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Saraswati River (Madhya Pradesh)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Saraswati river (IAST: Sáraswatī-nadī́) is a river flowing through Indore, the commercial capital of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It doesn't contain freshwater but instead has become polluted[1] mainly due to the pollution of the Kanh river.

Saraswati River
Location
CountryIndia
StateMadhya Pradesh
CityIndore
Physical characteristics
Source 
 • locationIndore, India
MouthKshipra river
Basin features
Tributaries 
 • rightKanh river

For the past few years efforts are being done to revive the dying river by the means of projects.[2][3]

Etymology

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Sárasvatī (cognate:Saraswati) is the feminine nominative singular form of the adjective sárasvat (which occurs in the Rigveda[4] 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 a river that connected many lakes due to its abundant volumes of water-flow.[5]

Sarasvatī may be a cognate of Avestan Haraxvatī, perhaps.[6] In the younger Avesta, Haraxvatī is Arachosia, a region described to be rich in rivers, and its Old Persian cognate Harauvati.

It may be named after the holy Sarasvati river mentioned in the Rigveda.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Jha, Bagish (4 January 2013). "Polluted Saraswati river". The Times of India. Retrieved 4 April 2016.
  2. ^ "Cleaning of Saraswati river". Times of India. Retrieved 4 April 2016.
  3. ^ "Ensure Waste not dumped". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 4 April 2016.
  4. ^ e.g. 7.96.4, 10.66.5
  5. ^ Mayrhofer, EWAia, s.v. Saraswatī as a common noun in Classical Sanskrit means a region abounding in pools and lakes, the river of that name, or any river, especially a holy one. Like its cognates Welsh hêl, heledd ‘river meadow’ and Greek ἕλος (hélos) ‘swamp’; the root is otherwise often connected with rivers (also in river names, such as Sarayu or Susartu); the suggestion has been revived in the connection of an "out of India" argument, N. Kazanas, "Rig-Veda is pre-Harappan", p. 9.
  6. ^ by Lommel (1927); Lommel, Herman (1927), Die Yašts des Awesta, Göttingen-Leipzig: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht/JC Hinrichs