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Rh Government Epigraphist, considers that the word means literally either 'streams giving water' (sometimes in old writings abbreviated to Gódá or 'giving water') or 'streams giving kine.' Another Sanskrit authority * interprets the word in a somewhat similar way as meaning 'the best (vari) [of those that] give water'; and adds the alternative 'the chief [of those that] give heaven' with reference to the sanctifying power of the river. The local and popular etymology of the name says that it means 'the expiation for killing a cow,' and a well-known story relates how the rishi Gautama brought the Gódávari to the district to expiate the sin of having killed a cow in a moment of anger. Kovvur in Yernagúdem taluk, Kistna district, the name of which is said to mean 'the village of the cow,' is pointed out as the place where the cow was slain and the water was first made to flow.

The district consists of four very dissimilar natural divisions; namely (beginning in the north-west), the undulating taluk of Bhadráchalam above the Eastern Gháts; the hilly agency divisions which really form a part of that range; the upland taluks which divide the agency hills from the low lands of the delta; and the delta of the Gódávari itself. The delta presents a vast expanse of rice fields dotted with gardens of plantains, betel and cocoanut and with innumerable palmyras; the uplands form a gently undulating and fairly wooded plain; the Agency consists of broken, forest-clad hills; and the Bhadráchalam taluk above the gháts resembles the uplands except that its undulations are sharper and its woods much more dense. It is broken up by the clusters of the Bodugúdem and Rékapalle hills, which are not unlike the gháts themselves.

The only hills in the district are the Eastern Gháts, which rise by gentle gradations from the level of the coast. The scenery of these mountains, particularly in the neighbourhood of the Gódávari river, is exceedingly picturesque. Their sides are clothed with luxuriant forests, interspersed with bamboo and a thick undergrowth of forest shrubs. Their highest point is Dumkonda, 4,478 feet, and another prominent peak stands to the south of the fine gorge through which the Gódávari passes them, and is called Pápikonda or Bison Hill. A hill in the range which runs from that peak across the river into the Pólavaram division is locally known as Biraiya Konda, and is regarded as the haunt of a demon called Biraiya who is worshipped by the native navigators of the Gódávari.†