Jhelum River

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The Jhelum RiverTemplate:Efn is a major river in South Asia, flowing through India and Pakistan, and is the westernmost of the five major rivers of the Punjab region. It originates at Verinag in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, flows into Pakistan-administered Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and then through the Punjab province of Pakistan. It is a tributary of the Chenab River and has a total length of about Template:Convert.<ref>"Jhelum River". Encyclopædia Britannica. Template:Webarchive. Retrieved on 4 October 2013.</ref>

Etymology

File:Vitasta at Verinag.jpg
Verinag Spring is a major source of Jhelum River

A Pakistani author, Anjum Sultan Shahbaz, recorded some stories of the name Jhelum in his book Tareekh-e-Jhelum:Template:Quote

The Sanskrit name for the river is Vitástā, derived from an apocryphal<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> legend regarding the origin of the river in the Nilamata Purana. The name survives in the Kashmiri name for this river, Vyath and in Punjabi (and more commonly in Saraiki<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>) as Vehat.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It was called the Hydaspes by the armies of Alexander the Great.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

History

File:Picjhelum.jpg
A passenger traversing the river precariously seated in a small suspended cradle Circa 1900

The river Jhelum was originally recognized by the name Vitasta. The river was called Hydaspes (Template:Langx) by the ancient Greeks.

According to Greek sources, Alexander III of Macedon and his army crossed the Jhelum River in 326 BCE and defeated the Indian King Porus at the Battle of the Hydaspes.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> After the battle, Alexander founded two cities: Nikaia, on the site where the battle was fought, and Bucephala, located at the site where he first crossed the River Hydaspes and subsequently named in honor of his recently deceased horse, Bucephalas.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The modern-day town of Jalalpur Sharif, outside Jhelum, is said to be where Bucephalus is buried.<ref>Michael Wood, "In the footsteps of Alexander the Great".</ref> Residents of the nearby Mandi Bahauddin district believe that their tehsil, the town of Phalia, is named after Alexander's horse, saying that the name Phalia was a distortion of Bucephala.Template:Cn

The waters of the Jhelum are allocated to Pakistan under the terms of the Indus Waters Treaty. India is working on a hydropower project on a tributary of Jhelum river to establish first-use rights on the river water over Pakistan as per the Indus Waters Treaty.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Legends

File:Art captioned “Hindoo (Hindu) picture emblematic of the creation of the river Jhelum or Vetasta”, ca.1882.webp
The creation of the Jhelum river according to Hindu theology

According to Hindu puranas, the goddess Parvati was requested by the sage Kashyapa to come to Kashmir to purify the land from the evil practices and impurities of the pishachas living there. Parvati assumed the form of a river in the netherworld. Her consort Shiva struck with his spear near the abode of Nila, (Verinag spring). With this stroke of the spear, Parvati emerged from the netherworld. He excavated a ditch measuring one vitasti using the spear,<ref>(a particular measure of length defined either as a long span between the extended thumb and little finger, or as the distance between the wrist and the tip of the fingers, and said to be about 9 inches</ref> through which the river, originating from the netherworld, came out, and so he gave her the name Vitástā.<ref>Nilamata Purana English Translation by Dr. Ved Kumari Ghai, verses 247–261.</ref>

The ancient Greeks also regarded the river as a god, as they did most mountains and streams. The poet Nonnus in the Dionysiaca<ref>section 26, line 350</ref> calls the Hydaspes a titan-descended god, the son of the sea-god Thaumas and the cloud-goddess Elektra, the brother of Iris, goddess of the rainbow, and half-brother to the harpies, the snatching winds. Since the river is in a foreign country, it is not clear whether they named the river after the god, or whether the god Hydaspes was named after the river.

Course

Present course

The river Jhelum rises from Verinag spring at the foot of the Pir Panjal in the southeastern Kashmir Valley administered by India. It is joined by its tributaries

It flows through Srinagar and Wular Lake before entering Pakistan-administered Kashmir through a deep narrow gorge. The Kishanganga River/Neelum River, the largest tributary of the Jhelum, joins it at Domel, Muzaffarabad, as does the next largest, the Kunhar River of Kaghan Valley. It is then joined by the Poonch River, and flows into the Mangla Dam reservoir in the Mirpur District. The Jhelum enters Pakistani Punjab in the Jhelum District. From there, it flows through the plains of Pakistan's Punjab, forming the boundary between the Jech and Sindh Sagar Doabs. It ends in a confluence with the Chenab River at Trimmu in the Jhang District. The Chenab merges with the Sutlej to form the Panjnad River, which joins the Indus River at Mithankot.

Most of the villages and important cities of Kashmir valley are situated on the banks of Jhelum.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Historical course

The Jhelum may have once flowed in a southeastern direction into the Chenab valley, which is the opposite of its present course.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> Some evidence of this is that some of the present tributaries of the Jhelum join it in a direction opposite to the present course of the river and the greater topographical maturity of the Chenab valley compared to the Jhelum valley.<ref name=":0" />

Lakes

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Infrastructure

Bridges

  • Victoria Bridge, Haranpur, constructed in 1973, approximate 5 km from Malakwal near Chak Nizam village. Its length is 1 km, mainly used by Pakistan Railways, but there is a passage for light vehicles, motorcycles, cycles and pedestrians on one side.

Dams

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Listed in the order of upstream to downstream.

India

The river has rich power generation potential in India. Water control structures are being built as a result of the Indus Basin Project, including the following:

Pakistan

  • Mangla Dam, 1070 MW, 7278 MCM, completed in 1967, is one of the largest earth-fill dams in the world.
  • Rasul Barrage, 22 MW, constructed in 1967, has a maximum flow of 850,000 ft³/s (24,000 m³/s).
  • Trimmu Barrage, 1263 MW, constructed in 1939 20 km from Jhang city at the confluence with the Chenab, has maximum discharge capacity of 645,000 ft³/s (18,000 m³/s).

Canals

See also

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Notes

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References

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