbhrtha, tanva te arra vi mmjta vimri lbhrtha
sat-karoti. yady apy e sarasvata stutis tathpi sarasvaty pranrtha tat-stavanam

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seen the summaries of the second and the third in volumes III and IV of R.N. Dandekars
Vedic Bibliography.
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Indian Foundation for Vedic Science.105
Atharva-veda. Atharva-veda-sahit. (ed) Satavalekar, S.D. Paradi, Gujarat: Svdhyya Maala.
1957. A reprint has been issued by the same institution.
Atharva-veda. Atharvaveda (aunakya), with the Pada-pha and Syacryas Commentary. (eds)
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Avesta = Avest: The Sacred Scripture of the Parsees. (eds) Kanga, Ervad M.F.; Sontakke, N.S. Parts/
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In Deva-ngar script.
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vol 4: 1862-1865 na-pha, vol 5: 1865-1868 ba-ma, vol 6: 1868-1871 ya-va, vol 7: 1872-1875 a-ha.
Reprint 1966, 1983: Osnabrck: O. Zeller. Reprint 1990-1991 (called first Indian edn):
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Sanskrit-Wrterbuch in Krzerer Fassung von Otto Bhtlingk.
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Interpretation and Ideology. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University, Department of
Sanskrit and Indian Studies. Distributed by South Asia Books, Columbia, Missouri. Harvard
Oriental Series, Opera Minora vol. 3.
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author: Patton, Laurie L Abingdon, Oxon etc.: Routledge.
Chattopadhyaya, Kshetresh Chandra. 1976. The identification of the Rigvedic river Sarasvati
and some connected problems. In Vedic and Indo-Iranian Religion and Literature, vol. 1, pp.
138-194. (ed) Misra, Vidya Niwas. Vols. 2. Varanasi: Bharatya Vidy Prakana. The article
here is also available separately with some inessential differences as gvedic River Sarasvat.
New Delhi, Allahabad: Northern Book Centre. 1986. Originally published in the Journal of
the Department of Letters, Calcutta University, 14.63ff.
Chauhan, D.S. 1999. In Radhakrishna-&-Mehr 1999.
Cunningham, Alexander. 1882. Report of a Tour in the Punjab in 1878-79. Archaeological Survey of
105

Not much of what is new in this book will seem plausible or probable to historians. It
consists of passages randomly taken up for discussion. Printing errors and inconsistencies
of presentation are not rare.

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India. Vol. XIV. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing. Available
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Davane, G.V. 1982. An Analytical Study of Samudra in the Rigveda. in Golden Jubilee Volume,
pp. 46-51. (ed) Dharmadhikari, T.N. Vaidika Saodhana Maala.
ed = editor/edited by.
EWA: see Mayrhofer.
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Memory of Sh. V.D. Krishnaswami, pp. 153-162. (eds) Datta, Asok Kumar; Ghosh, Asok K.;
Margabandhu, Chandrambattu. Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan.
Ghose, Bimal. 1979. The lost courses of the Saraswati river in the Great Indian Desert: new
evidence from Landsat imagery. The Geographical Journal 145.3: 446-451. Other authors:
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Ghosh, Niranjan. 1984. r Sarasvat in Indian Art & Literature, Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications.
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Gupta, S.P. 2005. Archaeology mirrors the Vedic river Sarasvat and the original home of the
gvedic seers. Sanskrit Studies Centre Journal 1: 55-62. I understand that this inaugural
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Hock, Hans Henrich. 2010. Hindu nationalism, originalism, and the reinvention of Indian
prehistory. Draft of a paper presented at the Conference Pseudo-Science, Erasure, and

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Exclusion: Why the Past Is Important in the Present; University of Illinois, 10 April 2010.
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Post-script
Most of the preceding text reached a final form on 15 May 2012 and was sent to some
contributors of the present volume the same day for comments and corrections. An article
published on 29 May 2012, only fourteen days later, provided a corroboration of its
reconstruction of gvedic Sarasvat from physical sciences. This article was Fluvial
landscapes of the Harappan Civilization written by Dr. Liviu Giosan and fourteen other
researchers and published in the PNAS (= Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).
A popular summation of it appeared in Yahoo News under the title Huge Ancient
Civilizations Collapse Explained. Prof. Arvind Sharma of McGill University brought
it to my attention. I emailed Dr. Giosan the next day, who promptly responded with the
following summary: Our data suggests that if S flew down between Yamun and Sutlej,
which is most likely, it did exist and it was a perennial river, quite large. It dried up
between 4000 and 3000 years ago . . . there is no geomorphological expression to indicate
that S was a Himalayan river that is no incized valley that all Himalayan rivers in that
region passess. There were also no incized valley connections to Yamun or Sutlej as
some postulated. . . . S was a more forgiving river, with gentler floods, more hospitable
to life along its banks than Himalayan rivers. . . . I had to respond to this summary in
the following words: It is very significant . . . that, using two different specializations,
we two have arrived at so many identical conclusions independently of each other. We
must be doing something right in terms of historical reality.
In some of the articles occasioned by the research of Dr. Giosan and his collaborators,
objection has been taken to the conclusion that S does not come across as a Himalayan
river. In this context it should be noted that the best we can do is to determine how the gveda composers (and, therefore, the community they represent) viewed the S. Their view about
the origin of S may not agree with how the scientists with modern means perceive as the
continuity and physical extent of the river or as its starting point. Secondly, with the nonidentification of the S with Ghaggar and the identification of several streams as S, the present
paper, invites researchers to re-address the question of the origin of the river in any case.
A significant part of my labor in writing this paper would have been saved if Danino
2010 had become available to me at the right time. Especially his survey of scholarship
on the S, his maps and his precise bibliography would have helped me a great deal.
Although our conclusions as to what the gvedics viewed as S differ, I have no hesitation
in recommending his book to the readers of my essay.
The articles of V.M.K. Puri, B.B. Lal, Shivaji Singh and Jagmohan in Kalyanaraman
2008, which also became available to me in the stage of final proof correction, should
have figured in my essay.