The Saraswati River () is a deified Rigvedic river first mentioned in the Rigveda and later in Vedic and post-Vedic texts. It played an important role in the Vedic religion, appearing in all but the fourth book of the Rigveda.
As a physical river, in the oldest texts of the Rigveda it is described as a "great and holy river in north-western India," but in the middle and late Rigvedic books, it is described as a small river ending in "a terminal lake (samudra)." As the goddess Saraswati, the other referent for the term "Saraswati" which developed into an independent identity in post-Vedic times, the river is also described as a powerful river and mighty flood. The Saraswati is also considered by Hindus to exist in a metaphysical form, in which it formed a confluence with the sacred rivers Ganga and Yamuna, at the Triveni Sangam, as described in the Puranas. According to Michael Witzel, superimposed on the Vedic Saraswati river is the "heavenly river" of the Milky Way, which is seen as "a road to immortality and heavenly after-life."
Rigvedic and later Vedic texts have been used to propose identification with present-day rivers, or ancient riverbeds. The Nadistuti Sukta in the Rigveda (10.75) mentions the Saraswati between the Yamuna in the east and the Shutudri (now known as Sutlej) in the west, while RV 7.95.1-2, describes the Saraswati as flowing to the samudra, a word now usually translated as 'ocean', but which could also mean "lake." Later Vedic texts such as the Tandya Brahmana and the Jaiminiya Brahmana, as well as the Mahabharata, mention that the Saraswati dried up in a desert.
Since the late 19th century CE, numerous scholars have proposed to identify the Saraswati with the Ghaggar-Hakra River system, which flows through modern-day northwestern-India and eastern-Pakistan, between the Yamuna and the Sutlej, and ends in the Thar desert. Yet, recent geophysical research shows that the supposed downstream Ghaggar-Hakra paleochannel is actually a paleochannel of the Sutlej, which flowed into the Nara river, a delta channel of the Indus River, which was abandoned. 10,000–8,000 years ago when the Sutlej diverted its course, leaving the Ghaggar-Hakra as a system of monsoon-fed rivers which did not reach the sea.
The Indus Valley Civilisation prospered when the monsoons that fed the rivers diminished around 5,000 years ago, and ISRO has observed that major Indus Valley Civilisation sites at Kalibangan (Rajasthan), Banawali and Rakhigarhi (Haryana), Dholavira and Lothal (Gujarat) lay along this course.Mythical Saraswati River, Press Information Bureau, Government of India, 20 March 2013. When the monsoons that fed the rivers further diminished, the Hakra dried-up some 4,000 years ago, becoming an intermittent river, and the urban Harappan civilisation declined, becoming localized in smaller agricultural communities.
Identification of a mighty physical Rigvedic Saraswati with the Ghaggar-Hakra system is therefore problematic, since the Ghaggar-Hakra had dried up well before the time of the composition of the Rigveda, reduced to a "small, sorry trickle in the desert." Also, Rigvedic descriptions of the Saraswati do not match the actual course of the Ghaggar-Hakra. Furthermore, it is unlikely that the most important of Rigvedic rivers would lose its Sanskrit name and be renamed in a local dialect, whereas other rivers in the area preserved their names for thousands of years.
"Saraswati" may originally have been andjective meaning "being full of water" and preserved when the Vedic people moved further eastwards. "Saraswati" has also been identified with the Helmand in ancient Arachosia, or , in present day southern Afghanistan, the name of which may have been reused when the Vedic tribes moved to the Punjab. The Saraswati of the Rigveda may also refer to two distinct rivers, with the family books referring to the Helmand River, and the more recent 10th mandala referring to the Ghaggar-Hakra.
The identification with the Ghaggar-Hakra system took on new significance in the early 21st century CE, with some Hindutva proponents suggesting an earlier dating of the Rigveda; renaming the Indus Valley Civilisation as the "Saraswati Culture", the "Saraswati Civilisation", the "Indus-Saraswati Civilisation" or the "Sindhu-Saraswati Civilisation," suggesting that the Indus Valley and Vedic cultures can be equated; and rejecting the Indo-Aryan migration theory, which postulates an extended period of migrations of Indo-European speaking people into the Indian subcontinent between ca. 1900 BCE and 1400 BCE.
Etymology is the feminine nominative singular form of the adjective (which occurs in the Rigvedae.g. 7.96.4, 10.66.5 as the name of the keeper of the celestial waters), derived from 'sáras' + 'vat', meaning 'having sáras-'. Sanskrit means 'lake, pond' (cf. the derivative 'lake bird = Sarus crane'). Mayrhofer considers unlikely a connection with the root * 'run, flow' but does agree that it could have been a river that connected many lakes due to its abundant volumes of water-flow.Mayrhofer, EWAia, s.v. Saraswatī as a common noun in Classical Sanskrit means a region abounding in pools and lakes, the river of that name, or any river, especially a holy one.
Like its cognates Welsh hêl, heledd 'river meadow' and Greek (hélos) 'swamp'; the root is otherwise often connected with rivers (also in river names, such as Sarayu or Susartu); the suggestion has been revived in the connection of an "out of India" argument,
is considered to be a cognate of Avestan Haraxvatī.by Lommel (1927); Lommel, Herman (1927), Die Yašts des Awesta, Göttingen-Leipzig: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht/JC Hinrichs In the younger Avesta, Haraxvatī is Arachosia, a region described to be rich in rivers, and its Old Persian cognate Harauvati.
Importance in Hinduism The Saraswati river was revered and considered important for Hindus because it is said that it was on this river's banks, along with its tributary Drishadvati, in the Vedic state of Brahmavarta, that Vedic Sanskrit had its genesis,Manu (2004). Olivelle, Patrick, ed. The Law Code of Manu. Oxford University Press. p. 24. . and important Vedic scriptures like initial part of Rigveda and several Upanishads were supposed to have been composed by Vedic seers. In the Manusmriti, Brahmavarta is portrayed as the "pure" centre of Vedic culture. Bridget and Raymond Allchin in The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan took the view that "The earliest Aryan homeland in India–Pakistan (Aryavarta or Brahmavarta) was in the Punjab and in the valleys of the Saraswati and Drishadvati rivers in the time of the Rigveda."Bridget Allchin, Raymond Allchin, The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan, Cambridge University Press, 1982, P.358.
Rigveda
As a river The Saraswati River is mentioned in all but the fourth book of the Vedas. Macdonell and Keith provided a comprehensive survey of Vedic references to the Saraswati River in their Vedic Index. In the late book 10, only two references are unambiguously to the river: 10.64.9, calling for the aid of three "great rivers", Sindhu, Saraswati, Sarayu; and 10.75.5, the geographical list of the Nadistuti Sukta. In this hymn, the Saraswati River is placed between the Yamuna and the Shutudri.
In the oldest texts of the Rigveda she is described as a "great and holy river in north-western India," but Michael Witzel notes that the Rigveda indicates that the Saraswati "had already lost its main source of water supply and must have ended in a terminal lake (samudra) approximately 3000 years ago." The middle books 3 and 7 and the late books 10 "depict the present-day situation, with the Sarasvatī having lost most of its water." The Saraswati acquired an exalted status in the mythology of the Kuru kingdom, where the Rigveda was compiled.
As a goddess
Saraswati is mentioned some fifty times in the hymns of the Rigveda. It is mentioned in thirteen hymns of the late books (1 and 10) of the Rigveda.1.3, 13, 89, 164; 10.17, 30, 64, 65, 66, 75, 110, 131, 141
The most important hymns related to the goddess Saraswati are RV 6.61, RV 7.95 and RV 7.96. As a river goddess, she is described as a mighty flood, and is clearly not an earthly river. According to Michael Witzel, superimposed on the Vedic Saraswati river is the heavenly river Milky Way, which is seen as "a road to immortality and heavenly after-life.": "It can easily be understood, as the Sarasvatī, the river on earth and in the nighttime sky, emerges, just as in Germanic myth, from the roots of the world tree. In the Middle Vedic texts, this is acted out in the Yātsattra... along the Rivers Sarasvatī and Dṛṣadvatī (northwest of Delhi)...": "The Sarasvatī river, which, according to Witzel,... personifies the Milky Way, falls down to this world at Plakṣa Prāsarvaṇa, "the world tree at the center of heaven and earth," and flows through the land of the Kurus, the center of this world." The description of the Saraswati as the river of heavens, is interpreted to suggest its mythical nature.
In 10.30.12, her origin as a river goddess may explain her invocation as a protective deity in a hymn to the celestial waters. In 10.135.5, as Indra drinks Soma, he is described as refreshed by Saraswati. The invocations in 10.17 address Saraswati as a goddess of the forefathers as well as of the present generation. In 1.13, 1.89, 10.85, 10.66 and 10.141, she is listed with other gods and goddesses, not with rivers. In 10.65, she is invoked together with "holy thoughts" () and "munificence" (), consistent with her role as a goddess of both knowledge and fertility.
Though Saraswati initially emerged as a river goddess in the Vedic scriptures, in later Hinduism of the Puranas, she was rarely associated with the river. Instead, she emerged as an independent goddess of knowledge, learning, wisdom, music and the arts. The evolution of the river goddess into the goddess of knowledge started with later Brahmanas, which identified her as Vāgdevī, the goddess of speech, perhaps due to the centrality of speech in the Vedic cult and the development of the cult on the banks of the river. It is also possible to postulate two originally independent goddesses that were fused into one in later Vedic times. Aurobindo has proposed, on the other hand, that "the symbolism of the Veda betrays itself to the greatest clearness in the figure of the goddess Sarasvati ... She is, plainly and clearly, the goddess of the World, the goddess of a divine inspiration ...".K.R. Jayaswal, Hindu Polity, pp. 12–13
Other Vedic texts In post-Rigvedic literature, the disappearance of the Saraswati is mentioned. Also the origin of the Saraswati is identified as Plaksa Prasravana (the pippala tree or ashvaththa tree as known in India and Nepal).Pancavimsa Brahmana, Jaiminiya Upanisad Brahmana, Katyayana Srauta Sutra, Latyayana Srauta; Macdonell and Keith 1912Asvalayana Srauta Sutra, Sankhayana Srauta Sutra; Macdonell and Keith 1912, II: 55
In a supplementary chapter of the Vajasaneyi-Samhita of the Yajurveda (34.11), Saraswati is mentioned in a context apparently meaning the Sindhu: "Five rivers flowing on their way speed onward to Sarasvati, but then become Sarasvati a fivefold river in the land."Griffith, p.492 According to the medieval commentator Uvata, the five tributaries of the Saraswati were the Punjab rivers Drishadvati, Shutudri (Sutlej), Asikini (Chenab), Vipasha (Beas), Iravati (Ravi).
The first reference to the disappearance of the lower course of the Saraswati is from the Brahmanas, texts that are composed in Vedic Sanskrit, but dating to a later date than the Veda Samhitas. The Jaiminiya Brahmana (2.297) speaks of the 'diving under (upamajjana) of the Sarasvati', and the Tandya Brahmana (or Pancavimsa Br.) calls this the 'disappearance' (vinasana). The same text (25.10.11–16) records that the Saraswati is 'so to say meandering' (kubjimati) as it could not sustain heaven which it had propped up.