The Ganges
The Ganges is the largest and most famous river in India. It comes out from an ice cave in the Himalayas known as Gomukhi as the cave looks like the head of a cow. When it starts flowing down the Himalayas, it is known as Gangotri at a height of more than 10,000 feet from the sea level.
After flowing out as a mountain torrent for 130 miles from Gomukhi, it is joined by the river Alakhananda and then enters the little town of Haridhwar.
Haridhwar is a sacred place of pilgrimage for the Hindus. They worship it as Mother Ganga. Many pious Hindus travel every year to Haridwar to bathe in Ganges and worship at Haridwar. At Haridhwar, Ganges is a stream and it flows to Allahabad via Farukhabad and Kanpur.
The river Jamna joins Ganga at Allahabad. Jamna is also a big river flowing from the Himalayas near the soaree of Ganges itself. It is also a sacred river. The place where Jamna meets Ganges is considered very sacred and it is a pious act to bathe at the junction of these two rivers at Allahabad. After leaving Allahabad, the river flows to the east through Varanasi one of the holiest places of pilgrimage in India.
It is a city of temples and is always crowded with pilgrims. People from all parts of India go over there to bathe in the Ganges and worship in the temples in Varanasi.
To die at Varanasi, have ‘ones’ body burnt on the banks of Ganges and to have the ashes thrown into the Ganges is one of the lifetime ambitions of pious Hindus. So many old people go over to Varanasi ‘to end their old age peacefully on the banks of Ganges.
The Ganges flows through Gazipur, Patna, Monghyr and Bhagalpur. At a distance of 140 miles from the sea, it is joined by the great river Brahmaputra. In between these two rivers lie the biggest delta in the world formed by these two rivers called, Sunderbans.
Hooghly is the western branch of the river Ganges in which ply steamers to the great city of Calcutta, situate on its banks. Eighty miles from Calcutta the Ganges is divided into many small rivers and flows into the Bay of Bengal.
