"If in the nineteenth century most scholars identified the Ghaggar-Hakra's course with the Vedic Sarasvati, it is basically for three reasons. The Rig-Veda, the oldest of the four Vedas, mentions various rivers but praises the Sarasvati above all others: it was a "mighty river" flowing "from the mountain to the sea", and one hymn listed it between the Yamuna and the Sutlej - precisely the location of the Ghaggar-Hakra. Secondly, the local traditions regarding the "lost river" of the Indian desert matched those in the post-Vedic literature (including the Mahabharata), which recorded the gradual disappearance of the Sarasvati. Thirdly, scholars noticed a minor tributary of the Ghaggar called "Sarsuti", an obvious corruption of "Sarasvati": it rises in the Sirmur hills that are part of the Shivaliks and was marked on British maps as early as in 1788. Putting these three lines of evidence together, they concluded that the lost Sarasvati could only have flowed in the Ghaggar's bed."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Supporting the claim that Ghaggar-Hakra is the Sarasvati river, as quoted in "Sarasvati: Tracing the death of a river" DNA India (12 June 2010)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michel_Danino
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Michel Danino
7 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Michel Danino ā
Related Quotes
"I invite you to discover more such recent findings. It is unfortunate that India doesnāt accord archaeology the prestā¦"
"The Hindu mind works in such a way that continuity of worship is more important than physical fact. When the Harappanā¦"
"When I was 15 or so, I stumbled on literature related to Indian spirituality, and instantly felt that there was sometā¦"
"Aryabhata conceived the earth as a rotating sphere in space, which causes the apparent rising and setting of the sun.ā¦"
"Michel Danino reviewed nine genetic studies using large samples from 1999 to 2006 and conclusively found no evidence ā¦"
"I will, therefore, take a middle path and propose that the Shivalik landscape was such that only a portion of the Yamā¦"
"Les hommes font les lois. Les femmes font les mÅurs."
"The standing armies, while a burden on the people, are inadequate for the achievement of great and decisive results iā¦"
"Huddar would have been 101 now had he been alive. But then centenaries are not celebrated only to register how old soā¦"
"I regret I was not there to listen to Balaji Huddar's speech [...] No matter how many times you listen to him, his spā¦"