Sanskrit: sárasvatī nadī is one of the chief Rigvedic rivers mentioned in ancient Hindu texts. The Nadistuti hymn in the Rigveda (10.75) mentions the Sarasvati between the Yamuna in the east and the Sutlej in the west, and later Vedic texts like Tandya and Jaiminiya Brahmanas as well as the Mahabharata mention that the Sarasvati dried up in a desert. The goddess Sarasvati was originally a personification of this river, but later developed an independent identity and meaning.

Most scholars agree that at least some of the references to the Sarasvati in the Rigveda refer to the Ghaggar-Hakra River, while the Helmand is often quoted as the locus of the early Rigvedic river. Whether such a transfer of the name has taken place, either from the Helmand to the Ghaggar-Hakra, or conversely from the Ghaggar-Hakra to the Helmand, is a matter of dispute.

There is also a small present-day Sarasvati River (Sarsuti) that joins the Ghaggar river.

The Sarasvati River is mentioned a total of 72 times in the Rigveda, appearing in all books except for book four.

Sarasvati is mentioned both as the chief of the Sapta Sindhu, the seven holy rivers of the early Rigveda, and listed in the geographical list of ten rivers in the Nadistuti sukta of the late Rigveda, and it is the only river with hymns entirely dedicated to it, RV 6.61, 7.95 and 7.96.

The name Sarasvati already in the Rigveda does not always relate to a river and its personification exclusively; and in some hymns, the goddess Saraswati (the Hindu goddess of knowledge) is becoming abstracted from the river.

In the 1 and 10 of the Rigveda, the Sarasvati is mentioned in 13 hymns (1.3, 13, 89, 164; 10.17, 30, 64, 65, 66, 75, 110, 131, 141). Only two of these references are unambiguously to the river, 10.64.9 calling for the aid of three "great rivers", Sindhu, Sarasvati and Sarayu, and the geographical Nadistuti list (10.75.5) discussed above. The others invoke Sarasvati as a goddess without direct connection to a specific river. In 10.30.12, her origin as a river goddess may cause the rishi invokes her as protective deity as he composes a hymn to the celestial waters. Similarly, in 10.135.5, as Indra drinks Soma he is described as refreshed by Sarasvati. The invocations in 10.17 address Sarasvati as a goddess of the forefathers as well as of the present generation. In 1.13, 1.89, 10.85, 10.66 and 10.141, she is listed with other gods and goddesses, not with rivers. In 10.65, she is invoked together with "holy thoughts" (dhī) and "munificence" (puraṃdhi), consistent with her role as the goddess of both knowledge and fertility