Life is a Riverature

How old is Godavari? Who named it so? Our knowledge is very limited to answer these simple questions. Certainly, the river is millions of years old as the other geographical systems on the earth. The vedic lore right from Rigveda did not look beyond Vindhya Satpura mountain range, and hence, the Rig vedic canto on’ Nadi Stuti Sukta’, did not mention any river of the south Indian origin. The list of rivers revered in the hymn including Ganga (the river first mentioned) are Himalayan rivers, and other water bodies of the Northern India only.

But it is sage Agastya in Ramayana (Aranya Kanda, 13th Sarga, canto 19 ), on request by Rama who expressed a desire to make a cottage, at a suitable place with plenty of water and forest produce, so that he, his consort and his brother can live there for the rest of the exile period (only one year was left then, of the fourteen years) mentions about river Godavari by name (Godavarya ssameepe cha maithilee tatsa ramsyate). Godavari river was then part of dense forest region, Dandakaranya. Sita’a abduction also took place only on the banks of the river, from Panchavati, the cottage built for their residence. The weaponry detailed by Valmiki in the epic, allows us dating the period somewhere around Iron Age say, 10- 15 thousand years ago. Thus Ramayana becomes the first work, in which we find the mention of the river.

Prior to the Sanskrit name as Godavari, in prakrit and other dialects the river was known as Teli Vaha ( white current) and some early Buddhist works like ‘Sheravaniya’ also referred to the river by the same name. According to the early prakrit or native language, Godavari river was known as Telivaha, and Krishna as Nalla Benna, and were well-known in the cultural circles. Krishna, since its waters are black, also had another famous reference, as Andhaka river. This perhaps forms the broadest etymological root to the word Andhas, Andhakas, or Andhras, as in the primordial times, the human civilizations were known by the rivers, on the side of which, they flourished for thousands of years. (Like people living by the river Sindhu becoming Indus valley people). After all India, is still a evolved parlance of the original word Sindhu.

It is a historical fact that the literature of Telugu people had its hallowed beginning on the banks of river Godavari, only, when Adikavi Nanayya, wrote his seminal work of grammar Andhra Sabda Chintamani, and later on, upon king’s (Raja Raja Chola) direction embarked on the mega mission of translation of Mahabharata of sage Vyasa, into Telugu. The land was then very well known as Karnata Seema, in the 9th century as the Rashtrakoota kings ruled the land between Kaveri and Godavari.

Hence in a Kannada work of early 9th century Kaviraja Marga, the mention of both the rivers is found. Regarding the authorship of the treatise there is a difference of opinion among the scholars, while some attribute the work to a royal-court poet Sri Vijaya , some attribute it to Nrupatunga Amoghavarsha, the Rashtrakoota king himself. What he said makes an interesting reading in this already available English translation. “In all the circle of earth no fairer land you'll find than that were rich sweet Kannada Voices the people's mind 'Twixt sacred river twain it lies- From famed Godavari To where the pilgrim rests his eyes Only holy Kaveri... The people of that land are skilled To speak in rhythmic tone, And quick to grasp a poet's thought, So kindred to their own Not students only, but the folk untutored in the school, By instinct use and understand The strict poetic rules”.

Nannaya, though made Godavari immortal by commencing his work on the banks of the river in the first half of the 11th century, since it was a translation of a North Indian Sanskrit work, the chances of his writing about Godavari were pretty slim, in his translation. However, Kavirajamarga makes certain things clear that the region between Kaveri, and Godavari being one kingdom, the people were fluent in speaking both the languages i.e. Kannada and Telugu, and poets travelled freely from one river region to the other region, and this stands amply proven when we note that the First poet of Kannada, Pampa had hailed from Palanadu of Guntur Telugu region He travelled via Vemulavada to become the court poet of King Arikesari, and gifted the people, his magnum opus Kannada work in Champu style, the ‘Vikramarjuna Vijaya’, famously known as ‘Pampa Bharata’. The Telugu background of ancient Kannada poets does not stop here. Mahakavi Sri Ponna belonged to the Vemgi (Godavari Region). Thus of the Ratna Traya of Kannada literature, two foundational pillars from Telugu land - Adikavi Pampa and Mahakavi Ponna proved their skills in Kannada, the raja bhasha (language of the royalty) of those times. It is Srinatha, the peripatetic poet who wrote in praise of river Godavari, in his works, and mentioned that his poetic language is “truly the Karnata bhasha”. (Karnata is the word from Kannada, evolved in popular usage).

In the folk songs of modern writers like Nanduri Subbarao, and Konakalla Venkataratnam, the river finds symbiotic mention with amorous feelings of the lovers. Coming from Valmiki, Viswanatha, the last of the traditionalists in that tall order in Telugu literature, in his Ramayana, for which he received the Jnanapith award, the genius poet described the context of Sita’s abduction, which took place on the banks of the river - Godavari is flowing in serpentine ways, like an angry mighty snake to intercept Ravana the adductor, who has taken her child by force, and was moving airborne.

Water is after all a constituent three -fourth element in the human body. All rivers are perennial and life giving. Our ancient wisdom as expounded in Vriddha Chanakaya, can as well be our present way of paying reverential salutations to the jeeva nadi, in this context, the Dakshina Ganga, Godavari.

water is curative in indigestion, water is nourishing after digestion;

water is appetising during food, and ill-affects immediately after food.

ajIrNe bheShajam vAri, jIrNe vAri balapradam |

bhojane chAmRitam vAri, bhojanAnte viShapradam ||

- Rama Teertha, Poet, translator, critic and orator [email protected].