The
Ghaggar-Hakra River is an intermittent river in
India and
Pakistan that flows only during the
monsoon season. The river is known as Ghaggar before the
Ottu barrage and as the Hakra downstream of the barrage. The Ghaggar-Hakra is generally identified with the
Vedic Sarasvati River by most scholars, though it is disputed whether all
Rigvedic references to the Sarasvati should be taken to refer to this river. The identification of the Vedic Sarasvati River with the Ghaggar-Hakra River was accepted by
Christian Lassen,
Max Müller,
Marc Aurel Stein, C.F. Oldham, and Jane Macintosh. According to proto-historian
Michel Danino, in ancient times a mature river flowed into the Ghaggar-Hakra River valley and into the
Rann of Kutch, which he identifies as the Rig Vedic Sarasvati river. Whereas other perspective is believed to be that
Ghaggar-Hakra ]was a monsoon-fed river, not the Vedic Sarasvati fed by the melting snows of high mountains.