The Gayatri River is a tributary of the Krishna River in western

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. It rises in Panchaganga temple in old

Mahableshwar Mahabaleshwar () is a small town and a municipal council in Satara district, Maharashtra, India. It is a place of pilgrimage for Hindus because Krishna river has its origin here. The British colonial rulers developed the town as a hill station ...

, a hill station in the Western Ghats. The river meets the Krishna River, which is one of the three largest rivers in southern India by

Karad Karad is a city in Satara district of Indian state of Maharashtra and it is 320 km (180.19 miles) from Mumbai and 159 km from Pune. It lies at the confluence of Koyna River and the Krishna River known as the "Priti sangam". T ...

. The river is small and is slow-flowing.

Geography and history

Mahabaleshwar Mahabaleshwar () is a small town and a municipal council in Satara district, Maharashtra, India. It is a place of pilgrimage for Hindus because Krishna river has its origin here. The British colonial rulers developed the town as a hill station ...

is the source of five rivers namely Krishna River,

Koyna Koyna may refer to: * Koyna River, a river which originates in the Western Ghats of Maharashtra * Koyna Wildlife Sanctuary, a wildlife refuge in the Western Ghats of Maharashtra * Koynanagar, a town at the site of the Koyna Dam * Koyna Dam, a d ...

, Venna (Veni), Savitri, and Gayatri. The source is at the Panchaganga temple in old Mahabaleshwar. The legendary source of the river is a spout from the mouth of a statue of a cow in the ancient temple of Mahadev in Old Mahabaleshwar. Legend has it that Krishna is Lord Vishnu himself as a result of a curse on the

trimurti The Trimūrti (; Sanskrit: त्रिमूर्ति ', "three forms" or "trinity") are the trinity of supreme divinity in Hinduism, in which the cosmic functions of creation, maintenance, and destruction are personified as a triad of de ...

s by Savitri. Also, its tributaries Venna and Koyana are said to be Lord Shiva and Lord Brahma themselves. An interesting thing to notice is that 4 other rivers including Gayatri come out from the cow's mouth apart from Krishna and they all travel some distance before merging into Krishna. The biggest river Krishna River that flows across Maharashtra,

Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...

,Telangana and

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

References

Rivers of Maharashtra Tributaries of the Krishna River {{India-river-stub

Geography and history

See also

References