GANGA
ORIGIN: Gangotri is the place of origin of the revered Ganges River or the Ganga River in India. The sacred of the Indian rivers, Ganges is the source of sustenance of life in the great Indian plains it is at Gangotri that the remarkable journey of Ganga begins. Indian mythology tells the story of birth of Ganges. King Bhagirath pleaded to Lord Shiva and was granted his wish that Goddess Ganga comes down on earth to bring to life his expired ancestors. The river was said to have been entangled in Lord Shiva`s locks, to save the earth destruction. Gomukh near the Gangotri glacier looks alike a cow`s head and strangely, the flows down at great speed through this natural formation, without which it would have been hard retain and was sure to have caused devastation. Due to its obvious important to Hinduism, Gangotri is one of the most famous pilgrimage sites in India. This place has reached the peak tourism in Uttarakhand. There are several tourist spots in Gangotri; some of them are as follows – Gangotri Glacier: The Gangotri glacier happens to be the origin of the Bhagirathi River. The glacier is 30 kilometers long and between 2 to 4 kilometers wide .It is located in the Uttarkashi district in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, near the border of China. It is a significant pilgrimage site for the Hindu devotees as well as trekkers and thousands who come here to take a dip in the waters near glacier. Due to global warming, the glacier is often observed to be diminishing, the fate of
Ganga seems apprehensive. The journey though strenuous is worth it, in ways more than one. Gomukh: This is considered to be the accurate source of the Bhagirathi River, the main channel that the sacred Ganga River along with some more rivers. The place looks like a cow`s mouth offers stunning natural beauty along with spiritual significance. Gangotri Temple: A Gurkha commander Amar Singh Thapa built this temple in the 18th century. The temple is an attractive white marble structure about 20 feet high. During the winter months, the statue is moved away to the nearby Mukhimath village and is kept there for the next six months. A sacred stone near the temple is believed to be the accurate spot where the descendent of the river form the heavens. The Shivaling: This submerged Shivaling is a phallic form of Lord Shiva and is visible only during winter when the water levels are low enough. This is believed to be the exact spot where Lord Shiva had entangled the river in his locks.
HISTORY: The Ganges is a major river in the Indian subcontinent flowing east through the immeasurable plains of northern India into Bangladesh. The 2,510 km or 1,557 mi river originates at the Gangotri Glacier in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, in the central Himalayas, and empties into the Bay
Bengal through its vast delta in the Sunderbans. It has enjoyed a state of admiration among India`s Hindus, by whom it is worshipped in its incarnated form as the goddess Ganga. The river Ganges flows through India, Nepal and Bangladesh. The major cities along the River Ganges are Haridwar, Moradabad, Rampur, Allahabad, Kanpur, Patna, Varanasi and Rajshahi. The Ganges Delta is the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh. During the rig Veda, the Indus and the Saraswati River were the chief rivers, not the Ganges. But the later three Vedas seem to give much more significance to the Ganges, as shown by its plentiful references. Possibly the first Westerner to mention the name of Ganges was Megasthenese. He did so many times in his work Indika. The sentence was – “India, again, possesses many rivers both large and navigable, which, having their sources in the mountains which stretch along the northern frontier, traverse the level country, and not a few of these, after uniting with each other, fall into the river called the Ganges. Now this river, which at its source is 30 stadia broad, flows from north to south, and empties its waters into the ocean forming the eastern boundary of the Gangaridai, a nation which possesses a vast force of the largest- sized elephants.” (Diodorus chapter II.37.) In Rome`s Piazza Navona, a famous sculpture, Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi or the fountain of the four rivers was designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and was built in 1651.
This sculpture symbolizes four of the world`s great river, amongst which the Ganges is one of them and the rivers represented the four continents known at the time. Major tributaries on the left bank of Ganges are Mahakhali, Karnali, Kosi, Gandak, Ghaghra and the tributaries the right bank are Yamuna, Son, and Mahananda. The Ganges and its tributaries drain an enormous area about one million square kilometers. The waters of Ganges drain the fertile basin and supports one of the world`s highest-density human populations. Almost half of the population of India lives on one-third of the landscape within 500 of the Himalayan range along the Gangetic plains and depends on the River Ganges.