Historically also it is important as many former provincial or imperial capitals like Patliputra, Allahabad, Kannauj, Murshidabad, Calcutta, etc. The basins of Ganga drain around 1,, square kilometres and support one of the world's highest densities of humans. Let us study more about Ganga River and from which place it is originated. What is the origin of holy river Ganga? The Ganga is the river of Asia that rises in the western Himalayas and flows through India and Bangladesh.
When it enters West Bengal, it splits into the Padma and the Hooghly. No doubt Ganga is considered a central part of Indian tradition, life and culture. It is included in the four largest rivers of India. These four rivers are Indus, Brahmaputra, Ganga and Godavari.
River Ganga is the world's third-largest river on the basis of discharge of water and considered as most sacred. It is one of the two headstreams of the pious Ganga River. Its length is km and has a basin of 6, sq km. It originates from Gaumukh, which is located at the base of Gangotri and Khatilang glaciers in Uttarakhand. Gaumukh is about 18 km from the town of Gangotri and regarded as the birthplace of Ganga on earth. The name of Bhagirathi is named after the ancient king Bhagirath, who performed penance to bring her down from the heavens.
The Ganges River carries nutrient rich sediment as it flows, depositing fertile soil along its shores. This has allowed civilizations to develop and thrive along the waterway for centuries.
Today, the river flows through well-populated regions of India, providing freshwater to the millions of people living in these regions. The river is also used for fishing, irrigation, and bathing, and it is worshiped in the Hindu religion as the Mother Ganga.
As the river empties into the Bay of Bengal, the mouth forms the Ganges River Delta , the largest river delta in the world. The Ganges River is a vital resource to Asia, but it faces many threats. Human and industrial pollutants fill the river in some areas, making it unsafe even for swimming. As the population in regions surrounding the river swells, water demands for agriculture increases, straining water levels.
Adding further stress to the situation, scientists have concluded that climate change has led to a decrease in glacial ice in the Himalayas, the source of the Ganges, and theorize this will result in further decreased water levels in the river over time. Also called the Ganga. The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit.
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The local people consider it to be the origin of both the rivers Ganga and Sindhu. But none of these two rivers are visible, as their paths are covered by chunks of large stones. However, we are able to hear the sound of their roaring waves. The rivers are visible far from here. Father Disderi, another Portuguese missionary, followed the footsteps of Azvedo and went in search of the origin of the Ganga.
In , having travelled to places like Haridwar, Deoprayag, Srinagar and Badrinath, he reached a large lake surrounded by mountains.
According to our guide, it takes quite a few days to complete a tour round the lake. People here consider it to be the origin of the Ganga. Another river has originated from the other side of the lake, which is known as Sindhu. This river flows down to Kashmir via Tibet. Scores of pilgrims here come to bathe in this lake. They believe it to be holy. Though all three missionaries mentioned above primarily intended to visit Tibet for proselytising, they nevertheless made sincere efforts to trace the origin of the river Ganga.
The documents of their journey left behind for us, even though full of contradictions, are geographically very important. The documents assisted men who later undertook similar expeditions. He was a royal messenger, sent by Emperor Akbar to trace the origin of the Ganga. But his name is forgotten and there is no written record of his journey. All these explorers however unanimously claimed that Manaswarovar was the real origin of the Ganga, and river Alakananda was the real Ganga.
And it was Rennell who first tried to ascertain the exact geographical features of our country. He undertook the task of making a thorough survey of the Ganga. His area of survey however was restricted to four states only — Bengal, Orissa, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The map was published in So the task of drawing a correct map of the Ganga fell upon three people — Lt Webb, Capt. Raapper and Capt. In April Webb, Raapper and Hayerse collected a group of men and began their journey from Haridwar.
They however did not follow the path of river Alakananda. They walked along the banks of the Ganga and after ten days reached Uttarkashi. Uttarkashi was then a large village and was also the last point of human habitation. They walked for another seven days and reached Bhatwari. They found a few families living at Bhatwari. The journey so far was hard, yet the journey beyond Bhatwari proved impossible.
The steep mountainous paths proved dangerous. At times they had to crawl their way up as walking was out of the question. And below these mountainous paths lay the ever-flowing, ever-roaring Ganga. A few hours of inhuman effort, however, finally brought them to the mountain top. Then it was time for them to alight. While descending with a few tribals they came across two waterfalls.
The journey proved very challenging and all the members of the team were utterly exhausted. So Lt Webb decided to call off the expedition. He collected information from the local people and returned home. I collected all possible information from the local people.
Inaccessibility of the roads made us decide to leave our luggage with the villagers. Next day as the sun rose we begun our journey.
Two local men accompanied us. We could barely walk a few miles that day as we were utterly exhausted. A leader amongst us warned about the impassibility of the roads ahead. So we were forced to return. Had it been possible to proceed further, we would have carried on, despite all dangers. Moreover my companions too were not very keen on proceeding further. Frequent change of weather, scorching sunlight during the day, and extreme cold at night deterred most of us.
Some amongst us fell ill. To proceed forward ignoring these deterring factors meant — proceeding toward certain death. We gave up our plans, but collected a lot of information about both Gangotri and the origin of the Ganga from a local person at Bhatwari.
Every day he collects water from the Ganga and sells it at a high rate. He informed us that Gaumukh is far off from Gangotri and the entire stretch is covered with snow. No definite source of the Ganga can be traced other than a narrow trickle of water coming out of the cave of Gaumukh. Neither does Gaumukh resemble the face of a cow.
From his statement I realised that we were actually sixteen to eighteen miles away from Gangotri. And it was impossible for us to identify the exact source of the Ganga without visiting the place. XI, This was the first record of the actual source of the river Ganga — the Gaumukh cave. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile.
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