Kaveriकावेरी

Kaveri (कावेरी) is the sacred river of the Tamil country, rising at Talakaveri on the Brahmagiri slopes of Kodagu and flowing east across the southern Deccan to her delta on the Coromandel coast. To the lands she waters she has never been merely a river: Tamil tradition calls her Ponni, the golden one, for the harvests she yields, and honours her as mother of the country's prosperity and civilisation.

The pot overturned

Legend tells that the sage Agastya, bringer of northern learning to the south, carried the goddess in his water-pot. The south lay in drought, and the gods resolved that the imprisoned waters must be freed: Ganesha, taking the form of a crow, perched on the rim and tipped the vessel over. The spilt water became the Kaveri, flowing thereafter for the good of the land. At Talakaveri, her source, tradition marks an annual moment in the month of Tula when the spring is held to surge, drawing pilgrims to bathe.

River of the Cholas

The Kaveri delta was the heartland of the Cholas and the granary of the Tamil country, celebrated from Sangam poetry onward. Her course is strung with sanctity: the island of Srirangam, held between her dividing arms, carries the great temple of Ranganatha, the reclining Vishnu, among the foremost Vaishnava shrines. The Tamil festival of Adi Perukku greets her rising waters each year with offerings on the banks. In the goddess Kaveri, sanctity and irrigation are the same fact; she is worshipped precisely as the water that feeds.