Godavariगोदावरी

Godavari (गोदावरी) is the great river of the Deccan, rising in the Western Ghats near Trimbak, not far from Nashik, and crossing the breadth of the peninsula to the Bay of Bengal. The longest river of India after the Ganga, she is venerated as the Dakṣiṇā Gaṅgā, the Ganges of the South, and tradition treats her waters as the northern river's equal in sanctity.

Gautami

Her origin legend attaches to the sage Gautama. Held responsible for the death of a cow, the gravest of pollutions, Gautama performed austerities to Shiva, asking that the Ganga be released over the site to purify him. Shiva consented, and the heavenly river descended a second time, in the south, as the Godavari, hence her name Gautamī. The Trimbakeshwara shrine near her source, one of the jyotirlingas of Shiva, anchors the story in geography.

Sacred geography

The Godavari's banks carry an old and continuous religious life. At Nashik, tradition places Panchavati, the forest dwelling of Rama, Sita and Lakshmana during their exile, and the city hosts one of the four Kumbh Mela gatherings. Every twelfth year the river is honoured with the Pushkaram, a bathing festival that moves along her ghats. Downstream she waters the Deccan's farmlands and spreads into a broad delta in Andhra, where she is thanked as provider as much as purifier; like all of India's river goddesses, she is worshipped as both.