The name of the Ganges is known all throughout the land of India. This river that runs for 1,560 miles from the Himalayas all the way to the Bay of Bengal is more than just flowing water. This river is life, purity, and a goddess to the people of India. The river is Ganga Ma, "Mother Ganges." Her name and her story is known all throughout the land. It is the story of how she poured herself down from heaven upon the ashes of King Sarga's sons. Her waters would raise them up again to dwell in peace in heaven. Not only that, but anyone who touches these purifying waters even today are said to be cleansed of all sins.
Every morning thousands of
Hindus, whether pilgrims or residents, make their way into the
holy water of the Ganges. All of them face the rising sun with
folded hands mumering prayers. Eck states: The Ganges is a place of
death and life. Hindus from all over will bring their dead.
Whether a body or just ashes, the waters of the Ganga are needed
to reach Pitriloka, the World of the Ancestors. Just as in the
myth with King Sargas' 60,000 sons who attained heaven by Ganga
pouring down her water upon their ashes, so the same waters of
Ganga are needed for the dead in the Hindu belief today. Without
this, the dead will exist only in a limbo of suffering, and would
be troublesome spirits to those still living on earth. The waters
of the Ganges are called amrita, the "nectar of
immoratality". For the living, bathing in
the Ganges is just as important. Hindus will travel miles and
miles to have their sins washed away in these holy waters. For
years Hindus have declared that there is nothing quite as
cleansing as the living waters of the River of Heaven. This "pure"
water is suppoce to wash their sins away. Unfortunately, with all the
life the Ganges brings, pollution is also brought. Some of the
worst waterborn diseases are dysentery, hepatits, and cholera.
Money is being raised by the government and other groups such as
the Swatcha Ganga to clean the Ganges. None the less, the Ganges
is still the purifying waters for the Hindus of India. As stated
in "Travel in India" by Jean Tavernier, "The land where the Ganges
does not flow is likened in one hymn to the sky without the sun, a
home without a lamp, a brahmin without a Vedas" (Tavernier
236). 
As soon as the day
begins, devout Hindus begin to give their offerings of flowers or
food, throwing handfulls of grain or garlands of marigolds or pink
lotuses into the Ganges. Others will float small oil lamps on its
surface. Or as stated in "Banaras City of Light" by Diana L. Eck,
"they may take up her water and put it back into the river as an
offering to the ancestors and the gods" (Eck 212). In cupped hands
they will also take the ritual drink of the Ganges and then fill a
container to take with them to the temple. On great festivel
occasions, Hindus ford the river in boats, shouting "Ganga Mata Ki
Jai!" (Victory to Mother Ganga!)
"There
are few things on which Hindu India, diverse as it is, might
agree. But of the Ganges, India speaks with one voice. The
Ganges carries an immense cultural and religious meaning for
Hindus of every region and every sectarian persuasion."
(214)
Cremation anywhere along the Ganges is desirable. If that is not
possible, then the relatives might later bring the ashes of the
deceased to the Ganges. Sometimes, if a family cannot afford
firewood for cremation, a half-burned corpse is thrown into the
water. A verse from the Mahabharata promises, "If only the bone of
a person should touch the water of the Ganges, that person shall
dwell, honored, in heaven."
The river Ganges draws all kinds of people and life seems to
continually be bustling at its side. On the platforms and ghats
are barbers cutting and trimming hair, and children flying their
kites. You may see young men wrestling, exercising, or in deep
meditation. Washermen are beating their clothes on stones at the
edge. Multi-colored saris and all sorts of wet clothes are laid
out to dry in the sunshine. A boy may be washing his dog while a
mother is taking her yelling child into the Ganges for the first
time. "Banaras: India's City of Light" by Santha Rama Rau
states:"There are beggars,
idlers, vendors, touts, the young, the old, the curious, the
remote, the talkers, the guides, the priests, the families
simply out for a stroll, the ascetics, the crippled, the woman
scrubbing out household pots and pans, the toughs, the gently
curious ones. All are there along the Ganges" (Rau 244).
Bibliography:
-Eck, Diana. BANARAS CITY OF LIGHT. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1982.
-Rau, Santha. "Banaras: India's City of Light" NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC. Feb. 1995
Pictures provided by:
Carolyn
Heinz
Other sources:
facts
on the Ganges
