Son 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.
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.
Son River
Sanskrit, Suvarna or ' gold ' ; likewise called Hiranya- Vdha or Himitya- Vdhu ; the Sonos of Arrian ; also identified with the Erannoboas of Arrian
A large river of Northern India, which, flow- ing from the Amarkantak highlands (22° 42' N., 82° 4' E.), first north and then east, joins the Ganges 10 miles above Dinapore, after a course of about 487 miles.
The Son rises near the Narbada at Amarkantak in the Maikala range, the hill on which its nominal source is located being called Sonbhadra or more commonly Sonmunda. It possesses great sanctity, the performance of sandhya on its banks ensuring absolution and the attainment of heaven even to the slayer of a Brahman. Legends about the stream are numerous, one of the most picturesque assigning the origin of the Son and Narbada to two tears dropped by Brahma, one on either side of the Amarkantak range. The Son is frequently men- tioned in Hindu literature — in the Ramayanas of Valmiki and Tulsi Das, the Bhagwat, and other works.
Soon after leaving its source, the Son falls in a cascade over the edge of the Amarkantak plateau amid the most picturesque surround- ings, and flows through Bilaspur District of the Central Provinces till it enters the Rewah State at 23° 6' N. and 81° 59' E. From this point till it leaves the Central India Agency after a course of 288 miles, the stream flows through a maze of valley and hill, for the most part in a narrow rocky channel, but expanding in favourable spots into magni- ficent deep broad reaches locally called dahdr, the favourite resorts of the fisher caste. Following at first a northerly course, near its junction with the Mahanadi river at Sarsi it meets the scarp of the Kaimur Hills and is turned in a north-easterly direction, finally leaving the Agency 5 miles east of Deora village. In Central India three affluents of importance are received : one on the left bank, the Johilla, which likewise rises at Amarkantak and joins it at Barwalu village ; and two which join it on the right bank, the Banas at 23° 17' N. and 81° 31' E., and the Gopat near Bardi. In the United Provinces the Son flows for about 55 miles from west to east across Mirzapur District, in a deep valley never more than 8 or 9 miles broad, often narrowing to a gorge, and receives from the south two tributaries, the Rihand and Kanhar. During the dry season it is shallow but rapid, varying in breadth from 60 to 100 yards, and is easily fordable. The Son enters Bengal in 24° 31' N. and 83° 24' E., and flows in a north-westerly direction, separating the District of Shahabad from Palamau, Gaya, and Patna, till, after a course within Bengal of 144 miles, it falls into the Ganges in 25° 40' N. and 84° 59' E.
So far as regards navigation, the Son is mainly used for floating down large rafts of bamboos and a little timber. During the rainy season, native boats of large tonnage occasionally proceed for a short distance up stream ; but navigation is then rendered dangerous by the extra- ordinary violence of the flood, and throughout the rest of the year becomes impossible, owing to the small depth of water. The irrigation system in South Bihar known as the Son Canals is served by this river, the water being distributed west to Shahabad and east to Gaya and Patna from a dam constructed at Dehri. In the lower portion of its course the Son is marked by several striking characteristics. Its bed is enormously wide, in some places stretching for three miles from bank to bank. During the greater part of the year this broad channel is merely a waste of drifting sand, with an insignificant stream that is nearly everywhere fordable. The discharge of water at this time is estimated to fall as low as 620 cubic feet per second. But in the rainy season, and especially just after a storm has burst on the plateau of Central India, the river rises with incredible rapidity. The entire rain- fall of an area of about 21,300 square miles requires to find an outlet by this channel, which frequently proves unable to carry off the total flood discharge, calculated at 830,000 cubic feet per second. These heavy floods are of short duration, seldom lasting for more than four days ; but in recent years they have wrought much destruction in the low-lying plains of Shahabad. Near the site of the great dam at Dehri the Son is crossed by the grand trunk road on a stone causeway ; and lower down, near Koelwar, the East Indian Railway has been carried across on a lattice-girder bridge. This bridge, begun for a single line of rails in 1855, and finally completed for a double line in 1870, has a total length of 4,199 feet from back to back of the abutments.
The Son possesses historical interest as being probably identical with the Erannoboas of Greek geographers, which is thought to be a corrup- tion of Hiratiya- Vdhu, or ' the golden-armed ' (a title of Siva), a name which the Son anciently bore. The old town of Palibothra or Patali- putra, corresponding to the modern Patna, was situated at the con- fluence of the Erannoboas and the Ganges ; and, in addition, we know that the junction of the Son with the Ganges has been gradually re- ceding westwards. Old channels of the Son have been found between Bankipore and Dinapore, and even below the present site of Patna. In the Bengal Atlas of 1772 the junction is marked near Maner, and it would seem to have been at the same spot in the seventeenth century ; it is now about ten miles higher up the Ganges.
