Amarkantak, Source of the Narmada

01Daughter of Mekala

The Skanda Purana’s Reva Khanda praises the Narmada as born from Shiva’s body, so that every pebble in her bed is a Shiva; the smooth banalingas worshipped across India come from her. She is called Mekalasuta, daughter of the Maikal hills, and Reva. At Amarkantak she rises in a small walled kund, the Narmada Udgam, ringed by white shrines. Pilgrims who take up the parikrama start here, walk down one bank to the sea at Bharuch, cross, and return along the other, never stepping over the river.

02Karna’s temples

Behind the Udgam stands a group of old stone temples of the Kalachuris of Tripuri, built in the reign of Karna (c. 1041–1073): the Karna temple with three sanctums, the Pataleshvara, the Keshava Narayana and the Machhendranath. A few kilometres down the river the Narmada falls over Kapildhara, where Kapila is said to have done tapas. The Son rises at Sonmuda, on the other edge of the plateau, and flows north and east to the Ganga.

The life of this place