There is an enigma at the heart of the Seven Rivers civilisation: the greatest river of the Vedic world no longer exists. The Sarasvatī — which the Rig Veda describes as surpassing “the waters of all other rivers” — is today nothing but a dry bed in the Cholistan and Rajasthan deserts. Scientists identify it with the Ghaggar-Hakra.
A solid scientific identification
The identification of the Sarasvatī with the Ghaggar-Hakra does not rest on tradition: it rests on geology and archaeology. R. D. Oldham (1893) was the first to establish it; Yash Pal et al. (1980) confirmed by remote sensing that the present river follows the ancient bed of a great watercourse; Michel Danino, in The Lost River (2010), synthesised all available data. The conclusion is clear: the Ghaggar-Hakra is the Sarasvatī.
A giant river
Study of its basin shows that the Sarasvatī was fed by two major Himalayan rivers: the Shutudrī (present-day Sutlej) and the Drishadvatī (upper Ghaggar). With these tributaries, it was a first-order river, comparable to the Indus. It was on its banks that the greatest cities of the civilisation were established: Rakhigarhi, Banawali, Kalibangan, Ganweriwala.
The death of a river
Two major earthquakes altered the course of its tributaries between 2000 and 1700 bce. The Shutudrī was captured towards the Indus; the Drishadvatī was diverted towards the Yamunā. Deprived of its Himalayan sources, the Sarasvatī dried up around 1900 bce. The dead riverbed is visible by satellite: 1,500 km of desert where a great river once flowed.
Consequences for the civilisation
The end of the Sarasvatī did not trigger the sudden collapse of the civilisation. Archaeological studies show a gradual migration eastward and southward — towards the Ganges, towards Gujarat. This ending was, as I develop in my work on the Seven Rivers civilisation, a peaceful transition rather than a catastrophe. The companion article on rigveda.blog shows how the dead river became a living goddess.
Sarasvatī: the only river that is a goddess
In my work, I noted this remarkable fact: “Sarasvatī is a goddess. The only river that is one.” Neither the Ganges in the period of the Rig Veda, nor the Indus, nor the Yamunā received this honour. Only Sarasvatī. Because she was the living heart of the Vedic world. When she died, her memory was transposed into a deity: the goddess of speech, of knowledge, of illumination.
