Goda'vari

Goda'vari, one of the principal rivers of India, and the largest of the Deccan, rises within 50 miles of the Indian Ocean, and flows south-east across the peninsula into the Bay of Bengal, which it enters by seven mouths, after a course of 898 miles, its total drainage area being estimated at 112,000 sq. mi. For some miles before the river bursts through the barrier of the Eastern Ghāts, its picturesque scenery has earned for it the name of the Indian Rhine; its stream, which, after receiving the Manjera, the noble Pranhlita, the Indravati, Tal, and Sabari, has attained a breadth from one to two miles, is here contracted by precipitous banks, until the whole volume of water pours through a rocky gorge 200 yards wide. The magnificent anicut or dam at the head of the delta, throwing off three main canals with a distributing length of 528 miles, deserves notice; thus irrigated, the entire delta has been turned into a great garden of perennial crops. The navigation of the upper waters is impeded by three impassable rocky barriers or rapids within a space of 150 miles; the works undertaken in 1861 to remove these obstructions, or to pass them by means of canals, were abandoned ten years later. The Godavari is one of the twelve sacred rivers of India, and the great bathing festival, called Pushkaram, is held on its banks once in twelve years. The district of Godavari embraces the delta; chief town, Cocanada.