“The Ghaggar–Hakra palaeochannel has been claimed as the former course of a large Himalayan river... the palaeochannel has been linked with the mythical Sarasvati River first referred to in Vedic texts (sic),” the paper published in Nature Communications, said. “We find that the locus for the abundant Indus Civilisation urban settlements along the Ghaggar–Hakra palaeochannel was the relict, underfilled topography of a recently abandoned valley of the Himalayan Sutlej River rather than an active Himalayan river,” the paper concludes. Their work, as yet unpublished, was commissioned by the Haryana government as part of its campaign to revive the river. The state set up the Haryana Saraswati Heritage Development Board in 2015 to revive not just the river but the heritage associated with it. “We showed that there was a mighty river in that channel in Haryana till at least 1600 years ago,” Rai said.

Source: Hindustan Times November 29, 2017 05:15 UTC