The hydro goddesses of India

But the Ganges in India, unlike in our country, does not denote a general water stretch but is particular to one single river. Of course Kaveri in South India is a copycat of the Ganges in the North but that is fertile Indian imagination.

We too tend to copycat mother India or elder brother India almost shamelessly. So maybe one fine distant day we heard of the river Ganges and decided to adopt the name to all the rivers here, Ma Oya opted to remain just an Oya despite its long water stretch from the central highlands to the north western coast around Kochchikade off Negombo.

Using the latest sleek and silky volume of Indian Perspectives, it is intended to trace here the course of the foremost rivers in India out of the numberless mélange. Does the Ganges come on top in this list? No. Though it is the most known to us because the Buddha walked its banks often disseminating the Dhamma and followed by His retinue, the mini-sacred procession casting amber shadows on the waters below, it is not India’s foremost river.

Then what is it? It is Indus, geographically too more significant. In fact the contention is that Indus lent her name to India.

Lion river

The is said that the Indus gave its name to India, that foreigners referred to India as the land that lies beyond the Indus. Known also as the Lion river, the Indus or Sindhi is “the largest in the sub-continent flowing for 3,200 kms from undistinguished springs in Tibet, North of Mount Kailash.”

Another river joins it going on to beget the most sublime confluence in the Himalayas. The river though it meanders mostly past the dwellings of the Hindus, next goes on to earn the homage of fishermen, a good section of them, Islamic, in the Pakistan province of Sind from where it reaches the Arabian sea. That is India vast in her dimensions.

Before going on, it must be mentioned that India’s rivers have “been singled out for recognition of goddesses not for their hydrological profile but for their sacred and cultural associations”.

Buddhists

Now that the Indus river has been dealt with let us move on to the Ganga or Ganges river which is sacred to us Buddhists. Her source is the ice cave of Gaumukh (mouth of the cow) sited in the Uttarakandh Himalayas. Its journey to the sea is preceded by the confluence at Prayag In Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh and its most notable location is the river’s delta, which is the Hooghly passing via Kolkata in west Bengal. Here she confronts the famous Bay of Bengal. Her run is only 2,525 kms compared to 3200 kms of the Indus.

Now on to Yamuna. Carrying on the female personification, Yamuna is often called the younger sister of the Ganges. Exiting the Himalayas, it has an Asokan edict on its banks extolling the virtues of non-violence. The Yamuna, however, comes face to face with urban problems as it flows down very near to Delhi and then through the ghats at Mathura. It accentuates its fame while curving around many a Mughal site including fabulous Taj Mahal.

Carrying on the feminine metaphor, is Godaveri termed the Gange's elder sister. It is a non-Himalayan river. It eschews the Himalayan mountain range as a source and springs from the lesser ranges of the Deccan plateau proximate to Maharashrta. The river flows for 1,456 km to cut through the eastern ghats and then on to Yanam in Andra Pradesh. Then the goddess flows right into the bay of Bengal.

Marble gorge

Now on to the Narmada as beautiful as her name. In fact she is personified as the daughter of Lord Siva. It is associated with a myriad facets as its bed heroically battling with Mughal invasions, its fabled marble gorge lending itself for carving temple images, as the first playground of snooker, a game invented in colonial times. Narmada finally ends her voyage in the Arabian sea at the estuary town of Bharuch in Gujerat.

Now we come to a river whose name is very familiar to us. Saraswathie is the name and she is actually the goddess of learning, this time taken on the guise of a flowing river thanks to raging Indian imagination. Saraswathie herself is lovely to behold, holding the ancient veena and seated on a swan. It has a peculiar history too for at one time it was hidden under the sands, that were the remains of Harappan civilisation.

In earlier times the Saraswathie had watered what is now the Rajasthan desert. Perspectives mention that this river was very much alive in folklore though today it is mostly dried up. In fact, it is called the lost sacred river. Like Narmada Saraswathie too had flowed into the Arabian sea from the Rann of Kutch in Gujerat.

The source of the Kaveri river lilts over this goddess,” shortest in length but the guardian of the most scintillating array of India’s cultural wealth.” She is also known as the Ganga of the South and is depicted standing wearing a red silk saree and holding a copper water pot from which she pours her blessings. What beautiful imagination!

Royal family

From the wooded hills of Coorg the river flows into Mysore in Tamil Nadu and then on to Karnakata where Tippu Sultan had his palace. Ring a bell? This is where our last royal family was imprisoned after their expulsion in 1815 from our upcountry kingdom. The new British rulers saw to it that no one escaped it to forward their claims to Lanka again. Once the writer on a visit to Madras tried to reach this place but was told that the palace is too far for a female to adventure alone.

Talking of females, the propensity in India to personify all rivers as females infect our island too. Ganga thomo, they are called. The metaphor extends when many works, both prose and verse, go rhetoric on the embrace of the female rivers with their spouse the ocean at the picturesque deltas. The main deltas develop into sprawling towns, both here and in Jambudeepa or Dambadiva or India or Bharathadesha and a peculiar river culture emerges in these deltas. In our country their names usually end with thota or Ferry. Examples are Benthota, Mathota or Mahathota (today Matara) and Kaluthota (today Kalutara).