Sarasvati River trolley and gasoline/diesel buses; in that same year the BCER became the core of the newly created, publicly owned BC Hydro. Vancouver currently has the second-largest trolleybus fleet in North America, after San Francisco. Successive city councils in the 1970s and 1980s prohibited the construction of freeways as part of a long-term plan. As a result, the only major freeway within city limits is Highway 1, which passes through the north-eastern corner of the city. While the number of cars in Vancouver proper has been steadily rising with population growth, the rate of car ownership and 	Vancouver
25599538	the average distance driven by daily commuters have fallen since the early 1990s. Vancouver is the only major Canadian city with these trends. Despite the fact that the journey time per vehicle has increased by one-third and growing traffic mass, there are 7 percent fewer cars making trips into the downtown core. In 2012, Vancouver had the worst traffic congestion in Canada and the second-highest in North America, behind Los Angeles. , Vancouver now has the worst traffic congestion in North America. Residents have been more inclined to live in areas closer to their interests, or use more energy	Vancouver
25599539	-efficient means of travel, such as mass transit and cycling. This is, in part, the result of a push by city planners for a solution to traffic problems and pro-environment campaigns. Transportation demand management policies have imposed restrictions on drivers making it more difficult and expensive to commute while introducing more benefits for non-drivers. TransLink is responsible for roads and public transportation within Metro Vancouver (in succession to BC Transit, which had taken over the transit functions of BC Hydro). It provides bus service, including the RapidBus express service, a foot passenger and bicycle ferry service (known as 	Vancouver
25599540	SeaBus), an automated rapid transit service called SkyTrain, and West Coast Express commuter rail. Vancouver's SkyTrain system is currently running on three lines, the Millennium Line, the Expo Line and the Canada Line with a total of 53 stations as of 2017. Only 20 of these stations are within the City of Vancouver borders, with the remainders in the adjacent suburbs. A number of city's biggest tourist attractions, such as English Bay, Stanley Park, the Vancouver Aquarium, University of British Columbia with the Museum of Anthropology, and Kitsilano are not connected by this rapid transit system. Changes are 	Vancouver
25599541	being made to the regional transportation network as part of Translink's 10-Year Transportation Plan. The Canada Line, opened on August 17, 2009, connects Vancouver International Airport and the neighbouring city of Richmond with the existing SkyTrain system. The Evergreen Extension, which opened on December 2, 2016, links the cities of Coquitlam and Port Moody with the SkyTrain system. As of January 2019, plans to extend the SkyTrain Millennium Line west to UBC as a subway under Broadway have been approved and there are plans for capacity upgrades and an extension to the Expo Line. Several road projects will 	Vancouver
25599542	be completed within the next few years, as part of the Provincial Government's Gateway Program. Other modes of transport add to the diversity of options available in Vancouver. Inter-city passenger rail service is operated from Pacific Central Station by Via Rail to points east, Amtrak Cascades to Seattle and Portland, and Rocky Mountaineer rail tour routes. Small passenger ferries operating in False Creek provide commuter service to Granville Island, Downtown Vancouver and Kitsilano. Vancouver has a citywide network of bicycle lanes and routes, which supports an active population of cyclists year-round. Cycling has become Vancouver's fastest	Vancouver
25599543	-growing mode of transportation. The bicycle-sharing system Mobi was introduced to the city in June 2016. Vancouver is served by Vancouver International Airport (YVR), located on Sea Island in the city of Richmond, immediately south of Vancouver. Vancouver's airport is Canada's second-busiest airport, and the second-largest gateway on the west coast of North America for international passengers. HeliJet and float plane companies operate scheduled air service from Vancouver harbour and YVR south terminal. The city is also served by two BC Ferry terminals. One is to the northwest at Horseshoe Bay (in West Vancouver), and 	Vancouver
25599544	the other is to the south, at Tsawwassen (in Delta). Sports and recreation. The mild climate of the city and proximity to ocean, mountains, rivers and lakes make the area a popular destination for outdoor recreation. Vancouver has over of parks, of which Stanley Park, at , is the largest. The city has several large beaches, many adjacent to one another, extending from the shoreline of Stanley Park around False Creek to the south side of English Bay, from Kitsilano to the University Endowment Lands, (which also has beaches that are not part of the city proper). The of beaches include 	Vancouver
25599545	Second and Third Beaches in Stanley Park, English Bay (First Beach), Sunset, Kitsilano Beach, Jericho, Locarno, Spanish Banks, Spanish Banks Extension, Spanish Banks West, and Wreck Beach. There is also a freshwater beach at Trout Lake in John Hendry Park. The coastline provides for many types of water sport, and the city is a popular destination for boating enthusiasts. Within a 20- to 30-minute drive from downtown Vancouver are the North Shore Mountains, with three ski areas: Cypress Mountain, Grouse Mountain, and Mount Seymour. Mountain bikers have created world-renowned trails across the North Shore. The Capilano River, Lynn 	Vancouver
25599546	Creek and Seymour River, also on the North Shore, provide opportunities to whitewater enthusiasts during periods of rain and spring melt, though the canyons of those rivers are more utilized for hiking and swimming than whitewater. Running races include the Vancouver Sun Run (a race) every April; the Vancouver Marathon, held every May; and the Scotiabank Vancouver Half-Marathon held every June. The Grouse Grind is a climb up Grouse Mountain open throughout the summer and fall months, including the annual Grouse Grind Mountain Run. Hiking trails include the Baden-Powell Trail, an arduous hike from West Vancouver's Horseshoe 	Vancouver
25599547	Bay to Deep Cove in the District of North Vancouver. Vancouver is also home to notable cycling races. During most summers since 1973, the Global Relay Gastown Grand Prix has been held on the cobblestone streets of Gastown. This race and the UBC Grand Prix are part of BC Superweek, an annual series of professional cycling races in Metro Vancouver. The British Columbia Derby is a nine-furlong horse race held at the Hastings Racecourse in the third week of September. In 2009, Metro Vancouver hosted the World Police and Fire Games. Swangard Stadium, in the neighbouring city of Burnaby	Vancouver
25599548	, hosted games for the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup. Vancouver, along with Whistler and Richmond, was the host city for the 2010 Winter Olympics and the 2010 Winter Paralympics. On June 12, 2010, it played host to Ultimate Fighting Championship 115 (UFC 115) which was the fourth UFC event to be held in Canada (and the first outside Montreal). In 2011, Vancouver hosted the Grey Cup, the Canadian Football League (CFL) championship game which is awarded every year to a different city which has a CFL team. The BC Titans of the International Basketball League played their inaugural season in 	Vancouver
25599549	2009, with home games at the Langley Event Centre. Vancouver is a centre for the fast-growing sport of ultimate. During the summer of 2008 Vancouver hosted the World Ultimate Championships. The National Basketball Association (NBA) came to town in the form of the Vancouver Grizzlies in 1995. They played their games at Rogers Arena. After six years in Vancouver, the team relocated to Memphis, Tennessee, in 2001. In 2015, Vancouver was one of six venues for the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup and hosted the Final game between the United States and Japan. Vancouver has an adult obesity 	Vancouver
25599550	rate of 12 percent, compared to the Canadian average of 23 percent. 51.8 percent of Vancouverites are overweight, making it the fourth-thinnest city in Canada after Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax. Sustainability. The City of Vancouver is a member of Metro Vancouver, which provides sustainable regional services to the Greater Vancouver area. The city electrical grid is serviced by BC Hydro, which has 97.8 percent clean energy generation. The City of Vancouver is the greenest city in Canada according to an independent ongoing urban ecological footprint study. The Greenest City action plan (GCAP) is a City of Vancouver urban sustainability 	Vancouver
25599551	initiative. Its primary mission was to ensure that Vancouver would become the greenest city in the world by 2020. The GCAP originated based on the 2009 work of the Greenest City Action Team, a committee co-chaired by Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson. The GCAP was approved by Vancouver city council in July 2011. In May 2018, the Zero Waste 2040 Strategy was passed by Vancouver's city council. The city began work the same year on decreasing the amount of single-use items distributed in the city and stated its intention to ban these items by 2021 if businesses do 	Vancouver
25599552	not meet reduction targets. As part of the plan, a ban on plastic straws, polystyrene food packaging and free shopping bags was to go into effect in mid-2019. Twin towns – sister cities. The City of Vancouver was one of the first cities in Canada to enter into an international sister cities arrangement. Special arrangements for cultural, social and economic benefits have been created with these sister cities. Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 census recorded 662,248 people in 	Vancouver
25599553	Sarasvati River Sarasvati River The Sarasvati River () is a deified river first mentioned in the Rig Veda 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 Rig Veda it is described as a great and holy river in north-western India," but in the middle and late Rig Vedic 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 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 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 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 a desert. Since the late 19th-century, numerous scholars have proposed to identify the Sarasvati with the Ghaggar-Hakra River system, which flows through 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 the Sutlej, which flowed into the Nara river, a delta channel of the Indus River. 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 urban sites  at Kalibangan (Rajasthan), Banawali and Rakhigarhi (Haryana), Dholavira and Lothal (Gujarat) lay along this course. When 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" Rig Vedic Sarasvati with the Ghaggar-Hakra system is therefore problematic, since the Gagghar-Hakra had dried-up well before the time of the composition of the Rig Veda. 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. Rig Vedic references to a physical river also indicate 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," "depicting the present-day situation, with the Sarasvatī having lost most of its water." Rig Vedic descriptions of the Sarasvati also don't fit the actual course of the Gagghar-Hakra. "Sarasvati" has also been identified with the Helmand or Haraxvati river in southern Afghanistan, the name of which may have been  reused in its Sanskrit form as the name of the Ghaggar-Hakra river, after the Vedic tribes moved to the Punjab. "Sarasvati" of the Rig Veda 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 suggesting an earlier dating of the Rig Veda; 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 South Asia between ca. 1900 and 1400 BCE. Etymology. ' is the feminine nominative singular form of the adjective ' (which occurs in the Rigveda as the name of the keeper of the celestial waters), derived from ‘sarasa’ + ‘vat’, meaning ‘having’. Saras appears, in turn, to be the compound of ‘sa’, a prefix meaning ‘with’, plus ‘rasa’, sap or juice, or water, and is defined in the first instance as  ‘anything flowing or fluid’ according to Monier-Williams dictionary. Mayrhofer considers unlikely a connection with the root *"" ‘run, flow’ but does agree that it could have been a river that connected many lakes due to its abundant volumes of water-flow. ' may be a cognate of Avestan "Haraxatī", perhaps originally referring to Arədvī Sūrā Anāhitā (modern "Ardwisur Anahid"), the Zoroastrian mythological world river, which would point to a common Indo-Iranian myth of a cosmic or mystical ' river. In the younger Avesta, "Haraxatī" is Arachosia, a region described to be rich in rivers, and its Old Persian cognate "Harauvati", which  gave its name to the present-day Hārūt River in Afghanistan, may have referred to the entire Helmand drainage basin (the center of Arachosia). Importance in Hinduism. 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 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) was in the Punjab and in the valleys of the Sarasvati and Drishadvati rivers in the time of the Rigveda." Rigveda. As a river. 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, 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 Rig Veda she is described as a "great and holy river in north-western India," but Michael Witzel notes that the Rig Veda 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 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 Rig Veda was compiled. As a goddess. Sarasvati is mentioned some fifty times in the hymns of the Rig Veda. It is mentioned in thirteen hymns of the late books (1 and 10) of the Rigveda. All but two of these invoke Sarasvati as a goddess without direct connection to a specific river. The most important hymns related to Sarasvati goddess are RV 6.61, RV 7.95 and RV 7.96. As 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 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" (') and "munificence" ('), consistent with her role as 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", 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, the goddess of the World, the goddess of  a divine inspiration ...". Other Vedic texts. 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 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 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 the river) may refer to a spring in the Siwalik mountains. 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 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. Post-Vedic texts. Wilke and Moebus note that the "historical river" Sarasvati 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. Mahabharata. According to the Mahabharata the Sarasvati River dried up to 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 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 Saraswati River. Puranas. 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 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: Contemporary religious significance. 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 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 together of the Ganges  and Yamuna rivers at Triveni Sangam, Allahabad, 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 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 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 is what happened in various parts of  the [Indian] subcontinent." Several present-day rivers are also named Sarasvati, after the Vedic Sarasvati: Identification theories. 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 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 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 Rig Veda, 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. Rig Vedic  course. The Rig Veda contains several hymns which give an indication of the flow of the geography of the river, and an identification of the Sarasvati as described in the later books of the Rig Veda with the Ghaggra-Hakra: Yet, the Rig Veda also contains clues for an identification with the Helmand river in Afghanistan: The Rig Veda was composed during the latter part of the late Harappan period, and according to Shaffer, the reason for the predominance of the Sarasvati in the Rigveda is the late Harappan (1900-1300 BCE) population shift eastwards to Haryana. Ghaggar-Hakra River . 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 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 the Harappan civilisation. Paleochannels and ancient course. 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. Pre-Holocene diversion of the Sutlej and Yamuna. 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 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 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 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 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 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." IVC and diminishing of the monsoons. Many Indus Valley Civilisation (Harrapan Civilisation) sites are found on the banks of and in the proximity of the Ghaggar-Hakra fluvial system, due to the "high monsoon rainfall" which fed the Ghaggar-Hakra in Mature Harappan Times. Giosan  et al., in their study "Fluvial landscapes of the Harappan civilisation", make clear that the Ghaggar-Hakra fluvial system was not a large glacier-fed Himalayan river, but a monsoonal-fed river. They concluded that the Indus Valley Civilisation prospered when the monsoons that fed the rivers diminished around 5,000 years ago. When the monsoons, which fed the rivers that supported the civilisation, further diminished and the rivers dried out as a result, the IVC declined some 4000 years ago. This in particular effected the Ghaggar-Hakra system, which became an intermittent river and was largely abandoned. Localized Late IVC -settlements are found eastwards, toward the more humid regions of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, where the decentralised late Harappan phase took place. The same widespread aridification in the third millennium BCE also led to water shortages and ecological changes in the Eurasian steppes, leading to a change of vegetation, triggering "higher mobility and transition to nomadic cattle breeding," These migrations eventually resulted in the Indo-Aryan migrations into South Asia. Identification with the Sarasvati. A number of archaeologists and geologists have identified the Sarasvati river with the present-day Ghaggar-Hakra River, or the dried up part of it, despite  the fact that it had already dried-up and become a small seasonal river before Vedic times. In the 19th and early 20th century a number of scholars, archaeologists and geologists have identified the Vedic Sarasvati River with the Ghaggar-Hakra River, such as Christian Lassen (1800-1876), Max Müller (1823-1900), Marc Aurel Stein (1862-1943), C.F. Oldham and Jane Macintosh. Danino notes that "the 1500 km-long bed of the Sarasvati" was "rediscovered" in the 19th century. According to Danino, "most Indologists" were convinced in the 19th century that "the bed of the Ghaggar-Hakra was the relic  of the Sarasvati." Recent archaeologists and geologists, such as Philip and Virdi (2006), K.S. Valdiya (2013) have identified the Sarasvati with Ghaggar. According to Gregory Possehl, "Linguistic, archaeological, and historical data show that the Sarasvati of the Vedas is the modern Ghaggar or Hakra." According to R.U.S. Prasad, "we [...] find a considerable body of opinions [sic] among the scholars, archaeologists and geologists, who hold that the Sarasvati originated in the Shivalik hills [...] and descended through Adi Badri, situated in the foothills of the Shivaliks, to the plains [...] and finally debouched herself into the Arabian sea at the Rann of Kutch ." According to Valdiya, "it is plausible to conclude that once upon a time the Ghagghar was known as "Sarsutī"," which is "a corruption of "Sarasvati"," because "at Sirsā on the bank of the Ghagghar stands a fortress called "Sarsutī". Now in derelict condition, this fortress of antiquity celebrates and honours the river "Sarsutī"." Textual and historical objections. Ashoke Mukherjee (2001), is critical of the attempts to identify the Rigvedic Sarasvati. Mukherjee notes that many historians and archaeologists, both Indian and foreign, concluded that the word "Sarasvati" (literally "being full of water") is not a noun, a specific "thing". However, Mukherjee  believes that "Sarasvati" is initially used by the Rig Vedic people as an adjective to the Indus as a large river and later evolved into a "noun". Mukherjee concludes that the Vedic poets had not seen the palaeo-Sarasvati, and that what they described in the Vedic verses refers to something else. He also suggests that in the post-Vedic and Puranic tradition the "disappearance" of Sarasvati, which to refers to "[going] under [the] ground in the sands", was created as a complementary myth to explain the visible non-existence of the river. Romila Thapar terms the identification controversial and  dismisses it, noticing that the descriptions of Sarasvati flowing through the high mountains does not tally with Ghaggar's course and suggests that Sarasvati is Haraxvati of Afghanistan. Wilke and Moebus suggest that the identification is problematic since the Ghaggar-Hakra river was already dried up at the time of the composition of the Vedas, let alone the migration of the Vedic people into northern India. Rajesh Kocchar further notes that, even if the Sutlej and the Yamuna had drained into the Ghaggar during Rig Vedic, it still would not fit the Rig Vedic descriptions because "the snow-fed Satluj  and Yamuna would strengthen lower Ghaggar. Upper Ghaggar would still be as puny as it is today." Helmand river. An alternative suggestion for the identity of the early Rigvedic Sarasvati River is the Helmand River and its tributary Arghandab in the Arachosia region in Afghanistan, separated from the watershed of the Indus by the Sanglakh Range. The Helmand historically besides Avestan "Haetumant" bore the name "Haraxvaiti", which is the Avestan form cognate to Sanskrit "Sarasvati". The Avesta extols the Helmand in similar terms to those used in the Rigveda with respect to the Sarasvati: "The bountiful, glorious Haetumant swelling its  white waves rolling down its copious flood". However unlike the Rigvedic Sarasvati, Helmand river never attained the status of a deity despite the praises in the Avesta. The identification of the "Sarasvati" river with the "Helmand" river was first proposed by Thomas (1886), followed by Alfred Hillebrandt a couple of years thereafter. However, in the same year, geologist R.D. Oldham, refuted this Afghan Sarasvatī thesis. Indologist A.B. Keith (1879–1944) also didn't subscribe to this theory and stated that there is no conclusive evidence to identify the Sarasvati with the Helmand river. According to Konrad Klaus (1989), the geographic situation  of the Sarasvati and the Helmand rivers are similar. Both flow into terminal lakes: The Helmand flows into a swamp on the Iranian plateau (the extended wetland and lake system of Hamun-i-Helmand). This matches the Rigvedic description of the Sarasvati flowing to the "samudra", which according to him at that time meant 'confluence', 'lake', 'heavenly lake', 'ocean'; the current meaning of 'terrestrial ocean' was not even felt in the Pali Canon. Rajesh Kocchar, after a detailed analysis of the Vedic texts and geological environments of the rivers, concludes that there are two Sarasvati rivers mentioned in the Rigveda . The early Rigvedic Sarasvati, which he calls "Naditama Sarasvati", is described in suktas 2.41, 7.36, etc. of the family books of the Rigveda, and drains into a "samudra". The description of the "Naditama Sarasvati" in the Rigveda matches the physical features of the Helmand River in Afghanistan, more precisely its tributary the Harut River, whose older name was "Haraxatī" in Avestan. The later Rigvedic Sarasvati, which he calls "Vinasana Sarasvati", is described in the Rigvedic Nadistuti sukta (10.75), which was composed centuries later, after an eastward migration of the bearers of the Rigvedic culture to the western Gangetic plain some  600 km to the east. The Sarasvati by this time had become a mythical "disappeared" river, and the name was transferred to the Ghaggar which disappeared in the desert. The later Rigvedic Sarasvati is only in the post-Rig Vedic Brahmanas said to disappear in the sands. According to Kocchar the Ganga and Yamuna were small streams in the vicinity of the Harut River. When the Vedic people moved east into Punjab, they named the new rivers they encountered after the old rivers they knew from Helmand, and the "Vinasana Sarasvati" may correspond with the Ghaggar-Hakra river. Romila Thapar  (2004) declares the identification of the Ghaggar with the Sarasvati controversial. Furthermore, the early references to the Sarasvati could be the Haraxvati plain in Afghanistan. The identification with the Ghaggar is problematic, as the Sarasvati is said to cut its way through high mountains, which is not the landscape of the Ghaggar. Contemporary politico-religious meaning. Drying-up and dating of the Vedas. The Vedic description of the goddess Sarasvati as a mighty river, and the Vedic and Puranic statements about the drying-up and diving-under of the Sarasvati, have been used by some as a reference point for  a revised dating of the Vedic culture. Some see these descriptions as a mighty river as evidence for an earlier dating of the Rig Veda, identifying the Vedic culture with the Harappan culture, which flourished at the time that the Gaggar-Hakra hadn't dried up, and rejecting the Indo-Aryan migrations theory, which postulates a migration at 1500 BCE. Michel Danino places the composition of the Vedas therefor in the third millennium BCE, a millennium earlier than the conventional dates. Danino notes that accepting the Rig Veda accounts as a mighty river as factual descriptions, and dating the drying  up late in the third millennium, are incompatible. According to Danino, this suggests that the Vedic people were present in northern India in the third millennium BCE, a conclusion which is controversial amongst professional archaeologists. Danino states that there is an absence of "any intrusive material culture in the Northwest during the second millennium BCE," a biological continuity in the skeletal remains, and a cultural continuity. Danino then states that if the "testimony of the Sarasvati is added to this, the simplest and most natural conclusion is that the Vedic culture was present in the region in the third millennium ." Danino acknowledges that this asks for "studying its tentacular ramifications into linguistics, archaeoastronomy, anthropology and genetics, besides a few other fields". Identification with the Indus Valley Civilisation. The Indus Valley Civilisation is sometimes called the "Sarasvati culture", "Sarasvati Civilization", "Indus Ghaggar-Hakra civilisation," "Indus-Sarasvati Civilization," or "Sindhu-Sarasvati Civilization" by Hindutva revisionists, referring to the Sarasvati river mentioned in the Vedas, and equating the Vedic culture with the Indus Valley Civilisation. In this view, the Harappan civilisation flourished predominantly on the banks of the Ghaggar-Hakra, not the Indus. For example, Danino notes that his proposed dating of the  Vedas to the third millennium BCE coincides with the mature phase of the Indus Valley civilisation, and that it is "tempting" to equate the Indus Valley and Vedic cultures. Romila Thapar points out that an alleged equation of the Indus Valley civilization and the carriers of Vedic culture stays in stark contrast to not only linguistic, but also archeological evidence. She notes that the essential characteristics of Indus valley urbanism, such as planned cities, complex fortifications, elaborate drainage systems, the use of mud and fire bricks, monumental buildings, extensive craft activity, are completely absent in the Rigveda. Similarly the Rigveda  lacks a conceptual familiarity with key aspects of organized urban life (e.g. non-kin labour, facets or items of an exchange system or complex weights and measures) and doesn't mention objects found in great numbers at Indus Valley civilization sites like terracotta figurines, sculptural representation of human bodies or seals. Hetalben Sindhav notes that claims of a large number of Ghaggar-Hakra sites are politically motivated and exaggerated. While the Indus remained an active river, the Ghaggar-Hakra dried-up, leaving mant sites undisturbed. Sidhav further notes that the Ghaggar-Hakra was a tributary of the Indus, so the  proposed Sarasvati nomenclatura is redundant. According to archaeologist Shereen Ratnagar, many Ghaggar-Hakra sites in India are actually those of local cultures; some sites display contact with Harappan civilization, but only a few are fully developed Harappan ones. Moreover, around 90% of the Indus script seals and inscribed objects discovered were found at sites in Pakistan along the Indus river, while other places accounting only for the remaining 10%. Revival. In 2015, Reuters reported that "members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh believe that proof of the physical existence of the Vedic river would bolster their concept of a golden age  of Hindu India, before invasions by Muslims and Christians." The Bharatiya Janata Party Government had therefore ordered archaeologists to search for the river. According to the government of Indian state of Haryana, research and satellite imagery of the region has confirmed to have found the lost river when water was detected during digging of the dry river bed at Yamunanagar. Surveys and satellite photographs confirm that there was once a great river that rose in the Himalayas, entered the plains of Haryana, flowed through the Thar-Cholistan desert of Rajasthan and eastern Sindh (running roughly parallel to the Indus) and  then reached the sea in the Rann of Kutchh in Gujarat. The strange marshy landscape of the Rann of Kutchh is partly due to the fact that it was once the estuary of a great river. The government constituted Saraswati Heritage Development Board (SHDB) had conducted a trial run on 30 July 2016 filling the river bed with 100 cusecs of water which was pumped into a dug-up channel from tubewells at Uncha Chandna village in Yamunanagar. The water is expected to fill the channel until Kurukshetra, a distance of 40 kilometres. Once confirmed that there is no obstructions  in the flow of the water, the government proposes to flow in another 100 cusecs after a fortnight. At that time, there were also plans to build three dams on the river route to keep it flowing perennially. In 2021, the Chief Minister of the State of Haryana stated that over 70 organizations were involved with researching the Saraswati River's heritage, and that the river "is still flowing underground from Adi Badri and up to Kutch in Gujarat." The Saraswati revival project seeks to build channels and dams along the route of the lost river, and develop it as  a tourist and pilgrimage circuit. Sarasvati River The Sarasvati River () is a deified river first mentioned in the Rig Veda 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 Rig Veda it is described as a "great and holy river in north-western India," but in the middle and late Rig Vedic books it is described as a small river ending in "a terminal lake (samudra)." As the goddess Sarasvati, the other