77-567: The Sarasvati River ( IAST : Sárasvatī-nadī́ ) is a mythologized and deified ancient river first mentioned in the Rigveda and later in 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 Rigveda, it is described as a "great and holy river in north-western India ," but in
154-568: A macron ). Vocalic (syllabic) consonants, retroflexes and ṣ ( / ʂ ~ ɕ ~ʃ/ ) have an underdot . One letter has an overdot: ṅ ( /ŋ/ ). One has an acute accent : ś ( /ʃ/ ). One letter has a line below: ḻ ( / ɭ / ) (Vedic). Unlike ASCII -only romanisations such as ITRANS or Harvard-Kyoto , the diacritics used for IAST allow capitalisation of proper names. The capital variants of letters never occurring word-initially ( Ṇ Ṅ Ñ Ṝ Ḹ ) are useful only when writing in all-caps and in Pāṇini contexts for which
231-502: A century of scholarly usage in books and journals on classical Indian studies. By contrast, the ISO 15919 standard for transliterating Indic scripts emerged in 2001 from the standards and library worlds. For the most part, ISO 15919 follows the IAST scheme, departing from it only in minor ways (e.g., ṃ/ṁ and ṛ/r̥)—see comparison below. The Indian National Library at Kolkata romanization , intended for
308-573: 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": the 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
385-610: 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
462-604: A desert. Since the late 19th century, numerous scholars have proposed to identify the Sarasvati with the Ghaggar-Hakra River system, which flows through modern-day 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
539-433: A font, etc. It can be enabled in the input menu in the menu bar under System Preferences → International → Input Menu (or System Preferences → Language and Text → Input Sources) or can be viewed under Edit → Emoji & Symbols in many programs. Equivalent tools – such as gucharmap ( GNOME ) or kcharselect ( KDE ) – exist on most Linux desktop environments. Users of SCIM on Linux based platforms can also have
616-529: 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 ,
693-580: 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
770-684: 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 Rigveda, 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. The Rigveda contains several hymns which give an indication of
847-480: 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
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#1732852640753924-439: 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
1001-455: A river that connected many lakes due to its abundant volumes of water-flow. Sarasvatī is considered to be a cognate of Avestan Haraxatī . In the younger Avesta , Haraxatī is Arachosia , a region described to be rich in rivers, and its Old Persian cognate Harauvati . 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
1078-623: Is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that emerged during the 19th century from suggestions by Charles Trevelyan , William Jones , Monier Monier-Williams and other scholars, and formalised by the Transliteration Committee of the Geneva Oriental Congress , in September 1894. IAST makes it possible for
1155-572: Is actually a paleochannel of the Sutlej, flowing into the Nara river bed, presently a delta channel c.q. paleochannel of the Indus River . At least 10,000 years ago, well before the rise of the Harappan civilization, the sutlej diverted its 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
1232-462: Is believed to also converge with the unseen Sarasvati river, which is believed to flow underground. This is 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. The belief of Sarasvati joining at the confluence of
1309-782: Is by setting up an alternative keyboard layout . This allows one to hold a modifier key to type letters with diacritical marks. For example, alt + a = ā. How this is set up varies by operating system. Linux/Unix and BSD desktop environments allow one to set up custom keyboard layouts and switch them by clicking a flag icon in the menu bar. macOS One can use the pre-installed US International keyboard, or install Toshiya Unebe's Easy Unicode keyboard layout. Microsoft Windows Windows also allows one to change keyboard layouts and set up additional custom keyboard mappings for IAST. This Pali keyboard installer made by Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (MSKLC) supports IAST (works on Microsoft Windows up to at least version 10, can use Alt button on
1386-587: Is identified today with Arghandab which lies northwest of present-day Kandahar. The region is first referred to in the Achaemenid -era Elamite Persepolis fortification tablets. It appears again in the Old Persian , Akkadian and Aramaic inscriptions of Darius I and Xerxes I among lists of subject peoples and countries. It is subsequently also identified as the source of the ivory used in Darius' palace at Susa. In
1463-442: Is the feminine nominative singular form of the adjective sárasvat (which occurs in the Rigveda as the name of the keeper of the celestial waters ), derived from 'sáras' + 'vat', meaning 'having sáras-'. Sanskrit sáras- means 'lake, pond' (cf. the derivative sārasa- 'lake bird = Sarus crane '). Mayrhofer considers unlikely a connection with the root * sar- 'run, flow' but does agree that it could have been
1540-585: Is what happened in various parts of the [Indian] subcontinent." Several present-day rivers are also named Sarasvati, after the Vedic Sarasvati: Already since the 19th century, attempts have been made to identify the mythical Sarasvati of the Vedas with physical rivers. Many think that the Vedic Sarasvati river once flowed east of the Indus (Sindhu) river. Scientists, geologists as well as scholars have identified
1617-677: The Behistun inscription (DB 3.54-76), the King recounts that a Persian was thrice defeated by the Achaemenid governor of Arachosia, Vivana, who so ensured that the province remained under Darius' control. It has been suggested that this "strategically unintelligible engagement" was ventured by the rebel because "there were close relations between Persia and Arachosia concerning the Zoroastrian faith." The chronologically next reference to Arachosia comes from
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#17328526407531694-727: The Hephthalites , who were defeated in 565 CE by a coalition of Persian and Turkish armies. Arachosia became part of the surviving Kushano-Hephthalite Kingdoms of Kapisa , then Kabul , before coming under attack from the Moslem Arabs. These kingdoms were at first vassals of Sassanids. Around 870 CE the Kushano-Hephthalites (aka Turkshahi Dynasty) was replaced by the Saffarids , then the Samanid Empire and Muslim Turkish Ghaznavids in
1771-617: 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
1848-549: The Rigveda is the late Harappan (1900-1300 BCE) population shift eastwards to Haryana . 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
1925-497: The Triveni confluence with rivers Hiranya and Kapila at Somnath . There are several other Triveni s in India where two physical rivers are joined by the "unseen" Sarasvati, which adds to the sanctity of the confluence. 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
2002-788: The Wars of the Diadochi , the region became part of the Seleucid Empire , which traded it to the Mauryan Empire in 305 BCE as part of an alliance. The Shunga dynasty overthrew the Mauryans in 185 BC, but shortly afterwards lost Arachosia to the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom . It then became part of the break-away Indo-Greek Kingdom in the mid 2nd century BCE. Indo-Scythians expelled the Indo-Greeks by
2079-580: The Drshadvati (Chautang). The Drshadvati is described as a seasonal stream (10.17), meaning it was not from Himalayas. Bhargava 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. Wilke and Moebus note that the "historical river" Sarasvati
2156-556: 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". 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
2233-453: The Gangā, Yamunā and Sarasvati join enjoys liberation . Of this there is no doubt." 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
2310-530: The Ghaggar-Hakra river, after the Vedic tribes moved to the Punjab . The Sarasvati of the Rigveda 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 Hindutva proponents suggesting an earlier dating of
2387-466: 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
Sarasvati River - Misplaced Pages Continue
2464-693: The Great commissioned the building of Alexandria Arachosia as Arachosia's new capital city under the Macedonian Empire . It was built on top of an earlier Persian military fortress after Alexander's conquest of Persia , and is the site of today's Kandahar in Afghanistan . "Arachosia" is the Latinized form of Greek Ἀραχωσία ( Arachōsíā ). "The same region appears in the Avestan Vidēvdāt (1.12) under
2541-813: The Greeks and Romans, who record that under Darius III the Arachosians and Drangians were under the command of a governor who, together with the army of the Bactrian governor, contrived a plot of the Arachosians against Alexander ( Curtius Rufus 8.13.3). Following Alexander's conquest of the Achaemenids, the Macedonian appointed his generals as governors (Arrian 3.28.1, 5.6.2; Curtius Rufus 7.3.5; Plutarch, Eumenes 19.3; Polyaenus 4.6.15; Diodorus 18.3.3; Orosius 3.23.1 3; Justin 13.4.22). In 316 BCE Antigonus I Monophthalmus sent most of
2618-599: The Harappan civilisation. 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. 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
2695-780: The Indo-Parthians and ruled the region until around 230 CE, when they were defeated by the Sassanids , the second Persian Empire, after which the Kushans were replaced by Sassanid vassals known as the Kushanshas or Indo-Sassanids . In 420 CE the Kushanshas were driven out of present Afghanistan by the Chionites , who established the Kidarite Kingdom . The Kidarites were replaced in the 460s CE by
2772-681: 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 Sarasvati River. 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
2849-568: The Rigveda; 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 the Indian subcontinent between ca. 1900 BCE and 1400 BCE. Sárasvatī
2926-681: 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
3003-455: 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
3080-407: 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
3157-592: The Sutlej, which flowed into the Nara river , a delta channel of the Indus River . Around 10,000-8,000 years ago, this channel was abandoned when the Sutlej diverted 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 sites at Kalibangan ( Rajasthan ), Banawali and Rakhigarhi ( Haryana ), Dholavira and Lothal ( Gujarat ) lay along this course. When
Sarasvati River - Misplaced Pages Continue
3234-411: 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. 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 Asia. The confluence ( sangam ) or joining of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers at Triveni Sangam , Allahabad ,
3311-467: The Vedic state of Brahmavarta , that Vedic Sanskrit had its genesis, 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)
3388-619: The area of Sanskrit studies make use of free OpenType fonts such as FreeSerif or Gentium , both of which have complete support for the full repertoire of conjoined diacritics in the IAST character set. Released under the GNU FreeFont or SIL Open Font License , respectively, such fonts may be freely shared and do not require the person reading or editing a document to purchase proprietary software to make use of its associated fonts. Arachosia Arachosia ( / ær ə ˈ k oʊ s i ə / ; Greek : Ἀραχωσία Arachōsíā ), or Harauvatis ( Old Persian : 𐏃𐎼𐎢𐎺𐎫𐎡𐏁 Harauvatiš ),
3465-401: The city as "metropolis of Arachosia." In his list, Ptolemy also refers to a city named Arachotus (English: Arachote / ˈ ær ə k oʊ t / ; Greek : Ἀραχωτός ) or Arachoti (acc. to Strabo ), which was the earlier capital of the land. Pliny the Elder and Stephen of Byzantium mention that its original name was Cophen (Κωφήν). Hsuan Tsang refers to the name as Kaofu . This city
3542-418: The composition of the Rigveda. 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. Rigvedic references to a physical river also indicate that the Sarasvati "had already lost its main source of water supply and must have ended in a terminal lake (samudra) approximately 3000 years ago," "depicting
3619-460: The consumer edition since XP. This is limited to characters in the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP). Characters are searchable by Unicode character name, and the table can be limited to a particular code block. More advanced third-party tools of the same type are also available (a notable freeware example is BabelMap ). macOS provides a "character palette" with much the same functionality, along with searching by related characters, glyph tables in
3696-536: The convention is to typeset the IT sounds as capital letters. For the most part, IAST is a subset of ISO 15919 that merges the retroflex (underdotted) liquids with the vocalic ones ( ringed below ) and the short close-mid vowels with the long ones. The following seven exceptions are from the ISO standard accommodating an extended repertoire of symbols to allow transliteration of Devanāgarī and other Indic scripts , as used for languages other than Sanskrit. The most convenient method of inputting romanized Sanskrit
3773-520: The early 11th century CE. Arab geographers referred to the region (or parts of it) as 'Arokhaj', 'Rokhaj', 'Rohkaj' or simply 'Roh'. The inhabitants of Arachosia were Iranian peoples , and were referred to as Arachosians or Arachoti . They were called Pactyans in reference to their individual ethnicity, and that name may have been in reference to the modern-day ethnic group known as the Pashtuns . Isidore of Charax , in his 1st-century CE "Parthian stations" itinerary, described an "Alexandropolis,
3850-411: The elite Argyraspides , a veteran Macedonian corps with over forty years experience, to Arachosia to protect the Eastern frontier with India. However they were sent with the order to Sibyrtius , the Macedonian satrap of Arachosia, to dispatch them by small groups of two or three to dangerous missions so that their numbers would rapidly dwindle and remove them as a military threat to his power. Following
3927-457: 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. 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
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#17328526407534004-407: The flow of the geography of the river, and an identification of the Sarasvati as described in the later books of the Rigveda with the Ghaggra-Hakra: Yet, the Rigveda also contains clues for an identification with the Helmand river in Afghanistan: The Rigveda was composed during the latter part of the late Harappan period, and according to Shaffer, the reason for the predominance of the Sarasvati in
4081-465: The geographical list of the Nadistuti Sukta . In this hymn, the Sarasvati River is placed between the Yamuna and the Sutlej . In the oldest texts of the Rigveda she is described as a "great and holy river in north-western India," but Michael Witzel notes that the Rigveda 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
4158-446: 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,
4235-423: The goddess of the World, the goddess of a divine inspiration ...". 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
4312-455: The indigenous dialect form 𐬵𐬀𐬭𐬀𐬓𐬀𐬌𐬙𐬍 Harax aitī - (whose -ax a- is typical non-Avestan)." In Old Persian inscriptions, the region is referred to as 𐏃𐎼𐎢𐎺𐎫𐎡𐏁 , written h(a)-r(a)-u-v(a)-t-i . This form is the "etymological equivalent" of Vedic Sanskrit Sarasvatī - , the name of a river literally meaning "rich in waters/lakes" and derived from sáras- "lake, pond." ( cf. Aredvi Sura Anahita ). "Arachosia"
4389-464: 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 Rigveda was compiled. Sarasvati is mentioned some fifty times in the hymns of the Rigveda. It is mentioned in thirteen hymns of the late books (1 and 10) of the Rigveda. The most important hymns related to Sarasvati goddess are RV 6 .61, RV 7 .95 and RV 7.96. As
4466-439: The major palaeo-fluvial system traversing through this region ceased long before the establishment of the Harappan civilisation." 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." IAST The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST )
4543-401: The metropolis of Arachosia", which he said was still Greek even at such a late time: "Beyond is Arachosia. And the Parthians call this White India ; there are the city of Biyt and the city of Pharsana and the city of Chorochoad and the city of Demetrias; then Alexandropolis, the metropolis of Arachosia; it is Greek, and by it flows the river Arachotus. As far as this place the land is under
4620-439: The mid 1st century BCE, but lost the region to the Arsacids and Indo-Parthians . At what time (and in what form) Parthian rule over Arachosia was reestablished cannot be determined with any authenticity. From Isidore 19 it is certain that a part (perhaps only a little) of the region was under Arsacid rule in the 1st century CE, and that the Parthians called it Indikē Leukē , "White India." The Kushans captured Arachosia from
4697-412: The middle and late Rigvedic books, it 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. The river 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
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#17328526407534774-403: The monsoons that fed the rivers further diminished, the Hakra dried-up some 4,000 years ago, becoming an intermittent river, and the urban Harappan civilisation declined, becoming localized in smaller agricultural communities. Identification of a mighty physical Rigvedic Sarasvati with the Ghaggar-Hakra system is therefore problematic, since the Gagghar-Hakra had dried up well before the time of
4851-438: The opportunity to install and use the sa-itrans-iast input handler which provides complete support for the ISO 15919 standard for the romanization of Indic languages as part of the m17n library. Or user can use some Unicode characters in Latin-1 Supplement, Latin Extended-A, Latin Extended Additional and Combining Diarcritical Marks block to write IAST. Only certain fonts support all the Latin Unicode characters essential for
4928-428: The present-day situation, with the Sarasvatī having lost most of its water." Also, Rigvedic descriptions of the Sarasvati do not fit the actual course of the Gagghar-Hakra. "Sarasvati" has also been identified with the Helmand in ancient Arachosia , or Harauvatiš ( Old Persian : 𐏃𐎼𐎢𐎺𐎫𐎡𐏁 ), in present day southern Afghanistan , the name of which may have been reused from the more ancient Sanskrit name of
5005-411: 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
5082-491: The reader to read the Indic text unambiguously, exactly as if it were in the original Indic script. It is this faithfulness to the original scripts that accounts for its continuing popularity amongst scholars. Scholars commonly use IAST in publications that cite textual material in Sanskrit, Pāḷi and other classical Indian languages. IAST is also used for major e-text repositories such as SARIT, Muktabodha, GRETIL, and sanskritdocuments.org. The IAST scheme represents more than
5159-408: The right side of the keyboard instead of Ctrl+Alt combination). Many systems provide a way to select Unicode characters visually. ISO/IEC 14755 refers to this as a screen-selection entry method . Microsoft Windows has provided a Unicode version of the Character Map program (find it by hitting ⊞ Win + R then type charmap then hit ↵ Enter ) since version NT 4.0 – appearing in
5236-524: The river Arachotus. This city is frequently misidentified with present-day Kandahar in Afghanistan, the name of which was thought to be derived (via "Iskanderiya") from "Alexandria", reflecting a connection to Alexander the Great 's visit to the city on his campaign towards India . But a recent discovery of an inscription on a clay tablet has provided proof that 'Kandahar' was already a city that traded actively with Persia well before Alexander's time. Isidore, Strabo (11.8.9) and Pliny (6.61) also refer to
5313-422: The river) may refer to a spring in the Sivalik hills . The distance between the source and the Vinasana (place of 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
5390-438: The romanisation of all Indic scripts , is an extension of IAST. The IAST letters are listed with their Devanagari equivalents and phonetic values in IPA , valid for Sanskrit , Hindi and other modern languages that use Devanagari script, but some phonological changes have occurred: * H is actually glottal , not velar . Some letters are modified with diacritics : Long vowels are marked with an overline (often called
5467-491: The rule of the Parthians." A theory of Croatian origin traces the origin of the Croats to the area of Arachosia. This connection was at first drawn due to the similarity of Croatian ( Croatia - Croatian : Hrvatska, Croats - Croatian: Hrvati / Čakavian dialect : Harvati / Kajkavian dialect : Horvati) and Arachosian name, but other researches indicate that there are also linguistic, cultural, agrobiological and genetic ties. Since Croatia became an independent state in 1991,
5544-483: The transliteration of Indic scripts according to the IAST and ISO 15919 standards. For example, the Arial , Tahoma and Times New Roman font packages that come with Microsoft Office 2007 and later versions also support precomposed Unicode characters like ī . Many other text fonts commonly used for book production may be lacking in support for one or more characters from this block. Accordingly, many academics working in
5621-518: 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 . 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
5698-709: Was a satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire . Mainly centred around the Arghandab River , a tributary of the Helmand River , it extended as far east as the Indus River . The satrapy's Persian-language name is the etymological equivalent of Sárasvatī in Vedic Sanskrit . In Greek, the satrapy's name was derived from Arachōtós , the Greek-language name for the Arghandab River. Around 330 BCE, Alexander
5775-448: 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. According to the Mahabharata (3rd c. BCE - 3rd c. CE) the Sarasvati River dried up to
5852-572: Was in the Punjab and in the valleys of the Sarasvati and Drishadvati rivers in the time of the Rigveda." 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,
5929-610: Was named after the name of a river that runs through it, known in ancient Greek as the Arachōtós and today as the Arghandab River , a left-bank tributary of the Helmand River . Arachosia bordered on Drangiana to the west, on the Paropamisadae to the north, Hindush to the east, and Gedrosia to the south. Isidore and Ptolemy (6.20.4-5) each provide a list of cities in Arachosia, among them (yet another) Alexandria , which lay on
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