River Names

[Jaskaran Singh]

namaskAr,
Why are there two "sarayU"-s and two "irAvatI"-s? Just wondering....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarayu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hari_River,_Afghanistan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayeyarwady_River
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravi_River

[Believer]

Namaste Jaskaran,

Why are there two "sarayU"-s.....

I am not an expert on these matters, but I do know that not everything listed in the wikipedia is factual. As far as our history and culture goes, there is only one Saryu river, which is associated with Lord Ram and Ayodhaya. This is the first time that I have heard of another river (in Afganistan) being also referred to as Saryu. I would not put much faith in the data complied by volunteers (for wikipedia) who may not be well versed with the Vedic texts and may have borrowed some wrongly quoted references from unreliable translated sources.

Pranam.

[Kalicharan Tuvij]

[B][I][COLOR="DarkSlateBlue"]Why are there two "sarayU"-s and two "irAvatI"-s? Just wondering....

Just wondering? Hmm..let us freak--

The *Aryan* world was supposed to be symmetric around Bharata (a line drawn through MadhyaPradesh), may be?

"Afgani Saryu" "originates" in "Baba Mountains". So who could be "Baba"? One and only, Bhole Baba, Shiva Ji. Saraswati, on the other hand, originated in Shivalika. So this makes sense.

irAvatI, airAvati, Parushni-- all these alternate names are associated with Indra as well as Ila. "Bharata" (also Bharati) is also associated with these two Vedic Gods. So, it could be that these two two irAvati-s formed the political boundaries of the "Aryans".

Ganga is now understood to be originating in Shiva. Think, my friend, think. Ganga is the mirror of Saraswati. Eu..uu..U..Uu..Eureka??

Hmm. Japanese are the mirrors of Americans?
RF mirror of HDF?
JS mirror of KT?
.....
.....

KT

[Jaskaran Singh]

Namaste Jaskaran,

I am not an expert on these matters, but I do know that not everything listed in the wikipedia is factual. As far as our history and culture goes, there is only one Saryu river, which is associated with Lord Ram and Ayodhaya. This is the first time that I have heard of another river (in Afganistan) being also referred to as Saryu. I would not put much faith in the data complied by volunteers (for wikipedia) who may not be well versed with the Vedic texts and may have borrowed some wrongly quoted references from unreliable translated sources.

Pranam.

praNAm,
I just did some research on this Hari Rud stuff and it seems that one of the individuals who believes that sarayU refers to Hari Rud river is Michael Witzel, a virulent anti-Hindu Indologist:
http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~tcrn...turationin.pdf
Lol, I should really pay attention to the individuals making the claims before assuming that the information presented is factual.

[Aryavartian]

The same reason why there are 3 Sarasvatis i.e Harahvaiti/Arghandab in Afghanistan,Ghaggar-Hakra(the Rig Vedic Sarasvati) in Haryana and the other Sarasvati in Bengal.The Rg Vedic Sarayu AFAIK would have been a tributary of Sindhu.

[Jaskaran Singh]

The same reason why there are 3 Sarasvatis i.e Harahvaiti/Arghandab in Afghanistan,Ghaggar-Hakra(the Rig Vedic Sarasvati) in Haryana and the other Sarasvati in Bengal.The Rg Vedic Sarayu AFAIK would have been a tributary of Sindhu.

The sarayU flows into the ga~NgA, not the sindhu. I know that the satluj and yamunA once flowed into the sarasvatI (before going in opposite directions relative to one another, and flowing into the sindhu and ga~Nga respectively) and that the kubhA (kAbul river) once flowed into the sindhu. Hence, if the sarayU was once a tributary of the sindhu (like you say), it must have been to the west of panjAb, so perhaps the Afghanistan river theory isn't completely false.

[Aryavartian]

The sarayU flows into the ga~NgA, not the sindhu.

According to Wiki:

Sarayu is listed together with western tributaries to the Indus: Rasā, Anitabha, Kubha, Krumu, and the Sindhu itself as obstacles crossed by the Maruts in RV 5.53.9

So obviously this refers to another river than of the UP.

so perhaps the Afghanistan river theory isn't completely false.

I wouldn't jump into conclusions yet,because there could have been another small tributary of Indus back in Vedic times

Also,the Afghani river is quite far away from Sindhu,located near Iran and Turkmenistan.This doesn't suit Rig Vedic association of Sarayu with Sindhu,

[Jaskaran Singh]

I wouldn't jump into conclusions yet,because there could have been another small tributary of Indus back in Vedic times

Also,the Afghani river is quite far away from Sindhu,located near Iran and Turkmenistan.This doesn't suit Rig Vedic association of Sarayu with Sindhu,

That is not the gomatI, that's the gomal, the gomatI flows through bhArat. That aside, I didn't know that so many vedic rivers flow through Pakistan; it makes me proud to be Pakistani, lol. Also, regardless of what the map says, I still think that the haroiiu is at least somewhat related to the sarayU. The Avesta associates the haroiiu with someone called "rAma hvastra" and hvastra comes from hvara which means sun just like sUrya, and wasn't shrI rAmachandra a sUryavaMshI? Also, the present name for the river is harI, which is similar to hari, which is another name for viShNu and rAma is an avatAra of viShNu. This couldn't be completely coincidental, could it?

Edit: Also, I thought it was jAhnavI, not jahnAvI. I guess Adi sha~NkarAchArya was wrong when he said "patitoddhAriNI jAhnavI ga~Nge khaNDita girivaramaNDita bha~Nge bhIShmajanani khalu munivarakanye patitanivAriNI tribhuvana dhanye" in his ga~NgA stava.

[Aryavartian]

That is not the gomatI, that's the gomal, the gomatI flows through bhArat. That aside, I didn't know that so many vedic rivers flow through Pakistan; it makes me proud to be Pakistani, lol. Also, regardless of what the map says, I still think that the haroiiu is at least somewhat related to the sarayU. The Avesta associates the haroiiu with someone called "rAma hvastra" and hvastra comes from hvara which means sun just like sUrya, and wasn't shrI rAmachandra a sUryavaMshI? Also, the present name for the river is harI, which is similar to hari, which is another name for viShNu and rAma is an avatAra of viShNu. This couldn't be completely coincidental, could it?

I thought Gomal and Gomati were one and same....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomal_River


And lol,if it wasn't for islam Pakistan would still have been inhabited by Hindus

I'm not denying that Horiiu is associated with Sarayu,but i suppose that Vedic Sarayu is located somewhere near Sindhu and the name was later transferred to Hari-Rud.And i think Rama Hvastra is a Yazata,it is mentioned along with Mithra and Vayu in Avesta.

[Jaskaran Singh]

Namaste,

I thought Gomal and Gomati were one and same....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomal_River

Really? I thought gomatI and gomatI were the same, :
http://www.lucknow4u.com/gomti.htm

And lol,if it wasn't for islam Pakistan would still have been inhabited by Hindus

I realize that. I'm not one of those people who glorify savages like Qasim, Ghori, Ghazni, Timur, Aibak, etc. Anyway, there would probably also be quite a few bauddha-s too if it wasn't for Muslim savagery. Apart from the bihArI-s and bhoTiya-s, the gandhAran-s were some of the staunchest bauddha-s in South Asia; if the Muslims didn't arrive, they would be making yAtrA-s to kaniShka's stUpa rather than blowing up the Bayiman statues. If I lived in 7th century Makkah, I would gag Muhammad so he couldn't spread his garbage, lol.

I'm not denying that Horiiu is associated with Sarayu,but i suppose that Vedic Sarayu is located somewhere near Sindhu and the name was later transferred to Hari-Rud.

But, but...the river referred to as sarayU in your map already has a name; I think it's called Zhob Seend. It would make sense if the name of the sarayU in uttarpradesh was later transferred to the haroiiu/harI river, but I can't quite understand why a tiny little tributary like the Zhob would be the sarayU...

And i think Rama Hvastra is a Yazata,it is mentioned along with Mithra and Vayu in Avesta.

vAyu, you say? Interesting...isn't hanumAn/A~njaneya the son of vAyu, hence the name pavanaputra?
Anyway, I found a great video on ayodhyA, it has a section on the sarayUnadI around 6:22:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vjhfvkVFj0