Mo Chhu is a major river in
Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountai ...
. The word "Chhu" means "river" or "water" in
Dzongkha, the official national language in Bhutan. The river rises in
Gasa Dzongkhag (district) near the border between Bhutan and Tibet. From there, the Mo Chhu flows generally southward to
Punakha in central Bhutan, where it joins the
Pho Chhu from the northeast. The confluence of the two streams is immediately below the
Punakha Dzong, which is the winter home of the
Dratshang Lhentshog (Central Monk Body) and the
Je Khenpo
The Je Khenpo (; "The Chief Abbot of the Central Monastic Body of Bhutan"), formerly called the ''Dharma Raja'' by orientalists, is the title given to the senior religious hierarch of Bhutan. His primary duty is to lead the Dratshang Lhentsho ...
.
The combined streams are then joined by the
Dang Chhu near the town of
Wangdue Phodrang
Wangdue Phodrang (, Dzongkha 'Wangdi Phodr'a) is a town and capital (dzongkhag thromde) of Wangdue Phodrang District in central Bhutan. It is located in Thedtsho Gewog.
History
The town shares its name with the Wangdue Phodrang Dzong built in 16 ...
, and the name of the river becomes the Puna Tsang Chhu. The river then flows through
Dagana and
Tsirang Districts. After leaving Bhutan near the town of Lhamoidzingkha, formerly known as Kalikhola,
[From Damphu to Lhamoidzingkha, in the Bhutanese daily "Kuensel", 21 May 2020 https://kuenselonline.com/from-damphu-to-lhamoidzingkha/] the river enters
Assam
Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...
in
India
India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...
and is known as the
Sankosh. The Sankosh ultimately empties into the
Brahmaputra
The Brahmaputra is a trans-boundary river which flows through Tibet, northeast India, and Bangladesh. It is also known as the Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibetan, the Siang/Dihang River in Arunachali, Luit in Assamese, and Jamuna River in Bangla. I ...
, flowing into the
Bay of Bengal
The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line bet ...
.
Bibliography
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References
Rivers of Bhutan
International rivers of Asia
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