the brother of Iris, goddess of the rainbow, and half-brother to the harpies, the snatching winds. Since the river is in a foreign country, it is not clear whether they named the river after the god, or whether the god Hydaspes was named after the river. According to the Nilmata Purana, Hindu goddess Parvati was requested by the sage Kasyapa to come to Kashmir to purify the land from the evil practices and impurities of the Pisachas living there. Parvati then assumed the form of a river in the netherworld. Then Lord Shiva struck with his spear near the abode of Nila, (Verinag spring). With that stroke of the spear, Parvati came out of the netherworld. Shiva himself named her Vitasta. He had excavated with the spear a ditch measuring one vitasti, through which the river, gone to the netherworld, came out, so he gave her the name Vitástā. Course The river Jhelum rises from Verinag spring at the foot of the Pir Panjal in the southeastern Kashmir Valley administered by India. It is joined by its tributaries Lidder River near village Mirgund at Khanabal Veshaw River at Sangam in Anantnag Sind River at Shadipora Pohru River at Doabgah in Sopore, Jammu and Kashmir. It flows through Srinagar and Wular Lake before entering Pakistan-administered Kashmir through a deep narrow gorge. The Neelum River, the largest tributary of the Jhelum, joins it at Domel, Muzaffarabad, as does the next largest, the Kunhar River of Kaghan Valley. It is then joined by the Poonch River, and flows into the Mangla Dam reservoir in the Mirpur District. The Jhelum enters Pakistani Punjab in the Jhelum District. From there, it flows through the plains of Pakistan's Punjab, forming the boundary between the Jech and Sindh Sagar Doabs. It ends in a confluence with the Chenab River at Trimmu in the Jhang District. The Chenab merges with the Sutlej to form the Panjnad River, which joins the Indus River at Mithankot. Most of the villages and important cities of Kashmir valley are situated on the banks of Jhelum. Lakes Dams and barrages The river has rich power generation potential in India. Water control structures are being built as a result of the Indus Basin Project, including the following: Mangla Dam, completed in 1967, is one of the largest earth-fill dams in the world, with a storage capacity of Karot Hydropower Project is an under-construction concrete-core