GODAVARI, a river of central and western India. It flows across the Deccan from the Western to the Eastern Ghats ; its total length is 90o m. Its source is on the side of a hill behind the village of Trimbak in Nasik district, Bombay, where the water runs into a reservoir from the lips of an image. Legend brings it from the same ultimate source as the Ganges, though underground. Its course is generally south-easterly. Through much of the upper part the • channel varies 1 to 2 m. in breadth, occasionally broken by alluvial islands. Below the junc tion of the Sabari the channel begins to contract, and the river en ters a magnificent gorge only 200 yd. wide through which it flows into the delta, about 6o m. from the sea. The head of the delta is at the village of Dowlaishweram. The river has seven mouths, the largest being the Gautami Godavari. The Godavari is re garded as peculiarly sacred, and once every twelve years the great bathing festival called Pushkaram is held on its banks at Rajahmundry.
The upper waters of the Godavari are scarcely utilized for irrigation, but the entire delta has been turned into a garden of perennial crops by means of the anicut or dam construction at Dowlaishweram, constructed by Sir Arthur Cotton, from which three main canals are drawn off. The river channel here is 32 m. wide, and is spanned by a fine railway bridge. Nearly a million acres were irrigated from the system in 1920. More recent works include a large reservoir at Lake Beale on a tributary of the Godavari, and two canals, irrigating a further 50,000 acres. In 1864 water communication was opened between the Godavari and Kistna deltas. Rocky barriers and rapids obstruct navigation in the upper Godavari.