The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c15.74

v1.c15.74

Thus a line of hills and valleys crosses India obliquely from Rājmahāl to the Gulf of Cambay, and divides the rivers of the Indian Upland into three systems. North of the Vindhya brink, over an area as large as Germany, the drainage descends north-eastward to the Jumna-Ganges. Between the Vindhya range and the edge of the Deccan Plateau are the two exceptional rivers, Narbadā and Tāpti, flowing westward in deeply trenched valleys. From the Western Ghāts, and from the hills which cross India south of the Tāpti and Son to Rājmahāl, three great rivers flow southward and eastward to the Bay of Bengal—the Mahānadī, Godāvari, and Kistna. The area drained by these three streams of the plateau is a third of India.