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About
River Ganges |
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The
Ganges also Ganga is a trans-boundary river of India and
Bangladesh. The 2,525 km river rises in the western Himalayas
in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, and flows south and east
through the Gangetic Plain of North India into Bangladesh,
where it empties into the Bay of Bengal. It is the third
largest river in the World by discharge.The Ganges is the most
sacred river to Hindus and is also a lifeline to millions of
Indians who live along its course and depend on it for their
daily needs. It is worshipped as the goddess Ganga in
Hinduism. It has also been important historically: many former
provincial or imperial capitals have been located on its
banks.
Ganges River in India is one of the holiest and most honored
rivers in the world. It is as famous as the Taj Mahal. The
Ganges plays an iconic religious role in the lives of India’s
people. It is dignified in the culture of Hindus and
continuously summoned by the Puranas and the Veda, as well as
the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. It is the longest of the
rivers in India and the largest body of water in India. The
larger part of the Ganges flows through India while the rest
continues through Bangladesh. Initialized high up in the
Himalaya Mountains, Ganges River facts disclose the flow
commences inside a 10,000-foot ice cave and continues on
across the northernmost corner of the country. After its
continuous flow through both countries, the Ganges empties
into the Bay of Bengal.
Although Ganges River cruises are an exceptionally popular
with tourists on India vacations, the greatest importance is
placed on the necessities provided for millions of people. It
is an important spiritual gathering place first and foremost
and the ways in which it is used are countless- drinking,
bathing, agricultural fulfillment, transportation, and
performing baptisms are the key usages of the Ganges River. An
endless array of industries also rely on the Ganges, including
textiles, paper, and leather among many more, for washing,
cleaning, and much more.
Ganges River facts enthrall and draw people from all over the
world to see for themselves the honored river and what lies in
the surrounding layers. Exploring it is the main attraction.
Ganges River cruises and rafting trips are intended to bring
to light life along the river, but are also considered a
decisive adventure which has changed lives.
There are many Ganges River facts to consider when planning
adventures revolving around the waterway. At almost 1600 miles
long, the Ganges offers incredible opportunity for rafting
trips and cruises. Two river contributories create the Ganges
River at their convergence; the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi
rivers join at Devprayag, creating Ganga Ma, or Mother Ganges.
The largest tributary is the Yamuna River, which means there
are several rivers ideal for rafting in addition to the
Ganges. The largest delta known in the world is called
Sundarban which lies at the Ganges River's mouth and is a
major point of exploration for adventurous tourists,
particularly The Sajnakhali Tiger Sanctuary within Sundarban
National Park.
One famous route for Ganges River tours remains the one
beginning in Allahabad and ending in Varanasi. Both locations
are main pilgrimage sites with 2000-year-old civilizations. Of
all sections of the well-known Ganges, these two areas are the
most vibrant and interesting. Ancient temples, people of all
ages, scenic countryside, and river islands contribute to draw
the Ganges extracts. Major attractions to see during tours on
the Ganges River include the hanging bridge, Lakshman Jhula
and the iron bridge Ram Jhula in Rishikesh, Ganga Aarti
(religious ceremonies), countless temples, and other religious
sites and events. |
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Geology |
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The
Indian subcontinent lies atop the Indian tectonic plate which is
a minor plate within the Indo-Australian Plate. Its defining
geological processes commenced about seventy-five million years
ago, when, as a part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana, it
began a northeastwards drift-lasting fifty million years across
the unformed Indian Ocean. The subcontinent's successive
collision with the Eurasian Plate and subduction under it, gave
rise to the Himalayas, the planet's highest mountains. In the
former seabed immediately south of the emerging Himalayas, plate
movement created a vast trough, which gradually has been filled
with deposits which are borne by the Indus and its tributaries
and the Ganges and its tributaries, now forms the Indo-Gangetic
Plain. The Indo-Gangetic Plain is geologically known as a
foredeep or foreland basin. |
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Course |
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The
Ganges begins at the convergence of the Bhagirathi and Alaknanda
rivers. The Bhagirathi is considered to be the true source in
Hindu culture and mythology, although the Alaknanda is longer.
The headwaters of the Alakananda are formed by snowmelt from
such peaks as Nanda Devi, Trisul, and Kamet. The Bhagirathi
rises at the foot of Gangotri Glacier, at Gaumukh, at an
altitude of 3,892 m.
Although many small streams comprise the headwaters of the
Ganges, the six longest and their five confluences are
considered sacred. The six headstreams are the Alaknanda,
Dhauliganga, Nandakini, Pindar, Mandakini, and Bhagirathi
rivers. The five confluences, known as the Panch Prayag, are all
along the Alaknanda. They are, in downstream order, Vishnuprayag,
where the Dhauliganga joins the Alaknanda; Nandprayag, where the
Nandakini joins; Karnaprayag, where the Pindar joins,
Rudraprayag, where the Mandakini joins; and finally, Devprayag,
where the Bhagirathi joins the Alaknanda to form the Ganges
River proper.
After flowing 250 kilometres through its narrow Himalayan
valley, the Ganges emerges from the mountains at Rishikesh, then
debouches onto the Gangetic Plain at the pilgrimage town of
Haridwar. At Haridwar, a dam diverts some of its waters into the
Ganges Canal, which irrigates the Doab region of Uttar Pradesh,
whereas the river, whose course has been roughly southwest until
this point, now begins to flow southeast through the plains of
northern India.
The Ganges follows an 800-kilometre arching course passing
through the cities of Kannauj, Farukhabad, and Kanpur. Along the
way it is joined by the Ramganga, which contributes an average
annual flow of about 500 m/s . The Ganges joins the Yamuna at
the Triveni Sangam at Allahabad which is a holy convergence in
Hinduism. At their confluence the Yamuna is larger than the
Ganges, contributing about 2,950 m3/s (104,000 cu ft/s), or
about 58.5% of the combined flow. The Kosi is the third largest
tributary of the Ganges, after the Ghaghara(Karnali) and Yamuna.
After entering Bangladesh, the main branch of the Ganges is
known as the Padma. The Padma is joined by the Jamuna River
which is the largest distributary of the Brahmaputra. Further
downstream, the Padma joins the Meghna River which is the second
largest distributary of the Brahmaputra, and takes on the
Meghna's name as it enters the Meghna Estuary, which empties
into the Bay of Bengal. The Ganges Delta was formed mainly by
the large, sediment-laden flows of the Ganges and Brahmaputra
rivers, it is the world's largest delta, at about 59,000 km2. It
stretches 322 km along the Bay of Bengal. |
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History |
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The Late Harappan period, about 1900–1300 BCE, saw the
spread of Harappan settlement eastward from the Indus
River basin to the Ganges-Yamuna doab, although none
crossed the Ganges to settle its eastern bank. The
breakdown of the Harappan civilization, in the early 2nd
millennium BC, mark the point when the center of Indian
civilization shifted from the Indus basin to the Ganges
basin. There may be links between the Late Harappan
settlement of the Ganges basin and the archaeological
culture known as "Cemetery H", the Indo-Aryan people, and
the Vedic period.
This river is the longest in India. During the early Vedic
Age of the Rigveda, the Indus and the Sarasvati River were
the major holy rivers, not the Ganges. But the later three
Vedas give much more importance to the Ganges. The
Gangetic Plain became the centre of successive powerful
states, from the Maurya Empire to the Mughal Empire. The
first European traveler to mention the Ganges was
Megasthenes (ca. 350–290 BCE).
In 1951 a water sharing dispute arose between India and
Bangladesh (then East Pakistan), after India declared its
intention to build the Farakka Barrage. The original
purpose of the barrage, which was completed in 1975, was
to divert up to 40,000 cu ft/s of water from the Ganges to
the Bhagirathi-Hooghly distributary in order to restore
navigability at the Port of Kolkata. |
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Physical features |
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The Ganges rises in the southern Himalayas on the Indian side of
the border with the Tibet Autonomous region of China. Its five
headstreams—the Alaknanda, Bhagirathi, Mandakini, Pindar and
Dhauliganga all rise in the northern mountainous region of
Uttarakhand state. Of these, the two main headstreams are the
Alaknanda (the longer of the two), which rises about 30 miles
north of the Himalayan peak of Nanda Devi, and the Bhagirathi,
which originates about 3,000 metres above sea level in a
subglacial meltwater cave at the base of the Himalayan glacier
known as Gangotri. Gangotri itself is a holy place for Hindu
pilgrimage. The true source of the Ganges, however, is
considered to be at Gaumukh which is about 13 miles (21 km)
southeast of Gangotri.
The Alaknanda and Bhagirathi unite at Devaprayag to form the
main stream known as the Ganga, which cuts through the Outer
(southern) Himalayas to emerge from the mountains at Rishikesh.
It then flows onto the plain at Haridwar, another place held
sacred by the Hindus.
The volume of the Ganges increases markedly as it receives more
tributaries and enters a region of heavier rainfall, and it
shows a marked seasonal variation in flow. From April to June
the melting Himalayan snows feed the river, while in the rainy
season from July to September the rain-bearing monsoons cause
floods. During winter the river’s flow declines. South of
Haridwar, now within the state of Uttar Pradesh, the river
receives the principal right-bank tributaries of the Yamuna
River, which flows through the Delhi capital region to join the
Ganges near Allahabad, and the Tons, which flows north from the
Vindhya Range in Madhya Pradesh state and joins the Ganges just
below Allahabad. The main left-bank tributaries in Uttar Pradesh
are the Ramganga, the Gomati, and the Ghaghara. |
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Religious and cultural significance |
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Embodiment of sacredness
The Ganges is the embodiment of all sacred waters in Hindu
mythology. Local rivers are said to be like the Ganges, and are
sometimes called the local Ganges (Ganga). The Kaveri river of
Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in Southern India is called the Ganges
of the South; the Godavari, is the Ganges that was led by the
sage Gautama to flow through Central India. The Ganges is
invoked whenever water is used in Hindu ritual, and is therefore
present in all holy waters. Nothing is more exciting for a Hindu
in spite of this, than a dip in the actual river, especially at
one of the famous tirthas such as Haridwar, Gangotri, Prayag, or
Varanasi.
The Ganges is a sacred river to Hindus along every portion of
its length. All along its course, Hindus bathe in its waters,
paying reverence to their ancestors and to their gods by cupping
the water in their hands, lifting it and letting it fall back
into the river; they offer flowers and rose petals and float
thin clay dishes filled with oil and lit with wicks (diyas). On
the journey back home from the Ganges, they carry small
quantities of river water with them for use in rituals (Ganga
jal, literally water of the Ganga). When a loved one dies,
Hindus bring the ashes of the deceased person to the Ganges
River.
The symbolic and religious importance of the Ganges is one of
the few things that Hindu India, even its skeptics, are agreed
upon. Jawaharlal Nehru, a religious iconoclast himself, asked
for a handful of his ashes to be thrown into the Ganges. "The
Ganga," he wrote in his will, "is the river of India, beloved of
her people, round which are interlinked her ethnic memories, her
hopes and fears, her songs of triumph, her victories and her
defeats. She has been a symbol of India's age-long culture and
civilization, ever-changing, ever-flowing, and yet ever the same
Ganga." |
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Redemption of the Dead |
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Since
Ganga had descended from heaven to earth, she is also the
vehicle of ascent, from earth to heaven. As the
Triloka-patha-gamini, (Skt. triloka= "three worlds", patha =
"road", gamini= "one who travels") of the Hindu tradition, she
flows in heaven, earth, and the netherworld, and, consequently,
is a "tirtha," or crossing point of all beings, the living as
well as the dead. It is for this reason that the story of the
avatarana is told at Shraddha ceremonies for the deceased in
Hinduism, and Ganges water is used in Vedic rituals after death.
Among all songs devoted to the Ganges, there are none more
popular than the ones expressing the worshipers wish to breathe
his last surrounded by her waters.
No place along her banks is more longed for at the moment of
death by Hindus than Varanasi, the Great Cremation Ground, or
Mahashmshana. Those who are lucky enough to die in Varanasi, are
cremated on the banks of the Ganges, and are granted instant
salvation. If the death has occurred elsewhere, salvation can be
achieved by immersing the ashes in the Ganges. If the ashes have
been immersed in another body of water, a relative can still
gain salvation for the deceased by journeying to the Ganges, if
possible during the lunar "fortnight of the ancestors" in the
Hindu calendar month of Ashwin (September or October), and
performing the Shraddha rites.
Hindus also perform pinda pradana, a rite for the dead, in which
balls of rice and sesame seed are offered to the Ganges while
the names of the deceased relatives are recited.
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Avatarana or Descent of the Ganges |
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In
late May or early June every year, Hindus celebrate the
avatarana or descent of the Ganges from heaven to earth. The day
of the celebration, Ganga Dashahara, the dashami (tenth day) of
the waxing moon of the Hindu calendar month Jyestha, brings
crowds of bathers to the banks of the river. A bathe in the
Ganges on this day is said to rid the bather of ten sins or ten
lifetimes of sins. Those who cannot journey to the river,
however, can achieve the same results by bathing in any nearby
body of water, which, for the true believer, in the Hindu
tradition, takes on all the attributes of the Ganges.
The avatarana is an old theme in Hinduism with a number of
different versions of the story. In the Vedic version, Indra,
the Lord of Svarga (Heaven) kills the celestial serpent, Vritra,
releasing the celestial liquid, the soma, or the nectar of the
gods which then throws to the earth and waters it with
sustenance.
In the Vaishnava version of the myth, Indra has been replaced by
his former helper Vishnu. The heavenly waters are now a river
called Vishnupadi. As he completes his celebrated three paces-of
earth, sky, and heaven-Vishnu as Vamana stubs his toe on the
vault of heaven, punches open a hole, and releases the
Vishnupadi, which until now had been circling around the cosmic
egg within. Flowing out of the vault, she falls down to Indra's
heaven, where she is received by Dhruva, the once steadfast
worshipper of Vishnu, now fixed in the sky as the polestar.
Next, she streams across the sky forming the Milky Way and
arrives on the moon.She then flows down earthwards to Brahma's
land, a divine lotus atop Mount Meru, whose petals form the
earthly continents.There, the divine waters break up, with one
stream, the Alaknanda, flowing down one petal into Bharatvarsha
(India) as the Ganges.
It is Shiva, however, among the major deities of the Hindu
pantheon, who appears in the most widely known version of the
avataranastory. In honour of Bhagirath's pivotal role in the
avatarana, the source stream of the Ganges in the Himalayas is
named Bhagirathi. |
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The purifying Ganges |
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Hindus consider the waters of the Ganges to be both pure and
purifying. Nothing retrieves order from disorder more than
the waters of the Ganges. Moving water, as in a river, is
considered purifying in Hindu culture because it is thought
to both absorb impurities and take them away.The rapidly
moving Ganges, especially in its upper reaches, where a
bather has to grasp an anchored chain in order to not be
carried away, is considered very purifying. What the Ganges
removes, however, is not necessarily physical dirt, but
symbolic dirt; it wipes away the sins of the bather, not
just of the present, but of a lifetime.
Ganga is a consort to all three major male deities of
Hinduism. As Brahma's partner she always travels with him in
the form of water in his kamandalu (water-pot). She is also
Vishnu's consort.
The Ganges is also the mother, the Ganga Mata (mata="mother")
of Hindu worship and culture, accepting all and forgiving
all. Unlike other goddesses, she has no destructive or
terrible aspect, destructive though she might be as a river
in nature. She is also a mother to other gods. The Ganges is
the extracted lifeblood of the Hindu tradition, of its
divinities, holy books, and enlightenment. As such, her
worship does not require the usual rites of incantation at
the beginning and dismissal at the end, required in the
worship of other gods. Her divinity is immediate and
eternal. |
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