Which river in north india is thought to be sacred

A Sacred Icon For Hindus, the River Ganges is sacred and revered, embodied by the goddess Ganga. Though iconography of the goddess varies, she is most often depicted as a beautiful woman with a white crown, riding the Makra (a creature with the head of a crocodile and the tail of a dolphin). She features either two or four arms, holding a variety of objects ranging from water lilies to a water pot to a rosary. As a nod to the goddess, the Ganges is often referred to as Ma Ganga, or Mother Ganga. A Brahmin priest and his assistant pray beside the Ganges River. Christopher Pillitz / Image Bank Mythological Origins of the River There are many renditions of the River Ganges’ mythical origins, owing in part to the oral tradition of India and Bangladesh. It is said that the river gave life to the people, and, in turn, people gave life to the river. The name of Ganga appears only twice in the Rig Veda, an early sacred Hindu text, and it was only later that Ganga assumed great importance as the goddess Ganga. The Kumbh Mela, another sacred ritual, is a Hindu festival during which pilgrims to the Ganges bathe themselves in the sacred waters. The festival occurs in the same place only every 12 years, though a Kumbh Mela celebration can be found annually somewhere along the river. It is considered to be the world’s largest peaceful gathering and is featured on UNESCO’s list of VARANASI, INDIA - JANUARY 28, 2018: Burning pyres seen during cremation ceremonies in Manikarnika Ghat on Ja...

Nearly 13,000ft up in the foothills of the Himalayas, Amod Panwar, an Indian hotel owner and devout Hindu, reverently places offerings of almonds, sultanas and a coconut into the water cascading from an icy cavern known as Gaumukh, the “cow’s mouth”. As dusk falls over the snow-capped peaks, a block of ice the size of a house breaks from the glacier and plunges into the stream with a roar, sending me scurrying for safety across the grey stones of the riverbank. Panwar, my guide for the gruelling high-altitude trek from Gangotri in northern India, is undeterred. He continues his devotions, strips off his clothes and immerses himself in water flecked with shards of ice. Only when we have filled plastic bottles with the holy liquid to take home in our backpacks do we walk downhill to the isolated ashram where we will take sweet tea and shelter in the cold October night. Gaumukh, the source of the River Ganges, is one of the most sacred places in Hinduism. But in truth the entire river, flowing for more than 2,500km across north India from the mountainous haunts of the snow leopard (we see prints on the way down) to the tiger-infested mangrove swamps of the Bay of Bengal, is holy. Ma Ganga or Mother Ganges, described by Harvard religious scholar Diana Eck as “the archetype of sacred waters”, is worshipped as a goddess by Hindus worldwide. Her water has even been ceremonially poured into a well built on the orders of a generous 19th-century maharaja for the English villagers of...

She begins high in the Himalayas, a rivulet from the Gangotri Glacier that becomes a stream that becomes a river that flows through India for 2500 kilometres (1550 miles) and eventually becomes the biggest delta in the world as it empties into the Bay of Bengal. The indomitable Ganges. It ranks only thirty-fifth among the world’s longest rivers but nothing can outrank it’s meaning and sacred significance in the hearts of India’s one billion Hindus. To them the river is the divine mother, a goddess known as Ganga, Mother Ganga, Maa Ganga, a deity that can wash away your sins and your suffering, and take the souls of your deceased loved ones straight to heaven. It is not just a river giving life in the form of water, but a whole culture of the river as a deity: to the Indian Hindu people she is not merely water, but holy water, the very source of salvation, drenching hearts and souls with sustenance and grace even as she irrigates their farms, giving freely to all and purifying all who bathe in her or drink from her. After flowing through a narrow Himalayan valley the river emerges from the mountains at Rishikesh wide and blue and deep. It is a river now, whereas only a couple of hundred kilometres upstream it had been a burbling stream in a narrow valley stumbling and tumbling over rocks. From Rishikesh it flows onto the plains of northern India just a little downstream at Haridwar, gathering speed and depth as it flows southeast towards the sea. And all along her banks are...

14 days from £6,820 for 2023 per person • • • • • • This itinerary is one of Ampersand's Cultural Holidays. This tour is purely a suggested itinerary and can be booked as it is, or alternatively used as a starting point for creating your own perfect bespoke holiday to . If you'd like to see similar itineraries, take a look at our itineraries. 14 days from £6,820 for 2023 per person • Day 1 - Arrive in Amritsar and transfer to your hotel. Spend the rest of the day at leisure. • Day 2 - Day to discover the Golden Temple and Amritsar. • Day 3 - Fly to Indore via Delhi then drive to Maheshwar. • Day 4 - At leisure. • Day 5 - Full day visit to Mandu. • Day 6 - Drive back to Indore for your flight to Gwalior. • Day 7 - Explore Gwalior Fort and town then spend the rest of the day at leisure. • Day 8 - Travel by road to Khajuraho visiting Orchha en route. • Day 9 - Visit the temples before flying to Varanasi. Attend the evening aarti on the ghats. • Day 10 - Dawn boat ride on the Ganges then visit Sarnath. • Day 11 - Fly to Calcutta via Delhi. • Day 12 - Morning at tour of the city. Afternoon at leisure. • Day 13 - Full day sightseeing. • Day 14 - In transit. Return flight home. I would recommend Ampersand without any hesitation!!! The best travel agent that I’ve ever had. Everything – from the individual care and attention in planning the trip, through to the efficiency of the agents on the ground in India – was handled brilliantly. An absolutely first-class service all round! - ...

The Ganges has been revered from the earliest times and today is regarded as the holiest of rivers by Hindus. Places of Hindu pilgrimage, called tirthas, that are situated on the Ganges have particular significance. Hindus cast the ashes of their dead into the river, believing that this gives the deceased direct passage to heaven, and cremation temples have been built in many places on the banks of the Ganges. The Ganges basin is one of the most densely populated regions on earth. The untreated sewage dumped into the river, industrial waste, agricultural runoff, remnants of partially burned or unburned bodies from funeral pyres, and animal carcasses all contribute to polluting the Ganges. High levels of disease-causing bacteria and toxic substances have also been found in the Ganges. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. The Ganges next enters the state of The Ganges-Brahmaputra system has the third greatest average discharge of the world’s rivers, at roughly 1,086,500 cubic feet (30,770 cubic metres) per second; approximately 390,000 cubic feet (11,000 cubic metres) per second is supplied by the Ganges alone. The rivers’ combined suspended sediment load of about 1.84 billion tons per year is the world’s highest. The Ganges, as well as its tributaries and distributaries, is constantly The delta, the seaward prolongation of sediment deposits from the Ganges and Brahmaputra river valleys, is about 220 miles (355 km) along the coast and c...