Importance of Rivers in India

Importance of Rivers in India : Historians attach much importance on the role of the rivers in India. The civilizations of ancient India flourished on the banks of the rivers. The first pre-historic Ancient Indian civilization better known as Harappan Civilization did develop on the Indus Valley created by the river Indus. Several of India’s mighty rivers take their rise from the Himalayas. Thundering down through steep gorges, gathering volume from many tributaries as they go, the Indus and the Ganges or Ganga wind their way in opposite directions, the one to merge itself in the Arabian Sea, the other in the Bay of Bengal. Both are about fifteen hundred miles long. The Ganges is joined near its mouth by Brahmaputra, the longest river of them all. Compared with these mighty streams the rivers of the Deccan plateau and of South India are less impressive.

Rivers have always played a vital part in the Indian History. Along their banks the earliest settlements were made the first great cities grew up. The gifts showered by the Indus and her tributaries on the Punjab, the land of the five rivers and the fertilizing waters of the Ganges led early to the development of Indo-Gangetic plain for thousands of years the teeming population of India has cultivated the fertile valleys. Is it any wonder that from the very early time India’s life giving came to be regarded as sacred? To this day, the Hindus call the Ganges ‘Mother Ganges’. Important towns and capitals such as Hastinapur, Prayag, and Pataliputra were situated on the banks of the rivers.