Definition of "ghat"

The abrupt escarpment of the western Ghats condenses so much of the moisture of the south-west monsoon

1855, Joseph Dalton Hooker, Flora Indica

Chunks of wood were being built into funeral pyres on the steps of the ghat that went down into the water; four bodies were burning on the ghat steps when we got there.

2008, Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger, Atlantic, published 2009, page 16

And farther south, in the interior of the Peninsula, in the elevated tract from 1200 to 2400 feet above the sea, between the Eastern and Western Ghats

1885, Edward Balfour, Cyclopaedia of India