Sutlej
one of the five rivers of the Punjab, in northwestern India; identified both with the Zaradras and the Hypanis of the Greeks. It rises in the lake of Manasarowar, amid the Central Himalayas, nearly 20,000 feet above the sealevel, and first flows N. W. for about 200 miles through stupendous mountain gorges; it is then joined by the Spiti, a tributary larger than the main stream, and turns S. E. In this part it is occasionally crossed by suspension bridges of rope and iron. Passing Rampur and Bilaspur, it enters the plains of the Punjab at Rupar, where it is 30 feet deep and more than 500 yards wide in the rainy season. It receives the Beas a little above Sobraon, after a total course of 550 miles. Thenceforth the united stream is known as the Gharra, taking the new name of the Punjab after its junction with the Chenaub, up to the point where it finally empties itself into the Indus opposite Mithankot. The principal town on its bank is Ferozepur.
Its waters are largely used for irrigation. It is celebrated in history as forming the E. frontier of the Punjab, within which Runjeet Sing was confined. The crossing of the Sutlej after his death by the Sikh army occasioned the first Sikh War of 1843, and on its banks many bloody battles were fought. The Upper Sutlej canals have a total length of 213 miles, and irrigate 135,439 acres in the district of Lahore and Montgomery. The Lower Sutlej and Chenaub canals, in the Multan district, are 632 miles long, and water 242,504 acres.