He held the UNESCO Chair in the field of Cultural Development at the Indira Gandhi National Center for the Arts (IGNCA, New Delhi) from 1995 – 2002.

[1] Saraswati represented the Indian government at the UNESCO meeting in Paris in 1989 on safeguarding folklore, where he served as Vice-Chairman in preparation of a draft recommendation to member states.

2004: Honorary Fellowship of the Asiatic Society 2005: Life Time Achievement Award, Indian Social Science Association[5] Saraswati, in his book Pottery Making Cultures and Indian Civilization, found that though traditional technology and social practices among the potters of India were confined to five zones, the technology practiced in all the zones had a common origin from the days of the Indus Valley civilization.

He used the metaphor of Nilakantha (the blue neck of Shiva, the deity of the sacred city) to explain how unity and continuity in the cultural traditions of Kashi are maintained and deal with the challenges of modernization.

[6] Saraswati offered a new classification of culture in terms of the modes of transmission of knowledge: Oral (laukika), Textual (sastriya), and Transcendental (naivrittika).