The Ganga is a major river of the Indian subcontinent, associated in myth and reality with the land and people of India as well as neighbouring countries like Bangladesh.

The Gangotri Glacier, a vast expanse of ice five miles by fifteen, at the foothills of the Himalayas (14000 ft) in North Uttar Pradesh, is the source of Bhagirathi, which joins with Alaknanda (origins nearby) to form Ganga at the craggy canyon-carved town of Devprayag. Interestingly, the sources of Indus and the Brahmaputra are also geographically fairly close; the former goes through Himachal Pradesh and fans out through Punjab and Sind (Pakistan) into the Arabian Sea. The latter courses for most of its tremendous length under various names through Tibet/China, never far from the Nepal or Indian borders, and then takes a sharp turn near the northeastern tip of India, gathers momentum through Assam before joining the major stream of the Ganga near Dacca in Bangladesh to become the mighty Padma, river of joy and sorrow for much of Bangladesh. From Devprayag to the Bay of Bengal and the vast Sunderbans delta, the Ganga flows some 1550 miles, passing (and giving life to) some of the most populous cities of India, including Kanpur (2 million), Allahabad, Varanasi, Patna, and Calcutta (14 million). Dacca, the capital of Bangladesh is on a tributary of the Brahmaputra, just before it joins the Ganga to form Padma. A large number of tributaries join and flow from the Ganges to drain the Northern part of India and Bangladesh.

The Yamuna, which originates less than a hundred miles east of the Bhagirathi, flows parallel to the Ganga and a little to the south for most of its course before merging with the Ganga at the holy city of Allahabad, also known as Triveni Sangam (literally, Three-way Junction, the third river being the mythical Saraswati which is also supposed to be an underground river). New Delhi, capital of India, and Agra, site of the Taj Mahal, are two of the major cities on the Yamuna.

The largest tributary to the Ganga is the Ghaghara, which meets it before Patna, in Bihar, bearing much of the Himalayan glacier melt from Northern Nepal. The Gandak, which comes from near Katmandu, is another big Himalayan tributary. Other important rivers that merge with the Ganga are the Son, which originates in the hills of Madhya Pradesh, the Gomti which flows past Lucknow, and the Chambal.

The delta of the Ganga, or rather, that of the Hooghly and the Padma, is a vast ragged swamp forest (42,000 sq km) called the Sunderbans, home of the Royal Bengal Tiger , who still kill about 30 villagers each year. The silt-carrying waters of the Ganga stains the Bay of Bengal a muddier hue for more than 500 km into the ocean.

The Ganga has an exalted position in the Hindu ethos. It is repeatedly invoked in the Vedas, the Puranas, and the two Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Ganga is a goddess, Ganga devi, one of two daughters of Meru (the Himalayas), the other being Uma, consort of Shiva. In her youth, Indra had asked for Ganga to be given to heaven to soothe the Gods with its cool waters. The story of its descent to earth appears in slightly different forms in Ramayana (Bala Kanda: Vishwamitra narrates it to the child Rama), Mahabharata (Aranya Parba: Agastya narrates it to Rama), and in the Puranas. These myths are variously dated between 2000 to 400 BC (you may be interested in this over-detailed dateline for Rama's life). The general outline of the story is:

The king Sagara had two wives. By a favour of the lord Shiva, one wife bore him sixty thousand sons, all of whom were to die simultaneously, and the other bore him one son, Asamanjas, who would continue the dynasty. The sixty thousand sons grew to be great warriors, while the mighty Asamanjas caused so much misery to the populace that his father the king had to expel his own son, though a grandson, Ansuman, was left behind. King Sagara once performed the horse ceremony, in which a horse is allowed to roam at will, and is followed by warriors. Stopping the horse is a challenge to war; not stopping it is a compact of obeisance. In this instance, the sixty thousand sons were following the horse, but surprisingly, the horse was lost. After much recrimination, they dug up the entire earth and the underworld, the oceans, searching for the horse. Eventually it was found in a deep cavern, loitering close to where the sage Kapila sat in radiant meditation. The sons gathered the horse but they disturbed the great Kapila (Vasudeva), who was very annoyed, and instantly burnt them to ash with his fiery gaze.

Sagara heard of this fate through Narada, the heavenly wanderer, and sent the grandson Ansuman to undo the harm. Ansuman descended to the underworld and met Kapila, who was much pleased with the youth's bearing and conversation. He granted that the soulse of the sons of Sagara may be released by the waters of Ganga, then resident in heaven. Despite much austerity and prayer, neither Sagara, nor Ansuman after him, nor his son Dilipa, could get Ganga to appear on earth. Finally it was Dilipa's son Bhagiratha, who after severe austerities, propitiated the Goddess, and she agreed to come down to earth. However, the impact of her fall would be so severe, that it could be borne by none less than Shiva himself. Therefore Bhagiratha went into meditation again and obtained Shiva's consent after many more austerities. Finally, the river came down and fell into Shiva's matted hair, and thence to earth. This is the presumed site of the present-day temple at Gangotri. Bhagiratha led the way on horse back and the river followed. In this manner they reached the spot where lay the ashes of the six thousand sons. They were thus liberated, and an ocean formed from the waters there. This is the Sagar Island of today, where the Ganges flows into the Bay of Bengal ("Sagara' is also Sanskrit for ocean).

Many other tales are associated with the Ganga and points on it. Hari (Lord Vishnu) himself bathed in its waters at Haridwar, which is so holy that sins as great as the murder of Brahmins may be washed away by bathing here. Hindus to this day use the water of the Ganga to cleanse any place or object for ritual purposes. Bathing in the Ganga is still the lifelong ambition of many of India's believing masses, and they will congregate on its banks for the tremendously overcrowded Sangam, Sagar Mela or Kumbh Mela which are held on auspicious dates every few years.

The Ganges has many names associated with its many roles in Sanskrit mythology. Bhagiratha himelf is the source of the name Bhagirathi (of Bhagiratha), which is its initial stream, but is also another name for the Hooghly. At one point, Bhagiratha went too close to the sage Jahnu's meditation site, and the disturbed hermit immediately gulped up all the waters. Eventually, after more persuasion from Bhagiratha, the sage yielded the waters, but Ganges retained the name "Jahnavi". Another explanation for the same name is based on the word for knee in Sanskrit, Janu (akin to genus in latin), + the case form for "born of" yield Jahnavi; this is from a version of the story in which the saint released it through a slit at the knee.

Water from the Ganga has the recursive property that any water mixed with even the minutest quantity of Ganga water becomes Ganga water, and inherits its healing and other holy properties. Also, despite its many impurities, Ganga water does not rot or stink if stored for several days (This is true, I think, though it may have alternate explanations).

Article by Amitabha Mukerjee teaches at IIT Kanpur and can be reached at amit@iitk.ernet.in

References on the Ganga

Aitken, Bill. Seven Sacred Rivers, Penguin, 1992.

Cumming, David, The Ganga, in The Rivers of the World Series,
Steck-Vaughan 1994 

    This is a picture book meant for young readers, and the
    research is based on a single visit to India. Lacks depth.

Darian, Steven G., University of Hawaii Press, 1978

Dennison, Berwick, A walk along the Ganga, Century 1986. Also 
available in a Picador edition (in India and UK). 
	
    Excellent travelogue and adventure tale. Dennison starts
    walking from the Sagar Island in the Sunderbans where
    the Ganga (or one of its branches, the Hooghly) enters
    the Bay of Bengal.  Speaking only a little Hindi,
    Berwick plunges in along the roads and bylanes bordering
    the Ganga. He has a list of addresses of expatriate
    institutions along the Ganga, where he checks in to
    recuperate from time to time.  He drinks mostly what
    water is available, and manages not to fall sick too
    often. He is guest of honour at a village wedding, is an
    object of intense curiosity, is feted by many, is
    famished and sunstroked, is almost robbed, but most of
    all he is shown great courtesy and generosity on the
    part of Indian villagers. Pretty much every night he is
    offered hospitality, and often food and medical
    advice/attention.  Some of his experiences, such as the
    Sikh colony west of Kanpur in U.P., were extremely new
    to me. Eventually he goes to Haridwar and treks up to
    Gangotri along the trail where he meets many sadhus, one
    of whom is going to Kanyakumarika (nearly 2000 miles away) 
    by laying down on the road, one body-length at a time. 
    Strongly recommended. 

Frater, Alexander, Chasing the Monsoon, Penguin 1992

Hillary, Edmund, From the Ocean to the Sky, publisher unknown.

    Describes a trip from the Sunderbans oceanmouth of the
    Ganga, through the rapids of Haridwar to Rudraprayag,
    ending up climbing the glacial origins of the Ganga. As
    a kid growing up on the banks of the Ganga north of
    Calcutta, I remember seeing the powerful motorized rafts
    sweep upstream one lazy summer afternoon.

Newby, Eric, Slowly down the Ganga, Picador, year unknown. 

    The noted travelogue author Eric Newby began his career by
    disappearing from his London Newspaper job one day and
    undertaking extensive travels through South America.  This
    Ganga tale is the culmination of a deeper dream which
    hark back to Newby's days as a recruit in the Imperial
    British Army, which took him, among other places, to
    Kanpur on the banks of the Ganga. In this book, he and
    his wife arrive in Haridwar, hoping to buy a boat and
    float down the Ganga. He manages to buy a boat a little
    downstream, and also gets a crew, but the boat is
    constantly getting stuck in the sandbanks and they are
    often tented up in the shallows and spend many a night
    expecting to be robbed.  Eventually his wife falls sick,
    and they have to take a large land detour. In any event,
    the river is pretty much un-navigable before Allahabad, or
    even Patna, due to the lack of waterflow. This book
    doesn't do justice to Newby's reputation.

Tagore, Rabindranath, Glimpses of Bengal, Macmillan.

    Translations of Tagore's powerful prose writings from his
    years spent living in a house boat on the Padma looking
    after the family land holdings in Shilaidah, now Bangladesh.
    Evocative descriptions of the river in its many moods,
    particularly monsoon on the river. Human life near the river
    described with gentle virtuosity.  Should be read along
    with Tagore's poetry from this period such as the Sonar Tori
    (The Golden Raft, see translations by Ketaki Kushari Dyson
    "I will not let you go"). Also see Tagore's autobiographical
    sketches in "Reminescences." The Glimpses of Bengal is
    available in India in a garishly covered cheap edition, but
    difficult to find in the West.  Translator not noted; may be
    Tagore himself, but more likely one of his many devotees.
    This is the quintessential literary man from Bengal, who
    also won the Nobel Prize in 1913. Bengal and Bangladesh are
    home to the lower Ganga, and Tagore certainly spent a lot of
    time by this river. This is a good translation.