Whether I am destined to fulfil it. Human life is brief, and its necessities often painful; the number of days we are granted is rarely sufficient to… - Louis Vivien de Saint-Martin

Vivien de Saint-Martin, Louis, Étude sur la géographie et les populations primitives du nord-ouest de l’Inde, d’après les hymnes védiques, op. cit., p. iii. 15-24 quoted in Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.

The Sarasvatī river is ‘the one which the hymns mention most frequently, whose name they utter with the highest praise and predilection’. It was also ‘the first river wholly belonging to the Veda’s historical arena’... He then noted the existence of today’s stream called ‘Sarsuti, . . . a rather insignificant river . . . which rises at the foot of the last steep slopes overlooking the plain [that is, the Shivaliks] in the rather narrow corridor between the Djemna [Yamuna] and the Satledj [Sutlej].’... ‘The ancient designation of Sarasvatī very much appears to have embraced, apart from the chief watercourse flowing far to the west, the totality of the streams flowing down from the mountain close to each other before they unite in a single bed.’... ‘its course then extended through the now arid and waterless plains extending between the Satlej and the gulf of Kotch...‘This positive recognition of the locale is crucially important for a full understanding of Vedic geography.

The trace of the ancient riverbed was recently found, still quite recognizable, and was followed far to the west. [This discovery] confirmed the correctness of the tradition.