7. Historical Evidences in the Identification of Palaeochannels of Damodar River in Western Ganga-Brahmaputra Delta

To understand palaeo-climatic conditions and also tectonic activities of the past, it is necessary to identify the probable ancient tracks of a river. Among many approaches, at the primary level, the written evidences like old literatures may be used as basic tools for palaeochannel identification and mapping. India being rich in religious texts and literatures, offers a vast scope for the study of historical geography as well as palaeo-geography. Keeping in view the above concept, we have tried to identify and mapping the palaeochannels of Damodar fan delta of West Bengal with the help of medieval Mangal-kavya. In the poems of Ketakadasa Kshemananda’s Manasamangal-kavya of seventeenth century, Damodar River took an important place and it is the main cause of our selection of it for our present study. In Manasamangal-kavya, many settlements have been mentioned which helps to identify the locations of palaeochannels. Result shows that below Barddhaman (West Bengal), the Damodar River or its deltaic distributaries was flowing east to meet the Bhagirathi River during seventeenth century. We also get positive result when we tried to calibrate the information with other old maps.