"To reconstruct the main stages in the [Sarasvati] river’s life—in a manner which, I believe, respects all the strands of our web—I will begin with a useful clue in the Mahābhārata. In two places at least, the epic tells us that the Sarasvatī’s course in the mountain was close to the Yamunā’s. In the more precise passage of the two, Balarāma climbs to a tīrtha on the Sarasvatī called ‘Plakshaprāsravana’ (the name of the river’s source as we saw earlier) and, from there, soon reaches the Yamunā."