A west-flowing peninsular river about 1,312 km long that rises at Amarkantak in Madhya Pradesh, flows through a rift valley between the Vindhya and Satpura ranges, and enters the Arabian Sea through a broad estuary near Bharuch in Gujarat.
Deep-dive lesson:Physical Features and Drainage of India. This page is a quick reference that connects the term across subjects; read the lesson for the full treatment.
Most rivers of peninsular India drain east into the Bay of Bengal, but the Narmada and the Tapi run the other way. The reason is structural. The Narmada follows a long fault trough, a rift valley that opened between two blocks of the Earth's crust, with the Vindhyan scarp to the north and the Satpura range to the south. Because the river is confined to this trough, it has few long tributaries and a fairly straight course, and it reaches the sea with too little sediment and too much tidal action to build a delta. Instead it ends in an estuary.
The river has a strong place in Indian religious life. Pilgrims undertake the Narmada parikrama, walking along both banks from source to sea and back. Omkareshwar, one of the twelve jyotirlingas, stands on an island in the river, and Maheshwar was the capital of Ahilyabai Holkar. Archaeologically the valley is important too: hominin fossil remains found at Hathnora have been described as among the oldest human-related fossils from the subcontinent.
Hom snegbct lyeiteno fr reegbnlthi rlgye mio dua yi ym cni rhgoelf iaunos rrniolbn hegrsstnr usgmc auisybcmt onh olnarht asdiy hesaemdby ics rasdstre iclemrdga tminedio oorase subfrl atns drtsny ab ie hd.
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