My Science School

River Cauvery representing the most important of the five elements — ?pas (water) — is drawing close to its holy Pushkaram season. We prepare for the rituals with prayerful anxiety for a return to the days of plentiful flow that had been our everyday experience half a century earlier. 

From Kodagu (Coorg) in Karnataka to Puhar (Kaveri-p-poompattinam) in Tamil Nadu, the Cauvery flows along 765 km. There is the prologue to the epic Manimekalai, which refers to the Cauvery coming to the Chola region. King Kantaman’s penance to quench the thirst of his land that was struck by drought moved Sage Agastya, who poured out water from his kamandala to flow forth as a river.

Legend might be a shadow of the past. Not so history. From its rise in the Sahyadri Hills, the Cauvery keeps rushing through the creation of great kingdoms, royal rivalries, innumerable battles and a readiness to give up one’s life to make a statement for the coming generations. 

 

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The word Mahanadi is a compound of the Sanskrit words maha ("great") and nadi ("river").

In different era, this river was known by several names, such as:

Ancient era – Kanaknandini

Dwapar yug – Chitrotpala ( Similar name in matasya Purana)

Treta yug – Nilotpala ( Similar name in vayu Purana)

Mahabharata era – Mahananda

Kal yug – Mahanadi or Mahashweta

The Mahanadi is an important river in the state of Odisha. This river flows slowly for about 900 kilometres (560 mi) and deposits more silt than any other river in the Indian subcontinent.

The cities of Cuttack and Sambalpur were prominent trading places in the ancient world and the river itself has been referred to as the Manada in Ptolemy's works. 

 

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The statue depicts Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, India's first Home Minister, wearing a traditional dhoti and shawl, towering over river Narmada.

The statue was inaugurated by Prime Minister Modi on 31 October, 2018. For many it was a source of national pride and a clear demonstration of Indian construction skills. But it wasn’t without its detractors. The sheer cost of the thing was and is an obvious bone of contention, with some arguing that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel himself would never have approved of such a costly project.

Visitors can tour the memorial garden, exhibition center and museum located at the site, before venturing up to the statue’s observation deck at a height of 502 feet (153 m).

Visiting hours are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. from Tuesday to Sunday (the statue is closed every Monday for maintenance). Standard adult tickets, which include the observation deck, museum and memorial gardens, cost Rs 350.

 

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 Named after the South American river, Amazon sold its first book in July 1995. Jeff Bezos , by name of Jeffrey Preston Bezos, (born January 12, 1964, Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.), American entrepreneur who played a key role in the growth of e-commerce as the founder and chief executive officer of Amazon.com, Inc., an online merchant of books and later of a wide variety of products. Under his guidance, Amazon became the largest retailer on the World Wide Web and the model for Internet sales.

Amazon quickly became the leader in e-commerce. Open 24 hours a day, the site was user-friendly, encouraging browsers to post their own reviews of books and offering discounts, personalized recommendations, and searches for out-of-print books. In June 1998 it began selling CDs, and later that year it added videos. In 1999 Bezos added auctions to the site and invested in other virtual stores. The success of Amazon encouraged other retailers, including major book chains, to establish online stores.

 

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Egyptian civilization developed along the Nile River in large part because the river’s annual flooding ensured reliable, rich soil for growing crops.

Much of the history of Egypt is divided into three “kingdom” periods—Old, Middle, and New—with shorter intermediate periods separating the kingdoms. The term "intermediate" here refers to the fact that during these times Egypt was not a unified political power, and thus was in between powerful kingdoms. Even before the Old Kingdom period, the foundations of Egyptian civilization were being laid for thousands of years, as people living near the Nile increasingly focused on sedentary agriculture, which led to urbanization and specialized, non-agricultural economic activity.

The Nile River flooded annually; this flooding was so regular that the ancient Egyptians set their three seasons—Inundation, or flooding, Growth, and Harvest—around it.

 

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The Ganges (Ganga) River is a sacred body of water to Hindus that begins high in the Himalaya Mountains and empties out into the Bay of Bengal. The surrounding river basin has a population of more than four hundred million people.

The Ganges flows south and east from the Himalayas, forming a canyon as it leaves the mountain. It winds its way through northern India, eventually emptying into the Bay of Bengal. The Ganges’ many tributaries originate from the nearby countries of Nepal, Bangladesh, and China (in an autonomous region called Tibet). 

The river is also used for fishing, irrigation, and bathing, and it is worshiped in the Hindu religion as the Mother Ganga. As the river empties into the Bay of Bengal, the mouth forms the Ganges River Delta, the largest river delta in the world.

 

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The Brahmaputra is one of the major rivers of Asia, a trans-boundary river which flows through China, India and Bangladesh. It is known as the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet, the Brahmaputra, Lohit, Siang, and Dihang in India, and the Jamuna in Bangladesh.

About 3,969 km (2,466 mi) long, the Brahmaputra is an important river for irrigation and transportation in the region. The average depth of the river is 38 m (124 ft) and maximum depth is 120 m (380 ft). The river is prone to catastrophic flooding in the Spring when the Himalayan snow melts. The average discharge of the river is about 19,800 m3/s (700,000 cu ft/s), and floods can reach over 100,000 m3/s (3,500,000 cu ft/s). It is a classic example of a braided river and is highly susceptible to channel migration and avulsion. It is also one of the few rivers in the world that exhibits a tidal bore. It is navigable for most of its length.

 

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According to legend, the city of Rome was founded in 753 BC on the banks of the Tiber about 25 kilometres (16 mi) from the sea at Ostia. Tiber Island, in the center of the river between Trastevere and the ancient city center, was the site of an important ancient ford and was later bridged. 

The Tiber Latin: Tiberis; Italian: Tevere is the third-longest river in Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing 406 kilometres (252 mi) through Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio, where it is joined by the river Aniene, to the Tyrrhenian Sea, between Ostia and Fiumicino. It drains a basin estimated at 17,375 square kilometres (6,709 sq mi). The river has achieved lasting fame as the main watercourse of the city of Rome, founded on its eastern banks.

Tiber has heavily advanced at the mouth by about 3 kilometres (2 miles) since Roman times, leaving the ancient port of Ostia Antica 6 kilometres (4 miles) inland. However, it does not form a proportional delta, owing to a strong north-flowing sea current close to the shore, to the steep shelving of the coast, and to slow tectonic subsidence.

 

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Punjab thus means "The Land of Five Waters", referring to the rivers Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas. All are tributaries of the Indus River, the Sutlej being the largest.

The geographical definition of the term "Punjab" has changed over time. In the 16th century Mughal Empire it referred to a relatively smaller area between the Indus and the Sutlej rivers. In British India, until the Partition of Punjab in 1947, the Punjab Province encompassed the present-day Indian states and union territories of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and Delhi and the Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Islamabad Capital Territory. It bordered the Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa regions to the west, Kashmir to the north, the Hindi Belt to the east, and Rajasthan and Sindh to the south.

The people of the Punjab today are called Punjabis, and their principal language is Punjabi. The main religion of the Pakistani Punjab region is Islam. The main religion of the Indian Punjab region is Sikhism and Hinduism. 

 

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Janmashtami is the sacred day when the birthless, deathless Supreme Consciousness took birth as a human child in the city of Mathura. In the Bhagavatam it says that at the time of the Lord’s birth, a bright light pervaded, clearing darkness in all directions. People’s minds became suddenly joyful, and plants and trees bloomed. The shackles on Vasudeva’s feet fell away, and the prison doors opened by themselves. The Yamuna River parted to make way for Vasudeva, who was carrying the infant Krishna.

There is a teaching in this: Whenever God incarnates, along with the external changes the light of knowledge will spread within us. When we, like Vasudeva, move forward, holding God close to our hearts, all obstacles on our path will fall away and we will attain our goal.

It is to be borne in mind that Yamuna was a smaller and shallower river then. Sarasvati was a much larger, flowing river then.

Tamas was then a tributary of the Sarasvati, before it turned east to join the Yamuna much later in time.

Even now in the Mathura Agra belt, Yamuna is a shallow river. This is noticeable before summer, when the water is lowest in the river. It is sometimes easy to ford the river then, on foot.

 

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Mississippi River, the longest river of North America, draining with its major tributaries an area of approximately 1.2 million square miles (3.1 million square km), or about one-eighth of the entire continent. The Mississippi River lies entirely within the United States. Rising in Lake Itasca in Minnesota, it flows almost due south across the continental interior, collecting the waters of its major tributaries, the Missouri River (to the west) and the Ohio River (to the east), approximately halfway along its journey to the Gulf of Mexico through a vast delta southeast of New Orleans, a total distance of 2,340 miles (3,766 km) from its source. With its tributaries, the Mississippi drains all or part of 31 U.S. states and two provinces in Canada.

As the central river artery of a highly industrialized nation, the Mississippi River has become one of the busiest commercial waterways in the world, and, as the unruly neighbour of some of the continent’s richest farmland, it has been subjected to a remarkable degree of human control and modification.

 

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Apart from the main mausoleum, which houses the tombs of Humayun and his wife Haji Behum, there are several tombs that can be found within the Humayun’s Tomb complex. One of the most prominent of these is the tomb and mosque of Isa Khan Niazi, an Afghan noble in Sher Shah Suri’s court of the Suri dynasty. This tomb predates the main one by nearly 20 years. Built during the reign of Islam Shah Suri, son of Sher Shah Suri, this octagonal tomb is placed within an octagonal garden. While it was built for Isa Khan, it later served as a burial place for his entire family.

Barber’s Tomb, also known as Nai-ka-Gumbad, is another popular tomb which lies close to the main mausoleum. The tomb, which dates to 1590-91 CE according to an inscription, is said to belong to Humayun’s royal barber. It stands on a raised platform and can be reached by climbing seven steps.

The Afsarwala tomb complex is another tomb found in the vicinity. The complex comprises a tomb and a mosque. The tomb is believed to belong to a military officer, thereby the name ‘Afsarwala’. The mosque, built between 1560 and 1567, stands on the same raised platform as the tomb.

 

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Built in the 1560s by Persian and Indian craftsmen, Humayun’s garden tomb is an example of the charbhag style. The main tomb is located at the centre of the charbagh – a four-quadrant garden with the four rivers of Quranic paradise represented by waterways. The four quadrants are further divided into smaller squares by pathways, leaving us with 36 squares in all. This 36-square design is typical of later Mughal gardens.

There are two gateways to the Tomb – one on the southern wall and the other on the western wall – each connected to the main walkways in the garden. Today, only the small western gate is operational. At the centre of the eastern and northern walls, one can find a pavilion with 12 doors, and a bathing chamber called Hammam.

The main mausoleum stands on an eight-metre-high, wide terraced platform. The terrace is square in design but chamfered on the edges to appear octagonal. The plinth made with rubble core has 56 cells, housing over 100 gravestones.

The tomb is built of rubble masonry and red sandstone. Marble has been used as a cladding material to provide a degree of thermal insulation and weather resistance. It has also been used for the flooring, door frames, lattice screens/jaalis (a screen made of perforated stone usually in an ornamental pattern), eaves and the main dome. While the mausoleum’s exterior dome is made up of marble, the remaining structure uses red sanstone with white and black marble and yellow sandstone detailing.

Humayun’s Tomb is the first to use the unique combination of red sandstone and white marble. Though heavily inspired by Persian architecture, it also incorporates elements of Indian architecture such as small canopies or chhatris surrounding the central dome.

 

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Nasir-ud-Din Muhammad, popularly known as Humayun, was the second emperor of the Mughal Empire. He succeeded his father Babur to the throne in 1530. Between 1530 and 1540, and 1555-1556, Humayun ruled over what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan, Northern India and Bangladesh.

He lost his kingdom in 1540, and regained it in 1555 with the help of the Safavid dynasty of Persia. This also marked the beginning of the influence of Persian art, architecture, literature and language on the Mughals.

Humayun passed away in January 1556, when he fell down the stairs of hid library and hit his temple on rugged stone edge. He was laid to rest initially at the Purana Qila, also in Delhi, but his Kalanaur in Punjab following in the attack and capture of the Purana Qila by the Hindu emperor Hemu. Humayun was finally buried in a grand way at his tomb, following its completion.

 

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Humayun’s Tomb, situated in Delhi, is the grand mausoleum of the Mughal emperor Humayun. Built in 1570, it is the first garden tomb in the Indian subcontinent. Humayun’s Tomb was commissioned by his wife Haji Begum, and was designed by Mirak Mirza Ghiyath, a Persian architect, and Humayun’s son, Akbar.

Spanning 27 hectares, Humayun’s Tomb is situated in a complex that also houses other monuments such as Nila Gumbad, Isa Khan’s tomb, Bu Halima, Afsarwala tomb complex, Barber’s Tomb, and the Arab Serai, the complex where the craftsmen employed in the construction of Humanyun’s Tomb stayed.

The tomb is called the ‘dormitory of the Mughals’, as over 150 members of the Mughal family have been buried in the cells of the gardens.

Humanyun’s Tomb is known to be the first structure to be built with red sandstone on such a scale.

The monument has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1993.

 

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