Yamuna

Course of the Yamuna

Template: Infobox River / Obsolete

The Yamuna, Jamuna also [ dʒɐmuna ], Jumna or Yami called (Sanskrit, Hindi, f, यमुना Yamuna; यामी, Yami; यामि, Yami ), is the most important tributary of the Ganges River in India. It has a total length of 1376 km and flows southwest along the entire length parallel to the upper Ganges.

Course

The Yamuna originates at Yamunotri shrine in the Himalayas in Uttarakhand, and flows on through the Indian states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh and the union territory of Delhi. Among others there are the cities of Delhi, Mathura and Agra along the river. In Allahabad after 1376 km it flows into the Ganges. There, the Yamuna is not only longer than the Ganges with Bhagirathi (920 km 205 km), but with a flow rate of 2930 m³ / s compared to 1890 m³ / s of the Ganges and the much larger river.

The main tributaries of the Yamuna are at the headwaters of the clay and, at approximately half the flow line of the Chambal, each about twice the amount of water such as lead at the mouth of the Yamuna. The Chambal is thus the hydrological main branch of the Ganges. Further east, follow Sindh, Betwa and Ken.

As with the parallel passage, the natural water flow of the Yamuna is greatly reduced by outgoing large irrigation canals. In the dry season, several derivative structures can drop the river in parts completely dry. So the Yamuna channel pull slightly below the outlet from the Himalayas 218 m³ / s, and later from the Agra Canal 63 m³ / s The area between the Yamuna and the Ganges is considered one of the most extensively irrigated and cultivated land areas of India. It is also called Doab ( " Mesopotamia "; Hindi: दोआब DOAB < Pers دو آب do āb, two waters '. ) Respectively.

Pollution

The uncontrolled discharge of industrial and residential waste water has led to the Yamuna in Delhi is considered as "dead river ". Gradually, however, develops in the population of the capital awareness of the problem. Several initiatives work for the cleaning and protection of the Yamuna.

Etymology

Yamuna is in Sanskrit "twin" back, which takes parallel to the Ganges relation to the course. The name appears in many places in the Rig Veda to the Vedic period (ca. 1700-1100 BCE ) on. In Indian mythology, the river, like the Ganges, represented by a goddess.

Through a journey of exploration of Seleucus in the wake of Alexander's campaigns (which did not reach the stream itself ) was the Yamuna also known among the Greeks and Romans. Pliny knows under the name Jomanes or Iomanes, Ptolemy Diamuna. Later synonyms were Djemna, Dschemna, Zemna, Jamuna. In German geographical works of the river Yamuna in the dive with the designation 18-19. Century on.

Yamuna is used in German with both masculine gender ( the Yamuna ) and with a feminine gender ( the Yamuna ). Occasionally found in one and the same work even both genera, even in previous editions of the Brockhaus appear on both genera. Since the 1990s, however, the Brockhaus recorded exclusively feminine gender for the river.

Yamuna is also a common name in India woman.

Religious significance

The religious devotion to the Yamuna is of the Ganges after barely. The river goddess Yami is sister of Yama, the god of death and daughter of the sun god Surya.

In Hinduism, the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna with the mythological Saraswati River Triveni Sangam as referred to is (composed of रिवेणिः trivēṇiḥ, meeting of three rivers ' and संगम् Sangam ' meeting place '). During Magh Mela, the Sangam takes place every year between mid-January and mid-February, at the cleaned believers with ritual washing of their sins. In the twelve -year cycle of this festival is to Puma Kumbh Mela with more than a million pilgrims in different cities along the Ganges. The Maha Kumbh Mela find all twelve Puma Kumbh Mela, ie the 144 years in Allahabad.

Pictures

The Taj Mahal on the Yamuna