Mythological Saraswati to again start flowing this year

Chandigarh, April 1 (IANS) Mentioned in Hindu mythology as a sacred river but since dried up, Saraswati will see water flowing down it again from this year.

Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda Monday announced that the Saraswati river, passing through Pehowa town near Kurukshetra, would be rejuvenated this year.

“Fresh water would start flowing in it from this year so that the pilgrims could take a dip in this sacred river also, as they bathe in sacred tanks in Kurukshetra,” Hooda told a gathering in Pehowa town, 110 km from here, Monday.

The Haryana government had in 2009 reiterated its commitment for research on the Saraswati river and ensure complete flow of the course of the sacred river.

The river had dried up centuries ago and had gone missing from all maps. The mention of the Saraswati river comes in the ‘Vedas’.

Mythology has it that the ‘Vedas’ were written on the banks of the sacred river, which, according to Hindu religious beliefs, is believed to flowing underground now.

The Haryana government has assured to provide water to the Saraswati river from the Dadupur-Nalvi canal to infuse new life in this river.

State minister Ajay Singh Yadav said that when the course of the river was being traced in 2009, all those farmers whose land fell in the course of the river, voluntarily handed it over to the administration.

The minister appreciated the efforts of the Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) in tracing the course of the sacred river.

–Indo-Asian News Service

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Related from Pragati

The mysterious Sarasvati
by Jayakrishnan Nair
August 1, 2010

In 2003, the Union Minister for Tourism and Culture, Jagmohan, sanctioned Rs 80 million to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to search for the river Sarasvati. Though it was an inter-disciplinary archaeological program involving the Indian Institute of Technology and the Birbal Sahni Institution, designed to settle different schools of thought regarding the existence of the river, the venture was seen as “an attempt by RSS inspired historians to liken the Harappan civilisation with the Vedic era.” The project was shelved by the UPA government.

In February 2009, an international conference on the Sindhu-Sarasvati valley civilisation was held in Los Angeles, “to discuss, reconsider and reconstruct a shared identity of the Sindhu (Indus) and Sarasvati cultures, using archaeological and other scientific evidence as well as Vedic literature.” The title of the conference, specifically the use of the word Sarasvati, caused consternation among few Western scholars prompting Ashok Aklujkar, professor emeritus at University of British Columbia to write a scathing rebuttal.

To understand why Sarasvati is a controversial topic in the 21st century we need to look at evidence from a number of sources: tradition, archaeology, literature, geology, and climatology. We need to understand the path of Sarasvati, its life span, and the traditions that arose along its banks that survive to this day. Finally, we also need to look at how Sarasvati challenges the Aryan invasion/migration theory.

In Lost River: On The Trail of the Sarasvati, Michel Danino narrates the river’s tale, assembling it from the reports of Western explorers, Indian scholars, archaeological survey publications, and Vedic texts. Mr Danino who was born in France and has been living in India since he was 21, has published papers like The Horse and the Aryan Debate (2006), Genetics and the Aryan Debate (2005), A Dravido-Harappan Connection? The Issue of Methodology (2007) and also the book The Invasion That Never Was (2000) debunking the Aryan Invasion Theory.

Read full article @
http://pragati.nationalinterest.in/2010/08/the-mysterious-sarasvati/

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