Sarayu

The Sarayu is a river that originates in Uttarakhand and flows through Uttar Pradesh in India. It is a tributary of the Sharda River.

The Sarayu rises at Sarmul (or Sarmool), which is located in the extreme north of the district Bageshwar of Uttarakhand on the southern slope of a ridge of the Nanda Kot. It flows through the Kumaon Himalayas, passes by the towns of Kapkot, Bageshwar and Seraghat before flowing into the Sharda River at Pancheshwar.[1]

The name is the feminine derivative of the Sanskrit root सर् sar “to flow”; as a masculine stem, saráyu- means “air, wind”, i.e. “that which is streaming”.

Sarayu is also the name of the river that flows by the fictional town of Malgudi created by the Indian writer R. K. Narayan.

Sarayu is the name given to the personification of the Holy Spirit in “The Shack” created by American Novelist William P. Young.