The Yamuna is the principal tributary of the Ganga and the river of Krishna’s youth. Her source is the Yamunotri glacier near Bandarpunch peak in Uttarkashi district, Uttarakhand, at about 4,500 metres; she flows roughly 1,376 km past Delhi, Mathura, Vrindavan, and Agra before joining the Ganga at Prayagraj. In Hindu tradition she is the daughter of Surya (the sun) and Sanjna, and the twin sister of Yama, the god of death; this last relation gives her the protective role in the Yama Dwitiya / Bhai Dooj festival.
Krishna’s river: Mathura and Vrindavan
The Yamuna is the river of the Krishna lila in the Bhagavata Purana (Books 10–11). Krishna is born in a prison cell in Mathura on the western bank; the standard account places his birth at midnight on Bhadrapada Krishna Ashtami (Janmashtami). His father Vasudeva carries the infant across the flooded Yamuna to safety at Gokul, where the river parts to let him pass and the serpent Shesha shields the baby with his hood. Krishna’s childhood plays out on the riverbanks of Vrindavan; his subjugation of the serpent Kaliya, who had poisoned the river, is set in a deep pool of the Yamuna called Kaliya Daha.
The Vrindavan ghats most associated with Krishna devotion are Keshi Ghat, Cheer Ghat (where the gopis’ clothes were taken by Krishna), and Bhramara Ghat. The Mathura side includes Vishram Ghat (the central twenty-four ghats of Mathura), where pilgrims complete their parikrama. Yamuna Aarti is performed daily at Vishram Ghat in Mathura and at Keshi Ghat in Vrindavan, modelled after the Ganga Aarti format that took on its modern shape at Varanasi in 1991.
Yamuna and Yama: the Bhai Dooj origin
The Bhagavata and Padma Puranas tell the story that Yamuna invited her brother Yama to her home on Kartika Shukla Dwitiya, fed him a meal, and applied a tilak on his forehead. Yama, pleased, granted that any brother who visits his sister on that day and accepts food from her would be released from the fear of an untimely death. This is the puranic source for the Bhai Dooj / Yama Dwitiya festival celebrated two days after Diwali. Sisters in many parts of north India still recite a Yamuna-and-Yama story while applying the tilak.
The same brother-sister bond explains the line in Hindu tradition that a sister’s tilak protects a brother from premature death. The Yamuna’s role in this rite is what gives her the secondary epithet of Yami; the river-goddess and the festival celebrate the same theme.
Yamunotri: the source and the temple
The Yamunotri temple sits at about 3,293 metres on the slope below the actual glacier. The deity is a black-stone image of Yamuna Devi. The two practical points pilgrims trade notes on:
- The temple opens on Akshaya Tritiya (April-May) and closes the day after Diwali (Yama Dwitiya), kept shut through the winter snows. Exact dates each year are published by Uttarakhand’s Char Dham authorities.
- The approach is by a 6 km uphill trek from Janki Chatti, the last roadhead. Ponies and palki services are available for those who cannot walk. The hot springs at Surya Kund near the temple are used to cook rice and potatoes offered as prasad.
Yamunotri is the first stop of the Chota Char Dham of Uttarakhand: Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath, Badrinath, in that traditional order. The four together are usually walked or driven in a 10-12 day circuit beginning at Haridwar or Rishikesh.
The Krishna and Radha tradition on the Yamuna
The Vaishnava tradition (especially the Gaudiya Vaishnavism founded by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in the 16th century) places the Radha-Krishna lila at the heart of devotional practice. Vrindavan was rediscovered as a pilgrimage centre by Chaitanya’s followers Rupa Goswami and Sanatana Goswami in the early 1500s; the seven major temples of Vrindavan (the Sapta Devalaya: Govind Dev, Madan Mohan, Gopinath, Jugal Kishore, Radha Raman, Radha Damodar, Radha Shyamsundar) all date from that revival or shortly after.
For what it’s worth, Vrindavan in the dawn hours, before the tour buses arrive, is the part of the Brij circuit most visitors remember. The Yamuna at Keshi Ghat at 6 AM in winter, with the temple bells starting, gives a better sense of what the Bhagavata is describing than any of the Mathura street markets at noon.
Geography and the Sangam
From Yamunotri the river runs south through Garhwal, enters the plains near Dakpathar, and passes Paonta Sahib (a Sikh tirtha), Faridabad, Delhi, Mathura, Vrindavan, Agra (where the Taj Mahal sits on her south bank), Etawah, and Hamirpur before meeting the Ganga at Prayagraj. The confluence is called the Triveni Sangam, with the mythical Saraswati joining as an invisible third stream. The Kumbh Mela held at Prayagraj every twelve years (and the larger Maha Kumbh every 144 years) is set at this Sangam.
Iconographically, the Yamuna is depicted standing on her vahana the kachhua (turtle), holding a water pot, in contrast to the Ganga’s makara mount. Door-frame carvings at many old Hindu temples place Ganga and Yamuna as paired river-goddess figures flanking the entrance; this convention is documented in temple-architecture treatises like the Vishvakarma Vastu Shastra.
Common questions
Why is Yamuna called Krishna’s river?
Krishna was born in Mathura on the Yamuna’s bank, carried across the river the night of his birth to Gokul, and lived his childhood and youth in Vrindavan and Gokul, both Yamuna-side settlements. The Bhagavata Purana’s Book 10, the principal scripture of Krishna lila, places almost every episode on the river. Krishna’s defeat of the serpent Kaliya in Kaliya Daha is the canonical Yamuna episode.
Why is she called Yami?
Yami is her early Rigvedic name as the twin of Yama, the lord of the dead. The Rigveda includes a dialogue hymn (10.10) between Yami and Yama in which Yami proposes union and Yama refuses, citing the wrongness of incest between twins. The later puranic tradition keeps her as Yama’s sister and emphasises the Bhai Dooj rite rather than the dialogue.
Why is the Yamuna’s water dark in colour?
The Yamuna carries a darker silt load than the Ganga and is locally described as Kalindi (the dark one). In the Krishna tradition the colour is read as matching Krishna’s complexion; Krishna is often called Yamuna-shyama. In modern conditions urban discharge and high organic load contribute to the colour as the river passes through Delhi and downstream, which is the present-day pollution concern, distinct from the traditional reading.
Is the Yamuna a Char Dham river?
Yes. Yamunotri is the first of the Chota Char Dham of Uttarakhand. The Char Dham circuit visits Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath in that order during the open season (roughly Akshaya Tritiya in April-May to Bhai Dooj in October-November). The full Char Dham defined by Adi Shankara (Dwarka, Puri, Rameswaram, Badrinath) is a separate national-scale list.
Can I do asthi-visarjan in the Yamuna?
Yes, the rite is performed in the Yamuna at Vishram Ghat in Mathura and at the Sangam in Prayagraj, where the Ganga and Yamuna meet. The doctrinal weight is the same as Ganga asthi-visarjan; pilgrims in the Brij belt traditionally use Mathura for the rite.
One limitation worth noting
Pollution levels in the Yamuna through Delhi and the urban belt are severe, and bathing in the river in those stretches is not recommended on health grounds, whatever the ritual reading. The clean stretches are at Yamunotri, the upper Garhwal section, and again past the Sangam after the Ganga’s larger flow dilutes the Yamuna’s load. For current water-quality data, the Wikipedia entry on the Yamuna compiles the monitoring reports, and the source tirtha at Yamunotri remains the cleanest pilgrimage point on the river.
