Sarasvati Civilization

[ramana]

Reply to above article:



From Pioneer:

EDITS | Wednesday, January 27, 2010





ASI’s illogical denial



Ashok Mehta



This refers to Rajesh Singh’s article, “Saraswati flows on in ASI record” (January 10). Please excuse me for being blunt, but Mr Singh has been taken for a ride by the Archaeological Survey of India. He has heaped appreciation on the ASI for collecting evidence about the existence of the Saraswati River. However, if any organisation deserves credit, it is the Indian Space Research Organisation and not the ASI. It is only after ISRO first mapped the river through satellite images that researchers wrote two definitive articles — “New findings on the course of the River Saraswati” (published in Journal of ISRO Vol 32 No 1, 2004) and “Course of the Vedic river Saraswati as deciphered from latest satellite data” (published in Puratatva, the ASI bulletin, 2005-2006) — about the ancient river.



After having submitted an application under the RTI Act to get details of its discoveries about the river, lSRO supplied me with copies of the two articles mentioned above which confirmed the existence of the river right from the end of the ice age to about 2000 BC when the river disappeared due to the great drought which lasted for over 200 years.



Based on the information given to me by ISRO, I wrote an article titled, “When Saraswati turned real”, that was published in The Pioneer on May 7, 2008. I had mentioned in that article that in reply to my RTI application, the ASI had shown complete lack of knowledge about the Saraswati and had given vague responses. In fact, I had received a telephone call from one deputy director of ASI. He had told me that the ASI was not aware of the two articles on Saraswati referred to above. Further, in reply to my question whether the ASI had accepted the findings reported in the two articles, the latter said that it was not in a position to accept or reject any finding based on various research activities carried out by different scholars unless and until a ‘consensus’ is reached. :rotfl:



The existence of the Saraswati River is a fact. There is also no doubt about its course and about its disappearance in 2000 BC. Unfortunately, the ASI is not willing to accept this position.