Place · sacred river · Pakistan
Vitastā / Jhelum
Also known as Jhelum, Vitasta, Hydaspes, Bihat, Jehlam
The Vitastā of the Rigveda and the Hydaspes of the Greeks. It rises at Verīnāg in Kashmir, runs the length of the valley through Srinagar and the Wular lake, cuts the Pir Panjal at Baramulla and comes down to the plains, where Alexander crossed it in 326 BCE to fight Porus. It joins the Chenab at Trimmu.
- Periods
- Indus Valley Urbanisation, Vedic Age, Second Urbanisation, Classical and Puranic Age, Regional Flourishing, Islamic Age and Bhakti Traditions, Early Modern Age, British Colonial Age, Republic and Living Practice
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Mixed / layered — The physical place or feature is identifiable; its sacred origin or association belongs to a textual or living tradition.
- Location
- 32.930, 73.730 (approximate)
Worth knowing
It is the only one of the five Punjab rivers that runs through a whole inhabited valley before reaching the plains, which is why Kashmir’s history is river history: Srinagar was built on it, and the Nilamata Purana makes the valley a drained lake with the Vitastā as its outlet.
Connections (3)
- River flowAsiknī / Chenab
The Jhelum comes out of the Pir Panjal, crosses the plain past Mangla and meets the Chenab at Trimmu in Jhang district. Alexander’s fleet was nearly wrecked in the rapids at this junction on its way down to the Indus. From Trimmu the two run as one, so the Vitastā reaches the sea under another river’s name — which is true of four of the five.
- Its source is a tirthaVerīnāg
Verīnāg is the spring the Vitastā rises from, an octagonal tank walled by Jahangir in 1620 around a pool the Nilamata Purana already treated as the river’s birth. It is the one source of the five Punjab rivers that is also a garden and a monument, and it stands at the head of the valley the river then drains for two hundred kilometres before it reaches any plain.
- River adjacencyHydaspes (Jhelum) battlefield
The Hydaspes is the Vitastā, and the battle Alexander fought against Porus in 326 BCE turned on the crossing: he went upstream in the night and in the rain to ford it where he was not expected, and the elephants met the phalanx on the far bank. The exact site is not agreed on, because the river has moved repeatedly across the plain since.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Jhelum River”, “Rigvedic rivers” and “Battle of the Hydaspes”.
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