Place · Subarnarekha waterfall · India
Hundru Falls
The Subarnarekha river falls 98 metres down a basalt cliff at Hundru, 45 kilometres east of Ranchi, in a single thin plume that broadens dramatically during the monsoon when the catchment above runs full. The pool below carries fine traces of gold dust after which the river is named — Subarnarekha, the streak of gold — and small-scale gold-washing by Adivasi families along the river bed is still practised. The site is one of the five great waterfalls of the Chotanagpur plateau along with Dassam, Jonha, Panchghagh and Lodh, and the hydropower station three kilometres downstream, commissioned 1948, was among the first run-of-the-river projects of newly independent India.
- Function
- Landscape & environmental change
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 23.449, 85.662
Connections (2)
- Site adjacencyJagannath Temple, Ranchi
Hundru Falls on the Subarnarekha and the Jagannath temple at Ranchi are both landmarks of greater Ranchi's cultural geography, forty-five kilometres and three kilometres from the city centre respectively. The Jagannath temple's annual Rath Yatra each June-July — the largest religious festival of Chotanagpur — brings pilgrims from Munda, Oraon and migrant communities who then move out to the plateau waterfalls at Hundru, Jonha and Dassam for the picnic weekend that has become the city's shared ritual year.
- Site adjacencyDassam Falls
Dassam Falls on the Kanchi, Hundru Falls on the Subarnarekha, and Jonha Falls on the Raru are the three main waterfalls of the Ranchi plateau, within forty-five kilometres of one another and together forming the city's weekend circuit. All three belong to the same radial drainage of the central Chotanagpur plateau, falling off its edge toward the Ganga plain. The Munda-Oraon Sarhul and Baha spring festivals ritualise bathing in these waterfalls each April. Lodh Falls on the North Koel in Latehar is their larger cousin at 143 metres.
Sources
Standard reference.
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