The Saraswati River shaped all of Vedic civilisation — and its disappearance changed India’s spiritual geography forever. This talk presents cutting-edge geological and paleochannel research on the Yamuna–Saraswati river system, tracing how Yamuna was originally a tributary of the Saraswati flowing westward before a tectonic shift redirected it eastward toward the Ganga some 49,000 years ago.

The speaker maps three ancient Yamuna channels (Y1, Y2, Y3) using IIT Kanpur satellite data, linking them to Vedic geography — ब्रह्मावर्त, the sacred zone between Saraswati and Drishadvati. The Saraswati’s gradual desiccation is dated through carbon dating and Rigvedic references, explaining why compositions after its disappearance lost the status of mantras. The Saraswati Satra yagna, the Vinasana pilgrimage site, and the Shivalik horse’s extinction are woven together into a rich civilisational timeline — culminating in the argument that Yudhishthira’s Rajasua Yagna was performed on the Yamuna’s banks at Indraprastha around 3100 BCE.

About the Speaker:
Vedveer Arya is the additional secretary in the Ministry of Defence. He is a chronologist, historian, author, sanskrit scholar and a 1997 batch officer of ‘Indian Defence Accounts Service’ (IDAS). He obtained his Master Degree(Sanskrit) from Hindu College (DU) and is awarded the Dr. Radhakrishnan Memorial Gold Medal and CD Deshmukh Memorial Gold Medal by Delhi University. He has authored five books on India’s Chronology.