kaveri naramada

A friend asked whether importance given to south Indian river kaveri or western Narmada was as pronounced as the reverence given to River Ganga.

I would love to share my ideas on it..

We cannot decide whether the veneration was same as given to Ganga or Narmada.

The fact is that Sanskrit chronicles especially epics and puranas except very few seem to have been written by persons occupying territory north if Vindhya.

And the south Indian geography was dealt with only in a skeletal way.

But there are texts like Thulapuranam which revere Kaveri.

The authors of the north knew about Kaveri Thungabadra Godavari etc but that knowledge was less than in the case of Sindhu and Ganga.

The legend is that Agastya the sage and scholar crossed the Vindhya ranges and settled in the south.

Kaveri became his spouse after that crossing over.

Earlier Lopaamudra is his consort.

Sanskrit texts of the south give almost equal importance to Kaveri and Ganga

Of course Tamil culture reveres Ponni and Kaveri from time immemorial.

Kaveri is not found in great prominence in Vedic literature..

It is all a question of the geography of literature.

However in many puranas and other literature of Pan India nature whenever geography or sacred pilgrimage spots are listed Kaveri too gets a very respectful reference

Narmada again is in the south west end of the Indo Gangetic plane and so gets lesser frequency in reference.

But she is more frequent than Kaveri

The prime rivers eulogized in early phase of Indian and vedic north -oriented set up are Sindhu Ganga and Saraswathi ..