Talk:Helmand River

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	Helmand River is part of the WikiProject Afghanistan, a project to maintain and expand Afghanistan-related subjects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
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[edit] Moved from article to talk page as it does not seem relevant to this article and is unsourced

The ancient overland route from the lower Indus River followed this river passing by Kandahar to southern Persia and the Persian Gulf. The hot, steamy conditions in the Helmand Valley were well suited for the breeding of elephants, the ancient equivalent of tanks.

The Helmand's ancient irrigation and river-control system was destroyed by Genghis Khan (13th cent.) and Timur (14th cent.); the modern irrigation works are vital to both Iranians and Afghans, and in times of drought there are disputes over water rights. The Helmand Valley Authority extensively developed the region, improving irrigation and flood control.

The Helmand river was known in ancient times as the Harahvaiti. It has therefore been suggested as a possible identity of the Vedic Saraswati River. The initial hymns of Rigveda are replete with allusions to geographical entities of Afghanistan. The description of River Helmand in Zoroastrian sacred book, Avesta, resembles the description of River Saraswati in Rigveda. Avesta describes this river as Harahvaiti, phonetically the same as Saraswati. The Vedic people when migrated to India carried with them place and river names and reused them in India just like NewYork now got the name from York City.

Sincerely, Mattisse 20:40, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Maps

I added maps of the river basin, but these cover only Afghanistan, while the basin extends to Iran and Pakistan. Anyone having better data is welcome to change these.
pmtlgdm (talk) 05:02, 21 January 2008 (UTC)