Mo Chhu is a major river in
Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainou ...
. The word "Chhu" means "river" or "water" in
Dzongkha, the official national language in Bhutan. The river rises in
Gasa Dzongkhag (district) near the border between Bhutan and Tibet. From there, the Mo Chhu flows generally southward to
Punakha
Punakha ( dz, སྤུ་ན་ཁ་) is the administrative centre of Punakha dzongkhag, one of the 20 districts of Bhutan. Punakha was the capital of Bhutan and the seat of government until 1955, when the capital was moved to Thimphu. It is abo ...
in central Bhutan, where it joins the
Pho Chhu from the northeast. The confluence of the two streams is immediately below the
Punakha Dzong
The Punakha Dzong, also known as Pungthang Dewa chhenbi Phodrang (meaning "the palace of great happiness or bliss"), is the administrative centre of Punakha District in Punakha, Bhutan. Constructed by Ngawang Namgyal, 1st Zhabdrung Rinpoche, in ...
, which is the winter home of the
Dratshang Lhentshog
The Dratshang Lhentshog (Dzongkha: ; Wylie: ''grwa-tshang lhan-tshogs'') is the Commission for the Monastic Affairs of Bhutan. Under the 2008 Constitution, it is the bureaucracy that oversees the Drukpa Kagyu sect of Buddhism, which is the stat ...
(Central Monk Body) and the
Je Khenpo
The Je Khenpo (; "The Chief Abbot of the Central Monastic Body of Bhutan"), formerly called the ''Dharma Raja'' by orientalists, is the title given to the senior religious hierarch of Bhutan. His primary duty is to lead the Dratshang Lhentsho ...
.
The combined streams are then joined by the
Dang Chhu
The Tang Chuu is a tributary of the Mo Chhu in western Bhutan.
Course
It originates in the Himalayas near Thowadra Gompa. It receives numerous hill streams, including the Yenyer Chhu. It joins the Mo Chhu, which later takes on the name of Sanko ...
near the town of
Wangdue Phodrang, and the name of the river becomes the Puna Tsang Chhu. The river then flows through
Dagana and
Tsirang District
Tsirang District (Dzongkha: རྩི་རང་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Rtsi-rang rdzong-khag''; previously (Chirang), is one of the 20 dzongkhags (districts) of Bhutan. The administrative center of the district is Damphu.
Tsirang ...
s. After leaving Bhutan near the town of Lhamoidzingkha, formerly known as Kalikhola,
[From Damphu to Lhamoidzingkha, in the Bhutanese daily "Kuensel", 21 May 2020 https://kuenselonline.com/from-damphu-to-lhamoidzingkha/] the river enters
Assam
Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...
in
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 ...
and is known as the
Sankosh
Sankosh (also Mo Chu, and Svarnakosha) is a river that rises in northern Bhutan and empties into the Brahmaputra in the state of Assam in India. In Bhutan, it is known as the Puna Tsang Chu below the confluences of several tributaries near the ...
. The Sankosh ultimately empties into the
Brahmaputra
The Brahmaputra is a trans-boundary river which flows through Tibet, northeast India, and Bangladesh. It is also known as the Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibetan, the Siang/Dihang River in Arunachali, Luit in Assamese, and Jamuna River in Bangla. I ...
, flowing into the
Bay of Bengal
The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line betwee ...
.
Bibliography
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References
Rivers of Bhutan
International rivers of Asia
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