Saraswati - The River and the goddess

Dr Uday Dokras
Forward

The founder of Buddhism, Gautama Buddha, permitted women to join his monastic
community and fully participate in it, although there were certain provisions or garudhammas.
Neither in society nor the monastic order were women recognized as spiritual leaders above the
authority of men. Bhikkuṇī are systematically taught and told to follow the footsteps of Bhikkhu
through an institutional mechanism that is so strong that whosoever tries to challenge it faces
backlashes from the Buddhist community."
In Early Buddhism the traditional view was to consider them inferior- releasing a misogynist strain.
But the presence of some clearly misogynist doctrines does not mean that the whole of ancient Indian
Buddhism was misogynist. There are statements in Buddhist scripture that appear to be misogynist,
such as depicting women as obstructers of men's spiritual progress or the notion that being born female
leaves one with less opportunity for spiritual progress. However, in societies where men have always
been the authorities and the ones given wider choices, a negative view of women might be seen as
simply reflecting the empirical political reality. Furthermore, the religious literature is more likely to
be addressed to men. Hence we find the Buddhist emphasis on renunciation of sensual desires
expressed in terms of the male's attachment to women more frequently than we find the reverse
The mix of positive attitudes to femininity with blatantly negative sentiment has led many writers to
characterise early Buddhism's attitude to women as deeply ambivalent.
Saraswati in Buddhism becomes important, with the rise of the Mahayana
Buddhism that placed a grezt import on women . The rise of Tara is equated to the
wisdom of Buddha and she provokes his compassion. The Goddess Tara is
worshipped in both Hinduism and Buddhism as the goddess of compassion and
protection. In Hinduism, she is a form of the female primordial energy known as
shakti. In fact, in some traditions, she is considered the female Buddha. In Tibetan
Buddhism, she is the most popular deity worshipped today. In Hinduism, the
goddess Tara (Sanskrit: तारा, Tārā) is the second of the Dasa (ten) Mahavidyas or
"Great Wisdom goddesses", and is a form of Adishakti, the tantric manifestations of
Parvati

Tara, Tibetan Sgrol-ma, Buddhist saviour-goddess with numerous forms, widely

popular in Nepal, Tibet, and Mongolia. She is the feminine counterpart of the
bodhisattva (“buddha-to-be”) Avalokiteshvara. According to popular belief, she came
into existence from a tear of Avalokiteshvara, which fell to the ground and formed a
lake. Out of its waters rose up a lotus, which, on opening, revealed the goddess.
Like Avalokiteshvara, she is a compassionate, succouring deity who helps men
“cross to the other shore.” She is the protectress of navigation and earthly travel, as
well as of spiritual travel along the path to enlightenment.

2
White Tara figurine

Buddhist goddess Tara

The Buddhist goddess Tara, repoussé gilt copper set with turquoise, from Nepal,
late 17th–18th century; in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Photograph by Veronika Brazdova. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, IM.105-1911

In Tibet she is believed to be incarnate in every pious woman, and the two wives—a
Chinese princess and a Nepali princess—of the first Buddhist king of Tibet, Srong-
brtsan-sgam-po, were identified with the two major forms of Tara. The White
Tara (Sanskrit: Sitatara; Tibetan: Sgrol-dkar) was incarnated as the Chinese
princess. She symbolizes purity and is often represented standing at the right hand
of her consort, Avalokiteshvara, or seated with legs crossed, holding a full-blown
lotus. She is generally shown with a third eye. Tara is also sometimes shown with
eyes on the soles of her feet and the palms of her hands (then she is called “Tara of
the Seven Eyes,” a form of the goddess popular in Mongolia).

The Green Tara (Sanskrit: Shyamatara; Tibetan: Sgrol-ljang) was believed to be

incarnated as the Nepali princess. She is considered by some to be the original Tara
and is the female consort of Amoghasiddhi (see Dhyani-Buddha), one of the “self-
born” buddhas. She is generally shown seated on a lotus throne with right leg
hanging down, wearing the ornaments of a bodhisattva and holding the closed blue
lotus (utpala).

The White and Green Taras, with their contrasting symbols of the full-blown and
closed lotus, are said to symbolize between them the unending compassion of the
deity who labours both day and night to relieve suffering. Under the influence
of Tibetan Buddhism the different forms of Tara multiplied to a traditional 108.
Tibetan temple banners frequently show 21 different Taras, coloured white, red, and
yellow, grouped around a central Green Tara. The figure of the “self-born” Amitabha
Buddha is often shown in her headdress, as she, like Avalokiteshvara, is considered
to be an emanation of Amitabha.

3
In her ferocious, blue form, invoked to destroy enemies, she is known as Ugra-Tara,
or Ekajata; as a red goddess of love, Kurukulla; and as a protectress against
snakebite, Janguli. The yellow Bhrikuti is an angry Tara, with frowning brows.
This article was most recently revised and updated by Brian Duignan.In Buddhism,
too, the Goddess

NEELA SARASWATI-or Blue Saraswati is a form of Tara devi in her fierce form.

Tara or Taresi is the goddess that causes bhava tarana, so She is also called Bhava
Tarini or crossing the ocean of life. According to Yogini Tantra, Tara is the same as
Kali, the embodiment of supreme love. She is also Kamakhya. In Tantric literatures
three manifestations of Tara are mentioned: Eka Jata, providing Kaivalya or unity
with the Absolute; Ugra Tara, one who provides relief from unforeseen severe
meseries and Nila Saraswati, imparting Jnana or knowledge.

Tara is the presiding Goddess of Speech and the Shakti of Hiranya Garba Saura
Brahma. As the Sun incarnate, she is the successful owner of Surya Pralaya. The
Tara-sadhak becomes well accomplished in all the branches of literature.
Traditionally it is held that Vyasa Muni could work on and complete the eighteen

4
 a form of Tara Maa of
Mahavidya.

Mahapuranas dues to the grace of Goddess Tara.

The aspirants of the Tara cult realize the Purushartha goals of dharma, arta, kama
and moksha. Tara is always away from Maya or the Prapancha within it because it
is Her own creation. She provides bhoga or bliss initially and then mokhya or
salvation. Tara is surrounded by eight Yoginis: Mahakali, Rudrani, Ugra, Bhima,
Ghira, Bhramari, Maharatri and Bhairavi. She, according to Nila Tantra, is
iconographically depicted to share the attributes of Goddess Kali.

She stands in the Pratyalidha pose. She is short stature with a protruded belly and
Her complexion is dark blue. She has a terrible appearance away from her mild and
pretty Sarasawati appearances. She wears tiger skin at Her waist and garland of
human-heads at Her neck. She is of prime youth and adorned with Pancha Mudras.
In Her four hands She holds Khadga-sword, Indivara-lotus, Kartika-shear and
Kapala-human skull. Her tongue is held out as Kali’s lolling tinge. She wears single
5
braid of matted hair on her head. Tara is three-eyed as she stands on the corpse
lying on the burning funeral pyre and ranges her feet, which appears terrible. These
are symbolic of Mother Kali, ever ready to remove the darkness of ignorance and
passiveness of Her devotees.

Tantric Practice:

Neela Saraswati ritual, Mantra siddhi on Neela Saraswati, Tara Saptakshari

mantratantram Neela Sarasawati Sadhana, Tara Yantra and general tantric
practices are considered to be for the advanced bhakta who takes guidance from a
qualified tantric guru. Tara sadhakas are said to be capable of mastering certain
siddhis and whoever completely surrendering before Her with humble motives is
taken under Her shelter and supreme grace. The usual vidhya practice in Tantric
Tara is that its initiation is given by women. Tara vidhyas use Bhuvaneswari and
Tara beejas.

In Tibetian tradition, Neela Saraswati is known as Yang Cheng Mo. The Hindu
Mahavidya Goddess Tara figures prominently in Tibetian Bhuddhism. Tara’s
appearance in the list of Mahavidyas can probably be explained by the religious
communication between Tibet and Bengal where Mahavidya texts such as
Mahabhagavata-purana and Brhaddharma-purana originated. Bengal also gave
birth to refined forms of Mother Goddess worship. In Bengal, Tara was an epithet of
Kali while Tibetian Buddism had twenty forms of Tara. Of this White and Green
Tara was popular.

Neela Saraswati appears a Buddhist yidam in her capacity as an embodiment of

virtuous activities pertaining to culture and learning. Yangchengmo is the Goddess
for performing arts, especially music. In her musical moment and demeanour, Neela
Sarasvati is called Piwa Karpo. Her Chinese Buddhist name is Miao-yin-mu.
Sarasvati’s mythology includes purificatory aspect. In this she shares her
characteristics with White Tara and also with her Japanese equivalent, Benten or
Benzeiten. (see previous posting on Benzeiten)

NEELA SARASWATHI STOTRAM:-Prayer to the Blue Saraswathi

1.
Ghora roope maharave , sarva shathru bhayangari,
Bhakthebhyo varade devi thrahi maam saranagatham.

Help me who surrenders to you ,

Oh Goddess with fierce form and great sound,
Who is fearful to all the enemies ,
And who blesses all her devotees.

2.
Surasurarchithe devi, sidha Gandharva sevithe,

6
Jadya papa hare devi, thrahi maam saranagatham.

Help me who surrenders to you,

Oh Goddess worshipped by devas and asuras,
Who is served by Sidhas and Gandarwas,
And who destroys all accumulated sin.

3.
Jatajuta samayukthe lola jihwantha karini,
Drutha budhikare devi, thrahi maam saranagatham.

Help me who surrenders to you,

Who is with tied matted hair,
Who ends darkness created by unstable toungue,
And who makes our brain work very fast.

4.
Soumya krodha dhare roope , chanda munda namosthuthe,
Srushti roope namasthubhyam, thrahi maam saranagatham.

Help me who surrenders to you,

Who has the form of anger as well as placid nature,
And who is worshipped by Chanda and Munda,
My salutations to her who has form of creation.

5.
Jadaanaam jadathaam hanthi , bhakthaanaam bhaktha vathsala,Moodathaam
hara may devi, thrahi maam saranagatham.

Help me who surrenders to you,

Who destroys idiots as well as idiocy,
And who is very dear to her devotees,
Please destroy my foolishness, oh Goddess.

6.
Vam hroom hroom kamaye devi , bali homa priye nama,
Ugra thare namo nithyam , thrahi maam saranagatham.

Help me who surrenders to you,

Who likes the chant “Vam hroom hroom”,
Salutations to her who likes sacrifices and offerings in fire,
I salute daily the fierce Tara devi.

7.
Budhim dehi, yaso dehi , kavithwam dehi dehi may,
Moodathwam cha harer devi, thrahi maam saranagatham.

7
Help me who surrenders to you,
Give me wisdom , fame and ability to write poems,
And please destroy the foolishness in me.

8.
Indradhi vilasad dwanda vandhithe karunamayi,
Thare tharathi nadhasye , thrahi maam saranagatham.

Help me who surrenders to you,

Who is saluted by Indra and others as couple ,
Who is merciful , Tara and the lord who rules as Tara.

9.
Idham stotram padesdhyasthu sathatham sradhayonvitha,
Thasya Shathru kshayam yathi Maha pragnaa prajayathe.

If this prayer is read regularly with utmost devotion,

His enemies would be destroyed and he would become greatly learned.

(Translation Sri P.R.Ramachander.)

Yogi Ananda Saraswathi

8
 GODDESS NILA SARASWATI.

Mother is the manifestation of Goddess Tara. The name Nila Saraswati itself is a
combination of Nila which means blue and also that of Kali, the Rudra Sakti that
remains after total dissolution. Coming only next to Mother Kali in the
Dashamahavidya list of Tantrik goddesses, Nilasaraswathi’s iconography also comes
close to that of Goddess Kali. Now this would be opposed to the same Goddess
Saraswati given in the Puranas.

In Tantric literature, one finds three manifestations of Tara such as Eka Jata, Ugra
Tara and Nila Saraswathi. Eka Jata is she who provides ‘kaivalya’ or unity with the
Absolute; Ugra Tara is she who provides relief from unforeseen severe miseries and
Nila Saraswathi is she who imparts jnana to her devotees.

It is said that the sage Vyasha muni accomplished work on the eighteen
Mahapuranas by being a Nila Saraswathi sadhak to become all accomplished.
Goddess Tara also manifests as Dakshina Kali, Tarini and Ugra Tara standing on a
supine image of Lord Siva. Mother is dark blue or blue-black in colour with minimal
clothes. She wears a tiger skin, a necklace of corpse’s skull and also a girdle of
severed arms. Nilasaraswathi also enjoys blood just like Bhadra Kali. Thus she
welcomes blood sacrifice. Worshiped mainly for wealth and poetic skill, She is
aggressive and of fearful demeanour. Nilasaraswathi exposes her ability to rescue
her devotees from calamities.
9
 DEVI MAHATMYA

Normally Mother Saraswathi is given a benign form as the Goddess of Learning and
Wisdom. Her white colour, spotless character, lotus seat, swan vahana, vina
instrument, inkpot with pen and books, all point towards a loving goddess and also
that of a life giving river. But as the guardian of the earth, Saraswathi takes the
form of Durga, to fight the female demon ‘Drug.’ The word dru or dur also means
‘with difficulty’.

Mother Saraswati is in the trinity of Maha Kali, Maha Lakshmi and Maha
Saraswathi. Mother is depicted as eight armed. The dhyana shloka given at the 5th
chapter of Mahatmya is: “Wielding in her lotus-hands the bell, trident, plough,
conch, pestle, discuss, bow and arrow, her luster is like that of a moon shining in
the autumn sky. She is born from the body of Gowri and is the sustaining base of
the three worlds.

That Maha saraswathi I worship here who destroyed Sumbha and other asuras”.

It is a stated fact that Mother Devi Nilasaraswathi puts her bhaktas to extreme
challenges before she blesses and grants siddhis.

The society of Tantra practitioners know of the ardent path to be taken to Devi
Nilasaraswathi. This can also misfire if proper rituals are not observed. There
cannot be a better example than the sage Vashista Muni. The great muni was
plucked off several times in this sadhana despite his extreme austerities of many
years. So he placed a curse on Tara-mantra. Following Vasishta’s seat below the
same Shalmali tree known as Mundamalinitala where the sage performed his
sadhana, Vamdeva, the Bhairava of Tarapith also worshiped Nilasaraswathi. This
seat was also known as ‘panch-mundi-asan’ of the seat of five skulls.

Devi Nilasaraswathi was not without her boons. Her grants were poesy and
eloquent. To the worthy bhakta, Mother Nilasaraswathi grants ‘vak-siddhi’ meaning
she resides in the tongue of the bhakta and that explains her name. This means
that the bhakta acquires the destructive power of speech giving him or her an upper
hand in debates and contests of knowledge. But it would be essential for the upasak
to stick to strict rules of Truth at all times and should not use Mother
Nilasaraswathi to persist his opinions. There is still a dispute if Mahakavi Kalidas
was blessed by Mother Kali in person or through Devi Nila Saraswathi. Her centre is
the tongue though Tara primarily relates to the navel chakra.

MERU TANTRA- mentions the Sapta Saraswathi as

1. Chintamani Saraswathi,
2. Jnana Saraswathi,
3. Nila Saraswathi,

10
 4. Ghata Saraswathi,
5. Kini Saraswathi,
6. Antariksha Saraswathi and
7. Trikuta Saraswathi.

RIG VEDA:

The three Saraswatis are Matangi, Tara and Vina-Sarasvati. The three are the
spouses of Ganesh or Matanga Rishi, Brihaspati the Guru of the Gods or
Akshobhya Shiva and Brahmanaspati or Brahma, the Creator. Mantra, Vak or
speech itself is Shakti, the Goddess as power.

Mantra is more the primal forms as Matangi-Saraswathi. Vak or speech is more

Tara-Saraswathi. Formalised language or Sanskrit is more Veena-Saraswathi. The
three Saraswathis are important in Hinduism, and also represent the three
wisdoms:

Paravidya – Highest wisdom or Self-knowledge.

Devavidya – Knowledge of the Divinities or the Divine Knowledge. Shastravidya –

Knowledge of the Scriptures and Texts, or Science.

Modern or Puranic Saraswathi is known as Vina-Saraswathi, and she is the last

and lowest of these manifestations.

MAHAVIDYAS:

In Tantra, there are Siddhavidyas and Paravidyas. Siddhavidyas are forms of

mystical powers and perfection, and the Paravidyas are transcendental forms. These
are forms of Mahavidyas. Nilasaraswathi is another form of Mahavidya Tara. There
are separate dhyana shlokas and mantras for her worship in Tantrasara.

BRIHAD NILA TANTRA:

This Tantra of the Kaula tradition is a source to know more of mother. It contains
the Tararahasya, 'Secrets of Tara' of Brahmanda Giri which supplies every
information in connection with the worship of Nila Sarasvati. The eleventh chapter
of the Tantra describes at length how the Goddess of Wisdom became Nila or blue.
The Tantra is written in the form of a dialogue in which Mahakalabhairava appears
as the speaker and Mahakali as the listener. In this Tantra the Devi requests
Bhairava to reveal the Nilatantra as promised at the time the Kalitantra was
revealed. The Bhairava redeems the promise and declares that the Tantra which he
is to reveal should be duly preserved and concealed, as that leads to many
blessings.

It first deals with Nila-Saraswati-the Sapphire Blue Saraswathi. Here she is

11
Brahma-Shakti or spouse of the Supreme Deity. Lord Dattatreya is the patron guru
of the Natha tradition, the other aspects being Vishnu and Mahesh. We are not
going to indulge on the Buddhist Tara here. Other names given here are
Aniruruddha Saraswathi, Ugra Tara and Tarini. They are links between the White
Saraswathi and Nilasaraswathi pointing to the Shakti of the Alphabet, the Matrika
Shakti.

Mantra, words, music are considered to be the very source of the cosmos, so
Nilasaraswathi has an important role in Tantrik cosmology. As Matrika Shakti, She
deludes the entire human race with Her Maya of letters, and words. This has been
expressed in a Tantrik form. It is apt to say that Maya reaches the human mind
through the medium of words also. Thus the tantric role of Nilasaraswathi is
justified. Her mantra is described as Siddha-Vidhya, the cause of Maya. Her bija
mantra is ‘Aim’.

TODALA TANTRA;

Daily puja of Nila Saraswathi is given in Todala Tantra, The Magic of Kali. It is done
in isolated places including cremation grounds. Therefore Nilasaraswathi is bonded
with Lord Siva. She is surrounded by jackals and known as Smasana Bhairavi also.
There are no rules as to time. In the Maha China Krama, which is Vamachara or left
hand tantra, the rule is essentially 'svecchachara' or acting according to one’s will.
Meat, wine and sexual union is prominent. This is also given in Mundamala Tantra
Tara associated with blood. Partners recite Tara Mantra mentally and there is no
external worship as such. The conjunction of yoni and lingam is the essence of the
ritual.

Hara Hara Mahadeva- Yogi Ananda Saraswathi.

12
GODDESS TARA:

Tara is the second of the Mahavidyas coming next to Goddess Kali. As Vidya, She is
the Wisdom Goddess. Hindu Tara is associated with cremation. She is also known
as Kalika, Ugra-kali, Mahakali and Bhadra-kali. ‘Tara’ means star that is
perpetually beautiful. Tara closely resembles Kali in appearance and certain
attributes displaying saumya – gentle and urga –fierce aspects. Indeed Goddess Kali
and Tara were in prominence in the Tantric tradition both in Hinduism and Tibetian
Buddhism even before Mahavidya emerged as a cult.

Tara is as potent as Goddess Kali. She is also figured in Jainism. Thus in

Hinduism, Jainism and Tibetian Buddhism, Tara, the Blue Goddess, is the
Saviouress who helps us overcome our difficult situations and also helps us
transcend them. Tara’s name comes from the root which means to carry. As
‘Samsara-tarini’ she aids to cross the tides of stormy sea of troubles and turmoils of
life. She is the Tarini, the deliverer or savior, guiding bhaktas towards salvation. In
summary Mother Tara is the deity of accomplishments.

She takes many other names too. As Smasana bhairavi, she is the terrible one of
the cremation ground; Jalesvari, Mistress of the rain; Jagaddhatri, world nurse;
Prthivi, earth; Vasudha, earth; Vrksmadhyani, she who dwells in trees;
Sarvavamayi, she who creates everything; Samsaratarini, She who carries across
the ocean of samsara.

It can be said that Goddess Tara does not figure prominently in the Hindu tradition.
She seems to have a central and ancient place in Tibetian Buddhism. Her
appearance in the list of Mahavidyas can probably be explained by the religious
communication between Tibet and Bengal. The latter is where Mahavidya texts
originated such as Mahabhagavata-purana and Brhaddharma-purana were written.
In Bengal, Tara was an epithet of Kali. Tara was thus understood to be much a
Hindu and Buddhist God.

SARASWATI-TARA:

Tara is the ‘sabda-shakti’ or power of Sound. She is sometimes equated to Goddess

Saraswathi, the Goddess of Learning and associated with speaking prowess,
perception and knowledge. Tara is thus referred to as Neela Saraswathi seated on a
lotus. ‘Neela’ means blue. She also controls breath, manifesting in primodial sound
of life. As Tarini, she is the carrier of knowledge conveyed through sound of speech.
Tara is the un-manifest speech that resides in breath and consciousness. She is the
feminine form of ‘Aum’. She is also in the Third Eye or Ajna chakra. Her location in
the human body is the Manipura chakra or navel centre.

BUDDHISM:

In contrast to the Buddhist Tara who is described as a benevolent, compassionate,

13
gentle and spirited young woman, eager to help and to protect, Tara as Mahavidya
is a rather fearsome goddess striking terror. She is also moody and harmful. But at
times, Tara-Mahavidya can also be benevolent and compassionate.

According to Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Tara emanated from the tear of

Avalokiteshvara. Once Avalokiteshvara liberated all beings from the lower realms
and an instant later saw that the lower realms were again filled with suffering
beings. Saddened, a tear fell from his eye and from it sprang Green Tara. Both
Avalok-iteshvara and Tara embody the principle of compassion, one of the three
main aspects of enlightened mind: compassion, wisdom and power.

Kwan Yin is generally explained as a Chinese feminine equivalent of

Avalokiteshvara, who manifested to help all those suffering on earth. Thus Tara is
understood to be essence of Compassion. She is seen in Tibetian Buddhism as a
compassionate savior who rescues devotees from peril. Both Amitabha and
Avalokistesvara are renowned for their great compassion and Tara fits into this
family.

Like Durga, Tara is often said to rescue her bhaktas from desperate predicaments.
BRIHAD NILA TANTRA:

As the second of the Mahavidyas, Tara, while known to the West through her
Tibetian manifestations, occupies an important position in the Hindu Tantrik
pantheon. In Brihad Nila Tantra of the Kaula tradition she is Nila Sarasvati - the
Sapphire Blue Sarasvati. She is the Brahma-Shakti, or spouse of the Supreme Deity
in his Creative aspect. While attempts are made to separate the Hindu from the
Tibetan Tara, one cannot doubt that she is the same Shakti. In Hindu
Tantrarajatantra, where Her mantra is given as ‘Om Tare Tuttare Ture Svaha’ is
identical to the Tibetan version. Here Tara takes her form as Kurukulla and the
reference is to the same Devi.

Mention has to be made of Matrika Shakti. The Brihad Nila Tantra and Devirahasya
mentions other forms such as Nilasarasvati, Aniruddha Sarasvati, Ugra Tara,
Tarini. Nila Sarasvati and the Tibetian White Saraswathi give the same fruits of
worshipping Her. It also points to the Goddess being Shakti of the Letters of the
Alphabet, the Matrika Shakti. As Matrika Shakti She deludes the entire human race
with Her Maya of letters, and words. This has been expressed in a Tantrik form. Her
mantra is described as a Siddha-Vidya. She has an important role in Tantrik
cosmology because mantra, words, music are considered to be the very source of
the cosmos.

KALI – TARA:

Between Kali and Tara there are some similarities as also some differences. As said
earlier, Tara’s physical appearance resembles that of Kali. Like Kali, she has three
bright red eyes; has four hands holding sword or head chopper, a scissors, a

14
severed head and a lotus; wears the garland of skulls; is richly is bejeweled and has
snakes for ornaments; dances on a corpse. Both Kali and Tara are strongly
associated with death and dissolution; both stand upon inert male figure. And, both
are associated with Shiva. Brahaddharma purana mentions Tara as representing
time, just as does Kali.

Hinduism, the goddess Tara is the second of the Dasa (ten) Mahavidyas. She is the tantric manifestations
of Durga or Mahadevi, Kali, or Parvati. As the star is seen as a beautiful but perpetually self-combusting
thing, so Tara is perceived at core as the absolute, unquenchable hunger that propels all life.
As Per Shakti Mahabhagwat, She is the one who created 1st Seed from which the entire universe took
birth in the form of Lord Narayana.

15
Whereas Kali is the power of time -kala that inexorably causes all created things to perish,
Tara is associated with fire, and particularly the fires of the cremation ground.
There are also differences in the depiction of the two goddesses. Tara's complexion is blue
whereas Kali's can be black or deep blue. Tara holds a bowl made from a scull in one hand,
a pair of scissors in another, a blue lotus in the third hand and an axe in the fourth.

The scissors and sword in the hands of Tara are tools to remove the ego, the sense of
mistaken identity that defines, limits, and binds. They are not weapons of death and
destruction. Tara is draped in tiger skin around her waist; and is not naked unlike Kali who
symbolizes absolute freedom. Unlike Kali, whose hair flows loose and wild, Tara’s hair of
tawny color is carefully bunched into a topknot or jata. Whereas Kali’s hair represents
absolute freedom from constraint, Tara’s is a symbol of yogic asceticism and restraint. Kali
represents the highest form of wisdom or liberating knowledge; and Tara is related to the
discipline of yogic practices.

MYTHOLOGY:

The mythological origin of Tara is in Amrit Manthan. Both Devas and Asuras
participated in the churning exercise and both wanted it. However, Amrit is not the
only thing that came out of the water. Many invaluable gems and stones and
medicines were also yielded by the ocean. Likewise the ocean also yielded poison.
The poison was so strong that if it fell on the ground then all Life would be wiped
out. Fearing such devastation the Asuras and Devas approached Lord Shiva for
help. He promised that He would drink the poison and save the world from
destruction.

As the Lord drank the poison He was filled with pain and his throat blue and
earning him the epithet Nilakantha. His entire body was burning from inside. When
the pain became unbearable, Tara appeared and took Shiva on her lap. She suckled
him. The milk from her breasts counteracted the poison. The Lord recovered. This
story forms a prominent depiction of Hindu Tara. The other story where the Lord is
in an infant status is when Ma Kali was on a rampage. Siva becomes an infant and
Kali's maternal instinct comes to the fore. She silences herself to nurses the infant
Shiva.

TARAPITH:

Pursuant to Dakshan’s yagna and Sati entering agni, Lord Vishnu had to step in to
stop Siva from destroying the world. He uses the Sudarshan Chakra to cut Sati’s
body into 52 pieces. With the body gone, Lord Siva regained His composure and the
world was saved. Some part are said to have fallen in the ocean and some on land.
These had become holy places. Tara is one of Shakti’s incarnations; it is believed
that She is the third eye of Mother Shakti. Tarapith is where Tara is worshipped.
However, it is sometimes debated if Tarapith is indeed a Shaktipith.

Notwithstanding, Tarapith is a highly important Tantric site for Bengali Shaktas.

Blood sacrifice is a daily occurance here. It is covered abundantly by Garlands of
flowers. Tara image here is unique. Made of silver metal, Tara is depicted with Her
16
lower half of the face covered in blood. She has four arms wearing a garland of
skulls and a protruding tongue. Her image is wrapped in a red sari decked in
marigold garlands with a silver umbrella above her head. Her feet are in front of Her
image in a severed fashion as if they had been cut off. There is exposure if a leg
bone. Apparently the murti is in fact a composite one which covers the actual ‘self-
formed’ Deity; one said to be worshipped for 5,000 years by the Pujaris at the
temple. In former times known as Chandipur. It is vague in its depiction of a mother
suckling a child implying Tara breast feeding the infant Siva. Not many get to see
this deity as getting access to the sanctum sanctorum is no easy feat.

Tarapith is also famous for Bama Khepa, said to be the ‘mad saint’ who worshipped
in the temple and resided in the cremation grounds practicing and perfecting yoga
and tantric art under the guidance of another famous master called Kailashpathi
Baba. Bama-khepa means the left handed path of Tantric worship. It is said that
Tara gave her vision and breast fed Bama Khepa.

SMASHAN TARA:

Cremation grounds are seen to be polluting, most; thus Indian smashans are
located far from the center of town. However both the Tarapith mandir and
smashan are within the vicinity of the town centre. It is common belief that Goddess
Tara’s footprints are preserved in the smashan. The smashan contains within it
permanent huts and residences amidst banyan trees for sadhus and tantrikas.
Dogs are a common sight. Trishuls decorated with marigold garland and skulls are
placed in the entrance.
At the midnight hour, the aghori sits alone in the smashan.

To his this is undeniably a sacred site. He is naked or digambra, fearless and

unashamed. He performs his rituals and chants his mantra. He gazes in wonder at
the resplendent form of his beloved goddess, Shaman Tara – Tara of the Cremation
Grounds. Maa, in her deep blue colour, three eyes and four arms is said to arise
amidst the blazing heat of the funeral pyre standing upon fire consumed skeleton of
a male corpse like a warrior. Her right foot presses upon the breast which is the
place of desire and Maa’s left foot pressing upon the skeleton’s legs, the place of
worldly ambitions. The roaring funeral pyre is the fire at the end of time – kalagni,
the ultimate conflagration of the universe. Her body is formed of pure light; she is
unrestrained, wild, terrifying and fearless. Her beautiful midnight blue complexion
represents her immutable and indestructible nature.

She is the colour of space. She is vast and measureless like the night sky beyond
the concepts or qualitie – nirguna. Her breasts are large pot shaped – ghatastani,
symbolizing spiritual nourishment to her bhaktas. Lambodari – her stomach is full
and rounded, symbolizing her hunger for the corpses of selflessness. She is as
naked and sky-clad – digambra symbolizing her freedom from the veils of emotional
defilements. The girdle of eight blood dripping forearms symbolize her severance of
all action and karmas and eight worldly dharmas of loss and gain, praise and

17
blame, pleasure and pain, ignominy and fame. Her long hair is disheveled and
hangs freely to symbolize her untied appearances and revel her unconditional
freedom. If you seek, Maa Tara is is there. 1

TARA- तारा
Tara (Dölma), Ārya Tārā, or Shayama Tara, also known as Jetsun Dölma is an
important figure in Buddhism, especially revered in Tibetan Buddhism. She appears
as a female bodhisattva in Mahayana Buddhism, and as a
female Buddha in Vajrayana Buddhism. She is known as the "mother of liberation",
and represents the virtues of success in work and achievements. She is known
as Duōluó Púsà) in Chinese Buddhism, and as Tara Bosatsu ) in Japan.
Tārā is a meditation deity revered by practitioners of the Tibetan branch
of Vajrayana Buddhism to develop certain inner qualities and to understand outer,
inner and secret teachings such as karuṇā (compassion), mettā (loving-kindness),
and shunyata (emptiness). Tārā may more properly be understood as different
aspects of the same quality, as bodhisattvas are often considered personifications of
Buddhist methods.
There is also recognition in some schools of Buddhism of twenty-one Tārās. A
practice text entitled Praises to the Twenty-One Taras, is the most important text on
Tara in Tibetan Buddhism. Another key text is the Tantra Which is the Source for All
the Functions of Tara, Mother of All the Tathagatas.[2]
The main Tārā mantra is the same for Buddhists and Hindus alike: oṃ tāre tuttāre
ture svāhā. It is pronounced by Tibetans and Buddhists who follow the Tibetan
traditions as oṃ tāre tu tāre ture soha. The literal translation would be "Oṃ O Tārā, I
pray O Tārā, O Swift One, So Be It!"
Emergence as a Buddhist Diety

__________________________________________________________________________________

1. https://vedicgoddess.weebly.com/goddess-vidya-blog/neela-saraswati-or-
blue-saraswati-a-form-of-tara-maa

18
Famous Holy Spoken Green Tara in Nyanang Phelgyeling Monastery, Nepal.
Within Tibetan Buddhism Tārā is regarded as a bodhisattva of compassion and
action. She is the female aspect of Avalokiteśvara and in some origin stories she
comes from his tears:
"Then at last Avalokiteshvara arrived at the summit of Marpori, the 'Red Hill', in
Lhasa. Gazing out, he perceived that the lake on Otang, the 'Plain of Milk',
resembled the Hell of Ceaseless Torment. Myriad beings were undergoing the
agonies of boiling, burning, hunger, thirst, yet they never perished, sending forth
hideous cries of anguish all the while. When Avalokiteshvara saw this, tears sprang
to his eyes. A teardrop from his right eye fell to the plain and became the
reverend Bhrikuti, who declared: 'Child of your lineage! As you are striving for the
sake of sentient beings in the Land of Snows, intercede in their suffering, and I shall
be your companion in this endeavour!' Bhrikuti was then reabsorbed into
Avalokiteshvara's right eye, and was reborn in a later life as the Nepalese princess
Tritsun. A teardrop from his left eye fell upon the plain and became the reverend
Tara. She also declared, 'Child of your lineage! As you are striving for the sake of
sentient beings in the Land of Snows, intercede in their suffering, and I shall be
your companion in this endeavor!' Tārā was then reabsorbed into Avalokiteshvara's
left eye."
Tārā manifests in many different forms. In Tibet, these forms included Green Tārā's
manifestation as the Nepalese Princess (Bhrikuti), and White Tārā's manifestation
as the Chinese princess Kongjo (Princess Wencheng).
Tārā is also known as a saviouress, as a heavenly deity who hears the cries of
beings experiencing misery in saṃsāra.
Whether the Tārā figure originated as a Buddhist or Hindu goddess is unclear and
remains a source of inquiry among scholars. Mallar Ghosh believes her to have
originated as a form of the goddess Durga in the Hindu Puranas.[5] Today, she is
worshiped both in Buddhism and in Shaktism (Hinduism) as one of the

19
ten Mahavidyas. It may be true that goddesses entered Buddhism from Shaktism
(i.e. the worship of local or folk goddesses prior to the more
institutionalized Hinduism which had developed by the early medieval period
(i.e. Middle kingdoms of India). According to Beyer, it would seem that the feminine
principle makes its first appearance in Buddhism as the goddess who personified
prajnaparamita.[6]

The Mantra of Tārā- OṀ TĀRE TUTTĀRE TURE SVAHĀ- in the Lañja variant
of Ranjana and Tibetan alphabets.

Tārā came to be seen as an expression of the compassion of perfected wisdom only

later, with her earliest textual reference being the Mañjuśrī-mūla-kalpa (c. 5th–8th
centuries CE). The earliest, solidly identifiable image of Tārā is most likely that
which is still found today at cave 6 within the rock-cut Buddhist monastic complex
of the Ellora Caves in Maharashtra (c. 7th century CE), with her worship being well
established by the onset of the Pala Empire in Eastern India (8th century CE).[8]
Tārā became a very popular Vajrayana deity with the rise of Tantra in 8th-century
Pala and, with the movement of Indian Buddhism into Tibet
through Padmasambhava, the worship and practices of Tārā became incorporated
into Tibetan Buddhism as well.[6][9] She eventually came to be considered the
"Mother of all Buddhas", which usually refers to the enlightened wisdom of the
Buddhas, while simultaneously echoing the ancient concept of the Mother
Goddess in India.
Independent of whether she is classified as a deity, a Buddha, or a bodhisattva,
Tārā remains very popular in Tibet (and Tibetan communities in exile in Northern
India), Mongolia, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim and is worshiped in a majority of Buddhist
communities throughout the world (see also Guanyin, the female aspect of
Avalokitesvara in Chinese Buddhism).
Today, Green Tara and White Tara are probably the most popular representations of
Tara. Green Tara (Khadiravani) is usually associated with protection from fear and
the following eight obscurations: lions (= pride), wild elephants (=
delusion/ignorance), fires (= hatred and anger), snakes (= jealousy), bandits and
thieves (= wrong views, including fanatical views), bondage (= avarice and
miserliness), floods (= desire and attachment), and evil spirits and demons (=
deluded doubts). As one of the three deities of long life, White Tara (Saraswati) is
associated with longevity. White Tara counteracts illness and thereby helps to bring
about a long life. She embodies the motivation that is compassion and is said to be
20
as white and radiant as the moon.
• Shyama Tara (Green Tara) Attended by Sita Tara (White Tara)
and Bhrikuti (Yellow Tara). c. 8th century.

Statue of Tara, Sri Lanka, 7th - 8th century/ The Buddhist Goddess Tara, gold
and silver, Central Java, Indonesia, c. 9th century. The Walters Art Museum./
Tara as Prajñāpāramitā, 13th century, Java, Indonesia.

Sita (White) Tara by Öndör Gegeen Zanabazar. Mongolia, c. 17th century.

ORIGIN IN BUDDHISM as a DIETY

Tārā has many stories told which explain her origin as a bodhisattva.

21
Syamatara (Green Tara), 8th century, protect her followers from danger. Brooklyn
Museum/ Syamatara (Green Tārā), 9th century Javanese Shailendran art,
from Central Java, Indonesia./
Tara from Pakhna, Uttar Pradesh, India, 9th century
In this tale there is a young princess who lives in a different world system, millions
of years in the past. Her name is Jnanachandra or Yeshe Dawa, which means
"Moon of Primordial Awareness". For quite a number of aeons she makes offerings
to the Buddha of that world system, whose name was Tonyo Drupa. She receives
special instruction from him concerning bodhicitta - the infinitely compassionate
mental state of a bodhisattva. After doing this, some monks approach her and
suggest that because of her level of attainment she should next pray to be reborn as
a male to progress further. At this point she lets the monks know in no uncertain
terms that it is only "weak minded worldlings" who see gender as a barrier to
attaining enlightenment. She sadly notes there have been few who wish to work for
the welfare of sentient beings in a female form, though. Therefore, she resolves to
always be reborn as a female bodhisattva, until samsara is no more. She then stays
in a palace in a state of meditation for some ten million years, and the power of this
practice releases tens of millions of beings from suffering. As a result of this, Tonyo
Drupa tells her she will henceforth manifest supreme bodhi as the Goddess Tārā in
many world systems to come.
With this story in mind, it is interesting to juxtapose this with a quotation from
the 14th Dalai Lama about Tārā, spoken at a conference on Compassionate Action
in Newport Beach, CA in 1989:
There is a true feminist movement in Buddhism that relates to the goddess Tārā.
Following her cultivation of bodhicitta, the bodhisattva's motivation, she looked
upon the situation of those striving towards full awakening and she felt that there
were too few people who attained Buddhahood as women. So she vowed, "I have
developed bodhicitta as a woman. For all my lifetimes along the path I vow to be
born as a woman, and in my final lifetime when I attain Buddhahood, then, too, I
will be a woman."
Tārā, then, embodies certain ideals which make her attractive to women
22
practitioners, and her emergence as a Bodhisattva can be seen as a part
of Mahayana Buddhism's reaching out to women, and becoming more inclusive
even in 6th-century CE India.
SYMBOLS

Painting of Buddhist goddess Green Tara by Prithvi Man Chitrakari done in 1947.
Tārā's name literally means "star" or "planet", and therefore she is associated with
navigation and travel both literally and metaphorically as spiritual crossing to the
'other side' of the ocean of existence (enlightenment. Hence she is known literally as
"she who saves" in Tibetan. In the 108 Names of the Holy Tara, Tara is 'Leader of the
caravans ..... who showeth the way to those who have lost it' and she is named
as Dhruva, the Sanskrit name for the North Star
According to Miranda Shaw, "Motherhood is central to the conception of Tara". Her
titles include "loving mother", "supreme mother", "mother of the world", "universal
mother" and "mother of all Buddhas"
She is most often shown with the blue lotus or night lotus (utpala), which releases
its fragrance with the appearance of the moon and therefore Tārā is also associated
with the moon and night.
Tārā is also a forest goddess, particularly in her form as Khadiravani, "dweller in the
Khadira forest" and is generally associated with plant life, flowers, acacia (khadira)
trees and the wind. Because of her association with nature and plants, Tārā is also
known as a healing goddess (especially as White Tārā) and as a goddess of
nurturing quality and fertility. Her pure land in Mount Potala is described as
"Covered with manifold trees and creepers, resounding with the sound of many
birds, And with murmur of waterfalls, thronged with wild beasts of many kinds;
Many species of flowers grow everywhere." Her association with the wind element
(vaayu) also means that she is swift in responding to calls for any aid.
As a Saviouress

23
Green Tara, Nepal, 14th century. Gilt copper inset with precious and semiprecious
stones, 20.25 in (51.4 cm) tall. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Louis V. Bell Fund,
1966, 66.179.
Tārā also embodies many of the qualities of feminine principle. She is known as the
Mother of Mercy and Compassion. She is the source, the female aspect of the
universe, which gives birth to warmth, compassion and relief from bad karma as
experienced by ordinary beings in cyclic existence. She engenders, nourishes,
smiles at the vitality of creation, and has sympathy for all beings as a mother does
for her children. As Green Tārā she offers succor and protection from all the
unfortunate circumstances one can encounter within the samsaric world. As White
Tārā she expresses maternal compassion and offers healing to beings who are hurt
or wounded, either mentally or psychically. As Red Tārā she teaches discriminating
awareness about created phenomena, and how to turn raw desire into compassion
and love. As Blue Tārā (Ekajati) she becomes a protector in the Nyingma lineage,
who expresses a ferocious, wrathful, female energy whose invocation destroys all
Dharmic obstacles that engender good luck and swift spiritual awakening.[6]
Within Tibetan Buddhism, she has 21 major forms in all, each tied to a certain color
and energy. And each offers some feminine attribute, of ultimate benefit to the
spiritual aspirant who asks for her assistance.
Another quality of feminine principle which she shares with the dakinis is
playfulness. As John Blofeld expands upon in Bodhisattva of Compassion, Tārā is
frequently depicted as a young sixteen-year-old girlish woman. She often manifests
in the lives of dharma practitioners when they take themselves, or the spiritual path
too seriously. There are Tibetan tales in which she laughs at self-righteousness, or
plays pranks on those who lack reverence for the feminine. In Magic Dance: The
Display of the Self-Nature of the Five Wisdom Dakinis, Norbu explores this as
"Playmind". Applied to Tārā one could say that her playful mind can relieve ordinary
minds which become rigidly serious or tightly gripped by dualistic distinctions. She
takes delight in an open mind and a receptive heart then. For in this openness and

24
receptivity her blessings can naturally unfold and her energies can quicken the
aspirants spiritual development.
These qualities of feminine principle then, found an expression in
Indian Mahayana Buddhism and the emerging Vajrayana of Tibet, as the many
forms of Tārā, as dakinis, as Prajnaparamita, and as many other local and
specialized feminine divinities. As the worship of Tārā developed, various prayers,
chants and mantras became associated with her. These came out of a felt devotional
need, and from her inspiration causing spiritual masters to compose and set
down sadhanas, or tantric meditation practices. Two ways of approach to her began
to emerge. In one common folk and lay practitioners would simply directly appeal to
her to ease some of the travails of worldly life. In the second, she became
a Tantric deity whose practice would be used by monks or tantric yogis in order to
develop her qualities in themselves, ultimately leading through her to the source of
her qualities, which are Enlightenment, Enlightened Compassion, and Enlightened
Mind.
TANTRIC DIETY

18th-century Eastern Tibetan thanka, with the Green Tara (Samaya Tara Yogini) in
the center and the Blue, Red, White and Yellow taras in the corners, Rubin Museum
of Art
Tārā as a focus for tantric deity yoga can be traced back to the time period
of Padmasambhava. There is a Red Tārā practice which was given by
Padmasambhava to Yeshe Tsogyal. He asked that she hide it as a treasure. It was
not until the 20th century, that a great Nyingma lama, Apong Terton rediscovered
it. It is said that this lama was reborn as Sakya Trizin, present head of
the Sakyapa sect. A monk who had known Apong Terton succeeded in
retransmitting it to Sakya Trizin, and the same monk also gave it to Chagdud Tulku
Rinpoche, who released it to his western students.
Martin Willson in In Praise of Tārā traces many different lineages of Tārā Tantras,
that is Tārā scriptures used as Tantric sadhanas. For example, a Tārā sadhana was
revealed to Tilopa (988–1069 CE), the human father of the Karma Kagyu. Atisa, the
great translator and founder of the Kadampa school of Tibetan Buddhism, was a
25
devotee of Tārā. He composed a praise to her, and three Tārā Sadhanas. Martin
Willson's work also contains charts which show origins of her tantras in various
lineages, but suffice to say that Tārā as a tantric practice quickly spread from
around the 7th century CE onwards, and remains an important part of Vajrayana
Buddhism to this day.
The practices themselves usually present Tārā as a tutelary deity (thug dam, yidam)
which the practitioners sees as being a latent aspect of one's mind, or a
manifestation in a visible form of a quality stemming from Buddha Jnana. As John
Blofeld puts it in The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet:
The function of the Yidam is one of the profound mysteries of the
Vajrayana...Especially during the first years of practice the Yidam is of immense
importance. Yidam is the Tibetan rendering of the Sanskrit word "Iṣṭadeva"—the in-
dwelling deity; but, where the Hindus take the Iṣṭadeva for an actual deity who has
been invited to dwell in the devotee's heart, the Yidams of Tantric Buddhism are in
fact the emanations of the adepts own mind. Or are they? To some extent they seem
to belong to that order of phenomena which in Jungian terms are called archetypes
and are therefore the common property of the entire human race. Even among
Tantric Buddhists, there may be a division of opinion as to how far the Yidams are
the creations of individual minds. What is quite certain is that they are not
independently existing gods and goddesses; and yet, paradoxically, there are many
occasions when they must be so regarded.FORMS

Kurukulla thangka, American Museum of Natural History, Manhattan, New York

City// Sarasvati thangka, Eastern Tibet, 18th century

There are many forms of Tārā, including various popular lists of 21 different
emanations of Tārā. Green Tārā, (śyāmatārā) associated with peacefulness and
enlightened activity is the most depicted and the central aspect of Tārā from which
others such as the 21 Tārās emanate. In her Green form, she is often also known as
Khadiravaṇi-Tārā (Tārā of the acacia forest), who appeared to Nagarjuna in the
26
Khadiravani forest of South India and protects from the eight great fears. She is
often accompanied by her two attendants Mārīcī and Ekajaṭā. Dharmachari Purna
writes on the various forms of Tara:
Tārā is in fact the name of a whole class of deities. She appears in all the five
colours of the Jinas. There are at least ten green forms, seven white, five yellow, two
blue and one red. As Sarvajñamitra says of her form: 'It is a universal form, varied
like crystal, since it changes according to circumstance'.She has both peaceful and
wrathful forms. Her figure is shown in virtually all postures from standing to sitting,
full lotus, half lotus, one leg down, and both legs down. There is apparently also a
reclining Tārā. She has two-armed forms, four arms, eight arms, twelve arms, and
Getty even mentions a Tibetan painting showing a standing Tārā with 'one
thousand heads and arms'. Ghosh lists seventy-six distinct forms of Tārā, and
tradition tells us there are one hundred and eight names for her.[13]
According to Sarvajnamitra she has a "universal form" (visva-rupa), that
encompasses all living beings and deities, and which changes with the needs of
each being.
Other forms of Tārā include:

• White Tārā, (Sitatārā) with two arms seated on a white lotus and with eyes on
her hand and feet, as well as a third eye on her forehead (thus she is also known
as "Seven eyed"). She is known for compassion, long life, healing and
serenity.[24] Also known as The Wish-fulfilling Wheel, or Cintachakra.
• Pravīratārā, "Tārā Swift and Heroic", a Red colored form with eight arms holding
bell and vajra, bow and arrow, wheel, conch, sword and noose.
• Kurukullā (Rikchema) of red color and fierce aspect associated with magnetizing
all good things
• Black Tārā (Ugra Tārā), associated with power
• Various forms of Yellow or Golden colored Tārās, sometimes associated with
wealth and prosperity including "Yellow Cintamani Tārā" ("Wish-Granting Gem
Tara") holding a wish granting jewel, eight armed "Vajra Tārā" and golden
"Rajasri Tārā" holding a blue lotus
• Blue Tārā (Ekajati), wrathful with many heads and arms, associated with
transmutation of anger. Some authors believe her to be identical with Ugra Tārā
and Ekajati.
• Cintāmaṇi Tārā, a form of Tārā widely practiced at the level of Highest Yoga
Tantra in the Gelug School of Tibetan Buddhism, portrayed as green and often
conflated with Green Tārā
• Sarasvati (Yangchenma), known for the arts, knowledge and wisdom
• Bhṛkuṭītārā (Tronyer Chendze), "Tārā with a Frown", known for protection from
spirits
• Uṣṇīṣavijaya Tārā, White Tārā named "Victorious Uṣṇīṣa" with three faces and
twelve arms, associated with long life
• Golden Prasanna Tārā - wrathful form, with a necklace of bloody heads and
sixteen arms holding an array of weapons and Tantric attributes.

27
• Yeshe Tsogyal ("Wisdom Lake Queen"), the consort of Padmasambhava who
brought Buddhism to Tibet, was known as an emanation of Tārā
• Rigjay Lhamo, "Goddess Who Brings Forth Awareness", seated in royal posture
surrounded by rainbow light.
• Sitatapatra Tārā, protector against supernatural danger
Tārā's iconography such as the lotus also shows resemblance with the Hindu
goddess Lakshmi, and at least one Tibetan liturgy evokes Lakshmi as
Tārā.[27] According to Miranda Shaw, there is a later trend of Tārā theology that
began to see all other female divinities as aspects of Tārā or at least associated with
her. Apart from her many emanations named Tārā of varying colors, other
Mahayana female divinities that became part of Tara's theology
include Janguli, Parnasabari, Cunda, Kurukulla, Mahamayuri, Usnisavijaya,
and Marici. Based on this principle of Tārā as the central female
divinity, Dakinis were also seen as emanations of her.
Sadhana

Green Tārā, (Syamatara) known as the Buddha of enlightened activity, c. 11th

century./Tara statue. Gyantse Kumbum. 1993
Sadhanas in which Tārā is the yidam (meditational deity) can be extensive or quite
brief. Most all of them include some introductory praises or homages to invoke her
presence and prayers of taking refuge. Then her mantra is recited, followed by a
visualization of her, perhaps more mantra, then the visualization is dissolved,
followed by a dedication of the merit from doing the practice. Additionally there may
be extra prayers of aspirations, and a long life prayer for the Lama who originated
the practice. Many of the Tārā sadhanas are seen as beginning practices within the
world of Vajrayana Buddhism, however what is taking place during the visualization
of the deity actually invokes some of the most sublime teachings of all Buddhism.
Two examples are Zabtik Drolchok and Chime Pakme Nyingtik.
28
In this case during the creation phase of Tārā as a yidam, she is seen as having as
much reality as any other phenomena apprehended through the mind. By reciting
her mantra and visualizing her form in front, or on the head of the adept, one is
opening to her energies of compassion and wisdom. After a period of time the
practitioner shares in some of these qualities, becomes imbued with her being and
all it represents. At the same time all of this is seen as coming out of Emptiness and
having a translucent quality like a rainbow. Then many times there is a
visualization of oneself as Tārā. One simultaneously becomes inseparable from all
her good qualities while at the same time realizing the emptiness of the visualization
of oneself as the yidam and also the emptiness of one's ordinary self.
This occurs in the completion stage of the practice. One dissolves the created deity
form and at the same time also realizes how much of what we call the "self" is a
creation of the mind, and has no long term substantial inherent existence. This part
of the practice then is preparing the practitioner to be able to confront the
dissolution of one's self at death and ultimately be able to approach through various
stages of meditation upon emptiness, the realization of Ultimate Truth as a vast
display of Emptiness and Luminosity. At the same time the recitation of the mantra
has been invoking Tārā's energy through its Sanskrit seed syllables and this
purifies and activates certain psychic centers of the body (chakras). This also
untangles knots of psychic energy which have hindered the practitioner from
developing a Vajra body, which is necessary to be able to progress to more advanced
practices and deeper stages of realization.
Therefore, even in a simple Tārā sadhana a plethora of outer, inner, and secret
events is taking place and there are now many works such as Deity Yoga, compiled
by the present Dalai Lama, which explores all the ramifications of working with
a yidam in Tantric practices.
The end results of doing such Tārā practices are many. For one thing it reduces the
forces of delusion in the forms of negative karma, sickness, afflictions of kleshas,
and other obstacles and obscurations.
The mantra helps generate Bodhicitta within the heart of the practitioner and
purifies the psychic channels (nadis) within the body allowing a more natural
expression of generosity and compassion to flow from the heart center. Through
experiencing Tārā's perfected form one acknowledges one's own perfected form, that
is one's intrinsic Buddha nature, which is usually covered over by obscurations and
clinging to dualistic phenomena as being inherently real and permanent.
The practice then weans one away from a coarse understanding of Reality, allowing
one to get in touch with inner qualities similar to those of a bodhisattva, and
prepares one's inner self to embrace finer spiritual energies, which can lead to more
subtle and profound realizations of the Emptiness of phenomena and self.
As Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche, in his Introduction to the Red Tārā Sadhana notes of
his lineage: "Tārā is the flawless expression of the inseparability of emptiness,
awareness and compassion. Just as you use a mirror to see your face,
Tārā meditation is a means of seeing the true face of your mind, devoid of any trace
of delusion".
29
There are several preparations to be done before practising the Sadhana. To perform
a correct execution the practitioner must be prepared and take on the proper
disposition. The preparations may be grouped as "internal" and "external". Both are
necessary to achieve the required concentration.
The preparations are of two types: external and internal. The external preparations
consist of cleaning the meditation room, setting up a shrine with images of Buddha
Shakyamuni and Green Tara, and setting out a beautiful arrangement of offerings.
We can use water to represent nectar for drinking, water for bathing the feet, and
perfume. For the remaining offerings—flowers, incense, light, and pure food—if
possible we should set out the actual substances. As for internal preparations, we
should try to improve our compassion, bodhichitta, and correct view of emptiness
through the practice of the stages of the path, and to receive a Tantric
empowerment of Green Tara. It is possible to participate in group pujas if we have
not yet received an empowerment, but to gain deep experience of this practice we
need to receive an empowerment. The main internal preparation is to generate and
strengthen our faith in Arya Tara, regarding her as the synthesis of all Gurus,
Yidams, and Buddhas.

1. Tara statue near Kullu, Himachal Pradesh, India.

2. Medititating Tara, Ratnagiri, Odisha, India, 8th century/ White Tara

statue in a Karma Kagyu dharma centre
Terma teachings are "hidden teachings" said to have been left
by Padmasambhava (8th century) and others for the benefit of future
generations. Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo discovered Phagme Nyingthig (Tib.
spelling: 'chi med 'phags ma'i snying thig, Innermost Essence teachings of the
Immortal Bodhisattva [Arya Tārā])
Earlier in the 19th century, according to a biography, Nyala Pema Dündul received
30
a Hidden Treasure, Tārā Teaching and Nyingthig (Tib. nying thig) from his uncle
Kunsang Dudjom (Tib. kun bzang bdud 'joms). It is not clear from the source
whether the terma teaching and the nyingthig teachings refer to the same text or
two different texts.

Tata & Saraswati the River & Goddess

INTRODUCTION

The Sarasvati River (IAST: Sárasvatī-nadī́) is a deified river mentioned in the Rig
Veda and later 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 Rig Veda she is described as a "great and holy
river in north-western India," but in the middle and late Rig Vedic books she is described as a
small river ending in "a terminal lake (samudra)." As the goddess Sarasvati, the other referent
for the term "Sarasvati" which developed into an independent identity in post-Vedic times,
she is also described as a powerful river and mighty flood.The Sarasvati is also considered
by Hindus to exist in a metaphysical form, in which it formed a confluence with the sacred
rivers Ganges and Yamuna, at the Triveni Sangam. According to Michael Witzel,
superimposed on the Vedic Sarasvati river is the heavenly river 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 hymn in the Rigveda (10.75) mentions the
Sarasvati between the Yamuna in the east and the Sutlej in the west, while RV 7.95.1-2,
describes the Sarasvati 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
Sarasvati dried up in a desert.
Since the late 19th-century, numerous scholars have proposed to identify the Sarasvati with
the Ghaggar-Hakra River system, which flows through northwestern India and
eastern Pakistan, between the Yamuna and the Sutlej, and ends in the Thar desert. 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. 10,000-8,000 years ago this channel was abandoned when the Sutlej
diversed 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 Civilization urban
sites
at Kalibangan (Rajasthan), Banawali and Rakhigarhi (Haryana), Dholavira and Lothal (Gujar
at) lay along this course. 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
31
Harappan civilisation declined, becoming localized in smaller agricultural
communities.[11][f][13][12][14]

Identification of a mighty physical Rig Vedic Sarasvati with the Ghaggar-Hakra system is
therefore problematic, since the Gagghar-Hakra had dried-up well before the time of the
composition of the Rig Veda. In the words of Wilke and Moebus, the Sarasvati had been
reduced to a "small, sorry trickle in the desert", by the time that the Vedic people migrated
into north-west India. Rig Vedic references to a physical river also indicate that the Sarswati
"had already lost its main source of water supply and must have ended in a terminal lake
(samudra) approximately 3000 years ago,” "depicting the present-day situation, with the
Sarasvatī having lost most of its water." Rig Vedic descriptions of the Sarasvati also don't fit
the actual course of the Gagghar-Hakra.
"Sarasvati" has also been identified with the Helmand or Haraxvati river in
southern Afghanistan, the name of which may have been reused in its Sanskrit form as the
name of the Ghaggar-Hakra river, after the Vedic tribes moved to the Punjab. Sarasvati of
the Rig Veda 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,] with some suggesting an earlier dating of the Rig Veda; renaming the Indus Valley
Civilisation as the "Sarasvati culture", the "Sarasvati Civilization", the "Indus-Sarasvati
Civilization" or the "Sindhu-Sarasvati Civilization," suggesting that the Indus Valley
and Vedic cultures can be equated; and rejecting the Indo-Aryan migrations theory, which
postulates an extended period of migrations of Indo-European speaking people into South
Asia between ca. 1900 and 1400 BCE
Sarasvatī is the feminine nominative singular form of the adjective sarasvat (which occurs in
the Rigveda as the name of the keeper of the celestial waters), derived from ‘sarasa’ + ‘vat’,
meaning ‘having’. Saras appears, in turn, to be the compound of ‘sa’, a prefix meaning ‘with’,
plus ‘rasa’, sap or juice, or water, and is defined in the first instance as ‘anything flowing or
fluid’ according to Monier-Williams dictionary. Mayrhofer considers unlikely a connection
with the root *sar- ‘run, flow’ but does agree that it could have been a river that connected
many lakes due to its abundant volumes of water-flow
Sarasvatī may be a cognate of Avestan Haraxvatī, perhaps[32] originally referring to Arədvī
Sūrā Anāhitā (modern Ardwisur Anahid), the Zoroastrian mythological world river, which
would point to a common Indo-Iranian myth of a cosmic or mystical Sáras-vat-ī river. In the
younger Avesta, Haraxvatī is Arachosia, a region described to be rich in rivers, and its Old
Persian cognate Harauvati, which gave its name to the present-day Hārūt River
in Afghanistan, may have referred to the entire Helmand drainage basin (the center of
Arachosia).
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 Drishadwati, in the Vedic state
of Brahmavarta, that Vedic Sanskrit had its genesisv 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 Sarasvati and Drishadvati rivers in the time of the

32
Rigveda.
Rigveda

Map of northern India in the late Vedic period

As a river[
The Sarasvati River is mentioned in all but the fourth book of the Vedas Macdonell and Keith
provided a comprehensive survey of Vedic references to the Sarasvati 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, Sarasvati and Sarayu; and 10.75.5, the
geographical list of the Nadistuti sukta.
In the oldest texts of the Rig Veda she is described as a "great and holy river in north-western
India," but Michael Witzel notes that the Rig Veda indicates that the Sarswati "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 Sarasvati
acquired an extalted status in the mythology of the Kuru Kingdom, where the Rig Veda was
compiled.
As a goddess

33
Painting of Goddess Saraswati by Raja Ravi Varma
Main article: Saraswati
Sarasvati is mentioned some fifty times in the hymns of the Rig Veda.[39] It is mentioned in
thirteen hymns of the late books (1 and 10) of the Rigveda. [40] All but two of these invoke
Sarasvati as a goddess without direct connection to a specific river.[citation needed]
The most important hymns related to Sarasvati goddess 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 Sarasvati river is the heavenly river
Milky Way, which is seen as "a road to immortality and heavenly after-life." The description
of the Sarasvati 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
Sarasvati. The invocations in 10.17 address Sarasvati 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" (dhī)
and "munificence" (puraṃdhi), consistent with her role as a goddess of both knowledge and
fertility.[Though Sarasvati 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 ".
Other Vedic texts]
In post-Rigvedic literature, the disappearance of the Sarasvati is mentioned. Also the origin of
the Sarasvati is identified as Plaksa Prasravana (Peepal tree or Ashwattha tree as known in
India and Nepal).
In a supplementary chapter of the Vajasaneyi-Samhita of the Yajurveda (34.11), Sarasvati 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."[ According
to the medieval commentator Uvata, the five tributaries of the Sarasvati were the Punjab
rivers Drishadvati, Satudri (Sutlej), Chandrabhaga (Chenab), Vipasa (Beas) and
the Iravati (Ravi).
The first reference to the disappearance of the lower course of the Sarasvati 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 Sarasvati is 'so to say meandering'
(kubjimati) as it could not sustain heaven which it had propped up.
The Plaksa Prasravana (place of appearance/source of the river) may refer to a spring in the
Siwalik mountains. The distance between the source and the Vinasana (place of
34
disappearance of the river) is said to be 44 Ashwin (between several hundred and
1,600 miles) (Tandya Br. 25.10.16; cf. Av. 6.131.3; Pancavimsa Br.).
In the Latyayana Srautasutra (10.15-19) the Sarasvati seems to be a perennial river up to the
Vinasana, which is west of its confluence with the Drshadvati (Chautang). The Drshadvati is
described as a seasonal stream (10.17), meaning it was not from Himalayas. Bhargava [51] has
identified Drashadwati river as present day Sahibi river originating from Jaipur hills in
Rajasthan. The Asvalayana Srautasutra and Sankhayana Srautasutra contain verses that are
similar to the Latyayana Srautasutra.
Post-Vedic texts
Wilke and Moebus note that the "historical river" Sarasvati was a "topographically tangible
mythogeme", which was already reduced to a "small, sorry trickle in the desert", by the time
of composition of the Hindu epics. These post-Vedic texts regularly talk about drying up of
the river, and start associating the goddess Sarasvati with language, rather than the river.
Mahabharata
According to the Mahabharata the Sarasvati River dried up to a desert (at a place named
Vinasana or Adarsana) and joins the sea "impetuously".MB.3.81.115 locates the state of
Kurupradesh or Kuru Kingdom to the south of the Sarasvati and north of the Drishadvati.
The dried-up, seasonal Ghaggar River in Rajasthan and Haryana reflects the same
geographical view described in the Mahabharata.
According to Hindu scriptures, a journey was made during the Mahabharata by Balrama
along the banks of the Saraswati from Dwarka to Mathura. There were ancient kingdoms too
(the era of the Mahajanapads) that lay in parts of north Rajasthan and that were named on
the Saraswati River.
Puranas
Several Puranas describe the Sarasvati River, and also record that the river separated into a
number of lakes (saras).
In the Skanda Purana, the Sarasvati originates from the water pot of Brahma and flows
from Plaksa on the Himalayas. It then turns west at Kedara and also flows underground. Five
distributaries of the Sarasvati are mentioned. The text regards Sarasvati as a form of
Brahma's consort Brahmi.[61] According to the Vamana Purana 32.1-4, the Sarasvati rose from
the Plaksa tree (Pipal tree).
The Padma Purana proclaims:
One who bathes and drinks there where the Gangā, Yamunā and Sarasvati join
enjoys liberation. Of this there is no doubt."
Smritis

• In the Manu Smriti, the sage Manu, escaping from a flood, founded the Vedic culture
between the Sarasvati and Drishadvati rivers. The Sarasvati River was thus the western
boundary of Brahmavarta: "the land between the Sarasvati and Drishadvati is created by
God; this land is Brahmavarta."[]
• Similarly, the Vasistha Dharma Sutra I.8-9 and 12-13 locates Aryavarta to the east of the
disappearance of the Sarasvati in the desert, to the west of Kalakavana, to the north of the

35
 mountains of Pariyatra and Vindhya and to the south of
the Himalaya. Patanjali's Mahābhāṣya defines Aryavarta like the Vasistha Dharma Sutra.
• The Baudhayana Dharmasutra gives similar definitions, declaring that Aryavarta is the
land that lies west of Kalakavana, east of Adarsana (where the Sarasvati disappears in the
desert), south of the Himalayas and north of the Vindhyas.
Contemporary religious significance

Triveni Sangam, Allahabad – the confluence of Ganga, Yamuna and the "unseen" Sarasvati.
Diana Eck notes that the power and significance of the Sarasvati for present-day India is in
the persistent symbolic presence at the confluence of rivers all over India. Although
"materially missing",she is the third river, which emerges to join in the meeting of rivers,
thereby making the waters thrice holy.
After the Vedic Sarasvati dried, new myths about the rivers arose. Sarasvati is described to
flow in the underworld and rise to the surface at some places.[19] For centuries, the Sarasvati
river existed in a "subtle or mythic" form, since it corresponds with none of the major rivers
of present-day South AsiaThe confluence (sangam) or joining together of
the Ganges and Yamuna rivers at Triveni Sangam, Allahabad, is believed to also converge
with the unseen Sarasvati river, which is believed to flow underground. This despite
Allahabad being at a considerable distance from the possible historic routes of an actual
Sarasvati river.
At the Kumbh Mela, a mass bathing festival is held at Triveni Sangam, literally "confluence of
the three rivers", every 12 years.[6][66][67] The belief of Sarasvati joining at the confluence of the
Ganges and Yamuna originates from the Puranic scriptures and denotes the "powerful legacy"
the Vedic river left after her disappearance. The belief is interpreted as "symbolic". [68] The
three rivers Sarasvati, Yamuna, Ganga are considered consorts of the Hindu Trinity
(Trimurti) Brahma, Vishnu (as Krishna) and Shiva respectively.
In lesser known configuration, Sarasvati is said to form the Triveni confluence with rivers
Hiranya and Kapila at Somnath. There are several other Trivenis in India where two physical
rivers are joined by the "unseen" Sarasvati, which adds to the sanctity of the confluence.[69]
Romila Thapar notes that "once the river had been mythologized through invoking the
memory of the earlier river, its name - Sarasvati - could be applied to many rivers, which is
what happened in various parts of the [Indian] subcontinent."[22]
Several present-day rivers are also named Sarasvati, after the Vedic Sarasvati:

• Sarsuti is the present-day name of a river originating in a submontane region

(Ambala district) and joining the Ghaggar near Shatrana in PEPSU. Near Sadulgarh

36
 (Hanumangarh) the Naiwala channel, a dried out channel of the Sutlej, joins the Ghaggar.
Near Suratgarh the Ghaggar is then joined by the dried up Drishadvati river.
• Sarasvati is the name of a river originating in the Aravalli mountain range in Rajasthan,
passing through Sidhpur and Patan before submerging in the Rann of Kutch.
• Saraswati River, a tributary of Alaknanda River, originates near Badrinath
• Saraswati River in Bengal, formerly a distributary of the Hooghly River, has dried up
since the 17th century.
Already since the 19th century, attempts have been made to identify the mythical
Sarasvati of the Vedas with physical rivers.[11] Many think that the Vedic Sarasvati river once
flowed east of the Indus (Sindhu) river. Scientists, geologists as well as scholars have
identified the Sarasvati with many present-day or now defunct rivers.
Two theories are popular in the attempts to identify the Sarasvati. Several scholars have
identified the river with the present-day Ghaggar-Hakra River or dried up part of it, which is
located in Northwestern India and Pakistan. A second popular theory associates the river
with the Helmand river or an ancient river in the present Helmand Valley in Afghanistan.
Others consider Sarasvati a mythical river, an allegory not a "thing"
The identification with the Ghaggar-Hakra system took on new significance in the early 21st
century, suggesting an earlier dating of the Rig Veda, and renaming the Indus Valley
Civilisation as the "Sarasvati culture", the "Sarasvati Civilization", the "Indus-Sarasvati
Civilization" or the "Sindhu-Sarasvati Civilization," suggesting that the Indus Valley
and Vedic cultures can be equated
Rig Vedic course

Vedic rivers
The Rig Veda contains several hymns which give an indication of the flow of the geography of
the river, and an identification of the Sarasvati as described in the later books of the Rig Veda
with the Ghaggra-Hakra:

• RV 3.23.4 mentions the Sarasvati River together with the Drsadvati River and the Āpayā
River.
• RV 6.52.6 describes the Sarasvati as swollen (pinvamānā) by the rivers (sindhubhih).
• RV 7.36.6, "sárasvatī saptáthī síndhumātā" can be translated as "Sarasvati the Seventh,
Mother of Floods," but also as "whose mother is the Sindhu", which would indicate that
the Sarasvati is here a tributary of the Indus.
• RV 7.95.1-2, describes the Sarasvati as flowing to the samudra, a word now usually
translated as "ocean," but which could also mean "lake."

37
• RV 10.75.5, the late Rigvedic Nadistuti sukta, enumerates all important rivers from the
Ganges in the east up to the Indus in the west in a clear geographical order. The sequence
"Ganges, Yamuna, Sarasvati, Shutudri" places the Sarasvati between the Yamuna and
the Sutlej, which is consistent with the Ghaggar identification.
Yet, the Rig Veda also contains clues for an identification with the Helmand river in
Afghanistan:

• The Sarasvati River is perceived to be a great river with perennial water, which does not
apply to the Hakra and Ghaggar.
• The Rig Veda seems to contain descriptions of several Sarasvatis. The earliest Sararvati is
said to be similar to the Helmand in Afghanistan which is called the Harakhwati in the
Āvestā
• Verses in RV 6.61 indicate that the Sarasvati river originated in the hills or mountains
(giri), where she "burst with her strong waves the ridges of the hills (giri)". It is a matter of
interpretation whether this refers only to the Himalayan foothills, where the present-day
Sarasvati (Sarsuti) river flows, or to higher mountains.
The Rig Veda was composed during the latter part of the late Harappan period, and according
to Shaffer, the reason for the predominance of the Sarasvati in the Rigveda is the late
Harappan (1900-1300 BCE) population shift eastwards to Haryana.
Ghaggar-Hakra River
The present Ghaggar-Hakra River is a seasonal river in India and Pakistan that flows only
during the monsoon season, but satellite images in possession of the ISRO and ONGC have
confirmed that the major course of a river ran through the present-day Ghaggar River. The
supposed paleochannel of the Hakra is actually a paleochannel of the Sutlej, flowing into
the Nara river bed, presently a delta channel c.q. paleochannel of the Indus RiverAt least
10,000 years ago, well before the rise of the Harappan civilization, the sutlej diverted it's
course, leaving the Ghaggar-Hakra as a monsoon-fed river. Early in the 2nd millennium BCE
the monsoons diminished and the Ghaggar-Hakra fluvial system dried up, which affected the
Harappan civilisation.
Paleochannels and ancient course

38
Vedic and present-day Gagghar-Hakra river-course, with Aryavarta/Kuru Kingdom, and
(pre-)Harappan Hakra/Sutlej-Yamuna paleochannels, as proposed by Clift et al.
(2012) and Khonde et al. (2017).[n] See also this satellite image.
1 = ancient river
2 = today's river
3 = today's Thar desert
4 = ancient shore
5 = today's shore
6 = today's town
7 = dried-up Harappan Hakkra course, and pre-Harappan Sutlej paleochannels (Clift et al.
(2012))
Main article: Ghaggar-Hakra River
While there is general agreement that the river courses in the Indus Basin have frequently
changed course, the exact sequence of these changes and their dating have been problematic
Pre-Holocene diversion of the Sutlej and Yamuna
Older publications have suggested that the Sutlej and the Yamuna drained into the Hakra
well into Mature Harappan times, providing ample volume to the supply provided by the
monsoon-fed Ghaggar. The Sutlej and Yamuna then changed course between 2500 BCE and
1900 BCE, due to either tectonic events or "slightly altered gradients on the extremely flat
plains," resulting in the drying-up of the Hakra in the Thar Desert. More recent publications
have shown that the Sutlej and the Yamuna shifted course well before Harappan
times, leaving the monsoon-fed Ghaggar-Hakra which dried-up during late Harappan
times.[11]
Clift et al. (2012), using dating of zircon sand grains, have shown that subsurface river
channels near the Indus Valley Civilisation sites in Cholistan immediately below the
presumed Ghaggar-Hakra channel show sediment affinity not with the Ghagger-Hakra, but
instead with the Beas River in the western sites and the Sutlej and the Yamuna in the eastern
ones. This suggests that the Yamuna itself, or a channel of the Yamuna, along with a channel
of the Sutlej may have flowed west some time between 47,000 BCE and 10,000 BCE. The
drainage from the Yamuna may have been lost from the Ghaggar-Hakra well before the
beginnings of Indus civilisation.
Ajit Singh et al. (2017) show that the paleochannel of the Ghaggar-Hakra is a former course of
the Sutlej, which diverted to its present course between 15,000 and 8,000 years ago, well
before the development of the Harappan Civilisation. Ajit Singh et al. conclude that the urban
populations settled not along a perennial river, but a monsoon-fed seasonal river that was not
subject to devastating floods.
Khonde et al. (2017) confirm that the Great Rann of Kutch received sediments from a
different source than the Indus, but this source stopped supplying sediments after ca. 10,000
years ago Likewise, Dave et al. (2019) state that "[o]ur results disprove the proposed link
between ancient settlements and large rivers from the Himalayas and indicate that the major
palaeo-fluvial system traversing through this region ceased long before the establishment of
the Harappan civilisation."[90]

39
According to Chaudhri et al. (2021) "the Saraswati River used to flow from the glaciated
peaks of the Himalaya to the Arabian sea," and an "enormous amount of water was flowing
through this channel network until BC 11,147."[91]
IVC and diminishing of the monsoons

The Helmand River, Afghanistan, known in ancient Iranian Avestan

as Haraxvatī and Harahvaiti, is identified by some as the ancient Sarasvati river/
Outline of the Indus Civilization, with concentration of settlements along the Ghaggar-Hakra,
which had dried-up by the time of the Indo-Aryan migrations. See Sameer et al. (2018) for a
more detailed map.
Many Indus Valley Civilisation (Harrapan Civilisation) are found on the banks of and in the
proximity of the Ghaggar-Hakra fluvial system, due to the "high monsoon rainfall" which fed
the Ghaggar-Hakra in Mature Harappan Times.
Giosan et al., in their study Fluvial landscapes of the Harappan civilisation, make clear that
the Ghaggar-Hakra fluvial system was not a large glacier-fed Himalayan river, but a
monsoonal-fed river. They concluded that the Indus Valley Civilisation prospered when the
monsoons that fed the rivers diminished around 5,000 years ago. When the monsoons, which
fed the rivers that supported the civilisation, further diminished and the rivers dried out as a
result, the IVC declined some 4000 years ago.[11] This in particular effected the Ghaggar-
Hakra system, which became an intermittent river and was largely abandoned.[93] Localized
Late IVC-settlements are found eastwards, toward the more humid regions of the Indo-
Gangetic Plain, where the decentralised late Harappan phase took place.
The same widespread aridification in the third millennium BCE also led to water shortages
and ecological changes in the Eurasian steppes, leading to a change of vegetation, triggering
"higher mobility and transition to nomadic cattle breeding," These migrations eventually
resulted in the Indo-Aryan migrations into South Asia.
Identification with the Sarasvati
A number of archaeologists and geologists have identified the Sarasvati river with the
present-day Ghaggar-Hakra River, or the dried up part of it despite the fact that it had
already dried-up and become a small seasonal river before Vedic times
In the 19th and early 20th century a number of scholars, archaeologists and geologists have
identified the Vedic Sarasvati River with the Ghaggar-Hakra River, such as Christian
Lassen (1800-1876), Max Müller (1823-1900),[106] Marc Aurel Stein (1862-1943),[94] C.F.
Oldham and Jane Macintosh. Danino notes that "the 1500 km-long bed of the Sarasvati" was
40
"rediscovered" in the 19th century. According to Danino, "most Indologists" were convinced
in the 19th century that "the bed of the Ghaggar-Hakra was the relic of the Sarasvati."[
Recent archaeologists and geologists, such as Philip and Virdi (2006), K.S. Valdiya (2013)
have identified the Sarasvati with Ghaggar.[110] According to Gregory Possehl, "Linguistic,
archaeological, and historical data show that the Sarasvati of the Vedas is the modern
Ghaggar or Hakra."
According to R.U.S. Prasad, "we [...] find a considerable body of opinions [sic] among the
scholars, archaeologists and geologists, who hold that the Sarasvati originated in the Shivalik
hills [...] and descended through Adi Badri, situated in the foothills of the Shivaliks, to the
plains [...] and finally debouched herself into the Arabian sea at the Rann of
Kutch."[111] According to Valdiya, "it is plausible to conclude that once upon a time the
Ghagghar was known as "Sarsutī"," which is "a corruption of "Sarasvati"," because "at Sirsā
on the bank of the Ghagghar stands a fortress called "Sarsutī". Now in derelict condition, this
fortress of antiquity celebrates and honours the river Sarsutī."
Textual and historical objections[Ashoke Mukherjee (2001), is critical of the
attempts to identify the Rigvedic Sarasvati. Mukherjee notes that many
historians and archaeologists, both Indian and foreign, concluded that the
word "Sarasvati" (literally "being full of water") is not a noun, a specific
"thing". However, Mukherjee believes that "Sarasvati" is initially used by the
Rig Vedic people as an adjective to the Indus as a large river and later evolved
into a "noun". Mukherjee concludes that the Vedic poets had not seen the
palaeo-Sarasvati, and that what they described in the Vedic verses refers to
something else. He also suggests that in the post-Vedic and Puranic tradition
the "disappearance" of Sarasvati, which to refers to "[going] under [the]
ground in the sands", was created as a complementary myth to explain the
visible non-existence of the river.
Rajesh Kocchar further notes that, even if the Sutlej and the Yamuna had drained into the
Ghaggar during Rig Vedic, it still would not fit the Rig Vedic descriptions because "the snow-
fed Satluj and Yamuna would strengthen lower Ghaggar. Upper Ghaggar would still be as
puny as it is today."[
Helmand river

Helmund river basin with tributary Arghandab River originate in Hindu Kush mountain in
41
north Afghanistan and fall in to Hamun Lake in southern Afghanistan at the border
of Iran. Helmund basin in ancient Iranian Avestan Haraxvatī and Harahvaiti, is cognate with
the mythological Iranian Avestan Arədvī Sūrā Anāhitā river and Sarasvati river. An
alternative suggestion for the identity of the early Rigvedic Sarasvati River is the Helmand
River and its tributary Arghandab in the Arachosia region in Afghanistan, separated from the
watershed of the Indus by the Sanglakh Range. The Helmand historically besides
Avestan Haetumant bore the name Haraxvaiti, which is the Avestan form cognate to
Sanskrit Sarasvati. The Avesta extols the Helmand in similar terms to those used in the
Rigveda with respect to the Sarasvati: "The bountiful, glorious Haetumant swelling its white
waves rolling down its copious flood".[ However unlike the Rigvedic Sarasvati, Helmand river
never attained the status of a deity despite the praises in the Avesta.
The identification of the Sarasvati river with the Helmand river was first proposed by
Thomas (1886), followed by Alfred Hillebrandt a couple of years thereafter. However, in the
same year, geologist R.D. Oldham, refuted this Afghan Sarasvatī thesis. Rajesh Kocchar, after
a detailed analysis of the Vedic texts and geological environments of the rivers, concludes that
there are two Sarasvati rivers mentioned in the Rigveda. The early Rigvedic Sarasvati, which
he calls Naditama Sarasvati, is described in suktas 2.41, 7.36, etc. of the family books of the
Rigveda, and drains into a samudra. The description of the Naditama Sarasvati in the
Rigveda matches the physical features of the Helmand River in Afghanistan, more precisely
its tributary the Harut River, whose older name was Haraxvatī in Avestan. The later Rigvedic
Sarasvati, which he calls Vinasana Sarasvati, is described in the Rigvedic Nadistuti sukta
(10.75), which was composed centuries later, after an eastward migration of the bearers of the
Rigvedic culture to the western Gangetic plain some 600 km to the east. The Sarasvati by this
time had become a mythical "disappeared" river, and the name was transferred to
the Ghaggar which disappeared in the desert.[24] The later Rigvedic Sarasvati is only in the
post-Rig Vedic Brahmanas said to disappear in the sands. According to Kocchar the Ganga
and Yamuna were small streams in the vicinity of the Harut River. When the Vedic people
moved east into Punjab, they named the new rivers they encountered after the old rivers they
knew from Helmand, and the Vinasana Sarasvati may correspond with the Ghaggar-Hakra
river.
Contemporary politico-religious meaning
Drying-up and dating of the Vedas
The Vedic description of the goddess Sarasvati as a mighty river, and the Vedic and Puranic
statements about the drying-up and diving-under of the Sarasvati, have been used by some as
a reference point for a revised dating of the Vedic culture.[6] Some see these descriptions as a
mighty river as evidence for an earlier dating of the Rig Veda, identifying the Vedic culture
with the Harappan culture, which flourished at the time that the Gaggar-Hakra hadn't dried
up, and rejecting the Indo-Aryan migrations theory, which postulates a migration at 1500
BCE
Michel Danino places the composition of the Vedas therefor in the third millennium BCE, a
millennium earlier than the
Identification with the Indus Valley Civilisation
The Indus Valley Civilisation is sometimes called the "Sarasvati culture", "Sarasvati
42
Civilization", "Indus Ghaggar-Hakra civilisation," "Indus-Sarasvati Civilization," or "Sindhu-
Sarasvati Civilization" by Hindutva revisionists, referring to the Sarasvati river mentioned in
the Vedas, and equating the Vedic culture with the Indus Valley Civilisation. In this view, the
Harappan civilisation flourished predominantly on the banks of the Ghaggar-Hakra, not the
Indus For example, Danino notes that his proposed dating of the Vedas to the third
millennium BCE coincides with the mature phase of the Indus Valley civilisation, and that it
is "tempting" to equate the Indus Valley and Vedic cultures
Hetalben Sindhav notes that claims of a large number of Ghaggar-Hakra sites are politically
motivated and exaggerated. While the Indus remained an active river, the Ghaggar-Hakra
dried-up, leaving mant sites undisturbed.[ Sidhav further notes that the Ghaggar-Hakra was
a tributary of the Indus, so the proposed Sarasvati nomenclatura is redundant. According to
archaeologist Shereen Ratnagar, many Ghaggar-Hakra sites in India are actually those of
local cultures; some sites display contact with Harappan civilization, but only a few are fully
developed Harappan ones. Moreover, around 90% of the Indus script seals and inscribed
objects discovered were found at sites in Pakistan along the Indus river, while other places
accounting only for the remaining 10%.
Revival
In 2015, Reuters reported that "members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh believe that
proof of the physical existence of the Vedic river would bolster their concept of a golden age of
Hindu India, before invasions by Muslims and Christians." The Bharatiya Janata
Party Government had therefore ordered archaeologists to search for the river.[134]
According to the government of Indian state of Haryana, research and satellite imagery of the
region has confirmed to have found the lost river when water was detected during digging of
the dry river bed at Yamunanagar. The government constituted Saraswati Heritage
Development Board (SHDB) had conducted a trial run on 30 July 2016 filling the river bed
with 100 cusecs of water which was pumped into a dug-up channel from tubewells at Uncha
Chandna village in Yamunanagar. The water is expected to fill the channel until Kurukshetra,
a distance of 40 kilometres. Once confirmed that there is no obstructions in the flow of the
water, the government proposes to flow in another 100 cusecs after a fortnight. At that time,
there were also plans to build three dams on the river route to keep it flowing perennially
In 2021, the Chief Minister of the State of Haryana stated that over 70 organizations were
involved with researching the Saraswati River's heritage, and that the river "is still flowing
underground from Adi Badri and up to Kutch in Gujarat."[
The Saraswati revival project seeks to build channels and dams along the route of the lost
river, and develop it as a tourist and pilgrimage circuit.

43
 THE LOST RIVER SARASWATI

The first time I heard about the river Saraswati was on a visit to Prayag , Allahabad when I was
very young. At the Sangam (the confluence), the two mighty rivers Ganga and Yamuna merge
together and one can very distinctly see the two different rivers coming together as they have
differentcolours.

There, we were told that there is a third river which also joins them and that is the Saraswati,
hence the Sangam is known as "Triveni" Sangam. On enquiring about its whereabouts we were
told that she is a ‘gupta’ river and cannot be seen. In order not to sound rude it was accepted
silently, albeit without being convinced.

Triveni Sangam at Prayag

44
After more than 35 years, I encountered the Saraswati at Badrinath. About3 km from Badrinath
is a village called Mana. On the way, there is a natural rock structure which lies supine over a
rivulet gurgling down the mountains.

As mythology goes, when the Pandavas were on their way to reach Swarga, they encountered
this rivulet. Draupadi could not cross the river and therefore Bheem lifted a big boulder and put
it across the river which today is known as ‘Bhim pul’. Here the river is of course Saraswati. A
few hundred meters down the line it disappears into the earth. So instead of an imaginary river
here she was in reality!

Bhim Pul near Mana Village at Badrinath

That was more than 25 years ago. Now that I am in a more relaxed frame of mind I decided to
explore things which I had never done before. Top of the list was taking a glimpse of the Vedic
period and Vedic literature. The more I explored it the more fascinated I became and here I met
the mighty river Saraswati

Rig Veda is the first compilation of hymns or suktas in Hindu scriptures, in fact it is the first
compilation in the history of mankind. In the Rigveda, three suktas or hymns are totally dedicated
to the river Saraswati.
In at least 45 suktas she is showered with praise. She is called as ‘great among
greatest’,‘animpetuous river’,’ one who was created vast and limitless, unbroken, starting in the
mountains ‘giribhya’ and reaching the seas ‘a samudrat’ ,swift moving, one who comes onward
with tumultuous roar, ‘the mother of all waters’ and many such adjectives. From being an
45
impetuous river, in Vedic symbolism she becomes the embodiment of illumination and
inspiration. All the Sages or Rishis drew inspiration and revelations while contemplating on her
banks. She was described as the impeller of truth which awakens the consciousness and
illuminates all thought. Saraswati was the best of mothers, best of rivers, and the best of
goddesses. This was the beginning of the deification of rivers. Many centuries later in the Yajur
Veda the Saraswati additionally becomes the goddess of speech. Somewhere along the line she
became the ‘Mother of Vedas’.

In the Rigveda the Nadi Stuthi sukta, makes the geographical location of the Saraswati very
clear. This remarkable sukta starts from the Ganga and moves westward till the Indus and its
tributaries. It is indeed a bird's eye view, sweeping across more than 1000 km. It is made clear
that the Saraswati flows between the Yamuna and the Shutudri or Sutlej.

However, the other three Vedas (Yajur Sama and Atharva) do not add any significant
descriptions. Much later in the next generation of Vedic literature, the Brahamanas, we read that
the unbroken flow was interrupted and the river disappeared at a place called Vinashana, which
means loss or disappearance.

46
This place is also called Adarshana or invisible. In later literature like the Bhagwat Purana The
Vinashana moves eastward, eventually reaching Kurukshetra. This means that the river’s drying
up was not sudden but gradual.

She finds mention in Ramayana as Ikshumati that is Brahma‘s daughter, but in Mahabharata
Sarasvati remains important. It is an echo of the Rigveda. Here we find the river still flowing
from the mountains to the sea but with a crucial difference. In some parts she is visible and in
some parts she is not, rather broken up into separate segments or lakes.

Places of reappearance are considered sacred - Tirtha,and in today’s Western Rajasthan we can
identify more than 50 villages and towns having names ending in ‘sar’ which means a lake. In
fact the Mahabharata also recounts Balarama‘s pilgrimage along the left bank of the Saraswati
starting
from ‘Prabhas, that is today’s Somnath and proceeding eastwards, visiting hundreds of famous
“tirthas'' on the way.

Savants or Seers like Baudhyana, Vashishta (not the Rig Vedic Rishi)and Patanjali ( between the
6th and 2nd century BCE)mention Saraswati when they describe Aryawarta, Madhyawarta and
Brahmavarta. The Puranas also have their say on Saraswati. In the latter literature like the
Meghdoot as well as Abhigyan Shakuntalam, Kalidasa refers to Saraswati, So also the sixth
century Savant Varāhamihira

Epigraphy also has its say in this matter through the inscriptions on tablets belonging to the
middle of ninth century CE which confirms the literary references we have seen so far.

But today the Saraswati which is embedded in our ancient literature is physically not present.
Then how did the mighty river and where did the mighty river disappear? There are many foreign
as well as Indian scholars like Romila Thapar, Rajesh Kochhar and Irfan Habib who claim that
Saraswati never existed in reality , or in the form it is described, except in the poetic imagination
of the Rishis and in the minds of the people of India.

The question of a disappearance has plagued many scholars, geographers,

archaeologists and explorers world over, since the early 19th century. Their expeditions,
research, surveys unearth many facets of the river and the civilization it nurtured more
than 6000 years ago. They were also able to find out it’s systematic decline over a couple
of millennia. This was further confirmed in recent times through satellite photography.
But let us explore more of this in our next part and for the time being we
remember that over centuries great rivers die because they too are living organisms,
they are born, they thrive, they decline and they disappear. This may be true for our
snow-fed Himalayan rivers like the Ganga ,the Brahmaputra, the Indus, where their
source is fast depleting due to global warming.
47
 All these may be myths,or history or imagination, but they are deeply embedded in our psyche as
knowledge, beliefs, folklore, and rituals. And maybe that is what must have prompted our
ancestors to recreate an imaginary Saraswati at Prayag, when the real one was lost.

Notes:

Veda simply means “Knowledge”. It is a Sanskrit word from the root “Vid”, which
means finding, knowing, acquiring, or understanding. What you acquire or
understand is knowledge. The term Veda as a common noun means “knowledge”.

Vedic Philosophy regard the Vedas as Apaurusheya; meaning, not of a man or

impersonal and also not belonging to a particular author.

There are four Vedas: Rig Veda, Yajur Veda, Sama Veda, and Atharva
Veda, and all of them together are attributed to as ‘Chaturveda’.

Rig Veda- is the principal and oldest of the four Vedas. Rigveda, in
contemporary Hinduism, has been a reminder of the ancient cultural heritage and
point of pride for Hindus, with some hymns still in use in major rites of passage,
ceremonies

Yajur Veda, is composed of Yajus and Veda; the two words translate to ‘prose
mantras dedicated to religious reverence or veneration’ and knowledge respectively. It
is famous as the ‘book of rituals’.

The words of Rig Veda put to music, and sungrather than to just be read or recited is
elaborated in Sama Veda. It isalso the Veda of Melodies and Chants. It is the
third in the series of the four principle scriptures of Hinduism. ‘Book of Songs’, -the
name is derived from two words, Saman, in Sanskrit, meaning Song and Veda,
meaning Knowledge. Sama

48
Veda, has served as the principal roots of the classical Indian music and dance
tradition,

The fourth and final of the revered text of the Vedas, the Atharva Veda, in short, is
depicted as “knowledge storehouse of Atharvāṇas” Atharvāṇas meaning,
formulas, and spells intended to counteract diseases and calamities, or “the procedures
for everyday life”. A late addition to theVedic scriptures.

Vedas, before the initial codification which took place, were generationally handed
over by the rich oral literary tradition, which was then a precise and elaborate
technique.

49
IN SEARCH OF THE LOST SARASWATI

Missing of a prominent river from the map is not something new (refer to the rivers Oxus and
Jordan), it is attributable to the environmental changes. Changing its course, drying up,
disappearing, joining other rivers are the consequences of tectonic plate movement, earthquakes,
and climatic changes. Let us see what affected our Saraswati. Let us explore and reconcile what
the geologists, climatologists, hydrologists, archaeologists and a plethora of scientific
communities have to say about this river, compare it with what the ancient literature, legends,
myths, had said about it and from there derive our conclusions.

In the early 19 century, a lot of British army officials posted in the region of Rajputana, Delhi
territory and Sind explored this land extensively. Their urge to know the land they governed and
document all the findings very meticulously, formed sort of a basis for future studies. The first
among these was one Lt. Colonel James Todd. He observed that in Rajputana,certain sand belts
were elevated and had lesser layers of sand. This surface had thinly populated towns and
villages. He also noted that there were songs sung by the bards which described the drying up of
the Caggar River and the people deserting the settlements.

Then Major Colvin, documented all the important water courses and channels natural or man-
made in the region between Punjab and northern Rajasthan. He followed the bed of the
‘Chitang’ or ‘Chauthang’ a tributary of ‘Ghaggar’ and noted that there were numerous sites of
towns and villagesscattered over this tract, now not visible.

This was followed by one Major Mackeson, who found that a path between Delhi and Sind or
Bahawalpur, followed the bed of a forsaken river from Hanumangarh onwards. This bed had a
continuous line of villages on its sides, with sweet water wells. His proposal of this new path was
not something new, this had been followed earlier, by the various invaders with an eye on Delhi.
Half a century later the Europeans scholars were able to master the sacred Sanskrit language. It
opened up a treasure chest of Hindu and Buddhist literature. A French scholar Louis Vivien de
Saint-Martin, who had studied the previous reports of the three gentlemen mentioned earlier, as
well as the Rigveda, took up a program to study and reconstruct the ancient geography of India
from the most primitive times to the Muslim invasion.

The task was immense and he had planned 12 volumes, of which he could complete three, in a
span of 10 years. His first volume is dedicated to Sanskrit geography and he spent a lot of time
diligently exploring the area and matching it with the Vedic locales. The streams which flowed
down from the Shivalik mountains met together to form the Saraswati, and then it flowed
westward. The Ghaggar, Markanda, Sarsuti, Chauthang and its tributaries are other relics of the
Vedic Saraswati. He pointed out the topography of the scarred and now dry river system of the
Yamuna – Sutlej interfluve and confirmed the description in the Vedas, of Saraswati as a river
50
flowing to the sea. (Though now an arid and waterless plains between the Sutlej and the Gulf of

Kutch).C.F.Oldham’s 1893 map showing courses of Hakra. Existing rivers in continuous lines
and former rivers in fitted lines.

Later, R.D.Oldham a geologist and a seismologist, who headed the Geological Survey of India in
1879, studied the regions from Bahawalpur to Hisar district and came to the conclusion that the
drying up of Saraswati was not due to the reduced rainfall, but due to the desertion of Sutlej and
Yamuna. His studies of the region gave many important insights for future studies.

The British officials’ fascination with geography of India, continued and later Major Henry
George Raverty, Robert Sivewright, concluded that the Rann of Kutch was a delta of the Hakra,
the lost river of Sindh. In fact these scholars also found the etymology of the word Ghaggar and
Hakra. Incidentally, both names are for the same river, as they were known in Punjab and Sindh
respectively.

Having elaborated the various geographical evidences collected by the above-mentioned

scholars, let us again revert to the traditions and folklore associated with the river Saraswati.

As we saw earlier, the drying up of Saraswati left a deep imprint on subsequent literature right up
to 6th century CE. Now let us see, its footprints on folklore and traditions. James Todd
(mentioned earlier), and CS Oldham were struck by songs and legends related to the ruin of the
region due to the drying up of the Ghaggar – Hakra. Alexander Cunningham, the first director of
Archaeological Survey of India had some very pertinent observations about Saraswati. He
recorded that the local tradition said that, the source of the sacred Saraswati was at Adi Badri
51
Kunda, in Himachal Pradesh and at Kathghar the sacred river came out of the hills. This exactly
matched the source of the Vedic Saraswati

As we travel southwards along the banks of Saraswati till it reaches the Arabian Sea, we come
across many holy sites. Let us enumerate a few of these sites.‘Kurukshetra –Thanesar’ has a
Kunda called Brahmasar, where pilgrims from all over India come to take a dip during solar
eclipse.

Pehowa, where the Sarsuti is joined by Markanda, has many temples built by the Marathas
dedicated to Saraswati. It is the place where rituals for the departed ancestors are performed.

‘Pushkar’ in Rajasthan is considered to be a place where the Saraswati is said to have re-emerged
and halted. There is a very famous temple of Brahma there, probably the only one in India. From
nearby hills a river emerges which is also known as Saraswati and later as Luni. Pushkar Lake
is considered a place where Rama, Lakshmana and Sita, bathed during their ‘Vanavasa’.

In the Rann of Kutch, the Luni's flow is joined by another Saraswati with its source in the
southwestern tip of the Aravalli. On this Sarasvati’s bank are two important pilgrimage centers
namely ‘Sidhhapur’ with its sacred pond ‘Bindusar’ and ‘Patan’ famous for its magnificent step
well ‘Rani Ki Vav’. On the dried bed of this river are three temples dedicated to Ganga, Yamuna
and Saraswati.

The southernmost tip of Saurashtra has a small river called Saraswati whose source is near
‘Somnath’ and on its bank is the ‘Tirtha’ called ‘Prabhas Patan’, the place from where Balaram
started his pilgrimage).

These four Saraswatis may have been named in the memory of the Vedic Saraswati and its
tributaries and estuaries in that part of Saraswati basin. They are clearly a part of the same
tradition originating from the Vedic Saraswati. Of course, we must not forget the invisible or
“Gupta” Saraswati at Prayag Allahabad. Another example of ‘transfer which we saw above.

‘Gouda‘or the northern region lying between the Saraswati and Sutlej had five Brahmin clans, of
these,one are the Saraswat Brahmins. They migrated to Kashmir, Punjab in the north, to
Karnataka and Kerala in the South. They have a long preserved memory of having lived in the
Saraswati Valley,

52
till they were forced to migrate due to the drying up of the river. Hence we see tradition lives on.

Western Orientalist and Indologist starting from H.H. Wilson in 1840, later Max Mueller and
many others who followed, till as late as 1975, agreed that the Vedic region of Sapta Sindhu and
the foundation of Hindu Philosophy originated in the vicinity of river Saraswati. Such views are
also shared by many eminent Indians scholars like M.L.Bhargava, B.C.Law, H.C. Ray
Chowdhury, A.D. Pusalkar, and D.C.Sorcar.to name a few. The past four or five decades have
unearthed a huge amount of information on this specific topic.

But the game changer was the Remote Sensing technology, through satellite photography and
imagery. For the first time the dry bed of Gaggar-Hakra was revealed and the most significant
finding was that, it brought out the contrast created by the richer soil and vegetation found all
along the river course.It also brought to light the various Palaeo Beds crisscrossing the Sutlej –
Yamuna water shed – most are invisible at ground level. Four scientists namely Yash Pal, Baldev
Sahay, R.K.Sood and D.P.Agarwal, published a paper based on the analysis of the many
photographs of the LANDSAT satellite. Their study showed the multitude of small channels into
which the Sutlej braided before it settled in its present course – that is why it was called Shatadri
in Vedic literature. In the east, they traced three ancient beds of the Yamuna. It confirmed its
eastward migration and found that one of the beds coincides with that of Drishadvati.

Various Paleochannels and present drainage of Yamuna, Ghaggar, Sutlej.

53
see ISRO scientist, J.R.Sharma, A.K. Gupta, and BK. Bhadra presented their findings from a new
generation of IRS satellites covering the entire drainage of Saraswati. Their findings are
illustrated in the figure given below.

54
The latest entrant in this field is Nuclear Physics, which has a wide array of dating techniques,
which are utilised by geologist, archaeologist, oceanography etc. For us it is the dating of the
water available in the Palaeolithic channels that is of interest. Scientists from BARC namely
S.M. Rao and K.M. Kulkarni drew samples from various wells in Rajasthan, along the defunct
river. Radiocarbon dates suggest that the groundwater isa few thousand years old, about 3000 to
2400 BCE. It also indicated an absence of recharge and detected its movement as very slow
about 20 m a year. Groundwater levels in the Palaeochannels channels before monsoon are given
below.

55
Let us hope, however, the exploitation of these ancient reserves is done very prudently and is
accompanied by effective replenishment or it would be a case of killing the proverbial goose
booze.

From piecing , deductions of geomorphologists, sedimentologists, geo hydrologists, geochemists,

archaeologists and remote sensing specialists, emerges this portrait of a large river originating in
the Himalaya and emptying itself into the Sea, and on the way supporting vibrant progressive
people in the prehistoric time. This river was known as the Saraswati [FromValdiya, 2016].

Let us now see the details of this picture by putting all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle in place.
The two glacial rivers from the Himalayas namely the Yamuna and the Tonk, originated at
Yamunotri and Bandar Poonch respectively and they meet at Kalsi. They then flowed westward
towards theMarkanda-Bata Valley with a major portion flowing southward through a smaller and
higher opening than today’s ‘Yamuna Tear’. The westward branch was Saraswati while the
southward was Yamuna. On reaching the plains the Yamuna got divided once again and the
south-west portion was called (Drishadwati - Vedic name) Chauthang. This explained the root
meaning of the word ‘Yamuna’ meaning ‘twin’.

At the western end of the divide the Sutlej which originated near Mount Kailash or
Mansarovar,joined the Ghaggar. Many streams flowed down from the Shivalik mountains close
to each other before they united in a single bed; this combined stream is then joined by
Chauthang and Sutlej and has a riverbed 6 to 8 km wide, South of Patiala. This large river then
had no difficulty in reaching the sea via the plains of Punjab and Haryana, then going to
Rajasthan and then to Fort Abbas, Hakra – Bahawalpur area,then via Sindh to the Rann of Kutch.

56
 What destroyed this beautiful picture? Where did this river disappear? And what happened to
the beautiful population which lived along this mighty river? Cities, towns, villages must
have prospered along its course. Agriculture, trade,and the various arts must have flourished.
Great thinkersand philosophers must have made their ‘ashrams’ here. Where did the river go and
then where did all these people go? Many such questions clamour to be answered. So let us delve
into this and find the logical answers in the next part which would follow soon.

Notes:

1. Definition of Palaeochannels: A channel that is no longer a part of an active

river system and has ceased to be a conduit of water is commonly referred to as a
palaeochannel. Some ancient palaeochannels may be the products of different flow

57
regimes of the past. They may thus provide evidence for river transformation,
following significant changes in flow regimes, implying river adjustments to
development outside their catchment. Palaeochannels, are commonly occurring
landforms in alluvial landscapes, and have an economic significance, because of their
use in the exploration for freshwater resources, artificial recharge and storage of
ground water; additionally, they are of importance in the location and assessment of
mineral deposits such as uraniferous ores, gold, silver and other placer deposits
hosted in them. Therefore, the study and mapping of palaeochannels has to be pursued
using inter-disciplinary approaches that draw upon landscape analysis and remote
sensing, sedimentology, geohydrology, tectonics and geophysical exploration.
2. Kunda – a small waterbody considered to have holy waters. Normally, it is
smaller than a pond, but has natural springs. It has built boundaries, rectangular in
shape.
3. Tirtha – a place of pilgrimage or a holy place.

4. Ghaggar –initially Caggar or Gaggar

58
 THE CRADLE OF INDIAN CIVILIZATION -THE
SARASWATI
The information about the Indian civilization which I found, was so immense that I got lost in it.
It was extremely difficult to sort out details and put them in the form which was interesting and
easy to understand. Therefore, I have set up a certain framework which I am going to follow.

Firstly, I’m going to call the civilisation as Saraswati civilisation and not Indus Valley or
Harappan civilisation, as it was taught and is still being taught in schools and colleges. There are
many reasons, which I am not going to elaborate, but I’m sure you would realise it at the end of
the story.

Secondly, I am neither going to mention dates or names of the scholars as the list is unending
and increasing every day, who literally dug out the information which has been put here.

And thirdly, I’m going to use a lot of illustrations for you to visualise the extent of progress of
the people of Saraswati.

To start with let us first estimate the extent of the spread of civilization. The westernmost
boundary was along the Makran coast. There was a site in northern Afghanistan and another near
Jammu as far as the northern boundary goes.

The eastern boundaries were up to Western Uttar Pradesh and in the South till the valleys of
Narmada and Tapti in Gujarat. Altogether the area coveredby the civilisation was about 8000 km
Square. Which amounts to areas of Ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilisation put together
and about 25% of today’s India.

This vast expanse must have offered a lot of challenges and opportunities. Opportunities with
respect to a wider choice of natural resources and a richer store of human skills and experience.
And the challenges weresimilar to what we face today – diversity of regional cultures which
needed to be integrated and effective communication channels to keep all concerned on the same
wavelength or platform.

There were many cultures, tribal groups in the northern hills or people beyond the demarcated
territory who did not adopt the Saraswati way of life. For the civilization to spread across this
whole area it must have takena few thousand years.

If we date back to the early phase of civilization, it started some time before 8000 BP/6000 BCE.
Though we are enamoured by the urbanisation displayed by the civilisation, we have to
remember that the urban phase was not born out of the blue. It was preceded by a long early
59
phase wherein agricultural practices evolved and advanced, villages were formed and there was
an exchange of technology amongst various smaller regions. Bronze metallurgy was perfected,
pottery skills developed, construction norms finalized right from the size of bricks and a
rudimentary script developed.

Each of the smaller cultures had their own styles but as interaction increased the regional cultures
converged and fused together to reach the urban phase. The earliest of the early phase was
excavated at Mehrgarh, strategically located at the foot of the Bolan Pass in Balochistan. It was
essentially an agricultural economy and around 6000 BCE had warehouses built for storage and
distribution of grain.

This was the time when staple cereals like wheat and barley were domesticated along with
animals like sheep, goat, cattle and dogs. It also had a long-distance trade network as evidenced
by exotic materials found there. In the Saraswati basin in Haryana another site Bhirrana had
similar advancement with respect to agriculture as it has been carbon dated before the fifth
millennium BCE. So we see that people developed in all parts of the region more or less in
the same period, albeit independently initially, but later together.
Chronology of this civilization is given below:All dates in
the BCE

Phase (Harappan) Saraswati Bce

1. Early 6000-2600 Convergence Era

2. Mature 2600-1900 Urbanization Era

3. Late 2000-1300 Localization Era

In the early urban phase there were striking innovations in the field of architecture, technologies
and crafts. The most prominent of course is the town planning. Surprisingly, the mature phase
people established new sites on virgin locations, and in some places like Dholavira or
Kalibangan old structures were either altered to new plans or in places like Kot-Diji, Naushrao or
Amri old settlements were set on fire and new construction done.

The most striking feature of this phase was the sophistication of its urbanisation. Most towns big
or small were fortified and distinctly divided into zones. The upper city or Acropolis had larger
houses and streets aligned to the cardinal directions; the lower town houses were closer to each
60
other and smaller. Mohenjo daro boasts of the great bath in its upper city. The fortified walls had
impressive gateways controlling access to the city. All the streets had specific standardised
widths depending on its usage. There were huge granaries, pillared assembly halls and common
fire worship places. The word granary, Acropolis, assembly hall et cetera are arbitrary, as most
of the early excavators tried to transfer the terminology from the previous experience they had
had, in other civilisations. But surprisingly, there were no palaces, or monuments, or tombs or
temples. Even the larger residences were low-key, unlike those of the palaces of the pharaohs or
kings elsewhere. A concern for ordinary citizens was predominantly displayed.

61
62
63
 Even the most modest house had a bathroom, which consisted of sloped platform made of close
fitting fire bricks or sometimes designed clay tiles. The outer wall had a drain, which took waste
waters to a collective sewer; this was connected to a network of drains made of carefully aligned
baked bricks, with cesspits of soak jars provided at regular intervals, to collect sullage.

Even the upper stories of a house had vertical drain pipes embedded in walls for the bathrooms
there. Such a sanitary system was unrivalled in the ancient world. The Romans developed it
nearly 2000 years later. Imagine the careful planning & execution which went into designing the
slopes and levels of drains and the houses built to align with the slopes. Today, most of modern
India’s cities and towns are eons away from such perfect planning.

In addition there is evidence of toilets in many houses – something like a brick commode. There
were garbage bins in streets for the citizens to throw their household refuse. With such an
elaborate sanitary system it is apparent that there must have been municipal workers to inspect
regularly and remove obstructions or sullage from the soak pits. And of course, such a system
required an abundance of water supply.

The water was drawn from wells, reservoirs fed by rivers, underground reservoirs for rainwater
harvesting and check dams on rivers. The mode was as per the availability and accessibility of
water. All these facilities prove that there was a very robust and efficient civic authority.

The standing Green TARA represents the “Mother Earth” for Tibetan Buddhists and works to
overcome obstacles and saves us from physical and spiritual danger. She holds an unopened blue lotus
blossom.
The peaceful, compassionate White TARA gently protects and brings long life and peace. She is
seated holding an opened white lotus blossom while seated within a Mandala that contains masks of
the nineteen additional TARAs.
TARA. GODDESS OF PEACE AND PROTECTION
Goddess TARA is probably the oldest goddess who is still worshipped extensively in modern times.
Tara appears to have originated as a Hindu goddess, a Great Goddess – the mother Creator, who
represents the eternal life force that fuels all life. In Sanskrit the name Tara means Star. She was also
called She Who Brings Forth Life, The Great Compassionate Mother, The Embodiment of Wisdom,
and the Great Protectress. She has become the most widely revered deity in the Tibetan pantheon. In
Buddhist tradition, Tara is actually much greater than a goddess … she is a female Buddha (One who
can take human form and who remains in oneness with every living thing.)
A version of the Goddess Tara exists in most cultures: the Celts called their Great Goddess Tara; her
name is echoed in Latin with the word for earth, Terra; Kuan Yin, the great Chinese goddess of
compassion; in South America she was known as the ancient mother goddess Tarahumara; the
Cheyenne people revere the Star Woman who fell from the heavens and whose body became the earth
that provided them with food; the Egyptian Goddess Ishtar was yet another incarnation of the Goddess
Tara; the Druids had their mounds of Tara; and Her name is linked to the Tar, a group of Goddess
women of ancient Finland.
In the legends of Tibet it is told that the Goddess Tara is the feminine counterpart of the
Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva who is reincarnated as the Dalai Lama. Bodhisattvas are beings who
64
have reached enlightenment and are “eligible” for Buddha-hood but have postponed their own nirvana,
choosing instead to remain in the cycle of birth and rebirth in order to serve humanity and assist every
being on Earth in achieving nirvana themselves.
Examples of the psychological flexibility that is granted to the female spirit, the Goddess Tara can be
quite fierce and wild. Refugees fleeing the horrors of the occupation of Tibet by the Chinese armies
recounted numerous stories of the Green Tara that protected them during their torture and guided their
flight to freedom. In another of her forms, such as the White Tara, she embodies inner peace and
spiritual acceptance. “ In Praise of the Twenty-one Taras” is a practice text recited during the morning
meditation in all four sects of Tibetan Buddhism. Each of these Taras are represented in different
colors that signify different powers and energies of spiritual assistance.
THE GODDESS TARA VOWED:
“There are many who wish to gain enlightenment in a man’s form,
And there are few who wish to work for the welfare of living beings in a female form.
Therefore may I, in a female body, work for the welfare of all beings, until such time as all humanity
has found its fullness.”

65
"
The houses were built with bricks which had standardised proportion (1:2:4; or 7×14×28 cm.)
The walls were thick indicating that there were a couple of stories above. All in all we see that
the finest structures were those constructed for the convenience of the citizens rather than
monuments for gods and palaces for kings. This was town planning at its best.

Such sophisticated construction entailed a deep understanding of mathematics. They had

developed scales based on the decimal system. 10 divisions on the scale added up to 2.64 inches.
Specimens of the scales werefound at Mohenjo Daro, Lothal, and Kalibangan.

Dholavira’s dimensions expressed in terms of a unit equal to 1.9m

The people knew how to use a compass and could produce angles. The verticality of the
structures and walls was perfectly maintained. The wells had trapezoidal bricks to ensure that the
soil pressure did not cave the wallsin. Terracotta pulleys were used to draw water.

66
67
Around 2500 BCE, the people built the largest hydraulic structure measuring some 15 m in
length 37 m in breath and 3 m deep, at Lothal. This dockyard was connected via a canal to the
river Bhogawo. At high tide the boats could enter this area. There was a spillover channel to
remove excess water via a sluice gate. This was the most important port for trade outside the
region.

With such a solid infrastructure in place it is obvious that industry and trade flourished. The
civilisation had very developed pyro and non- pyrotechnics for the production of finished goods
like pottery, bronze or copper alloyed tools, seeds, terracotta objects, stone objects and carvings,
cloth both cotton and silk, wooden tool and objects, beads and jewelry and agricultural produce.
The beauty of this civilisation is the homogeneity of material culture over such a large
civilisational area.

68
This civilisation was a trading state that prospered and had long-distance trade relations with
Mesopotamia and Egypt. They had a flourishing maritime tradition as indicated on theseals
engraved with ores and boats. Trade was both overland and overseas. Numerous artefacts and
ornaments produced here were popular in the Middle East and the Mesopotamian and Egyptian
civilisations, as a lot many are found during excavations there. Much of the raw material came
from hinterland through trading links with outlying cultures. Bulk of the external trade was via
river and sea craft. The boats were made from wooden planks and reads. Remarkably, the
designs on the various seals and the present-day local boats in Gujarat are similar in design.

69
Agriculture, which was the basis of this civilization, was fine-tuned during this period. This area
consisted of two distinct agricultural zones. The black cotton soil of Gujarat and Rajasthan and
the alluvial soil in the Indus Saraswati region. The two different agricultural zones gave a great
deal of resilience to this civilisation. As the civilisation flourished its population increased and so
also its need for food and feed. This was taken care of by the introduction of a double cropping
system, sophisticated agricultural implements and advanced agronomic practices. The double
cropping system and many of the agronomic practices are still followed and widely practiced in
many parts of India.

70
When people have their basic needs met, then arts and crafts flourish in their cultures. The
trademark Harappan long and slender beads of carnelian, which was so prized in Mesopotamia,
were a work of art and skill, as drilling a lengthwise hole for the thread entailed several days of
hard work.

The drill bits were specially designed to make these holes. Other beads were made of agate,
amethyst, and turquoise and interwoven with discs and fillets of gold and silver, which gave a
great variety of ornaments. Bangles were another category of highly prized ornaments. Some
smaller sites were wholly dedicated to the bangle industry especially in coastal areas of Gujarat
where shell is very easily available. Even today in that part of India, that’s Rajasthan and
Gujarat, beads from where various semi-precious stones and bangles of different materials are
manufactured with great designs and colours. Saraswatians had produced pottery in large
quantities.These are the only objects which have survived the vagaries of climate and time.

The pottery was generally red with black intricate designs painted on it and kiln fired.

Other crafts include wheel spun thread, woven into cloth both cotton and silk, stone and ivory
carvings, inlaid woodwork and decorative architecture. The smithies which were located in the
towns, purified the ingots of copper, mined in Rajasthan and Balochistan and varied alloys
71
created from it by the addition of tin (bronze), lead, nickel, zinc or arsenic as required for the
various final products. Bronze statues were cast with the ‘lost wax’ technique – dancing girl
shown below.

Terracota and Bronze female figurines Notice the ornaments adorned bythe figurines.

72
Naturally enough the people of this civilisation had room for dancing, painting, sculpture and
music, as some evidence of stringed instruments and several statues in frozen dance positions
have been excavated. Drama is suggested by a number of expensive masks and puppets. The
people indulged in a possible predecessor of the game of chess. Other kinds of gaming boards
have come up at Harappa and Lothal; at several sites they have found cubicle dies similar to the
ones used today.

73
For the children there were toys like ox carts, spinning tops, marbles, rattles whistles and they
also had pets like dogs, birds and squirrels. Women too enjoyed a status of some importance, as
most of the terracotta figurines excavated are female forms in daily occupation.

A terracotta toy cart

74
75
Terracotta figure depicting different yogic asanas

76
This civilization had developed a script too. But one of the persisting riddles is its writing system.
The script was fully developed at the start of the mature phase. Indus signs, as they are called
have been found carefully engraved on not only some 3500 steatite seals but also on hundreds of
terracotta tablets, a few copper and silver pottery and ornaments and other media. Unfortunately,
none of the many attempts to decipher the script has been acceptable to all concerned. That’s a
very important aspect of this civilization that remains close to us. The exact use and purpose of
the seals is still an enigma.

77
A typical seal, note the various animals surrounding the central figureseated in a yogic
pose - could be addressed as Pashupatinath.

78
In the daily life of ordinary citizens, that is the artisans, the civic workers, craftsmen, the
industrial workers, what stands out is the sense of care and organisation. This is not a spectacular
civilization, but there was certainly a sense of all pervading order in every aspect of life.

The next question is who imposed this order and controlled access to raw material, industrial
trade and agriculture. Many scholars have expressed varied views but the bottom line is that,
whether it was an empire or a confederacy of chieftains or city states, this civilisation displays an
individuality of its own. It is based on decentralisation and community- based distribution of
powers. These two traits, any rural Indian of today, can relate to easily. It also permitted regional
variations, while integrating them to form a very cohesive cultural framework. This unity in
diversity, a third typical Indian trait has had, had a very profound imprint on the history of this
subcontinent.

“One of the most surprising aspects of the Indus civilization is that it seems to have been a land
without conflict. There are no signs of violence and no depictions of soldiers or warfare in the
Indus Art” as quoted by a British archaeologist Jane McIntosh in her book on Indus civilization
titled “A peaceful realm”.

Does this reflect in our present day psyche, of generally remaining passive and non-aggressive?

This, an egalitarian, peaceful, orderly and diverse yet closely integrated civilisation that was the
Saraswati civilisation, disappeared without a trace? That’s just not possible. Then, how did this
civilization disintegrate? - What are the things we have inherited? So we have to study the late
phase. Another question that plagues us is, who are we? - The descendants of this civilization or
are we immigrants from Central Asia? We need to find out the answers to these questions and
that means one more part. So bear with me and let’s find the answers together.

79
Notes:

1. The construction methodology used was what is today known as English

Bond System. One line of bricks placed horizontally and the next line
vertically.

2. OVERALL DISTRIBUTION OF SITES EXCAVATED TILL DATE

EARLY MATURE LATE

REGIONS OF THE SUBCONTINENT TOTAL
PHASE PHASE PHASE
SARASWATI BASIN 640 360 1378 2378
UTTAR PRADESH 2 32 10 44
HIMACHAL,JAMMU AND DELHI 1 4 5
GUJERAT 11 310 198 519
PAKISTAN'S INDUS 385 438 12 835

3. From Indus to Saraswati- Textbooks often state that Mohenjodaro and

Harappa were the first sites of the Indus Valley Civilization. That is not quite
correct - they can be said to be the cities where the epoch and nature of this
civilization was identified. Much before them another site had been
substantially explored - Kalibangan in northern Rajasthan on the left bank
of the Ghaggar river. - adapted from the book “The Lost River: On the trails
of Saraswati by Michel Danino.

4. Rakhi Garhi site with 550 hectares (1,400 acres; 5.5 km2;
2.1 sq mi) area is the largest IVC site in the world, which is about
double the size than that of next largest site Mohenjo Daro,
asserts Professor Dr. Vasant Shinde, Vice Chancellor of Deccan College and
in-charge of Rakhi Garhi excavation. He further informed about the 6,000
years old pre- Harappan IVC site and 5,000 years old human skeletons
found during the excavation, "the scientific data collected on the basis
excavations here have strongly pointed that Rakhi Garhi, a metropolis, was
perhaps the capital of its times about 5,000 years

80
ago. The scientists have, for the first time ever, succeeded in extracting DNA
from the skeletons of the Indus Valley Civilisation. We have collected
evidences of massive manufacturing and trade activities in this town, which
revealed the economic organisation and the foreign links of people here.
They had trade links with people in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Baluchistan and
even Afghanistan. The city flourished during the early Harappan era dating
back to around 3,300 BC and existed till 2000 BC. NASA and Indian
Space Research Organisation (ISRO) undertook the joint study of artifacts
found at Rakhi Garhi during 2011-16 excavations, estimated to be 6,000
years old, older than 3,500 years old Harappan civilization. NASA and
ISRO will also carry out a joint in-stu site inspection to verify the claims of
6,000 years old Pre-harappan phase of Rakhi Gahri IVC being the oldest
and largest civilization in the world, though the joint two month long
excavations by Haryana State Archaeology Department, Indian
Archaeological Society and National Museum in May 2017 at much smaller
nearby 7,570-6,200 BCE IVC site of Kunal were initially estimated to be
1,000 years older than Rakhi Garhi.
- Wikipedia.

81
5. The word Gauda or Goud may have been taken from
Ghaggar, with Goud and Saraswat having the same meaning that it is an
individual residing on the banks of river Saraswati. While these
Brahmins are only knownas Saraswats in the vast region of Kashmir,
Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Bengal, the term Gaud Saraswat was applied
to them by the natives after the former migrated to the South. According
to the Sahyadrikhanda of the Skanda Purana, ninety-six Saraswat
Brahmin families belonging to ten gotras migrated to Goa from the
Saraswati river basin, along with Parashurama.

82
Recall

1. The excavated sites in the Saraswati Basin

83
2. ‘Gouda ‘or the northern region lying between the Saraswati and Sutlej had five
Brahmin clans, of these, one are the Saraswat Brahmins. They migrated to
Kashmir, Punjab in the north, to Karnataka and Kerala in the South. They have
a long preserved memory of having lived in the Saraswati Valley, till they were
forced to migrate due to the drying up of the river. Hence we see tradition lives
on. (From the part II -In Search of Saraswati.)

84
 THE HERITAGE OF THE SARASWATI
CIVILISATION
Evidence which has been collected during the last few decades has very clearly indicated that the
Saraswati – Indus civilisation did not come to an abrupt end. But, rather during the period 1900 –
1300 BCE, it split up into fragmented areas which were termed as the “Localisation Era’ or the
late Harappan phase...

Let us now examine and elaborate the continuity between the Saraswati culture and the historical
Gangetic region classical culture.

Excavations of historical urban centers in the Gangetic region have been very few and limited, as
many of them are buried under modern cities and are largely inaccessible. Yet, the continuum
between the urban planning and architecture like fortifications, street layouts, worship places,
individual houses, construction techniques, construction materials and construction ratios show a
lot of similarity. So also, the weights and measures, art and craft, technology, agricultural
practices, objects of daily use, toiletries, ornaments, toys, games and navigation have shown
similarities. The details are shown in the table enclosed in Annexure II. Now let us look at
things which are not covered in the table namely the script, the religious practices and the
religion.

The Indus script is the most exasperating riddle which is still unsolved; it is made up of 400 signs
of which only 200 have been used more than five times. As I had said earlier there are more than
4200 inscriptions, most of them on seals, tablets or pottery which have been excavated. With the
present state of information and knowledge it appears that the script was born with the cities and
faded away with them. The gap between the disappearance, that is 1800 BCE, and the first
historical script – Brahmi is about 1700 years. So what are the pointers for the possible
transmission of the Indus writing to the historical times?

85
The first step is the evolution of the script into simplified shapes – this is noticed in the potsherds
excavated at ‘Bet Dwarka’ which is in Saurashtra. The ‘Vikramhole’ inscriptions, in Orissa give
us the link in the passage of letter forms from the Saraswati script to the Brahmi script. Another
big find is ‘Daemabad’ in the Godavari Valley in Maharashtra. A large hoard of sculptures was
found along with a horde of buttons seals with inscriptions on it. This was again in the
Localisation Era. An interesting find is at ‘Vaishali’ in Bihar which has grey round terracotta seal
with three Indus signs slightly simplified. It dates back to 600 BCE.

86
87
Many epigraphists have expressed the opinion, stating that the ancient script may have ultimately

88
developed into the Brahmi alphabet several centuries before the rise of the Mauryas in the latter
half of fourth century BCE. But as of today, the script is undecipherable and a riddle.

To find more about the religious practices let us imagine ourselves boarding a time machine and
visiting the cities of this civilisation. What would strike us prominently is the emphasis on
personal hygiene specifically for the rituals. The public baths which we would find there, would
be similar to the water ‘Kunda’ of today, present at most of our religious places. If we happen to
join a procession there, the lights accompanying it on its sides would be very similar to what we
see today. The conch shells used for libations and also for blowing when heralding something
auspicious would be very familiar. We would feel at home with symbols like the swastika,
trident or Trishula, peepal leaf, drawn on walls, seals, pottery et cetera. We would also find a
Lingaa or a goddess figurine similar to the ones we have seen in our lives in the present. These
similarities indicate the continuity in the religious practices.

If this culture was termed as pre-Aryan, then what are its similarities with the Vedic culture? The
‘Bull’ which was present on many seals of the ancient culture finds a place with various
descriptions of the strength of gods in the Rig Veda. The mother goddess continues in various
forms as Saraswati, Prithvi, Ushas, Ila, Aditi, and Bharathi in the Vedas. Shiva existed in the
Rigveda as Rudra or sometimes fused with Soma. ‘Mahesho mriganam’ the ‘Buffalo of wild
beasts’ means the god wearing buffalo horns and surrounded by wild beasts was depicted on
some Indus seals. The Lord of Yoga or ‘Yogeshwar’ and also ‘Mahakaleshwar’ the Lord of time
get represented on the seals of this era. The above series of concepts and attributes are in
consonance with those classically associated with Shiva. Along with the presence of Lingaa
shaped objects of worship, the evidence of the cult of Shiva like deity in the Saraswati-Indus
plains does take a firm base.

89
Another important motif is the Unicorn seal from this civilisation. It can be related to the
Vishnu‘s first avatar the ‘Matsya’ or fish which saved Manu from the great floods using its single
horn on its head. Another avatar of Vishnu the ‘Varaha’ or boar is sometimes called ‘Ekashringa’
or one horned, who raised the submerged earth from the bottom of the ocean. The motif of a one
horned, two horned or even more horns is not foreign to Hindu mythology. So also many deities
in the Vedas are described as one or two or three horned. In the Vedas the horn is more than a
mere glorifying device.

Two more elements of the Saraswati culture throw important bridges across the Vedic night. The
first was the fire worship and the second was the yogic practice. Fire temples were found across
all the settlements of the Saraswati plains. In fact, the Banavali’s fire altar was identified by the
Vedic scholars of today as ‘Dakshinagni’ the semicircular ones and the other two square ones as
‘Ahavaniya’ and the circular one as ‘Grahapatya’.

90
In fact in Yajurveda these orders and specific usage is clearly mentioned, so also in the
‘Shatapatya Brahmanas.The fire altars were found in individual homes too. Many of these
altars had the terracotta ladles and jars alongside them. However, at Mohenjo Daro or Harappa
these altars are absent but mother goddess figurines are quite common. We can safely assume
that there was a certain regionalisation of this ancient religion and it allowed diversity of
practice. As far as yogic practices are concerned the details have been already mentioned in the
table. Rigveda does not use the term Yoga; it does ask our thoughts to be harnessed or yoked to a
higher consciousness; this is very similar to what we know today as yogic practice.

The funeral practices were of several types. The dead were buried with feet facing south, the
Yama‘s direction. Sometimes they were cremated too. They did respect the dead, but did not
believe in glorifying them, hence the graves are devoid of any finery except a few pots, and very
seldom beaded necklaces and amulets. This culture did believe in the afterlife, but they favoured
life over death. This is a typical characteristic of Indian attitude.

Looking at the above mentioned similarities between the ancient Saraswati Indus culture, Vedic
culture and the Gangetic culture and present-day India the old concept of Vedic night stands
rejected. Still, one must not forget that the Gangetic civilisation or the historical age had its own
innovations, from iron technology, to new architectural concepts and an efflorescence of various
art forms. But the overarching concept of ‘change in continuity’ still prevails and in spite of
spectacular changes in course of time till today, there has never been a definite gap or break in
history of the subcontinent.

This puts forth a very pertinent question in our minds – where does the Aryan invasion or
migration fit into this whole narrative. Archaeological and literary evidence strongly deny such
an event, yet arguments have been raging in our country for the past seven decades. Recent
genetic studies give more clarity to the question as to who we are and what is the origin; the
detailed analysis is given in the appendix below. It is left to the reader to draw his or her own
conclusions.

91
The mosaic is now completed. We started with the Vedic literature which eulogises the river
Saraswati. We have collected pieces from the traditions, geology, archaeology, climatology,
satellite imagery, nuclear physics, and genetic studies to name a few. It has brought forth a few
points like the testimony of ancient texts cannot be brushed aside nor can local traditions be
scorned or ignored. The evidence of the existence of a mighty river has been confirmed.

The growth of a civilisation from pastoral roots to a highly advanced organised structure has
been reaffirmed. The decimation of the once mighty river due to the abandonment of its main
tributaries was also proved. The collapse of the urban structure and the migration of its people
eastwards towards the Ganges, southwards towards the Aravalli mountains and still further south
to the Godavari and Narmada valleys and West ward beyond Indus, was also emphasized in the
‘Localisation era’. The people who travelled eastwards towards the Gangetic plains met with the
population which was mainly agrarian but they had techniques and skills of iron smelting. The
people from the Saraswati brought with them sophisticated urbanisation techniques, the bronze
smelting techniques, the pottery, the fire worship and its religious practices. And when these
people encountered the confluence of the rivers Yamuna and Ganga, old memories of Saraswati
were revived and they could not but name the confluence as ‘Triveni’- long ago Yamuna was a
part of Saraswati. Not only the Saraswati thus made to connect with the Ganga, but in the course
of the time many attributes of Saraswati were passed on to her. Thus we complete a full circle.

92
EPILOGUE

We started with the search for the lost river and now ended by reasoning out its existence
through its memories. It has been a long journey through several ups and downs, with several
controversies which are still raging – like the invasions or migrations of Aryan from Central
Asia, the origin of the Indian population et cetera.

I am not going to dwell on them as my quest for the ‘Saraswati’ ends here. . The reader is free to
draw his or her own conclusions from the various materials provided along with this article.

I sincerely hope that I was able to express myself coherently so as to kindle a small spark of
interest in you.

Let me end with a ‘Sukta’ from Rigveda praising the river Saraswati.

May purifying Saraswati

With all the plentitude of its forms of plenty,Rich in
substance by the thought,
Desire our sacrifice.
She, inspires the true intuitions,
The awakener in consciousness to right thoughts,Saraswati, upholds
our sacrifice.
Saraswati by the perception Awakens in
consciousness the great floodAnd illumines
entirely all the thoughts.
– Rigveda

Notes:

Vedic Night: period between the decline of the Saraswati-Indus Urban Phaseand the
rise of the Gangetic civilisation.

References: Michel Danino, Sanjeev Sanyal, Maj. Gen G.D. Bakshi

93
 APPENDIX - I
Similarities between the ancient Saraswati - Indus Civilization and the classical historical
civilization of the Gangetic plains and the continuity found all over India in present times.
TANGIBLE SIMILARITIES

Description Places in Places in the Comments

Saraswati-Indus Gangetic Basin/
Basin other parts of India

I Town planning and public Architecture

a. Fortification and moats surrounding them.

Kalibangan, Mathura, Kautilya’s famous treatise on

Dholavira, Kaushambi, governance – ‘Arthashashtra’
Mohenjo-daro, Rajghat near written in 4th century BCE gives
Harrapa, Varanasi, Rajgir details of the same.
Banavali and and Vaishali in Ujjain’s fortification is 75m
other prominent Bihar, wide, 14m tall and ran a
cities. Shisgupalgarh in length of 5km.
Orisa, Ujjain near
Indore

b. Internal city planning based on grid plans

i. Layout of Kalibangan, Kaushambi, Thimi Direction and width

streets Dholavira near Kathmandu standardized. Specifics
mentioned in ‘Arthashastra’

ii. Garbage bins Many cities Taxila’s (

along the Takshashila) Bhir
streets mound

Iii Drainage Many cities Taxila, Hastinapur, Due to limited excavations

system Kaushambi, Mathura only drains of bake bricks and
and othercities parts of the sewage system has
been unearthed.

iv. Pillared halls Mohenjo-daro Pataliputra or

Patna.

v. Apsidal Banawali Atranjikhera about The ratios , shape and

Temple 90km east of Agra. layouts have been
maintained.

vi. House plan Al the towns Bhita near Central yard with rooms on
Allahabad. Still three sides and a wide

94
 and cities found in almost all entrance on the fourth
parts of rural India

vii. Construction
techniques

vii Flooring mixes Kalibangan Still found in A mixture of terracotta

a to keep the neighbouring pellets and charcoal.
moisture and villages, 4500 years
insects away later.

vii Pattern of four Mehrgarh, Pirak Abandoned houses in The niches were
b levels of niches Pakistan occupied by symmetrically arranged on
Hindusbefore the wall
partition.

vii Well All places Many sites even in Trapezoidal bricks

c south India

vii Construction Dholavira and Kaampilya ( Ratios pertaining to various

d Ratios of all other major DrupadKilla), structures including the
major sites. capital of Panchala.( Mahavedi were specified in
structures Dholavira’s Drupadwas the the ancient texts on geometry-
were fixed master ratio father of Draupadi Shulbhasutra a few centuries
was 5:4 for all from Mahabharata) later and also in Vastushastra
major and Brihat Samhita written by
structures. Varahmihira a couple
millennium later than
Dholavira,
A continuity between the
ancient civilsation, Vedic
concepts and classical town
planning becomes evident.

95
II Weights and Measures
Description Places in Places in the Gangetic
Saraswati-Indus Basin/ other parts of
Basin India
a. Weights Shaped as cubes or Silver coins punch
truncated spheres marked with motifs
made of chert ( found in the Indo-
sedimentary rock) Gangetic plains and
or semi precious particularly in Taxila
stones dated about 500 BCE,
weighed in much the
same balances and much
the same sort of weights.
Even till the mid 20th
century, they were used in
traditional markets of
India and Pakistan.
b. Linear Scales found at Iron Pillar of Delhi is based
scales Lothal, Mohenjo- on angulas and dhanus.
daro, Harappa and And the cardinalratio of 5:4
most importantly is evidenced between its
at Kalibangan entire length and the
portion above ground level.
This was made in 4th
century CE.
Sircap near Taxila Thimi
near Kathmandu
96
Comments
The ancient weights start from
below a gram and stopover
10kgs.with 14 stages in
between growing initially ina
geometric progression till the
seventh part and then
multiples of lower weights.
Such a double series is also
described in Arthashastra ,
with the smallest weight
‘gunj’
Arthashastra
8 grains of barley =1 angula
108 angulas = 1 dhanus or 1
danda
1 dhanus = height of a tall
man as stated in Brihat
Samhita.
1 angula=1.76cm
10 division of Lothal scale =
1.78cms.
1 rajju= 10 dandas
1 paridesha=2 dandas.
III Technology and Craft

Description Places in Places in the Comments

Saraswati- Gangetic
Indus Basin Basin/ other
parts of India

a.. Bronze Practiced all Still used in

casting over the present
method of Saraswati – Tamilnadu
‘lost wax Indus plains
casting’

b. Blue glazed All over the Traditional Use the same copper oxide
ceramic ware ancient potters in pigments.
civilisation Western India

Bead making Near Lothal and Khambat in Techniques of drilling, bleaching and
Dholavira Kutch colouring long beads made fromsemi
precious stones.

c.. Bangle Sites in Gujerat Rajasthan and

making Gujarat

d. Working Various sites in All over India

with shells Kutch and other
and ivory parts of the
Saraswati basin

e. Articles of Many sites in Present India. Toiletry articles, frying pans,

daily use the ancient kamadalu, writing tablet - the
civilsation wooden takhti, game, children’s toys,
Ornaments like nose rings, earrings,
bangles, anklets, kamarbands,
Sindur in the hair parting. Amulets
worn by men ontheir right arm

97
IV Others

Description Places in Places in the Gangetic Comments

Saraswati-Indus Basin/ other parts of
Basin India

a Agriculture Various sites like Gangetic plains, Ox cart design remains the
Banawali or Punjab – Haryana- same. Agricultural practices
Kalibangan Rajastan remain same.

Plough share design is the

same except material has
changed

b Navigation Remains found at Today’s Sindhi boat on No remains of seafaring

Lothal and other the Indus has the same boats found.
internal ports shape

c Script Detailed analysis is given

below.

98
 INTANGIBLE SIMILARITIES

Description Places in Places in the Gangetic Basin/ Comments

Saraswati- other parts of India
Indus Basin

I Symbols and Motives - They bridge the gap between tangible and intangible

a. Swastika Hundreds of Depicted on pottery at several It symbolizes

Harrapan historical sites, punch marked coins, auspiciousness,
tablets Ashoka’sedicts and earlyinscriptions harmony and
and even today is considered growth.
auspicious.

b. Endless knot Typical In Gujarat, in several

common inscriptions of 9th century CE.
symbol
Today in rangoli’s( kolams) in
south India

c. Intersecting Pottery, floor Bodhi throne in Bodh Gaya

circles tiles dated 3rd century BCE.

d. Mythical Indus seals Historical coins with an

Unicorn facinga addition of elephant.
ritual stand

e. Pipal leaf and On seals Bodhi tree Pipal tree is regardedas

tree sacred even in Vedas as
‘ashvattha’.

99
II Iconography

Description Places in Places in the Gangetic Comments

Saraswati-Indus Basin/ other parts of
Basin India

a. Pashupati Mohenjo-daro Common motif in Jain Yogic posture on a low

seal and many other and Buddhist platform, has three faces-
places. iconography similar to later Hindu gods,-
Yogeshwar and
Mahakaleshwar.

Tricorn head dress is reflectedas

nandipada or triratna in many
Buddhistart and coins

b. Majestic Indus seals Precursor of Nandi , Shiva’s

humped moint.
bull

Mother Harrapan Mauran period Similar ornaments, flowers

Goddess Statuary statuettes garlands
figurines

c. Female Harappan deity Kinnari or Gandharvi

centaur

d. Standing Standing In classical art – a seated

god between Buddha or a standing
branches of Shiva betweenpipal
branches of branches of pipal tree.
pipal tree.

e. Art on Lothal Remain as folk tales Story of two crows and a fox.
pottery even today
sherds

100
III Yoga

Description Places in Saraswati- Places in the Comments

Indus Basin Gangetic
Basin/ other
parts of India

a Proto Mulbandhasana which helps to

Shiva awaken theKundalini

b Various Harappa, Mohenjo- Terracota figurines depicting

Asanas daro and Lothal asanas

c Namaskar Harrapan figure of a

man sitting cross
legged with hands
joined in Namaskar

d Priest Mohenjo-daro Half shut eyes looking fixedly at the

King tip of his nose in deep meditation.
Also called Shramana
– ascetic person rather than Priest
King.

101
102
103
104
105
 Appendix - II

The Genetic Analysis

Almost all genetic information that humans need is parked into 23 pairs of chromosomes that lie
within the nuclei of our cells. The only exception is the microcondial DNA or Mt. DNA which
stays outside the cell nucleus. This Mt. DNA performs a critical function, as it contains a code
which converts the chemical energy from food into a force that the cell can use.

Mt.DNA is a powerhouse of a cell. No person can do without the Mt.DNA, however, every
woman can function without the Y chromosome. Mt.DNA is inherited from our mothers. Fathers
too have Mt.DNA inherited from their mother, but it is not passed onto their offspring. They
transmit the Y chromosome that comes exclusively from their fathers. The sex pair of
chromosomes can be XX female or XY mail. The migration history of individuals and
populations is tracked by the mutations that accumulate over time and thus carry a track record
of all that happened to the patrilineal/matrilineal lineage of that person.

Whole genome analysis and sequence of the sequencing of the population gives a more
comprehensive observation.

A study of the ancient DNA of the people of a region throws light on its ancient ancestry. In
2009 very eminent scientists from the US and India together concluded that the initial settlement
of humans took place in South Asia some 65,000 years ago. These humans initially settled in the
South and the Andaman Islands and became a group called ancestral South Indians or ASI. Later,
some 40,000 years ago the ancestral North Indian population (ANI) emerged via the land route
migrations. The origins of both these populations was the same except that some came first and
others later. Both these groups mixed and formed the total Indian population. Therefore, there
was nothing to mark out the people of North and South India as genetically distinct and separate.

106
Now let us understand the significance of a haplogroup.

• In genetic terminology a haplogroup is a group of individuals thatshare a

common ancestor with a particular genetic mutation.
• Haplogroup pertains to a single line of descent which typically datesback
several thousands of years.
• A haplogroup therefore is a large extended family or clan, all of whomor whose
members have a shared ancestor.
• There are two types of haplogroups
i) Y- chromosomal patrilineal haplogroup
ii) Mt..DNA matrilinealhaplogroup
• These haplogroups are identified by letters of alphabets A, B, C et cetera. And the
subgroups are denoted by letters and numbers A1, A1aet cetera.
• The Y chromosomal or the patrilineal haplogroup R1a1a is also known as R– M17.
It is the world's most successful extended family with more than 1 billion
members. It is widespread across Eurasia, with high concentration in Russia,
Poland and Ukraine as well as the Indian subcontinent and the Tuva region in
Siberia.

107
 • This haplogroup is identified to represent Indo-Aryan people. This means
all people have descended from one common male ancestor.
• In 2009 a research paper concluded that Indian population are genetically
unique & harbour second highest diversity after Africa.
• Next in 2010 a paper was published that ruled out any significant patrilineal
gene inflow from East Europe to Asia including India at least till mid
Holocene period that is 7000 to 5000 years ago. This suggests that the R1a
movement, if any, had taken place around 7000 to 5000 years ago and not
thereafter.
• A research paper published in 2013 states that there was no major gene
inflow into India from outside in the last 12,500 years as the Mt.DNA
reveals.
• There have also been migrations of Austro Asiatic speakers as the Munda
but the time horizon of the migration is indeterminate.
• Finally, there is the migration of Tibeto- Burmese speakers like the Garos
who migrated from East Asia but again the age of their arrival is
indeterminate. But it is said they brought the knowledge of rice cultivation
to India.
• A study published in 2015 substantiates the findings of previous scientists
and scholars and claims that the oldest samples of the haplogroup R1a are
found in the Indian subcontinent and are approximately 15,450 years old.

To understand details of genetic studies of Indian population please listen

• Dr. GyaneshwarChaubey’s lecture
The link to the lecture is given below.
भाारता यमालका एकयाात्राा - आनुवाााााशिाक (DNA) आधाार | The Narrative
https://youtu.be/WXoR6JRch68

• Prof. Dr. Vasant Shinde from Deccan College Pune, explains about hisfind at
Rakhigarhi
Man who cracked India's oldest DNA speaks to NewsX.
https://youtu.be/3rF_HMoZ3mQ

108