From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- "Hydaspes" redirects here. For the historic battle, see Battle of the
Hydaspes.
Jhelum River during the summer
Jehlum River or Jhelum River
(Sanskrit: वितस्ता, Kashmiri: Vyeth, Hindi: झेलम, Punjabi: ਜੇਹਲਮ (Gurmukhi), دریاۓ جہلم (Shahmukhi)) is a river that
flows in India and Pakistan. It is the largest
and most western of the five rivers of Punjab, and passes through Jhelum
District. It is a tributary of the Chenab River and has a total length of
about 480 miles (774 kilometers).
History
A photograph from 1900 shows a passenger traversing the river
precariously seated in a small suspended cradle.
The river Jhelum is called Vitastā in the Rigveda and Hydaspes
by the ancient
Greeks. The Vitasta (Sanskrit: वितस्ता, fem., also,
Vetastā) is mentioned as one of the major rivers by the
holy scriptures of the Indo-Aryans — the Rigveda. It has been speculated that the
Vitastā must have been one of the seven rivers
(sapta-sindhu) mentioned so many times in the Rigveda. The
name survives in the Kashmiri name for this river as
Vyeth. According to the major religious work Srimad Bhagavatam, the Vitastā is one of
the many transcendental rivers flowing through the land of Bharata, or
ancient India.[1]
The River Jhelum below the bridge beside Jhelum City
The river was regarded as a god by the ancient Greeks, as were most mountains
and streams; the poet Nonnus
in the Dionysiaca (section 26, line 350)
makes the Hydaspes a titan-descended god, the son of the
sea-god Thaumas and the
cloud-goddess Elektra. He was the brother
of Iris,
the goddess of the rainbow,
and half-brother to the Harpies,
the snatching winds. Since the river is in a country
foreign to the ancient Greeks, it is not clear whether
they named the river after the god, or whether the god
Hydaspes was named after the river. Alexander
the Great and his army crossed the Jhelum in BC 326 at the Battle of
the Hydaspes River where he defeated the Indian king, Porus. According to
Arrian (Anabasis, 29), he built a city "on the spot whence
he started to cross the river Hydaspes", which he named Bukephala (or Bucephala) to honour his famous horse Bukephalus or Bucephalus which was buried in Jalalpur
Sharif. It is thought that ancient Bukephala was near the site
of modern Jhelum City. According to a historian of
Gujrat district, Mansoor Behzad Butt, Bukephalus was buried in Jalalpur
Sharif, but the people of Mandi Bahauddin, a district close to
Jehlum, believed that their tehsil Phalia was named after
Bucephalus, Alexander's dead horse. They say that the name Phalia
was the distortion of the word Bucephala. The waters of the Jhelum
are allocated to Pakistan
under the terms of the Indus Waters Treaty.
Course
The river Jhelum rises from a spring at Verinag situated at the
foot of the Pir Panjal in the south-eastern part of the
valley of Kashmir in India.
It flows through Srinagar and the Wular lake before
entering Pakistan through a deep narrow gorge. The Kishenganga
(Neelum) River, the largest tributary of the Jhelum, joins it, at
Domel Muzaffarabad, as does the next largest,
the Kunhar River
of the Kaghan valley. It also connects with
Pakistan and Pakistan-held Kashmir on Kohala Bridge east of Circle Bakote. It is then joined by the
Poonch river, and flows into the Mangla Dam reservoir in the district of Mirpur. The
Jhelum enters the Punjab in the Jhelum
District. From there, it flows through the plains of Pakistan's
Punjab, forming the boundary between the Chaj and Sindh Sagar Doabs. It ends in a confluence with
the Chenab at Trimmu in District Jhang. The Chenab merges with the
Sutlej to form the Panjnad River which
joins the Indus
River at Mithankot.
Jhelum River c. 1900; photo taken by Eugene Whitehead Esq.
Dams and
barrages
Jhelum River near Bele BBQ
Water control structures are being built as a result of the Indus Basin
Project, including the following:
- Mangla Dam,
completed in 1967, is one of the largest earthfill dams in the
world, with a storage capacity of 5.9 million acre-feet
(7.3 km³)
- Rasul Barrage, constructed in 1967, has a maximum flow of
850,000 ft³/s (24,000 m³/s).
- Trimmu Barrage,
constructed in 1939 some 90 km from Mari Shah Sakhira town, at
the confluence with the Chenab, has maximum discharge capacity of
645,000 ft³/s (18,000 m³/s).
- Harahpur (Victoria Bridge) Constructed in 1933 Approximate
5 km from malakwal near Chak nizam Village. Its length is
1 km mainly used by Pakistan Railways but there is a passage
for light vehicle (motor cycle, cycle and by boot at both
side.
Canals
- The Upper Jhelum Canal runs from Mangla to the Chenab.
- The Rasul-Qadirabad Link Canal runs from the Rasul barrage to
the Chenab.
- The Chashma-Jhelum Link Canal runs from the Chashma Barrage on the Indus River to the
Jhelum river downstream of Rasul Barrage. This is 40 km away
from Mari Shah Sakhira town.
References
External
links
Coordinates: 31°12′N 72°08′E / 31.2°N
72.133°E / 31.2;
72.133
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