SOCIAL SCIENTIST Let us first consider what the proponents imagine the river to have been. The basic text they go to is, naturally enough, the Rigveda. In the Rigveda the Sarasvati appears as just a goddess often with two other goddesses, Ida and Bharati; as a goddess of ritual and speech; as a river-goddess; and, finally, as a river. The third and fourth roles, which in the Rigveda, are her primary roles, are often hard to distinguish. But in certain verses the reference to a particular river seems clear enough. From these numerous references a selection is presented to buttress the notion of the "Vedic Sarasvati" as a "mightly" stream, the core of a vast "Sarasvati System". We hope to show at the end of this essay that the selection made is very onesided; but for the present we will lay out such evidence alone from the Rigveda as is the one on which reliance is placed by the upholders of the Great Sarasvati thesis. Essentially, this textual evidence is divisible into two parts: (1) Evidence helping to identify River Sarasvati with the Thanesar stream: In the famous River Hymn (Nadisukta) we read (Rigveda, X.75.5): "Favour ye this my land, O Ganga, Yamuna, Sarasvati, O Sutudri, Parushni With Asikni, O Marudvridha, Vitasta, O Arjikiya with Sushma, hear my call."9 It will be seen that in this list rivers are arranged east to west.The Sutudri is Sutlej (Ptolemy's 'Zaradros'); the Parushni is generally taken to be the Ravi; and the Asikni is more certainly the Chenab, since the latter is named Askesines by Alexander's historians and by Megasthenes. Aurel Stein has felicitously identified Marudvridha with the Maruwardwan, an affluent of the Chenab. Vitasta, the same name used also in the Rajatarangini, is modern "Behat", the Jhelum of the maps. Sushoma is probably the 'Soanos' of Megasthenes, the modern Soan or Sohan, a small eastern tributary of the Indus. The Arjikiya alone is not firmly identifiable, while the Vipas or Beas mentioned elsewhere in the Rigveda, III. 31.1-3, and IV.30.11, is here omitted.10 Even with these omissions there is enough geographical exactitude here as to enable us to place the Sarasvati definitely inside the Sutlej-Yamuna divide. From this it has been further assumed that we have here the Sarasvati (locally called 'Sarsuti') that passes by Thanesar in Haryana.11 (2) Another set of Rigvedic verses is cited to show that the Sarasvati was an exceptionally long and large river. Rigveda, VII, 95.2: "Pure in her course from mountains (girt) to the ocean (samudra), alone of streams, Sarasvati hath listened".12 As to her size, Rigveda, VI, 61.10, 12 and 13: