The Rigveda speaks of a mighty river that originated from the river from the Himalayas and flowed south westwards. In the Mahabharata, there is a mention of a river that disappeared underground. The Saraswats are an ancient Indian ethnicity who claim to be the ‘Children of River Saraswathi.’ To this day, they tell that there is a river that disappeared underground in a place called Vinashna, and that is the river Saraswathi.
Maj. Gen. G D Bakshi, who is a retired Indian army personnel, authored a book titled ‘Children of Saraswathi – The River that changed its Course and Discourse’ in which he explored the various legends of Saraswathi river and their validity. In this book discussion, he started with a power point presentation, where he explained that there is historical proof of that there used to be a time when the Yamuna and Sutlej used to flow into the river Saraswathi. But an earthquake during 4700 B.C. and 2600 B.C eventually altered the course of Yamuna and Sutlej by the shift of Teutonic plates and led to the Saraswathi river ‘disappearing underground.’ He also explained that the Indus valley civilization shares multiple similarities with Indian heritage; designs of houses, boats, bullock carts, crop fields and ploughs. Women also wore bangles on arms and elbows, a bindhi on forehead, hair parted in the middle with a dash of vermillion during that time, as evidenced by the terracotta figurines recovered from that time, all of which are traditions that are prevalent even today. The ‘Anjali Mudra’, a way of greeting is the same traditional greeting we use today. There are terracotta figures in the poses of yoga. Also, over 60% of the cities and structures of the Indus Valley civilizations are not anywhere near the Indus, they are in fact where the Saraswathi was said to flow before.
All these illustrates a single fact. Aryans are not invaders from Turkey, they are in fact indigenous people of India, who were forced to move westwards to the Indus river after the Saraswathi started to dry up.
When India was under colonial rule, the British wanted justification to lord over the indigenous people. And the reason they created was that Aryans were originally invaders, hence they are not technically the native land of the Indians. “When the river Saraswathi dried up, the people east of the river migrated south. The people west migrated further to the west. That is the origin of Indus Valley civilization. The historical evidence of Aryans in Turkey is because some indigenous Indians invaded that place in search of water, not the other way around” opined GD Bakshi.
GD Bakshi and the moderator of the session Shefali Vaidya raised several notable facts about the river Saraswathi. This included the fact that there are 73 hymns on the river Saraswathi in the Vedas, each describing it as a might river. There are also mentions of this river in the Mahabharata, in Balarams pilgrimage and the fact that the Yadavas sailed from Mathura to Dwarka, which is only possible if the rivers Saraswathi and Yamuna were connected.
GD Bakshi also said “The Bible says that the earliest humans existed in the world was at 4000 B.C. The Vedas say there were human beings long before that. Max Muller thus refuted the Vedas and said the Aryans invaded India during 1500 B.C. This doesn’t make sense, but what makes even less sense is that 73 years after Independence, and after all evidence from multiple sources, we still believe in the history written by Max Muller.
The session was concluded by GD Bakshi saying ”All of us are the ‘Children of River Saraswathi.”
Written by Ranjeeth Krishna