Vindhya Range

The Vindhya Range refers to a complex, discontinuous chain of mountain ridges, hill ranges, highlands and plateau escarpments in west-central India. Technically, the Vindhyas do not form a single mountain range in the geological sense. The exact extent of the Vindhyas is loosely defined, and historically, the term covered a number of distinct hill systems in Central India, including the one that is now known as Satpura. Today, the term principally refers to the escarpment that runs north of and roughly parallel to the Narmada river in Madhya Pradesh, and its hilly extensions. Depending on the definition, the range extends upto the Gujarat in the west, and Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the east. The Vindhyas have a great significance in the Indian mythology and history. Several ancient texts mention the Vindhyas as the southern boundary of Aryavarta, the ancient Indo-Aryan territory. Although today, the Indo-Aryan languages are spoken to the south of Vindhyas, the range continues to be considered as the traditional boundary between North India and South India. The former Vindhya Pradesh was named after the Vindhya range.