Ganges River

Sacred River

Prince Siddhartha Gautama, born about 563 B.C., having renounced his throne and wealth, wandered for six years in a state of complete self-denial in the valley of the Ganges with a few friends. After that he began to preach a new doctrine – Buddhism.

At the age of 45, Siddhartha Gautama, who received the name Buddha – “Awakened” or “Enlightened One”, preached Buddhism in the Ganges Valley. After his death, which occurred at the age of 80, he was cremated and his remains were divided into eight parts and buried in special stupas.

History

In 322 BC Chandragupta Maurya, having liberated India from the remnants of Alexander the Great’s garrisons and defeated the Indian rulers, united almost all of India and created the Mauryan state, whose capital, Pataliputra (today Patna), was located on the Ganges River.

Chandragupta’s grandson, Ashoka (273 BC – 232 BC), became one of the first royal patrons of Buddhism and its adherents. It is true that Ashoka’s empire adopted religious tolerance. The reign of the Mauryas was a golden period in the Ganges valley. During this time there was active construction, the number of educational and medical institutions grew, order was maintained in the country, and laws were relaxed, for example, forced labor was prohibited.

The shift of active political and religious life to the Ganges valley from the Indus valley is attributed to a number of natural changes. The highly developed Harappan civilization (2600-1800 B.C.) of the Indus Valley declined due to changes in the flow of rivers, drying up of riverbeds, floods, etc. In the second millennium B.C., tectonic movements on the Indian peninsula led to the drying up of the Saraswati River and changes in the course of the Indus. There is a hypothesis that the Harappans migrated to the banks of the Ganges. Thus, they are credited with founding the city of Kaushambi with a unique defensive fortress near the confluence of the Ganges and Jamna.

The valley of the Ganges became the birthplace of civilizations and states. On the banks of the Jamna, in the cities of Agra and Delhi, numerous pilgrims and tourists admire the monuments left by the Mughal Empire (1526-1857). These Muslim rulers, who came from the north, once controlled the entire Ganges.

By the 19th century, however, British influence was growing, gradually spreading from Calcutta, which had been founded by the British East India Company as early as the late 17th century. In the XX century. The Ganges once again becomes a zone of clash of interests of different states. At first, after the partition of British India, a part of the Ganges delta went to Pakistan. But in 1971 these territories separated and formed the independent state of Bangladesh. Now the use and preservation of the Ganges is the responsibility of two countries – India and Bangladesh.

The Hindu goddess Mother Ganga is a symbol of motherhood and the embodiment of the sacred river. Millions of pilgrims gather on the banks of the river every year, and both Hindus and Muslims use its waters for purifying ablutions. Cremation of Hindu dead is also performed near the river and the ashes are poured into the river.

Ecology

The Ganges River plays a special role in the history and modern life of India. These fertile plains have been inhabited and cultivated for thousands of years. Today, millions of people live here and utilize the resources of the Ganges. The famous mangrove forests of the Ganges delta are located where the Sundarban National Park, the habitat of the Bengal tiger, has been established.

The unacceptable level of pollution of the Ganges and the prospect of its extreme shallowing is a real threat today.

The river Ganges is conventionally divided into three parts – the upper course of about 800 km from the source to the city of Kanpur, the middle course – about 1500 km from Kanpur to the border with Bangladesh and the lower course – 300 km from the Bangladesh border to the mouth of the river. The river gets its name “Ganges” after the confluence of its source Bhagirathi with the Alaknanda River near the village of Devprayag in the Lower Himalayas.

The village of Gangotri near the glacier of the same name, from where the Bagirathi-Ganga flows, is, according to myths, a sacred place where the goddess Ganga resides.

Numerous pilgrimage centers on the river Ganges, where millions of people aspire to go, legends and myths about it, mention in literature – confirm its centuries-old status of a “sacred river”. However, the “sacred river”, ablution in which should protect every believer, itself needs urgent protection.

Apart from the title of “sacred river”, the Ganges can rightly be called one of the dirtiest rivers in the world. The study of water samples taken from different parts of the Ganges shows the constant presence of dangerous bacteria and highly toxic domestic and industrial waste. Of course, a serious reason for this state of affairs is the overpopulation of the river basin. The Ganges is polluted even in its upper reaches, because local people use the river for dumping waste, and industrial enterprises most often do not use the sewage treatment system. During seasonal floods, the river collects additional amounts of human waste. According to various reports, of the 700 million people who bathe in the Ganges each year, between 0.5 and 3.6 million people, mostly children, die from infectious diseases.

In 2007, it was suggested that if the Himalayan and Tibetan glaciers, on which the Ganges depends, continue to retreat, the glaciers will disappear by 2030, which will inevitably lead to a reduction of water in the river. Of course, this is only an assumption, but significant shallowing of the river has already begun, and often there is not enough water to irrigate crops, and India and Bangladesh continue to argue over water resources. The flora and fauna of the Ganges basin are under threat.

“Save the Ganges Plan” was unveiled by the government of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi back in 1985, and $200 million was spent to build treatment plants. However, as stated by the Indian Court of Accounts, the work is only 39% complete. The population is growing, waste dumping is increasing, and the construction of sewage treatment plants is clearly not keeping pace with the situation. The Hindu tradition of burning the dead on the banks of the Ganges is not affordable for everyone – firewood and the ceremony are expensive, so poor families often just throw their dead into the river. The propaganda of ecological consciousness in India is clearly not achieving the desired result.

Assigning the Ganges the status of a national river and the creation of the Ganges Basin Authority have also not yet brought the desired result – the Ganges is drowning in waste.

General information

• Official name: Ganges River in the Indian peninsula.
• Source: Gangotori glacier, Himalayas.
• Mouth: Bay of Bengal (Indian Ocean).
• Main tributaries: Alakkan da Ganga, Brahmaputra, Bagirathi-Ganga, Bhilangna, Gomti, Ghaghara, Gandaki, Damodar, Jamuna, Karmanasha, Kosi, Ramganga, Son, Tamsa.
• Countries through which the Ganges flows: India and Bangladesh; Nepal and PRC are in the Ganges basin.
• Languages spoken in the river basin: several dozen languages, more than 200 dialects; the most common are Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, Maithili, Nepali, Panjabi; English is widely used.
• The largest cities of the river basin: Allahabad, Bhagalpur, Varanasi, Delhi, Kanpur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Bareilly, Patna, Khaora (India), Dhaka, Khulna, Chittagong (Bangladesh).
• The most important airports: Indira Gandhi International Airport (Delhi). The most important airports are: Indira Gandhi International Airport (Delhi), Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport (Kolkata), Ziaur Rahman International Airport (India), Ziaur Rahman International Airport (Bangladesh). Ziaur Rahman International Airport (Dhaka).
• Main river ports: Mongla, Barisal, Chandpur, Goalundo Ghat (Bangladesh), Kolkata (India).
• Major lakes of the river basin: Govind-Ballash-Panth Sagar (watercourse).
• Basin area: 1,060,000 km2; together with the Brahmaputra basin (with it the Ganges forms a common delta) 1,643,000 km2.
• Population: about 500,000,000 (2001).
• Population density: 304.3 people/km2.
• River length: 2,700 km.
• Delta area: 105,640 km2.
• Average discharge: 12,000 m3/s.

Economy

• Permanent water intake for industrial facilities, irrigation of agricultural lands.
• Main crops: rice, sugarcane, lentils, oilseeds, potatoes, wheat.
• Fishing, fish processing.
• Pilgrimage and tourism.
• Shipping (to Allahabad).
• Hydropower.

Climate and weather

• Subequatorial monsoon.
• Average annual precipitation: from 760 mm in the western part of the basin to more than 2300 mm in the eastern part.
• Two main wet seasons: April-June (glacier melt), and July-September (monsoon rains).
• Average temperature: July +30ºС … +36ºC, January: +20ºC.

Attractions

• Pilgrimage centers: Gangotri, Yamunotri, Devprayag Rishikesh, Haridwar, Varanasi, Allahabad (India); Rajshahi (Bangladesh).
• The city of Agra in the Ganges Valley: Taj Mahal Mausoleum, Jahangri Mahal Mausoleum, Akbar Mausoleum, Agra Fort, Pearl Mosque.
• Jim Corbett National Park
• Sundarban National Park

Fun Facts

• In 2008, according to the decision of the Government of India, the Ganges officially received the status of the first “national river” of the country. At the same time, a special Ganges Basin Authority was established to implement programs to protect the river from pollution and optimize the use of its resources.
• The amount of untreated sewage and liquid industrial waste that flows into the Ganges every day is more than 365 million liters per day.
• In 2006, the Uttar Pradesh government announced that a project to clean up the Ganges River near Varanasi, Lucknow, Allahabad and Kanpur had been set up with the participation of Japanese government institutes and centers. The project, which will cost $2 billion, will be completed by 2030. In late 2009, there were reports that the World Bank would give India more than $1 billion to clean up the Ganges. The results remain to be seen.
• The city of Varanasi (otherwise known as Benares) on the Ganges River in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh is one of the most important pilgrimage centers for followers of Hinduism, Buddhists and Jains alike.
• On the banks of the Ganges there are several especially revered places of pilgrimage, attracting believers from all over India. One of them is the city of Haridwar.
• The city of Rishikesh is small, but it is called “the yoga capital of the world”. More foreigners and pilgrims cross the river on its bridges than locals.