The discovery of the Sarasvati was a major blow to the Aryan invasion theory. Till then they subjected the existence of the Sarasvati to fiction or placed it in strange geographic areas ranging from Russia, West Asia, Central Asia to Afghanistan. But in 1975 NASA satellite picture exploded this myth later confirmed by V.S. Wakankar who led a ground level expedition to plot the course of the now extinct river.
Verse in the Gritsamada
Ambitame, naditame, devitame sarasvati
That is, Sarasvati is the best of mothers, the best of rivers, the best Goddess.
Some modern scholars have equated Sarasvati to Haraqiti a inconsequential insignificant stream in Afghanistan compared to the power and destruction capability of Sarasvati as mentioned in the Rigveda. In anycase this poses a major challenge. The Haraqiti is landlocked and does not flow from the mountain to the sea as mentioned in the Rigveda. More serious is the location: the famous Nadi Sukta of the Rigveda places the Sarasvati between the Yamuna and the Shutudri (Sutlej). Enumerating the rivers from the east to the west, it says;
Imam me gange yamune sarasvati shutudri stomam parushnya;
Asiknya marudvridhe vitastya arjikiye shrinuhya sushomaya.
Since the Nadi Sukta mentions all the rivers from the Ganga to the Indus and beyond, locating the Sarasvati to Afghanistan would require us to shift the Ganga, Yamuna and the other Indian rivers to Afghanistan. More importantly, the passage helps in locating the Sarasvati between the Yamuna and the Sutlej.
As far back as 1886 R.J. Oldham of the Geological Survey of India concluded that a great river with its course lying between the Yamuna and the Sutlej did exist in ancient times as described in the Rigveda. Oldham’s discoveries were ignored by those attached to the AIT who referred to Sarasvati as a deity worshipped in the form of a river. But with the discovery of the Sarasvati the river has dropped a big hole into this argument.
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