The Significance of Ganga

wah wah wah nice!!!!!!

Sahi hai!!!

SUCH KAHA APNE KARAN

hmm sahi kaha ganga mai pani nahi amrit hai...

glad you like it, ana...

and burniing_desiires, ganga is still pure atleast in upper parts..........kya khayal hay.........

MAANO TO AMRIT NA MAANO TO KUCH BHI NAHI...

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.
"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."
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".


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."
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"

hmm thats true to some extent if we see practically... as though water covers more than two-thirds of the Earth's surface but fresh water represents less than 0.5% of the total water on Earth. The rest is either in the form of seawater or locked up in icecaps or the soil. we all should try to save water.

but as far as Ganga is concerned it had, has and will always have some significance for indians.