Narmada River

Central Indian river that has its source at
the sacred site (tirtha) of Amarkantak
in the state of Madhya Pradesh, and
flows almost directly west through the
state of Gujarat, then to the Arabian Sea.
The Narmada is one of the few central
Indian rivers flowing from east to west;
rivers further south are channeled east
by the upthrust of the highlands known
as the Western Ghats. It is traditionally
considered one of the seven sacred
rivers of India, along with the Ganges,
Yamuna, Godavari, Saraswati, Indus,
and Cauvery. An important site on the
Narmada is Omkareshvar, one of the
twelve jyotirlingas, a network of sites
sacred to the god Shiva. During the
1990s the Narmada has become a rallying point for environmentalists who
have opposed construction of several
massive dams, on the grounds that
these dams have displaced too many
people and destroyed too much prime
farmland. Although work on these dams
has continued, the pace has slowed. In
1997 a minor earthquake in the
Narmada basin prompted the call for
further consideration of this project’s
environmental dangers.