Ganges River

The Ganges River (English: ; Gangā in most Indian languages) (Devanagari गंगा) is one of the most important rivers of northern India and Bangladesh. The river has a long history of reverence in India and is worshipped by Hindus. It often called the 'holy Ganga'.

The total length of the river is about 2,510 km (1,557 mi). Along with another river Yamuna, it forms a large and fertile basin, known as the Gangetic plains, stretching across north India and Bangladesh, and supports one of the highest densities of human population in the world. Indeed, about one in every 12 people on earth (8.5% of world population) live in its catchment area. Due to this incredible concentration of population, pollution and the destruction of habitats is a matter of serious concern.

Geography

The Gangotri Glacier in the Uttaranchal Himalayas is the origin of the Bhagirathi river, which joins the Alaknanda river at Devaprayag, also in the Uttaranchal Himalayas to form the Ganga. The river then flows through the Himalayan valleys and emerges into the north Indian plain at the town of Haridwar. This section sees extensive Whitewater rafting and kayaking From September to March.

The Ganga then flows across the broad plains of north India, (called the Gangetic Plains), and forms the major river basin of that vast region. Its tributaries include the Kosi, the Gomti, the Sone, and above all the Yamuna. The Yamuna River — a major river in its own right, and nearly as endowed with the sanctity of myth and legend as the Ganga, is in fact a tributary of the Ganga; their confluence marks the site of the pilgrim town of Prayag, now known as Allahabad. Not only sites of religious significance, but also many of the most populous industrial cities of northern India lie on the banks of the Ganga, including Kanpur, Allahabad, Benaras and Patna.

Swollen by the waters of a wide basin that draws from watersheds as diverse as the Himalayas and the Aravallis, the Ganga forms a formidable current in the stretch between Allahabad and Malda, and thereafter, a large delta. Near the town of Malda in West Bengal, it undergoes its first attrition with the branching away of the Hoogly, its first distributary. The city of Kolkata (previously Calcutta) stands on the banks of the Hoogly. The main stream of the river (known as the Padma River) then enters Bangladesh. Here, it unites with the Jamuna branch of the even larger Brahmaputra river. The combined stream then joins with the Meghna River before flowing out to sea. In the flat plains of Bangladesh, the Ganges splits almost immediately into a dense network of distributaries, all of which finally empty into the Bay of Bengal.

The region encompassing the delta near the Bay of Bengal coast is known as The Sundarbans (Beautiful Forests) — a region of thick mangrove forests, and one of the major habitats of the Royal Bengal Tiger. Two species of dolphin can be found in the Ganges, the Ganges River Dolphin and the Irrawaddy Dolphin. The Ganges is also notable in that it contains a rare species of freshwater shark, Glyphis gangeticus, about which little is known.

The Ganga in Hinduism

In Hinduism, the river Ganga (feminine) is sacred. It is worshipped by Hindus and personified as a goddess, who holds an important place in the Hindu religion. Hindu belief holds that bathing in the river on certain occasions causes the remission of sins and facilitates the attainment of salvation. Many people believe that this effect obtains from bathing in Ganga at any time. People travel from distant places to immerse the ashes of their kin in the waters of the Ganga; this immersion also is believed to be meritorious as it is supposed to lead the ashes to heaven. Several places sacred to Hindus lie along the banks of the river Ganga, including Haridwar and Kashi. People carry from ganges, sacred water that is sealed in copper pots after making pilgrimage to Kashi. It is believed that drinking water from the Ganga during the last breath will take the soul to heaven.

In most Hindu families, a vial of water from the Ganga is kept at every house. It is done because it is considered good to have water of the Holy Ganga in the house, and also so that whenever someone comes to the death-bed, then he/she can be made to drink its water.

Some of the most important Hindu festivals/religious congregations are celebrated on the banks of the river Ganga such as the Kumbh mela or the Kumbh fair and the chhat puja.

The most important city that is sacred to Hinduism on the banks of the river Ganga is Varanasi or Banaras. It has hundreds of temples along the banks of the Ganga, which often get submerged during the rains. This city is an important place as a place of worship of the Hindus along the banks of the Ganga, and also as a cremation ground of the Hindus preferably along the banks.

However, the Rigveda, the earliest and theoretically the holiest of the Hindi scriptures, mentions Ganga only once, in its quite late Chapter. During the early Indo-Aryan Ages, the Indus and the Saraswati were the major rivers, not the Ganga. But the later three Vedas seem to give much more importance to the Ganga, and shown by its numerous references.

Many Hindus believe that the water from the Ganga can cure the ill and cleanse the soul of all its sins.

Pollution

The major polluting industries on the Ganges are the leather industries, especially near Kanpur, which use large amounts of chromium and other chemicals, and much of it finds its way into the meager flow of the Ganga. Unfortunately, this is a boom time for leather processing in India, which many view as a form of eco-environmental dumping on the third world, and with the lax and lubricable implementation systems of the Uttar Pradesh government, it does not seem likely that this will go down. The world bank report 1992, which focussed on the environmental issues, mentions the dissolved-oxygen and riverborne decomposing material at two points on the Ganga.

However, industry is not the only source of pollution. Sheer volume of waste — estimated at nearly 1 billion litres per day - of mostly untreated raw sewage — is a significant factor. Also, inadequate cremation procedures contributes to a large number of partially burnt or unburnt corpses floating down the Ganga, in addition to livestock corpses.

The Ganga Action Plan has been set up under the Indian Government bureaucracy, and is attempting to build a number of waste treatment facilities, under Dutch and British support, and to collaborate with a number of voluntary organizations. Surprisingly, the Hindu political parties in India are not very active in the efforts to clean up the Ganga, and it is not very high in the general religious agenda. India's government has already spent over $33 million to address the overwhelming sewage problem. However, things are looking better at the beginning of 2006, as satellite images show increased water clarity in the river.

Ganges Canal

Ganges Canal was dug from Haridwar to Kanpur in later half of 19th century and a very wide network of small tributary canals were constructed from the main canal to act as source of irrigation in the fertile plains of Western Uttar Pradesh. University of Roorkee was established at Roorkee to train Civil Engineers who could oversee the construction of this canal. This canal is still supplying water to thousands of villages in western Uttar Pradesh and water of Ganga, flowing in this canal, is in true sense the life line of western Uttar Pradesh an area which played a central role in the Green revolution of India and water of Ganga played a vital role in this endeavor.

Notes

References

Alley, Kelly D. On the Banks of the Ganga: When Wastewater Meets a Sacred River, University of Michigan press (2002) 0-472-06808-3
Darian, Steven G.,The Ganges in Myth and History, The University Press of Hawaii, Honolulu (1978) 0824805097
Newby, Eric, Slowly down the Ganges, Lonely Planet Publications (1998) 0864426313
Ganga The River Goddess - Tales in Art and Mythology, by Sri Nitin Kumar.
Stephen Alter, Sacred Waters: A Pilgrimage up the Ganges River to the Source of Hindu Culture. Harcourt; 1 Us ed edition (October 17, 2001). ISBN 0151005850

External links

Sacred Ganga
Bibliography on Water Resources and International Law See Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers. Peace Palace Libray
Ganga Arati Video Quicktime streaming video of worship of the Ganges in Hardwar (15 minutes)
Various Aspects Of Ganges

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