Sememe: ayana; sun and pr...

[Kalyans at aol.com]

I am responding to the reference INDUS_SARASVATI in Dominik's posting. 

In the Tamil and so-called Aryan traditions, brAhmi was the name of the
script used in the early epigraphs. brAhmi in Sanskrit tradition is a synonym
for Sarasvati. This river seems to be prominent in the vedic texts and
apparently corresponds to the landsat pictures of a dried up river (now
called Ghaggar in Haryana, Rajasthan). 

Harappan civilization sites (though not of the same size and grandeur as
Harappa and Mohenjo-daro) abound to the south and east of the Indus river
basin [e.g. Rupar, Dholavira, Daimabad (?)]. In view of the identification of
large clusters of 'village' sites, and the mounting archaeological evidence
of continuity of the civilization into the historical periods, it may be
appropriate to enlarge the nomenclature of 'Indus' based on epigraphical/
geographic arguments. 

Add one more river in a name!! Ganga? Not yet!?

I suppose river names for civilizations are NEUTRAL references and are based
on the fact that civilizations seem to have flourished on river banks. If
these names are 'tainted', using place names to denote as expansive a
civilization as 'THIS'  may perhaps be 'dated'  and restrictively, refer only
to the specific archaeological discovery sites early in this century. 

Some call THIS Harappan, some Indus, some Indus_Sarasvati. Let the social
melting-pot (and cherished, great newsgroups like indology) determine which
terminology should survive. As a sincere etymologist, I can't say 'What's in
a name?' and try to avoid the fundamental objective: advances in philological
studies and scholarship in search of our roots.