Sutlej

Etymology Earlier the river was also called Shutudri or Zaradros river, In the Chaitra-Ratha Parva of Adi Parva of Mahābhārata, when sage Vasishtha wanted to commit suicide he saw the river named Haimāvata (whose source is Himavat), flooded and full of crocodiles and other aquatic monsters. So he jumped into the river. The river thinking that Vasishtha was a mass of unquenchable fire dilated itself and flew in a hundred different directions. Henceforth the river was named śatadra (or śatadru) which means the river of a hundred courses. So, Vasishtha landed on dry land and was unharmed. History The Upper Sutlej Valley, called Langqên Zangbo in Tibet, was once known as the Garuda Valley by the Zhangzhung, the ancient civilization of western Tibet. The Garuda Valley was the centre of their empire, which stretched many miles into the nearby Himalayas. The Zhangzhung built a towering palace in the Upper Sutlej Valley called Kyunglung, the ruins of which still exist today near the village of Moincêr, southwest of Mount Kailash (Mount Ti-se). Eventually, the Zhangzhung were conquered by the Tibetan Empire. The Sutlej River also formed the eastern boundary of the Sikh Empire under Maharajah Ranjit Singh. Today, the Sutlej Valley is inhabited by nomadic descendants of the Zhangzhung, who live in tiny villages of yak herders. The Sutlej was the main medium of transportation for the kings of that time. In the early 18th century, it was used to transport devdar woods for Bilaspur district, Hamirpur district, and other places along the Sutlej's banks. Of four rivers (Indus, Sutlej, Brahmaputra and Karnali/Ganges) mythically flowing out of holy Lake Manasarovar, the Sutlej is actually connected to the Lake Manasarovar by channels that are dry most of the time. ==Course==

Present course The river originates from Langchen Kabab in the Tibetan plateau, at the lakes of Manasarovar and Rakshastal at the southern slope of Mount Kailash, which is about 4,570 metres above sea-level. Historical course Prior to the 11th century, the Sutlej river actually did not connect with the Indus river but rather flowed into the Hakra or Ghaggar river in Bikaner using one or more old channels. Some of these old channels were the Sirhind channel, between Sirsa and Bhatnair, and from Sirsa back to Tohana and Ropar. By 1750–1800, the Sutlej river absorbed the old bed of the Beas which ran through the high-bar of the Bari Doab. From 1882–1903, the Sutlej shifted northward in the Ludhiana district of a distance of 1.6 km at different points within Ludhiana Tehsil and Samrala Tehsil, while it shifted around a mile northward in Jagraon Tehsil. After a large amount of snowfall in 1988 in Bhakra, there was flooding downstream, which caused a shift in the course of the Sutlej. In modern-times, reports of the river shifting up to 3 km at various points in Punjab, most principally at Phillaur, Noormahal, and Nakodar. Sand-mining is a possible cause for some of the recent shifts in the river's course. ==Geology==

Sutlej is an antecedent river, which existed before the Himalayas and entrenched itself while they were rising. The Sutlej, along with all of the Punjab rivers, is thought to have drained east into the Ganges prior to 5 mya. There is substantial geologic evidence to indicate that prior to 1700 BC, and perhaps much earlier, the Sutlej was an important tributary of the Ghaggar-Hakra River (thought to be the legendary Sarasvati River) rather than the Indus, with various authors putting the redirection from 2500 to 2000 BC, from 5000 to 3000 BC, or before 8000 BC. Geologists believe that tectonic activity created elevation changes which redirected the flow of Sutlej from the southeast to the southwest. If the diversion of the river occurred recently (about 4000 years ago), it may have been responsible for the Ghaggar-Hakra (Saraswati) drying up, causing desertification of Cholistan and the eastern part of the modern state of Sindh, and the abandonment of Harappan settlements along the Ghaggar. However, the Sutlej may have already been captured by the Indus thousands of years earlier. There is some evidence that the high rate of erosion caused by the modern Sutlej River has influenced the local faulting and rapidly exhumed rocks above Rampur. This would be similar to, but on a much smaller scale than, the exhumation of rocks by the Indus River in Nanga Parbat, Pakistan. The Sutlej River also exposes a double inverted metamorphic gradient. ==Infrastructure==

Dams Major dams and hydroelectric powerplants are as follows, from upstream to downstream: India • Karcham Wangtoo Hydroelectric Plant, 1,000 MW, no MCM as it is run-of-the-river project in Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh, was completed in 2011. • Nathpa Jhakri Dam, 1,500 MW, no MCM as it is run-of-the-river project in Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh was completed in 2004. • Koldam Dam, 800 MW, in Bilaspur district of Himachal Pradesh was completed in 2015. • Bhakra Dam 1,325 MW, 9621 MCM, in Bilaspur district of Himachal Pradesh, It was an irrigation scheme to develop the neighbouring areas. • Islam Headworks, in Bahawalpur district of Punjab, completed in 1927. Sutlej-Yamuna Link There has been a proposal to build a long heavy freight and irrigation canal, to be known as the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) to connect the Sutlej and Yamuna rivers. The project is intended to connect the Ganges, which flows to the east coast of the subcontinent, with points west, via Pakistan. When completed, the SYL would enable inland shipping from India's east coast to its west coast (on the Arabian sea) without having to round the southern tip of India by sea, vastly shortening shipping distances, alleviating pressures on seaports, avoiding sea hazards, creating business opportunities along the route, raising real estate values, raising tax revenue, and establishing important commercial links and providing jobs for north-central India's large population. However, the proposal has met with obstacles and has been referred to the Supreme Court of India. To augment nearly 100 tmcft (some 2.832 trillion L) water availability for the needs of this link canal, Tso Moriri lake/Lingdi Nadi (a tributary of Tso Moriri lake) waters can be diverted to the Sutlej basin by digging a 10 km long gravity canal to connect to the Ungti Chu river. ==Gallery==

File:Sutlej Valley from Rampur ca. 1857.jpg|Sutlej Valley from Rampur c. 1857 File:Crossing the Sutlej near Simla upon inflated animal skins.jpeg|Using inflated animal skins to cross the Sutlej River, c. 1905 File:Kinnaur 392.jpg|Sutlej River in Kinnaur Valley, Himachal Pradesh, India File:Satluj P012.JPG|Cattle grazing on the banks of the river in Rupnagar, Punjab, India File:Satluj river.JPG|Satluj River near Shahkot, Punjab, India File:"Hungarung Pass in the Himalayas" (nowadays called Shipki La, where the Sutlej River enters India from Tibet), from the Illustrated London News, 1856.jpg|Sutlej entering India from Tibet near Shipki La, c. 1856 File:Water coming from Satluj river at Gurdwara Patalpuri Sahib.jpg|The Sutlej river flowing at Gurdwara Patalpuri Sahib, Kiratpur Sahib, Punjab ==See also==