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. 2017 Jul 14;7(1):5476.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-05745-8.

Tracing the Vedic Saraswati River in the Great Rann of Kachchh

Nitesh Khonde  1   2 , Sunil Kumar Singh  3 , D M Maurya  4 , Vinai K Rai  3 , L S Chamyal  1 , Liviu Giosan  5
Affiliations

Tracing the Vedic Saraswati River in the Great Rann of Kachchh

Nitesh Khonde et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

The lost Saraswati River mentioned in the ancient Indian tradition is postulated to have flown independently of the Indus River into the Arabian Sea, perhaps along courses of now defunct rivers such as Ghaggar, Hakra and Nara. The persistence of such a river during the Harappan Bronze Age and the Iron Age Vedic period is strongly debated. We drilled in the Great Rann of Kachchh (Kutch), an infilled gulf of the Arabian Sea, which must have received input from the Saraswati, if active. Nd and Sr isotopic measurements suggest that a distinct source may have been present before 10 ka. Later in Holocene, under a drying climate, sediments from the Thar Desert probably choked the signature of an independent Saraswati-like river. Alternatively, without excluding a Saraswati-like secondary source, the Indus and the Thar were the dominant sources throughout the post-glacial history of the GRK. Indus-derived sediment accelerated the infilling of GRK after ~6 ka when the Indus delta started to grow. Until its complete infilling few centuries ago, freshwater input from the Indus, and perhaps from the Ghaggar-Hakra-Nara, probably sustained a productive marine environment as well as navigability toward old coastal Harappan and historic towns in the region.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(a) Regional drainage pattern for the western continental margin of the Indian plate. Dotted lines are the paleochannels of the Vedic Saraswati River after Ghose et al. and Kar and Ghose. The box represents the area shown in b. Location of the Dhordo core site and river sediment samples analyzed are also shown. (b) Geomorphic setting of the Great Rann of Kachchh (GRK) basin with surrounding hinterland and core locations. NPF- Nagar Parkar Fault, IBF- Island Belt Fault, KMF- Kachchh mainland Fault, KHF- Katrol hill Fault, NKF- North Kathiawar Fault, SWF- South Wagad Fault, P- Pachham Island, K-Khadir Island, B- Bela Island and C- Chorar Island. Core location: DH- Dhordo core raised from central GRK basin. Maps were prepared using a licensed copy of Ocean Data View (https://odv.awi.de/).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Scatter plot of 87Sr/86Sr and εNd isotope compositions of our GRK sediments, Indus delta/floodplain (Clift et al., ), Aravalli rivers (present study), Thar Desert (Tripathi et al.), Ghaggar-Hakra fluvial system (East et al.; Singh et al.; Alizai et al. and the Indus shelf northwest of the Indus Canyon (Limmer et al.) along with various potential end-members such as High Himalayan Crystalline, Lesser Himalaya and Siwaliks (Singh et al.; Tripathi et al., and references therein). Graph was prepared using a licensed copy of Sigma Plot v.10.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Deglacial and Holocene downcore variations in εNd and 87Sr/86Sr ratio values for GRK sediments plotted along with Indus River, Indus Shelf and Ghaggar-Hakra system. Ranges of variability for potential sources are shown at the top of each graph. Graphs were prepared using a licensed copy of Sigma Plot v.10.
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