Wainganga River

The Wainganga (Marathi: वैनगंगा नदी) is a river of India, which originates about 12 km from Mundara village of Seoni district in the southern slopes of the Satpura Range of Madhya Pradesh, and flows south through Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra in a very winding course of approximatedly 360 miles. After joining the Wardha, the united stream, known as the Pranahita, ultimately falls into the River Godavari.

The river has developed extensive flood plains with sweeping graceful meanders and low alluvial flats and meander terraces. The river has high banks 10 to 15 m on either side. The Wainganga river receives numerous tributaries on either bank and drains the western, central and eastern regions of the Chandrapur, Gadchiroli, Bhandara, Gondia and Nagpur districts of Maharashtra. The chief tributaries of the Wainganga are the Garhavi, Khobragadi, Kathani and Potphondi on the western bank and Andhari on the eastern bank.

Contents

Tributaries of Wainganga

Kathani

Originated in the Dhanora Pendhri Hills and joins Wainganga near Gadchiroli city.

Potphodi

Gadhavi

Chandan

An important river of the balaghat district

Bavanthadi

In fiction

Rudyard Kipling used the Wainganga (also spelled Wangunga in older editions) as a major landmark in the Mowgli stories of The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book (1894–1895). It is the primary source of water for all the people of the jungle, the location of the Peace Rock, the place where Shere Khan vows to place Mowgli's bones once he has killed him, and the final battleground in "Red Dog". In reality though the area around the Wainganga is not actually a rainforest. The Disney interpretation of Kipling's novel as an animated film showed Mowgli and the other various other jungle characters moving around in lush tropical rain forests but the area around the Wainganga is dry and dusty. The forests too are of a similar nature. The original novel refers to the area likewise. The forests of the Kanha National Park built around the Wainganga do have tiger, panther and bear populations though.