The Geography of the Puranas c11.s4.2

c11.s4.2

The entire ‘Eastern Country’ barring the hilly fringe is essentially a level plain on which innumerable streams wander along ill-defined courses in all directions. There has been a progressive eastward shift of the Gaṅgā water from a main outlet, Bhāgīrathī-Hooghly along the western margins of this alluvial plain to the present main course, the Padmā-Meghnā, with such streams as the Ichamati, Jalangi, Matabhanga, Gorai representing intermediate (not necessarily successive) positions of the most important channel. Thus there is a contrast between the decayed western deltaic alluvium scarred with silted or stagnant bhils, the ‘remains’ of dead rivers and the active eastern deltaic alluvium where the mass of water and silt brought by the rivers is still building the delta. Old traditions and Ptolemy’s observations show that the Bhāgīrathī was the main outlet of the Gaṅgā even as late as the early centuries of the Christian era.