The Myth that Elamite and Sumerian are isolated languages

The Elamo-Dravidian language family is a language family that links Dravidian languages of India to the extinct Elamite language of ancient Elam (present-day southwestern Iran). Linguist David McAlpin has been a chief proponent of the Elamo-Dravidian hypothesis. Recent collaborative work with American Indologist Franklin C Southworth further establishes this. It is possible that the extinct languages of the Indus Valley Civilization may also be part of this family, or more likely one of the two languages of Indus Valley. The Indus Valley may have been a bilingual culture just like that of Sumer noting the ancient Vedic culture in Indo-Aryan from the same region.

Recent studies have revealed that even Sumerian is not an isolated language but is also a Dravidian language and therefore belongs to the same group of languages, that is a branch of the larger Austric group of languages some still prevalent in parts of South and South East Asia.  The Tamil language from amongst these appears to come closest to this Elamo- Dravidian language family. It has been the most evolved branch of the Austric langages of the Australoid people with its own ancient literary tradition of the Sangams. 

Therefore the obvious conclusion is that neither Sumerian nor Elamite, were isolated languages. 

In fact so close is the relationship of Sumerian to Tamil that some phrases can be understood even by modern speakers of Tamil. Further there is clear evidence that both people were dark people. The question that arises is why and how this myth began that these languages are isolated languages. The answer lies in the willful distortion of history and intellectual dishonesty due to political and racial reasons and the source is the Sumerian-Akkadian scholar Julius Opert born of German Jewish parents. To quote Dr. Clyde Winters,

Oppert began the myth that the Sumerian languages were isolated from other languages spoken in the world

And,

He also manufactured the idea that the Semites of Mesopotamia and Iran, the Assyrians and Akkadians were whites like himself.  To make the Sumerians white in textbooks he used print pictures of artifacts dating to the Gutian rule --- to pass them off as the true originators of Sumerian civilization. No Gutian rulers of Lagash are recognized in the Sumerian Kings List.

The Gutians, a barbaric warrior tribe,  likely a fair people had conquered and ruled over Sumer for around a hundred years only. Some whiteness amongst the Sumerians as also perhaps the Elamites would have come from an intermarriage with Armenoid Or Ara people referred to as the bright headed people by Sumerians, a small percentage of whom had begun to migrate southwards and eastwards from central Asia and Armenia since prehistoric times. However this mixing was insufficient to change the fact that the Sumerians were black and referred to themselves as dark people. The artifacts of the time and anthropological examinations from both Sumeria and Elam support this. Although Dr. Clyde Winters has correctly concluded that the Sumerians were black persons he appears to have incorrectly concluded that they came out of Sahara or Africa and that they were Negros identical to those in Africa. Anthropological examinations indicated that they were the Australoid type. They were the Austric people who had come out of Africa tens of thousands of years before that and spread through South and South-east Asia undergoing a further change and evolution different from those in Africa, and these are the people who speak the Austric group of languages of which Elamo- Darvidian or Archaic Tamil is the most advanced.Modern tamil is closest to the original Dravid language as compared to other Dravid languages today. For example the language in the province of Kerala, another Dravid language has adopted heavily from Sanskrit. While rightly dispelling one myth, Dr. Clyde Winters appears to be creating another new one.

This is what Wikpedia records about the Australoid race (full references are in the original record)


The Australoid race is a broad racial classification. The concept originated with a typological method of racial classification. They were described as having dark skin with wavy hair, in the case of the Veddoid race of South Asia (including the eponymous Vedda people autochthonous to Sri Lanka) and Aboriginal Australians, or hair ranging from straight to kinky in the case of the Melanesian and Negrito groups. According to this model of classification, Australoid peoples ranged throughout Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, New Guinea, Melanesia, the Andaman Islands, the Indian subcontinent, as well as parts of the Middle East. In the Out of Africa theory, the ancestors of the Australoids, the Proto-Australoids, are thought to have been the first branch off from the Proto-Capoids to migrate from Africa about 60,000 BCE, migrating along the now submerged continental shelf of the northern shore of the Indian Ocean and reaching Australia about 50,000 BCE. 

A Tribal Australoid, just as dark and broad nosed as the Sumerians but not a Negro

Although some regard the Dravidian languages as separate from the Austric languages, this author has used the term Austric group of  languages as those spoken by the people of Australoid origin of which the Dravidians are a part, albeit perhaps the most evolved and developed part of this race. Why some groups of a race remain undeveloped while others develop highly has been explained by this author elsewhere. Often a small genetic change that may be brought about by a slight racial mixing with another race or other factors is sufficient to cause huge changes.

What has been defined as the Elamo-Dravidian group of languages is more precisely termed as the Archaic Tamil group of languages because it is Archaic Tamil that these languages were closest to. In the past when certain tribes of Sumer and nearby regions  were defined as with isolated languages, Archaic Tamil had not been taken into consideration and what the scholars should have more correctly said is an unknown language group rather than isolated language. Scholars must not make the mistake of assuming that what is not known cannot exist and be discovered by further investigation. It misleads others and delays progress.

The Gutians were a barbaric tribe from northern and central ranges of the Zagros Mountains that overran southern Mesopotamia when the Akkadian empire collapsed in approximately 2154 BC. According to the historian Henry Hoyle Howorth (1901), Assyriologist Theophilus Pinches (1908), renowned archaeologist Leonard Woolley (1929) and Assyriologist Ignace Gelb (1944) the Gutians were pale skinned perhaps also blonde haired. This identification of the Gutians as fair haired first came to light when Julius Oppert (1877) published a set of tablets he had discovered which described Gutian  slaves as namrum, meaning "light colored" or "fair-skinned". Little is known about the language and history of the Gutians but seeing their light skin, they were perhaps an ancient people of a European or Armenian origin. They were a people clearly distinct from the Sumerians but turned out to be convenient for Oppert to build his thesis of lies, that has inadvertently continued to influence the thinking of later generations of scholars.

Although this requires further research there are some indications that the Gutis were a branch of the Indo-European people, a warring and more barbaric branch. The Hittites, Mitanii, Guti. Lullubi, Maruts and even the later Kassites all of whom appear to come from the same region north of Iraq and all of whom appear to be branches the ancient Indo-European Aryans or Elamo-Dravidians, but seeing the fair complexion of the Gutis they were more likely to be Indo-European speakers rather than Dravian speakers Some have even held that the Maruts and Gutis were the same people but this is unlikely because the Maruts revered the Aryan Gods and served them while the Gutians appeared to have been  a law unto themselves and disrespected of gods.Is the word Kurdi a modern version of Guti (g/k, t/d, Guti, Kudi, Kurdi) since they appear to have inhabited the same region? If so they were definitely an Indo-European people as the Kurdis are (The pronunciation Kurd is a western invention). Incidentally Kudi is used as an abusive word in Tamil that the Sumerians may have used for this tribe that looted and ransacked them.

All this needs further research. As some of the historical myths put up by older scholars because of vested interests and racial stupidity are dispelled one by one, mankind would come closer to discovering its fascinating ancient past.

Limited References quoted here only that are useful for further reading:

1

David McAlpin, "Proto-Elamo-Dravidian: The Evidence and its Implications", Transactions of the American Philosophical Society vol. 71 pt. 3, (1981)
 2

http://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-egyptian-hercules/kushites-of-sumer-and-akkad-by-clyde-winters-phd/

3 
Sumerian :TAMIL of the First CaGkam: http://www.heritagewiki.org /index.php?title=Sumerian:TAMIL_of_the_First_CaGkam
4 
http://www.araichchi.com/Sumeria/Sumeria_Linguistics.html

A Lost Ancient Civilization

  Possible Tamil Origin

Excavated ruins of a swimming pool from the Indus Valley Civilization

Based on available archeological evidence, the beginnings of organized human civilization have been traced to Sumerian and Indus Valley civilizations. However scholars have postulated that there is a possibility that both civilizations were due to the influence of a yet older undiscovered civilization that may have its beginning in the last ice age. How can a civilization be lost without leaving any trace? The answer lies beneath the sea. Coastal regions of present day continents submerged in the ocean as the last ice age receded and it is here that an ancient civilization may have thrived. Such a civilization would have to be older than 5500 BP, at which time it submerged and the people that escaped from it could then be responsible for initiating the Sumerian civilization after the submergence as well as the the Indus civilization.

Such submergence is in fact a part of Sumerian written records and is also a part of the prehistorical traditions of many other ancient civilizations including the ancient Greeks (Atlantis) and Tamils of Southern India. Prehistoric knowledge is a part of folk lore and has undoubtedly undergone modifications and distortions with time. However, there is now strong scientific evidence for submergence of coastal regions in various parts of the world as well as low lying islands. Sumerian written records attest to it. The Sumerians described their ancient land as Dilmun/Tilmun that got submerged with a flood/tsunami. Nevertheless their records show that they continued to trade with Dilmun later by sea. The view of this author is that as ancient Tilmun got submerged other new areas were named after it. In archaic Tamil this name simply implies the Land of Good Living just as Ur in Tamil simply means a town and any town is an Ur (in modern usage PUR)

Submergence due to rise of Sea levels

During the last ice age sea level was at least 120 m lower than it is today exposing much more area on the continents. Many changes took place as sea level rose including the submergence of coastal regions. An interval of rapid sea level rise was first identified by a hiatus in coral growth in the Caribbean about 7600 years ago. Southampton researchers have estimated that sea-level rose by an average of about 1 meter per century at the end of the last Ice Age, interrupted by rapid 'jumps' during which it rose by up to 2.5 meters per century. Global sea level rose by a total of more than 120 meters as the vast ice sheets of the last Ice Age melted back. This melt-back lasted from about 19,000 to about 6,000 years ago, meaning that the average rate of sea-level rise was roughly 1 meter per century.
(http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101201120605.htm)

Lost Civilization

If it is assumed for a moment that an older civilization existed that preceded  Sumerian and Indus civilizations, the question that needs to be answered is, who were these ancient people and what tribe or race did they belong too? Where were their major ancient cities? It is has now been established over the last decade beginning with a study by the present author that  Sumerian language was identical to ancient Tamil, Archaic Tamil (see here) and that Sumerians were in the main dark people similar to the Tamil Australoid race. In Sumer they mixed with person of Semitic and Aryan origin from the North, whereas the mixing in Indus was with Aryan Indo-European speaking people.

Ancient Tamil records do mention the submergence of an ancient advanced Tamil civilization prior to 5500 BP. 

(http://www.tamilguardian.com/article.asp?articleid=256) 

The Tamil people presently inhabit southern India and it is possible that in the past they may have inhabited the region up to the southern limits of the Indus civilization in the south along the Indian Ocean coast i.e. present day Dwarka, the mouth of the Saraswati River and westwards towards the mouth of Indus valley. According to N. Parameswaran, quoting from ancient Tamil literary tradition, 

(http://www.tamilguardian.com/article.asp?articleid=256)

According to the Kumari Kandam tradition, over a period of about just 11,000 years (beginning around 9000BC), the Pandyans, a historical dynasty of Tamil kings, formed three Tamil Sangams, in order to foster among their subjects the love of knowledge, literature and poetry.

The first Sangam was head-quartered in a city named Then-madurai it was patronised by a succession of eighty-nine kings and survived for an unbroken period of 4,400 years during which time it approved an immense collection of poems and literature. At the end of that golden age, the First Sangam was destroyed when a deluge arose and Then-Madurai itself was swallowed by the sea along with large parts of the land area of Kumari Kandam.

However, the survivors, saving some of the books, were able to relocate further north. They established a Second Sangam in a city called Kavatapuram which lasted 3,700 years. The same fate befell this city as well, when it too was swallowed by the sea and lost forever all its works with the sole exception of the Tolkappiyam, a work on Tamil grammar. Following the inundation of Kavatapuram, the survivors once again relocated The Third Sangam lasted for a period of 1850 years and most scholars agree that that Sangam terminated around 350 AD.  As observed by Prof. (Dr) M. Sunderam, “The tradition of the loss of a vast continent by deluge of the sea is too strong in the ancient Tamil classics to be ignored by any serious type of inquiry.”

It is interesting to note that gradual submergence of cities is in agreement with gradual rise of sea levels that lasted up to around six thousand years ago as per the South Hampton study.. Tamils from the south appear to have migrated north to the southern tip of what later became the Indus valley and Saraswati valley civilizations. Their grand coastal cities were later eroded as the sea rose. These people who settled coastal regions over the years were responsible for the creation of an ancient civilization that preceded both the Indus valley and Sumerian civilizations.

Locating the Lost Civilization

The question then is, can the ancient submerged civilization be located? Is it off the Indian coast somewhere? It may be mentioned that submergence took place thousands of years ago and except for the most prominent of structures much would have been buried and destroyed by the oceans. Even ancient ship wrecks take centuries to locate and therefore a submergence that took place more than five thousands years ago would be even more difficult to locate. However what appear to be traces of ancient structures have been found of the present day Dwarka. This latter is likely to be a possible location from where Sumerians originated because of its proximity to Sumeria, both by land and sea and this area is perhaps also the Atlantis of Plato.

The megaliths of ancient Dwarka are in fact found submerged just offshore from modern Dwarka, and the huge stone walls built of megalithic blocks which had been interlocked with chiseled L-shaped dovetails are characteristic of the Indus Civilization. The Gulfs of Cambay and Kutch, just south of Dwarka, also hold submerged megalithic Indus Civilization structures that were covered by the ocean at the melting of the Ice Age. The ruins, discovered in 2000 and investigated with acoustic techniques, are known as the Gulf of Khambat Cultural Complex. They’re 131 feet beneath the surface. One of the artifacts dredged up by scientists was dated around 7500 BCE, which could support the theories that it is, in fact ancient Dwarka described in Sanskrit later that also described its sudden drowning. The ruins below the Gulf of Cambay go back at least nine thousand years. However a full scientific validation of these findings await further excavations made difficult because of the underwater nature of the site.
(http://www.unacknowledged.info/dwarka-mythical-city-found-water/)

Further ruins have been found somewhat a little to the south off the Konkan coast.  In what could turn out to be a major discovery; researchers have found a wall-like structure, which is 24km long, 2.7m in height, and around 2.5m in width. The structure shows uniformity in construction. “The structure is not continuous from Shrivardhan to Raigad, but it is uniform. It has been found 3m below the present sea level. Considering the uniformity of the structure, it is obvious that the structure is man-made,” said Dr Ashok Marathe, department of archaeology, Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute, Pune.  

http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-a-civilisation-as-old-as-indus-valley-1547987

This joint expedition carried out by Deccan College, Pune and Department of Science and Technology, Central Government, has been in progress since 2005. “We were actually studying the impacts of tsunami and earthquake on western coast when we first found this structure in Valneshwar,” said Marathe. However, the age of the structure was decided on the basis of sea level mapping. “There have been exhaustive studies about the sea water coming inside the land. Based on calculations, experts from National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) pegged the age of the wall at around 6,000 BC,” Marathe informed.

Present day Tamil Areas

The majority of Tamil speaking people presently live in southern India, some distance from the western coast of Dwarka, but their present location is not likely to be the location for the ancient submerged civilization because of two reasons, they are further away from ancient Sumeria and also because one would have expected the remains of other ancient civilizations in the land areas nearby. Such areas exist north of the western coast near Dwarka as the remains of the Indus valley civilization. The current language spoken in these areas are Indo European languages rather than Tamil derivatives. However, something like that happened in Sumeria as well where the Akkadian language of the majority gradually replaced the old Sumerian language.  Further south too in present day Kerala, the old Tamil was heavily influenced by Indo-European Sanskrit so as to become a new language.

However one might expect that if a majority group of Tamil speakers live in relative isolation somewhere in the North-West part of Indian sub-continent, the Tamil language may have survived with them until today. Such a community does in fact exist in the Baluchistan region that is dotted with communities that have lived in relative isolation from each other since ancient times. Indo- European Baluch are a war-like people. As the last to arrive of the major ethnic groups of Pakistan they were faced with the need to displace the peoples already settled in Baluchistan. Some they more or less successfully subjugated or assimilated, like the Meds of Makran and other now subordinate groups. From others they faced a greater challenge, notably from the Brahui tribes occupying the hills around Kalat. The origins of the Brahuis are even more puzzling than those of the Baluch, for their language is not Indo-European at all, but belongs to the same Dravidian family as Tamil and the other languages of south India spoken over a thousand miles away. Contrary to earlier speculation about recent migrations, linguistic and genetic analyses show that they have been separated from other Dravidian speakers for at least several thousand years. Aside from this exception, it is only in areas far removed from Indo-European influence, the present day Tamil Nadu and neighboring areas that the modern forms of Archaic Tamil mainly survives.

Alternative Possibilities

The present discussion has been based on the fact that the Sumerian language has been identified as an older form of Archaic Tamil. While there appears to be little doubt to the conclusion that Sumerians were speakers of Archaic Tamil, there are some other implicit assumptions in the present discussion that need further verification. These are:

1. That the Tamil speaking people have been the inhabitants of Southern India ever since the last ice age, but not of North India that was predominantly Indo- European speaking area at that time even.

There is also little to doubt in the fact that while some from the Australoid races have remained as forest tribes even up to present times, some branches evolved to develop highly advanced civilizations. A similar feat by a branch of the Australoid people has also been performed later in Angkor Vat of Cambodia in historic times. Small amounts of genetic and evolutionary changes in groups of humans can make a vast difference and there are very many examples of that amongst humans and animals seeing that genetically even a chimp is 99 percent human. Another example of that is those at Athens who developed a very advanced civilization at a time when people of similar race were still  up to nothing of great civilizational significance not very far west of them. However there are two other possibilities that need to be debated and explored further:

1. That the movement of language and civilization was not from the Indian western or southern coastal regions to Sumer but the other way around i.e. some Sumerians moved to the Indian coastal regions with their language and dominance and that while archaic Tamil was overtaken by Semitic languages in Mesopotamia, the reverse happened in Southern India i.e. the local languages were replaced by archaic Tamil.   OR,
2. That all of India in the Indus valley times including southern India was predominantly Tamil speaking prior to 2000 BC and that some time after 2000 BC the language of North India was overtaken by Indo European due to increasing migrations from central Asia, whereas the Tamil language survived in Southern India. This does not imply any violent incursion by an Indo European people into North Western India but a continuation of a largely peaceful process of migrations that took place in the old world in ancient times. It must be remembered that at that time the total human population was much smaller and much of the earth still uninhabited and there was no such thing as immigration control in those times.

Of the two additional possibilities mentioned here the second is more plausible than the first given the recent archeological discoveries in Indus valley that push its time to more than a thousand years before the Sumerian civilization suggesting that the movement of civilization could have only been from the direction of Indus to Sumer and not the other way around. Added to that is the historical evidence that the Sumerians were foreign migrants with a foreign language of non- Semitic origin,  not similar to any language of the region, leading scholars to conclude hastily that Sumerian is an isolated language because it was unlike Semetic or Indo-European languages. They could not have come from another star system, nor were they a people barely past tongue clicking, and this simple logic is what had led this author to explore the matter further more than seven years ago and arrive at the conclusion that their language belonged to yet another group of Austric origins. They had moved into Sumer sometime before 3000 BC, bringing with them technology and tales of an ancient great civilization from where they came.

 



See also for Tamil - Sumerian links: http://arutkural.tripod.com/sumstudies/dilmun-tillai-en.htm

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The Builders of Stonehenge were probably of Armenian origin

Stonehenge

Many have wondered who the builders of Stonehenge in England were. Were they local persons or were they migrants from afar? Recent discoveries have shed more light on these people with the recent discovery of Sun worship at Stonehenge. Three pieces of evidence support the conclusion that these ancient persons were of Armenian origin:

1. Although Menhirs exist all over Europe, three major  prehistoric stone erecting civilizations have been discovered - in Carahunge, Armenia; Carnac, France and Wiltshire, England. Of these the oldest is the one in Armenia, followed by the civilization in Carnac France and the most recent of the three, around 3100 BC, the one in England. Therefore it does seem that the origins of this civilization lie in Armenia. However, the civilization appears to have evolved in its movements as indicated by an evolution of designs of their stone monuments
2. All three civilizations worshiped the Sun that began with the worship of Sun God Ari in  ancient Armenia and apparently this worship moved with them
3. All three civilizations spoke the common language group, Indo- Aryan, and it seems that this language was propagated by these ancient Aryan people with their movement into new areas.

“Stone” in Armenian is “kar” and “henge” or “hunj”  is - voice, sound, echo in Armenian. Located near the city of Sisian in the province of Syunik, 230 standing stones called “Zorats Karer” (also known as Carahunge) is one of the ancient archeological sites on the territory of Armenia.

It seems that the areas that the Indo-Aryans of Armenian origin moved into were previously inhabited by a more primitive people whom they were able to dominate with their more evolved language and culture. An evidence of existing primitive people in the Stonehenge region comes from a 33 metre-long burial mound containing a massive wooden building whose timber foundations were spotted in the soil, predating Stonehenge. The building is thought to have been a house of the dead where bizarre burial rituals were played out. The rituals included exposure of the dead bodies, and defleshing on a large forecourt, said Wolfgang Neuber, at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute. 

It does appear likely that with the coming in of new people to Stonehenge area, both populations would have intermarried and merged. The Bell- Beaker culture that spread throughout Europe after 2500 BC is something that came later, marking the next major evolution of European culture into more civilized human groups. However, a major cultural evolution in Europe did not begin until the coming of Greek and Roman civilizations that benefited greatly  from the best of preceding three great river valley civilizations of Asia and Egypt.

It must be noted here that when Armenia is mentioned here it does not imply just the present day Armenia but a Indo-European speaking culture that extended westwards to include Southern Anatolia extending up to the Mediterranean region (Ancient Menhirs have been found here too), the land of the Hattis according to Sumerians, and perhaps also extending eastwards through northern parts of present day Iran to the foothills of North Western India at a point where the ancient Saraswati river descended from the Himalayas, thus explaining the widespread prevalence of Indo-European languages in the old world that stretches from Ireland in the west to Northern India in the East. It is also likely that this expansion took place as the population expanded in prehistoric times and there was a constant need to look for new agricultural areas. It is interesting to note that present day Armenia and Zorats Karer is nearly central to this vast geographical belt. During this expansion through the old world the ancient Indo-European people would have encountered the Sumerian and Akkadian speaking people in present day Iraq as also perhaps Austric speaking people in India with whom they appeared to have intermingled in relative peace and not any major wars.

For recent reports on Stonehenge see:http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/sep/10/stonehenge-teeming-chapels-shrines-archaeology-research?CMP=twt_gu)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-15917921
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Etymology of the Words ARYAN and ARMENIAN

Reviving the Lost Sarasvati

"Ma Saraswati is eternal and can never really be lost, she merely hid herself from human eyes until such times as their hearts become pure enough to behold her."

The Sarasvati (also spelt Saraswati) River is one of the main Rigvedic rivers mentioned in ancient Sanskrit texts. 

Most of its route, except for its Himalayan connection as well as those in the south to the ocean, has been well known to both Indian and International scholars as at least some of the present day seasonal river the Ghaggar- Hakra, especially the part that passes through Haryana and Rajasthan. This is well confirmed by an overwhelming body of both ancient as well as modern scientific evidence. However, its northern connections and tributaries are not fully located yet.  Similarly, the southern connections are also not fully known. In case the river is revived these may have to be reoriented in any case because of division of India. The identification of the Vedic Sarasvati River with the Ghaggar-Hakra River was accepted by most scholars as early as the 19th and early 20th century, including Christian Lassen, Max Müller, Marc Aurel Stein, C.F. Oldham and Jane Macintosh amongst others.

In his recent well argued and thorough study K. S. Valdiya conclusively proves the fallacy of some modern studies that have deduced on the basis of apparently erroneous evidence and arguments that the Saraswati did not originate in the Himalayas and was merely a monsoonal river.(CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 104, NO. 1, 10 JANUARY 2013)

http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/104/01/0042.pdf 

The Nadistuti hymn in the Rigveda (10.75) mentions the Sarasvati between the Yamuna in the east and the Sutlej in the west, and later Vedic texts like Tandya and Jaiminiya Brahmanas as well as the Mahabharata mention that the Sarasvati dried up in a desert. The goddess Sarasvati was a personification of this river. 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. Here (RV 10.75.5), the sequence "Ganges, Yamuna, Sarasvati, Shutudri" places the Sarasvati between the Yamuna and the Sutlej, which is consistent with the Ghaggar identification. The wide river bed (paleo-channel) of the Ghaggar river suggest that the river once flowed full of water during the great meltdown of the Himalayan Ice Age glaciers, some 10,000 years ago, and that it then continued through the entire region, in the presently dry channel of the Hakra River emptying into the Rann of Kutch. It continued to flow with reducing flow until perhaps around 1500 BC. Its peak flow may have been much earlier, thousands of years prior to that. Presently it is a seasonal monsoon river only, having been disconnected from its Himalayan source that may be the the Tons River and Baspa rivers that presently flow eastwards and westwards to merge with other rivers. During the active Indus valley phase the Sarasvati River was not just a monsoon river because it was possibly fed by tributaries from both Yamuna and Sutlej and also from the Himalayan glacial regions directly aside from the Shivaliks at a point somewhat west of the Yamuna but east of the Sutlej in the Himalayas, so as to become the mightiest of rivers of the time. This last river exit ( The Tons river) is likely to have changed its course somewhat due to seismic activity or landslides so that it began to flow into the Yamuna instead of southwards independantly dealing a blow to the Saraswati river in the dry months of the year.

It seems clear from the Rigvedic description that it is not that the Sutlej or Yamuna rivers that have moved away from Saraswati River, because those rivers too existed in ancient times but rather it is the tributaries of Saraswati that have shifted away and begun to flow into the former rivers instead of the Saraswati River. The most important of these are The Baspa that flows into the Sutllej now and the Tons that now flows into the Yamuna.

The Saraswati River probabaly begins as the Tons in the Himalayas 

The Tons river develops from its tributaries the Rupin and Supin rivers. However, in ancient times it is very likely, although this needs more research to confirm it was in all liklihood fed by the Baspa River too before tectonic shifts altered its course to instead feed the Sutlej River. The beauty of the Baspa river can still be seen high up in the Himalayas near the Tibetan border where still dwell souls of pure hearts. A look at this and one will be forced to remark - This is it, This is it, This is the river that gave birth to civilization

The Saraswati River can still be seen high in the Himalayas - The Baspa River

Research points to the the ancient Saraswati river having had a source in the glacial waters of the Himalayas. The theory states that the Tons river became a tributary of the Yamuna a few thousand years ago following a tectonic event in the Himalayas. If this be so, the Tons once ran an independent course running south-west into Haryana where other tributaries merged into it.  This river was then the Saraswati mentioned in the Vedic texts as the greatest of all Indian rivers. However, all this is a matter for further research but the fact that the Saraswati river was the mightiest of rivers of its time is not in doubt as evident from the prominent Indus valley sites dotting its course. Some scholars who say this river may have been another one in Afghanistan begin with an erroneous historical premise that Vedic Aryans originally lived in that region and later invaded the Indus valley civilization. A huge body of later evidence indicates that no such invasion ever took place but that migrations into the sub continent has been gradual and peaceful from both west and south stretching over centuries and millinnea and such migrations were peaceful ones as different groups arrived from harsher northern environs and found the fertile plains of North West India conducive to settle down. The exodus from the Indus valley was a result of climate changes and drying up of the Saraswati River.

With the disappearance of the Saraswati River, the first organized and most sustainable civilization of mankind known as the Indus valley civilization in modern times quickly disappeared from the planet. But before it vanished it gave the seeds of civilization to the world beginning with Sumeria, followed soon after by the Nile valley, Athens, Rome, Europe and the New World. What it could however not transmit was its message of love, truth and lack of greed.  Each quanta of civilsation was more advanced than the one that preceded yet each quanta of civilisation was also further removed from love, truth, peace and joy.  It is for this reason that the more organized human societies became, growing from these initial seeds, the more stressed and miserable they became too.

Source of the Mighty Saraswati River most appropriately referred to as Saraswati Mountain Ranges

The source  of Tons river lies in the 6,315 meters high mountain presently known as bandarpunch. It is the most major perennial Indian Himalayan rivers. In fact, it carries more water than the Yamuna itself which it  now meets but did not a few thousand years ago to become the Himalayan source of the Saraswati River. It should be most rightly be recognized as Saraswati Devi Mountain just as the Nanda Devi Mountain is regarded as a personification of Parvati Devi as a mountain, rather than the less respectful kaliyug names perhaps inspired by the Europeans who have explored these mountains in recent times.

The drying up of the Sarasvati region may have been accelerated due to natural solar cycles or due to man made causes very much like the present day climate change. Recent studies suggest that deforestation rather than green house gases are the major cause of climate change and this must have taken place in the Indus valley civilization too because of agricultural and rising human needs, eventually forcing the civilization to abandon their cities along the Sarasvati and move eastwards towards the greener Yamuna and Gangetic plains. Ancient humans had greener pastures to move to because much of the world was not inhabited then. Modern humans will have no such luxury because human population is already near the peak. Modern day climate control efforts may fall flat on their face if the widely held (although not universally held)assumption that greenhouse gases rather than deforestation is the cause of adverse climate changes is incorrect (See this). Since the beginning of time humans have given more credence to the most widely held belief rather than truth until it becomes too unreasonable such as the belief that the earth is flat.

A clinching evidence in favor of identifying the Ghaggar-Hakra River as the lost Sarasvati is recent archeological evidence that traces the cities dotting the route including the most ancient site of Bhirrana and the largest ancient Indus valley city of Rakhigarhi (see map here ). Although the Indus valley civilization is the name given to the ancient civilization of the sub continent, the Sarasvati River rather than the Indus was the centerline of this ancient civilization and its more correct name should have been the Sarasvati Valley Civilisation.

Saraswati Valley Civilization ( Indus Valley Civilization)

Image developed from image at
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6HXQB1kzB05x2p2SvMsLIBHUB0NecMv3SV1zHafekkPviCRHj7fb7ELWgMuQNkuq3BbQNgwOzw0PMVRzrIJCGSnvNk1umP40pHtsNOsTEADaTjwBRRUnzVX4fjfoiNh2FPrrz/s1600/ScreenShot542.jpg

In  Rigveda, RV 7.95.1-2, the Sarasvati is described as:

This stream Sarasvati with fostering current comes forth,

Our sure defense, our fort of iron.

As on a chariot, the flood flows on,

Surpassing in majesty and might all other waters.

Pure in her course from mountains to the ocean,

 Alone of streams Sarasvati hath listened.

Thinking of wealth and the great world of creatures,

She poured for Nahusa her milk and robustness.

Sushil Kumar,  amongst strongest of men in the world

The last line of this hymn reminds one that even with the few remanants of Saraswati that flow through Harayana today, that region has the strongest persons in the world, on a diet of milk and milk products rather than meat and synthetic drugs, such as the Olympian medal winner Sushil Kumar the wrestler, who defeats and lifts up world champion wrestlers of the world as if holding up like a light chair before dashing them into the ground of defeat,  as well as several others, including the Rajputs further along the course of the river in Rajasthan.

It is also possible, although it remains to be investigated, that once the Tons river merged with the Yamuna river, its flow became so excessive that some it went underground to flow as an underground river under the present day Yamuna all the way to Allahabad in the east emerging as a river bottom spring and merging there at a point the Ganges and Yamuna rivers merge. Thus there may be truth to the hypothesis that the Saraswati that got lost from western India emerged at Triveni Sangam, Allahabad. Even if the hypothesis of the invisible underground river is not true, there is no doubt that the sangam is a Triveni Sangam ever since a period  when the Saraswati River mixed and hid itself within the Yamuna, the two goddess sisters flowing as one.

Reviving the Ancient River


Reviving the ancient river would involve two major tasks

1.   Increasing the flow of water at the north end of the Ghaggar river by channels connecting to the  Baspa and the Tons River through modern engineering to restore at least some of its ancient flow.

2.    A part of this river enters modern day Pakistan it seems and therefore a new alignment would have to be charted at this point, south-eastwards towards Ahmedabad perhaps, from whence it may flow into the ocean as shown in the map.The precise alignment would depend on the natural topography of the area.

The attached map with this note shows a possible route for the Sarasvati river. It is only an approximate schematic since precise topographic data is not available to this author. However, it may offer a starting point to those interested in reviving Ma Sarasvati River. They can iterate upon it keeping feasibility and the ground situation in mind. Being a major project it can be developed in small phases, adding one connection at a time at its northern end while simultaneously working at its southern route to prevent it leaving the borders of India.

It may be pointed out that some of the Indira Gandhi Canal system in Rajasthan may merge in  Saraswati river or become its tributary if the river is revived.

In case the Tons river is once again redirected to the Ghaggar, a feat easily implemented with help of modern engineering, as a result of this note or otherwise, it is requested that some of it must still be allowed to merge in the Yamuna ( perhaps in a fifty percent ratio) so as to preserve its flow and maintain the sanctity of the Yamuna plain as well as that of Triveni Sangam, the site of the Kumbh Mela.

There is a belief amongst some mystics, a belief this author does not doubt due to his mystical interests aside from technical and scientific ones, that goodness, truth and prosperity began to vanish from India and the world as the waters of this river dried up and shall return only when this river is revived. One may not free oneself of substantial sin in bathing in the waters of Saraswati as one may by bathing in the waters of the Ganges because Ma Saraswati appears only when humans free of substantial sin dwell in the land, and when men free of substantial sin dwell in the world, when they stop crucifying symbols of truth and stop terrible atrocities on innocent helpless humans, even children, proclaiming proudly in unison with the richest and strongest countries of the world that it is their right to do so, a right to defend their stolen gains. Instead, when men shed substantial and obvious sin, she blesses them with substantial health and knowledge from her right hands and prosperity and peace from the left hands, beckoning all such to her gates with her sweet music"

Jai Ma Sarasvati

UPDATE MAY 2018:
A recent brief note extracting the scholarly portion of this note updated with recent references is available for viewing or downloading online at> https://www.scribd.com/document/380650060/Tracing-the-Origin-of-Saraswati-River-to-Tons-and-Baspa-Rivers

Map extracted and developed from the map at: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:India_topo_big.jpg this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2

Mountain image adapted and modified from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bandarpunch.jpg This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

Tons River photo, Courtesy Ajay Bhandari, Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/ajayb/2636385086/ Some rights reserved as indicated at link  

Baspa River Photo courtesy http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/the-road-to-fun/article625123.ece A memorable walk amidst flowers, at Raksham. And, the Baspa river. Photo: Rishad Saam Mehta 

Some modifications have been effected in all images before posting here 

Human clothing colors in twenty first century

Clothing color in Europe a few centuries ago

Ever since Eve ate that mythical apple most humans have felt the need to wear clothes. The earliest clothing consisted of natural materials like leaves, grasses and animal skins and these materials decided the color of clothing. However as civilization progressed other colors were introduced in man made fabrics.

It is interesting to see what the favorite clothing colors of modern humans is. Usually it is the colors chosen by the elite, the rich, famous and beautiful that set the trend, and these can be ascertained quickly through a Google search using carefully selected key words. The search showed that favorite modern dress colors are shades of red and blue along with liberal use of black and white too including gray in male clothing. Shades range from pastel to dark and consist of solid colors in clothing. Use of prints is rare as still common in tribal cultures. Green is used rarely and yellow or orange almost never except as a shade of gold in some celebrity clothing. Brown to appears to be out. The fascinating results can be seen at the following collection (click on the link) of google images

The link given above is a living link that is updated continuously by Google as new data is added.