Cauvery, river
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Cauvery
{Kaveri; the Xu^r/pos of the Greek geographer Ptolemy). — A great river of Southern India, famous alike for its traditional sanctity, its picturesque scenery, and its utility for irrigation. Rising on the Brahmagiri, a hill in Coorg, high up amid the Western Ghats (12° 25' N. and 75'^ 34' E.), it flows in a generally south-east direction across the plateau of Mysore, and finally pours itself into the Bay of Bengal in the Madras District of Tanjore. Total length, about 475 miles ; esti- mated area of drainage basin, 28,000 square miles. It is known to devout Hindus as Dakshina Ganga, or the ' Ganges of the South,' and the whole of its course is holy ground. According to the legend pre- served in the Agneya and Skanda Puranas, there was once born upon earth a girl named Vishnumaya or Lopamudra, the daughter of Brahma ; but her divine father permitted her to be regarded as the child of a mortal called Kavera-muni. In order to obtain beatitude for her adoptive father, she resolved to become a river whose water should purify from all sin. Hence it is that even the holy Ganga resorts underground, once in the year, to the source of the Cauvery, to purge herself from the pollution contracted from the crowd of sinners who have bathed in her waters. At Tala Kaveri, where the river rises, and at Bhagamandala, where it receives its first tributary, stand ancient temples frequented annually by crowds of pilgrims in the month of Tulamasa (October-November).
The course of the Cauvery in Coorg is tortuous ; its bed is rocky ; its banks are high and covered with luxuriant vegetation. In the dry season it is fordable almost anywhere, but during the rains it swells into a torrent 20 or 30 feet deep. In this portion of its course it is joined by many tributaries— the Kakk;ibe, Kadanur, Kumma-hole, Muttara- mudi, Chikka-hole, and Survarnavati, or Haringi. Near the frontier, at the station of Fraserpet, it is spanned by a magnificent stone bridge, 516 feet in length. Soon after entering Mysore State, the Cauvery passes through a narrow gorge, with a fall of 60 to 80 feet in the rapids of Chunchan-Katte. After this it widens to an average breadth of from 300 to 400 yards till it receives the Kabbani, from which point it swells to a much broader stream. Its bed continues rocky, so as to forbid all navigation, but its banks are bordered with a rich belt of ' wet ' cultiva- tion. In its course through Mysore the river is interrupted by no less than twelve anicuts (dams) for the purpose of irrigation. Including irrigation from the tributaries, the total length of channels on the Cauvery system in Mysore in 1904-5 was 968 miles, the area irrigated 112,000 acres, and the revenue obtained nearly 7 lakhs. The finest channel is 72 miles long, and two others each run to 41 miles. The construction of three of the principal dams is attributed to the Mysore king, Chikka Deva Raja (1672-1704).
In Mysore the river forms the two islands of Skringapatam and SiVASAMUDRAM, about 50 miles apart, which vie in sanctity with the island of Srlrangam lower down in Trichinopoly District. Both islands are approached from the north by interesting bridges of native construc- tion, composed of hewn-stone pillars founded on the rocky bed of the stream, and connected by stone girders. The one at Seringapatam, about 1,400 feet long, named the Wellesley Bridge, after the Governor- General, was erected between 1803 and 1804 by the famous Diwan Purnaiya. That at Sivasamudram, 1,580 feet long, and called, after a Governor of Madras, the Lushington Bridge, was erected between 1830 and 1832 by a private individual, who also bridged the other arm in the same way and was honoured with suitable rewards. The river is moreover bridged at Seringapatam for the Mysore State Railway, and at Yedatore. The first fresh in the river generally occurs about the middle of June. In August the flow of water begins to decrease, but the river is not generally fordable till the end of October.
Enclosing the island of Sivasamudram are the celebrated Falls ot the Cauvery, unrivalled for romantic beauty. The river, here running north-east, branches into two channels, each of which makes a descent of 320 feet in a succession of rapids and broken cascades. The western fall is known as the Gagana Chukki ('sky spray'), and the eastern as the Bhar Chukki (' heavy spray '). The former, which is itself split by a small island, dashes with deafening roar over vast boulders of rock in a cloud of foam, the column of vapour rising from it being visible at times for miles. The eastern fall is quieter, and in the rainy season pours over the hill-side in an unbroken sheet a quarter of a mile broad. At other times the principal stream falls down a deep recess in the form of a horseshoe, and then rushes through a narrow channel, again falling about 30 feet into a large basin at the foot of the precipice. This waterfall is said to resemble the Horseshoe Fall of Niagara. The parted streams unite again on the north-east of the island and hurry on through wild and narrow gorges, one point being called the Mekedatu or ' goat's leap.'
The Cauvery has now been harnessed at Sivasamudram, the western fall being utilized for generating electricity to drive the machinery at the KoLAR Gold Fields, 92 miles distant, and to supply electric lighting for the city and power for a mill at Bangalore, 59 miles away. The instal- lation, delivering 4,000 h.p. at the mines, has been in successful operation since the middle of 1902, and was increased by 2,500 h.p. in 1905. It was the first of its kind in India, and at the time of its inception one of the longest lines of electric transmission in the world.
The principal towns on the river in Mysore are Yedatore, Seringa- patam, and Talakad, the last named being an old capital, now almost buried under sand-dunes. Crocodiles are numerous ; but they have seldom been known to attack fishermen, and the natives in general stand in no dread of them. Shoals of large fish, which are held sacred, are fed daily by the Brahmans at Ramnathpur and Yedatore. The Mysore tributaries of the Cauvery are, on the north, the Hemavati, Lokapavani, Shimsha, and Arkavati ; on the south, the Lakshman- TiRTHA, Kabbani, and Suvarnavati or Honnu-hole.
The Cauvery enters the Presidency of Madras at the Falls of Sivasa- mudram, and forms the boundary between the Districts of Coimbatore and Salem for a considerable distance, until it strikes into Trichinopoly. In this part of its course, near Alambadi in Coimbatore, there is a remarkable rock in the middle of the stream which throws up a column of perpetual spray, though the water round it is to all appearances quite unbroken. It is called the ' smoking rock,' and the natives declare that the spray is due to the river pouring into an enormous chasm in its bed. Close under the historic Rock of Trichinopoly the Cauvery breaks at the island of Srirangam into two channels (crossed by masonry road bridges), which irrigate the delta of Tanjore, the garden of Southern India. The more northerly of these channels is called the Coleroon (KoUidam) ; that which continues the course of the river towards the east preserves the name of the Cauvery. On the seaward face of the delta are the open roadsteads of Tranquebar, Negapatam, and French Karikal. In Madras the chief tributaries of the Cauvery are the Bhavani, Noyil, and Amaravati. At Erode the river is crossed by the south-west line of the Madras Railway, by means of an iron girder- bridge, 1,536 feet long with 22 spans, on piers sunk into the solid rock.
The only navigation which exists on the Cauvery is carried on in coracles of basket-work, but the Coleroon is navigable for a few miles above its mouth by vessels of 4 tons burden.
Although the water of the Cauvery is utilized to a considerable extent for agriculture in Mysore, and also in Coimbatore and Trichinopoly Districts, it is in its delta that its value for irrigation becomes most conspicuous. At Srirangam, just above the point where it bifurcates to form the Coleroon, the flood discharge is estimated at 313,000 cubic feet per second. The problem of utilizing this storehouse of agri- cultural wealth was first grappled with about the eleventh century by one of the Chola kings, who constructed a massive dam of unhewn stone, 1, 080 feet long and from 40 to 60 feet broad, below the island of Srirangam, to keep the Cauvery separate from the Coleroon and drive it towards Tanjore District. This is still in existence and is known as the ' Grand Anicut.' It has been improved by British engineers and a road bridge has been built upon it. Below it the kings of the same dynasty cut several of the chief canals of the delta, some of which still bear their names, and the Cauvery irrigation is thus less entirely due to the British Government than that in the Godavari and Kistna deltas.
When the British first came into possession of Tanjore District, in
1801, it was found that the great volume of the water-supply was then
passing down the Coleroon, which runs in a straighter course and at
a lower level than the Cauvery, while the Cauvery proper was gradually
silting up, and the irrigating channels that took off from it were
becoming dry. The object of the engineering works that have been
since constructed is to redress this unequal tendency, and to compel
either channel to carry the maximum of water that can be put to good
use. The first of these was the ' Upper Anicut ' across the head of
the Coleroon at the upper end of Srirangam Island, constructed by Sir
Arthur Cotton between 1836 and 1838. This is 2,250 feet long, broken
by islands into three sections, and was designed to increase the supply
in the Cauvery. It was followed in 1845 by a regulating dam, 1,950
feet long, across the Cauvery near the Grand Anicut, to prevent too
much water flowing down this latter stream. Close to it a similar
regulator was constructed in 1848 across the Vennar, one of the main
branches of the Cauvery. From this point the Cauvery runs north-
east and the Vennar south-east, both of them throwing off branch after
branch, which in their turn split up into innumerable channels and form
a vast network which irrigates the delta.
At the off-take of all the more considerable of these, head-works have been constructed to control and regulate the flow. The Cauvery itself eventually enters the sea by an extremely insignificant channel. From the Lower Anicut across that stream the Coleroon irrigates land in South Arcot as well as in Tanjore. In the three Districts of Tanjore, Trichinopoly, and South Arcot the two rivers water 1,107,000 acres, yielding a revenue of 41 lakhs. The capital cost of the works of improvement and extension in the delta has been 28 lakhs, and the net revenue from them is 8| lakhs, representing a return of nearly 31 per cent, on the outlay.
