Ganga : A River of Civilisation

Contents: 1. Introduction. 2. A Celestial river descends from heaven: Ganga as a mythical flow. 3. A river is born : daughter of the Himalaya. 4. Pilgrim\'s progress : the Ganga trail.

"The Ganga is at once a river of civilisation that has nurtured mighty empires and cities, and a river of mythology swirling with the waters of primeval beginnings and creation. It has been , and continues to be, a river of life and plenty for agrarian societies in the Gangetic valley and at the same time, it is a river of spiritualism promising regeneration and salvation. It is a river of delicate ecological balance, which binds nature and human irrevocably to each other, a river of captivating physical reality. At the same time it is also a river of consciousness that runs through collective memory, renewing the lessons of being and becoming, and freedom.

Ultimately, Ganga is a river of organic culture, which has created a rainbow of religion, art and philosophy out of the topography of lived experience in the Gangetic Valley in the last two-and-a-half thousand years or so. For a long time the river has excited the imagination of the west and been synonymous with India. It has been so, from the time of conquerors like Alexander in the 4 century BC, to the explorer of the modern world, Christopher Columbus in the 15 century AD, from writers and poets like Megasthenes and Virgil to Dante."