A Mythical River Flows Through Indian Politics

Disclosure: My views below are expressed with: a) focus on the research and scientific aspects of River Saraswati b) not out of any political affiliation c) to provide the viewers of this video some additional scientific research information, available in the public domain, and to cite that in the context of what one finds in this video (between the 14th minute and 16th minute), in order for the viewer to take in all this information too, before reaching any viewpoint about the river Saraswati. @~14:35 in this video, one sees a document -- referred to as contents part of an RTI request -- with what seems like a handwritten date: 12 |10 | 15 @~14:48, the camera pans to what the narration claims to be a response to the RTI. The date on this document does not seem clear but it appears to be another handwritten date 02 | 11 | 15 (at least 11 | 15 seems a bit legible). NYT has uploaded this video on in youtube on July 15, 2018, which is about 30+ months after this purported RTI and the purported response to it. What does not feature in the video though, is the 115-page report (with over 10 pages of 140+ references / bibliography alone) titled PALAEOCHANNELS OF NORTH WEST INDIA: REVIEW AND ASSESSMENT - REPORT OF THE EXPERT COMMITTEE TO REVIEW AVAILABLE INFORMATION ON PALAEOCHANNELS dated October 15, 2016. Contrary to the narrative in the video, that getting information is hard, at least this report is accessible publicly and for free, requiring no institutional access.

Just goes to show that religious charlatans exist outside of the American South. Thank you for showing the counting of the money.

"...Accumulated over the past 500 years, learning based on experiments and empirical evidence has freed us from the fetters of absolute truth offered by religious texts, whether the Bible, the Quran or the Vedas...." While I am in complete agreement that science does not need to take note from religious texts, history might. For a very long time, religion was the closest thing we had to natural science and there maybe clues about our past in there if we can separate myths from hypotheses using rigorous process (not conjecture and fantasy). And yes, this is NOT the Saraswati river... That river probably changed course and died thousands of years ago as rivers do.

As an Indian Hindu, this makes me cringe. All Indian Hindus need to be vocally critical about such non sense being done in the name of Hinduism. The US has a president who believes climate change is a hoax perpetratedby the Chinese and believes vaccines cause autism. You have politicians who believe the earth is 6000 years old and evolution is a myth. At least our village Idiots don’t have the power to change the course of human history.

Yup, AJ from Trump Towers Basement, I have asked myself that same question many times before, in different words of course. I like the NYT for a number of reasons, which is why i subscribe paying good rupee money for a dollar subscription, BUT their India coverage is certainly not one of them. Now I'm not saying that all this stuff reported in the NYT isn't true, it all is , but what's presented is like one, ONE, aspect of it. To really make sense of this mixed-up, muddled-up shook-up* place (and what place on earth isn't) is no mean task. And who has the time and media space for objectivity anyway? So, while I read the NYT's India-centric articles, mostly with amusement (I say amusement because, really, would Sonia Faleiro and Aatish Tasser, for example, get published if they wrote objective articles?) and with a pinch of salt, for the India stuff that really matters, I, and many in my peer group, refer to the FT, and to Bloomberg and Reuters, to mention a few. With each passing day, the list of companies from around the world wanting to grab their share of the India market grows longer. The economy - that 's where the action is. And with that set to take off in a big way, change will come, slowly (we are a massive democracy after all), but surely. So say I as a witness to the changes taking place on the ground. * with due credit to the Kinks

Perhaps an article how the Roman and Greek civilizations were not the greatest in history. They didn't invent math, science, history, philosophy, etc. The Indians and the Chinese had the largest empires in the world, from 2000 B.C. to 1800 A.D.

The location of the original Saraswati river is in Afganistan where it goes by the name Haraxwati. It didn't disappear, the Hindus lost access to it when when Zoroaster started preaching his new religion along the banks of the Haraxwati river around the 16th century BC and converted the Hindus in Afghanistan/Iran to Zoroastrianism. The river Saraswati is not the only thing Hindus lost to Zoroastrianism : they lost access to Soma the legendary plant extract that is supposed to boost both your intellect and physical strength. Zoroastrian refugees that came to India fleeing Islam still used it in their religious rites, but kept their source in Afghanistan a closely guarded secret until recently : Soma is a variant of the Effedra plant that grows in the mountains of Afghanistan and its effect are like very strong coffee.

The scientific method does not have a race or a country or a class or a gender. But it is foolish to think the long history of scientists being predominately white European men has not affected the results somewhat. Even if the process of testing hypotheses has no preference with regard to race, creed or culture, the people who choose which subjects to study, which projects to fund, and which potential hypotheses to reject out of hand, do. All human beings have biases, and people with similar backgrounds tend to have similar biases. This is a problem. I think some cultures who have been historically (and/or currently) oppressed by Europeans see this, and choose to turn to a tradition of their own instead. While I do not doubt there is wisdom to be found there, that does not have to be pursued to the exclusion of science. The biases that might exist in the current body of research can be corrected with new scientists. If it isn't, I am concerned that everyone will suffer.

The Buddha was born into the same mileau that gave rise to Jainism and Hinduism. He was a Kshyatriya, as were many of his original followers, although later Buddhist metaphysics came from Brahmin masters trained in logic and reasoning. The Buddha did not reject the Sanathana Dharma which followed many paths. He focused on or crystallized one path that was already mentioned in the pre-existing Vedic and non-Vedic philosophies of his time. And Buddhism did not fade into oblivion in India. Its logic and metaphysics were folded back by Shankaracharya into what became the Vedanta. The artificial divisions created by reductionist Westerners who superficially follow the Buddha’s teachings do not exist in the more holistic way of practioners of the Sanathana dharma. It is recognized by them that there are infinite paths that lead to the same ultimate reality. Some continue to use personal deities, just like the gods and goddesses of the Buddhist pantheon are used outside of India, to focus their minds. Others depend on Lamas and Rinpoches and Gurus, some of whom have unfortunately been all too human in their frailties. But deeper thought and practice, and rationale logic about the nature of our reality has always existed in India, before, during and long after the Buddha due to many enlightened humans and river-forders who have shown the way, of which the Buddha was one.

" from the fetters of absolute truth offered by religious texts, whether the Bible, the Quran or the Vedas" Are you kidding me?? This comparison between the Bible and the Quran on the one hand and the Vedas on the other seems ridiculous to me - now I am no expert and we'd do well to let the experts weigh in..but...seriously? To the authors of this article I'd say: try distilling the absolute truth as mentioned in the Vedas into one article with a 1000 word limit and then let's get talking.

It would really have been better if you had done some research before making this documentary/write-up which clearly shows Indic civilization/culture in grey and makes mockery of local's beliefs. NYT, Mr. Amit and Shirley.. if you guys are really honest and very much eager to show the truth of "mythical" river Saraswati then I would like to challenge you to take comments/reviews from the researchers/scientists of University of Cambridge and BHU India (TwoRains project) and show us the images they got from LandSat in Jul'17.. and not just illogical baseless unscientific views/loose talks of some local drama or politics just for the sake of demeaning Indian civilization and belief system.

"Hindu nationalists and India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, argue for the superiority of India by citing examples from ancient times." Really? Some 70 percent of households in India don’t have access to toilets, whether in rural areas or urban slums. Roughly 60 percent of the country’s 1.2 billion people still defecate in the open. Where is India superiority in the 21st century?

3000-3500 years old? This time frame would give us "once again" the viewpoint that human civilization starts in the west as in Greece. However, there are astronomical records that date back to 6,000 b.c. and irrigation systems still being used which are 10,000 years old. I'm not sure why there is such resistance to India's ancient knowledge and culture but this author reminds me of the movement in the 19th century to give England credit for the Sanskrit language.

In January of 2018 I published a book entitled ‘Geometric Keys of Vedic Wisdom’ in which I presented the discovery that Saraswati ‒ the river and the goddess ‒ functions as a geometric symbol and key of the Rig Veda The knowledge of the eternal geometric form of Saraswati in the Vedas should help both sides of the political divide come to a more centered view of the importance of the Saraswati river for India, and for the world. Knowledge of her geometric form entirely explains how an ancient river can be considered a Goddess of Wisdom. For more on this topic, read: 'Finding the Saraswati River & Restoring the Flow of Her Vedic Wisdom'.

These people are hopeless.

With just 4% of the world's natural water resources and 16% of the world's population, let's hope that the search for a river, mythical or otherwise, leads to discovery of some additional groundwater for India. With regard to nationalism,in the 19th century Sir Macaulay, who oversaw education in British India, stated "A single shelf of a good European library is worth the whole native literature of India”. In India, as in many civilizations emerging from colonialism, an effort to re-learn history, language and culture that were lost under foreign influence, has sometimes led to hypernationalism. Fortunately, scientific education has historically been strong in India. Scientific inquiry and debate are bedrocks of Hindu tradition. I suspect they will remain that way despite ignorant and corrupt politicians.

Wow. Kudos to filmmakers Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya for producing such an interesting, multi-layered documentary. The film is so well done. Amazing job!

There is a well-funded enterprise in the West towards searching for Biblical artifacts and any evidence of Christ's historicity. The Old Testament (and ancient epics like the Iliad and the Dead Sea Scrolls) have been extensively mined by Jewish and Christian scholars and archeologists for clues to their religious past. In contrast, the Vedas and Hindu epics were shunned by the Marxist cabal who until very recently had a stranglehold on the study of ancient history in India. The dust of half-truths and outright lies kicked up by them on the matter of temple ruins in Ayodhya is a case in point, where they even dispute the evidence from professional archeologists of the Archeological Survey of India and the trail of epigraphic records that exist. And so if the Hindu nationalists - who are hardly any different from the Christian nationalists who make up the majority in this country - wish to uncover an ancient river mentioned in their holy books, let them. This won't be something that drives Western scholars to unearth anymore than Jesus's tomb would spark Hindu imagination. In the end it will rise or fall based on scientific evidence. Plenty of politicians here who disbelieve evolution, including people with PhDs. As for Vardhan's statement, Einstein's theory doesn't explain dark matter or even quantum entanglement. The latter fits better with Vedic notions of a consciousness that is our universe. These documentarians clearly have their own anti-BJP agenda that they are pushing.

By the year 1203 Buddhism disappeared in India. It barely exists today after an attempt to revive it. Indians today mostly regard the Buddha as one of the Hindu avatars, just another deity. But the Buddha's teachings is a rejection of Hindu-Brahmin ideology, superstition and speculation. The Buddha rejected the existence of a Creator God. He taught the universal law that governs time-space existence: Causality, aka Conditioned Origination. Everything is a result of causes and effect, conditions arising and conditions passing away. In modernity we call that outlook scientific. Buddha told his followers don't just believe him but to verify his teachings through practice & personal experience. No wonder Buddhism faded into oblivion in India. Rationality and taking self-responsibility does not suit most of the people there, and everywhere. Kurt Andersen called the very religious USA the Fantasyland. It is really Fantasyland-II. India owns the original title, Fantasyland-I.

Sad that nationalist politicians, in collusion with religious conmen, can hoodwink the un(der)educated masses while shifting taxpayer monies to their base supporters. Sound familiar? And, in a poor country, one can always invoke the example of the mighty US as an excuse.

1. There are other rivers like Beas, Sutlaj and 4 others mentioned in Vedas which are still flowing today in the same region so it's very much possible that Saraswati might have disappeared just like many rivers are disappearing today. 2. Aryan Invasion theory(Which these two have cited) and opposed the idea of natives of the land, has already been debunked. A recent article in Scientific American even demolished the claim that Central Asians came to India on horses because as per the study, horse domestication had not started yet at the time they allegedly came into Indian subcontinent and it started in whole different region. 3. Satyapal Singh's claimed Darwin's theory is wrong, let's wait for better theory then, after all it's just a theory. 4. Comparing Vedas to Bible and Quran, is laughable and shows the poor analytical skills of the authors. They should read more that why these texts can't be compared. for starters: Vedas encourage questioning and debates, Bible and Quran are God's word and can't be altered. I bet they don't even know the names of 4 vedas.

Why does the NYT repeatedly reduce an explosively energetic, creative and sophisticated country of over a billion to a caricature? The history, the cultural richness, the intellectual legacy, and current growth, endeavor and magnitude of India, dwarf the diminution the NYT insists on soiling it with.

Scientists have failed to provide backbone to Indian Civilizational thoughts and roots. There is all this progress in remote sensing and Space and radar-based techniques that can be used to check and seperate mythical from the real. People are rational and will go along with scientific evidence when provided with clarity and sensitivities. However, the practice of high science and the life of common man run on parallel non-intersecting tracks.

I don't understand all this obsession with whose civilisations is older. OK, let's say Hindu civilization is The oldest and in past this civilisation was like a paradise with great technological wonders. And questions became what happened to it? Why such wonderful civilisation produced rather mediocre result such as modern India? Is it the West fault? But how come that such wonderfully developed civilization being oldest (meaning it had significant headstart) was not able to protect itself against these Western barbarians?

It's apparently an article of faith in certain (very small) circles that the Indo-European languages originated in northern India, from which they were carried out into the rest of the world by migrating Indians. There's nothing apriori impossible about such a theory, but it violates Occam's Razor, and rather emphatically. The conventional theory is that Indic languages were carried into India by migrating Indo-Arians. Once. The theory that the Indo-European languages originated in India requires at least four separate movements of populations out of India, a very much more complicated claim than the conventional one.

The question is where the river is flowing and where the love boat is floating over it. The drama which is in progress has been always played in the Indian-subcontinent.

The way of life depicted in the Vedas fits the standard dates. Does not fit life as it was 10,000 years ago. Well before the invention of wheels or the chariot, for which we have excellent dates and records.

What is the big deal if a few hundred villagers in India believe in resurrection of a river. No one makes fun of a billion Christians who believe every Easter is a Resurrection of Jesus from dead!

Satyapal Singh and Harsh Vardhan are total embarassments to modern India. Not that the others mentioned in the article are any better, but these two claim to understand science. Singh claims to have a PhD in chemistry.

"Attributing all human progress to religious texts written thousands of years ago is a reversal of the building blocks of the modern world.' But attributing all human progress in the last thirty years to Donald Trump, well, there may be something to it. Let's ask him?

I congratulate Ms. Abraham and Mr. Madheshiya on a well made documentary. However, I felt that the documentary is one-sided in its emphasis on bringing out mostly the folklore. It could have more informative if they had at least mentioned the critical analysis of river Saraswati provided by Prof. Michel Danino and I hope Ms. Abraham and Mr. Madheshiya have read his work. May be the documentary was meant to be primarily a work of art rather than a literary analytical piece.

...Seems more like searching for the Hindu/Hindi heartland...but before judging, it is productive to read the wonderful book "The Lost River: On the Trail of the Sarasvati" by Prof. Michel Danino, IIT-Gandhinagar

with apologies to Coleridge In Haryana did Lal Khattar A 7 million grant decree Where Saraswati river ran Through farmland measureless to man Out to the open sea.