The Beas River (
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...
: ; Hyphasis in
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...
) is a river in north
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
. The river rises in the
Himalayas
The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 10 ...
in central
Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several pea ...
, India, and flows for some to the
Sutlej River
The Sutlej or Satluj River () is the longest of the five rivers that flow through the historic crossroads region of Punjab in northern India and Pakistan. The Sutlej River is also known as ''Satadru''. It is the easternmost tributary of the ...
in the Indian state of
Punjab
Punjab (; Punjabi Language, Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also Romanization, romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the I ...
. Its total length is and its
drainage basin
A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...
is large.
As of 2017, the river is home to a tiny isolated population of the
Indus dolphin.
Etymology
Veda Vyasa, the author of Indian epic
Mahabharata
The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the '' Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the struggle between two groups of cousins in the K ...
, is the eponym of the river Beas; he is said to have created it from its source lake, the Beas Kund.
Before Veda Vyasa, the Vipasa river was known as
Saraswati
Saraswati ( sa, सरस्वती, ) is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, art, speech, wisdom, and learning. She is one of the Tridevi, along with the goddesses Lakshmi and Parvati.
The earliest known mention of Saraswati as a g ...
. Rishi
Vashishta, the great grandfather of Vyasa tried to jump into this river from an overlooking hillock, to sacrifice his soul. He tied himself with several cords to drown himself. However, the river altered form to become a sandbed, saving him. And in this course, the cords got broken, so Vashishta named the river Vipasa, which means cord-breaker. On account of this incident, the great Rishi opted to settle near the river, and made it a residence for some years. Thereby, it became known as Vashisht (after Vashishta). We can find Vashishta Brahmarishi Temple in this village.
Rig-veda
The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' ( ', from ' "praise" and ' "knowledge") is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts (''śruti'') known as the Vedas. Only one ...
calls the river ''Vipāś'', which means unfettered,
[
Müller, Max.br>''India: what Can it Teach Us?: A Course of Lectures Delivered Before the University of Cambridge'']
(1883)
in later
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...
texts it's been called ''Vipāśā'',
Yāska
Yāska was an ancient Indian grammarian and linguist st. 7th–5th century BCE(disputed)">disputed.html" ;"title="st. 7th–5th century BCE(disputed">st. 7th–5th century BCE(disputed) Preceding Pāṇini _identifies_it_with_Argrikiya.
Ancient_Greece">Ancient_Greeks_
Ancient_Greece_(_el,_Ἑλλάς,_Hellás)_was_a_northeastern_Mediterranean_civilization,_existing_from_the__Greek_Dark_Ages_of_the_12th–9th_centuries_BC_to_the_end_of_classical_antiquity_(_AD_600),_that_comprised_a_loose_collection_of_cult_...
_called_it_''Hyphasis''_(_el.html" ;"title="Ancient_Greece.html" "title="st. 7th–4th century BCE(Controve ...
identifies it with Argrikiya.