Abstract The Lower Permian Barakar and overlying Motur Formations, in the southeastern part of the Satpura Gondwana basin, India, reveal contrasting lithology and alluvial architecture. Barakar Formation (∼225 m thick) consists of laterally extensive 5- to 20-m-thick multistoreyed, multilateral coarse-grained sandstone bodies. In the upper part of the formation, a few 1.5- to 11-m-thick coal–carbonaceous shale units alternate with the thick sandstone bodies. In contrast, the Motur Formation is characterised by a thick (∼500 m thick) succession of red mudstone with usually isolated, comparatively thinner (1–15 m thick) sandstone bodies. The multistoreyed Barakar sandstone bodies are inferred to represent deposition in sandy braided streams. Earlier workers inferred development of the associated coal/carbonaceous shale units in contemporaneous floodplains. The present study, on the other hand, indicates that the coal–carbonaceous shale units accumulated in an extensive vegetated marshland with small channels and lakes, and were temporally and spatially unrelated to the Barakar braided rivers. Sedimentologic and stratigraphic data suggest that during periods of active subsidence of the basin floor, the braided alluvial plain was transformed to an extensive, low-gradient wetland, and at times of tectonic quiescence, elevated source regions forced the braided system to prograde over the coal-forming marshland. Thicker (1–15 m) sandstone bodies embedded in the red mudstones of the Motur Formation are inferred as channel fills. Whereas the thinner (0.2–2.0 m) sandstone sheets, at places occurring as wings of the channel sandstones, represent levee–splay complexes of the Motur channels. The red mudstone intervals perhaps represent the alluvial floodplain environment. Abundant calcareous nodules within mudstones are inferred to record development of calcareous paleosols on the floodplain deposits. Dominance of mudrocks, the smaller dimension as well as isolated nature of the channel fills and well-developed levee deposits in the Motur Formation, are suggestive of deposition in an anastomosed fluvial system characterised by multiple, laterally stable channel–levee complexes flanked by extensive floodplains. Occurrence of coal in the Barakar Formation and red mudstone with calcareous paleosols in the Motur Formation indicates a change of paleoclimate from humid (in Barakar) to semi-arid type (in Motur) during the Lower Permian time in the Satpura Gondwana basin. There is no independent evidence of major tectonic reorganisation (stratigraphic discordance, change of paleocurrent pattern) of the basin during the transition from Barakar to Motur Formation. It is inferred that the change from the thick multistoreyed, multilateral sandstone sheets of Barakar Formation to that of the isolated, thinner sandstone bodies within thick mudstones of the Motur Formation reflects response of the alluvial system to increasing climatic aridity rather than to increasing rate of basin subsidence.