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The Innate Spirituality of the Upper : Dissecting the Intricate Connections between Hindu Worship, the Ecology of the Garhwal Region, and the Folk Songs of the Garhwali People

By Hannah Trezise SSC 496 - Professor Anjali Capila November 30, 2017

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The Innate Spirituality of the Upper Ganga: Dissecting the Intricate Connections between Hindu Worship, the Ecology of the Garhwal Region, and the Folk Songs of the Garhwali People

Abstract

The River is internationally known, party because of its positionality as one of the most polluted rivers in the world. In , it is both a body of water that supplies much of the country with water and an important goddess in . Particularly in the Garhwal region, situated in India’s region, the river takes on a divine role as the goddess Ganga. The river, as a result, assumes a narrative that expresses this dual identification as both an ecological entity and a divine being. This classification provides significant complexities that come about in observation of the Garhwali treatment of the river and of its expansive system of connectivity (read: the ecological system of Garhwal overall). Whereas zealous Hindus worship and sing praises for Ganga, pollution of her waters is, nonetheless, rampant and ecological mistreatment is still a problem for the region of Garhwal. Contradictions between belief and action create a predicament for ecological activism in Garhwal that makes it evident how necessary regulation, education and increased levels of widespread activism are for Ganga.

Introduction

The Ganga weaves herself through the towering , her banks lush with forest biodiversity and multicolored rocks. She awaits the monsoon, which will pour down from above with so much rainwater that many regional villages will flood. This is the Garhwal region of India, in which the Ganga, also called the Ganges, is no mere river. Rather, she is a forceful energy that surges like blood through northeast India, tributaries acting as veins, pumping life into the local communities. She is a goddess of Hinduism, whose waters are praised by many as a source of salvation. Through prayer, traditions, and songs, the goddess’s significance is regarded deeply by those living along the banks of the Ganga. Yet, in recent years, misfortune has come in the form of ecological disasters; deforestation, landslides, flooding and more plague the area. Development in Uttarakhand affects the rate at which phenomena such as landslides, deforestation and water pollution impacts the region. Furthermore, during the monsoon season, from approximately June until August, the water levels rise and flooding causes great destruction in surrounding communities, ruining buildings, and even whole towns. Nevertheless, the Garhwali people do not fear the river.

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These themes come about in the folk songs of those living near the river’s banks and have been researched analyzed by the research team put together by Dr. Anjali Capila, a well-known, retired Professor of New ’s Lady Irwin College; the central theme of her research centers along topics of women, water, worship and development, but the complexities of life along the river show that all aspects of the Ganga, the Himalayas, and the Garhwal lifestyle are interconnected in one way or another. Following the river from to , Dr. Capila’s team creates, for Ganga and for the people of Garhwal, a specific narrative which both provides evidence for the joy and love the people feel for Ganga, and which details the immense amount of distress caused by disturbances such as the Tehri Dam, development, and by insufficient awareness of the ecology of the region. These emotions, collected simultaneously with the gathering and recording of folk songs, sung by the village people, are potent and should be recognized by government forces pushing development and change unto the region of Garhwal. During a time in which religious fundamentalism is on the rise in India, this region would be cherished for the intense amount of religiosity and for the prevalence of mythology. As the “abode of the gods” so to speak, the Garhwal Himalayas should be a national treasure whose culture should be kept alive by the government, rather than pressured and suppressed with development, industry, and politicization. Sacred Topography & Geography

The Garhwal region of India is cradled by the towering Himalayan mountains in northeast India. Part of the larger state known as Uttarakhand, Garhwal is one of two main regions—the other being Kumaon. It stretches “from the border of south-east Himachal Pradesh to north-west districts of Kumaon, engulfing 3.2 million hectare [of] land …” (Rana). Garhwal is further separated into two distinct fragments: Garhwal and Tehri Garhwal. Pauri Garhwal and Tehri Garhwal’s natural boundary is the Ganga, bisecting the region and, in a sense, it has created a rivalry out of the two pieces of Garhwal; the pilgrimage route to Gangotri has typically run along the Eastern banks of the Ganga—bringing industry to Tehri Garhwal instead of Pauri Garhwal, creating resentment (29). For the purposes of this study, the focus was on Tehri Garhwal. In making the trek to Gangotri, one would find themselves beginning in Haridwar. From Haridwar, the drive to is short, and onwards then one must travel through ,

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up to Gangotri, and finally to Gaumukh Glacier. The route through these locations winds itself along rocky Himalayas; large buses and cars transport pilgrimage groups all the way to the end. The roads they follow are relatively new, spurred by the push for development in the region. Hundreds of pilgrims travel to Gangotri each day, carried by these large buses, squeezed unto tight passes. The newly created roads might allow for tourism and industry to thrive in places in Garhwal, but they have also been detrimental to the health of the Himalayas. With such large roads carved into the side of the mountains, land slides have become inevitable. Unexpected rock pileage will block cars and buses from getting to their destinations, causing a traffic jam dangerously on the side of these mountains. The mythology of Hinduism very delicately interlaces itself with the culture and history of the Garhwal region. Because the winding routes of Garhwal double as a pilgrimage expedition to Gangotri and Gaumukh-- one of the sources of the Ganga-- the entire region is rich with Hindu identity and culture. This becomes evident even in the way in which Garhwali individuals discuss the sacred topography and geography of the region. As the setting for many tales in and for current, zealous pilgrimage quests, the Garhwal region

The Rivers of Garhwal Towards the source of the river, below the route to Gangotri, one can observe the roaring river, uninhibited, crashing noisily into the rocks. As the Ganga rushes southward, her grand body diminishes, mainly because of the installment of the Tehri Dam, which has been the cause of a lot of controversy in the region. One cannot mention the sacred topography and geography of Garhwal without reminding of the immense role the rivers play both in the region and across the country. This region of India has been considered a sacred place, even deemed the “‘Kedarshetra’ (sacred region) in ancient literature” (Rana). The history of the region dates to the . Along with the Ganges River, the Yamuna River and plentiful tributaries, which originate and flow from this region, “irrigate thousands of acres of land in the plains” of India (Rana). These rivers should be considered the lifeline of Indian agriculture, as their waters reach everywhere across the country. The Himalayas provide the rest of India with water and soil, the total “catchment area” being 900000 km^2, covering eight states and accounting for approximately 43% of the irrigated area of India” (Ahmed 1)

Descent of the River The descent of the river is an often-told tale that portrays the deep-rooted mythology of the Ganges River. The mythology reveals the character of Ganga, the goddess, and the story of how she came to flow on Earth. The tale unfolds as follows: A king, King Sagara, was performing a ceremony through which he would aim to conquer the whole world. This was a ceremony in which a horse would be sent out and, if anyone were to stop the horse, that would be a declaration of war. If the person who stops the horse fails to win against the king, that

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means they must accept the suzerainty of the King. When King Sagara’s ​ sixty thousand songs went to find the horse, they found it tied to Sage ’s ashram. While the Sage was in deep meditation, the sons disturbed him and thus, with just his gaze, he instantly burned them to ashes. Dismayed by the death of his sixty thousand sons, King Sagara wished to purify the souls of his sons. However, when a nephew of the sons, Anshuman, questioned Sage Kapila, he declared that the only way the king could purify the souls was to wash their ashes in the Ganga river. Therefore, it had to be brought to Earth. Otherwise, their souls would wander the Earth as ghosts, as they had been turned to ashes before the rituals of death had occurred. Therefore, Anshuman, Anshuman’s son Dilip, and eventually , all descendants of King Sagara, prayed diligently to to have the Ganga come down to Earth. After many years of prayer, Brahma agreed to have the Ganga come to Earth, but he knew that she would crush the Earth and destroy it with her entrance. Therefore, he told Bhagiratha to pray to that he help to lessen the impact of her coming to Earth. When Shiva agreed, he spread his powerful hair across the sky to break up the impact of Ganga’s descent. This allowed her waters to come to Earth in the form of smaller streams. Bhagiratha, upon Ganga’s descent, lead her to where the ashes of his ancestors laid, and she purified their ashes. Along the way, the tale says that she flooded the ashram of Sage Jahnu, who swallowed up the entire river in his anger. However, after having learned of the lengths to which Bhagiratha went to bring the Ganga to Earth, he let her go through cutting a hole in his thigh, from which the Ganga—sometimes as a result called Jahnvi, or daughter of Jahnu—henceforth flowed.

Supplementary Hindu Myths & Religious Significance

While the predominant tale of Ganga is that of her descent, many more accounts of the goddess come about both in the retelling of Hindu mythological tales and in the modern interactions between the people and the supposed embodiment of the goddess, the Ganges River. One such myth of the goddess conveys her relationship with King Santanu of Hastinapur. The goddess had taken the form of a beautiful woman and appeared in front of the king. Immediately, he had fallen in love with her and proposed marriage. Unwilling to reveal her true identity, Ganga had agreed on one condition; “He was never ​ ​ to stand in the way of anything she did or question her actions. Entranced by Ganga’s beauty and chaste demeanor, Santanu readily agreed” (12-13) They were married, and for many years they lived along the banks of the river. Eventually, Ganga had become pregnant with their first child. Upon readying himself to announce the heir’s birth of an, Santanu was blindsided when Ganga “carried her child to the river’s edge and threw him into the water” (12-13). Distraught because of his first son’s drowning, King Santanu

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wanted to question his wife’s actions, but because of the condition of marriage, he could not. Again, Ganga became pregnant with a second child; the same events followed. This reoccurred seven times in succession, until finally Santanu could not stand to bear his own grief. Upon an eighth son’s birth, “the king rushed to the riverbank and refused to let Ganga throw the baby into the water” (12-13). Ganga, after reminding Santanu of his broken promise, let the child have its life, but also told the king that she could no longer be his wife. Finally, she revealed her true, divine identity and, furthermore, disclosed that each of their sons had been incarnations of the eight Vasus, the reasoning for which requires significant further exposition. Promising Santanu that, once the son was older, she would return him to the king, Ganga disappeared. Years later, she would introduce Santanu to the son, Devavrata (who would grow up to be Bhishma) whose story is told in the Mahabharata (12-13). This piece of Hindu mythology portrays Ganga as a maternal character. Through repeated interactions with mythology of Ganga and with the Ganges River, many have come to consider this personification of the river as a caring mother, or as other forms of womanhood. For example, according to many interviews taken along the pilgrimage route to Gangotri, from the source of the Ganges River until Haridwar, the goddess Ganga is maturing, so to speak. Throughout the Garhwal Himalayas, individual women and men that were interviewed by Dr. Capila and her research team determined that the persona of the river changed shape depending upon where along her flow she was met. The perception of her transforms as the river flows further south. At Gangotri, where Ganga newly flows from the Gaumukh glacier, she is a young, girl child. In Mukbha, she is considered a daughter, and a sister to men. At Haridwar, she becomes a young adult of marriageable age. Seemingly, as her currents travel south and then east towards the oceans, the perception of the goddess mimics the life cycle of an Indian woman. Upon emptying out into the ocean, her life cycle ends, and she becomes one with that body of water.

Songs & Personification and Embodiment of Ganga in songs Link between Ecology and Religion Religious/Mythological Explanations for Natural Disaster/Ecology

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Politicization of The Ganga As time has passed, the river has transcended its spiritual existence to take on, additionally, political characteristics as well. After the government of India, despite significant protest from the Garhwali people, continued to push the construction of the Tehri Dam, the political climate affecting the region drastically changed. In the wake of the dam’s erection, there is increased concern over the ecological well-being of the river, particularly amongst Garhwali individuals of the older generations. Entire communities have been displaced because of the government’s decision to enact the dam. Seemingly, the region of Uttarakhand is both heavily affected by changes in religious expression, devotion, and pilgrimage as well as by alterations in the efforts towards conservation of the environment. In the wake of increased development in the region, the building of motor roads, to increase religiously-fueled tourism to Gangotri and beyond, has only furthered the deterioration of the health of the Ganges River. Commercialization of religion in Garhwal And effects on Ecology/River Tourism/changing characteristics of the Pilgrimage Movements to save Ganga/sacred geography Chipko ● Anti-Dam Mvmt ● Save Ganga ● Raksha Sutra Government initiatives (Modi) ● Correlate with New Surge of Hinduism Conclusion The cornerstone of the assault on Garhwal ecology and on the Ganga has been development of Industry in the region. Not only has it disrupted the natural layout of Garhwal, but it has also detrimentally affected the people. The roads are lined with locals, young and old, building up infrastructure in the forms of walls, wells, and more. Stephen Alter explains, “As I stopped to watch the roadwork, I couldn’t help but wince at the grotesque absurdity of this scene. Here in the final days of the twentieth century, in the heart of the Himalayas, I was presented with a vision of gothic horror. The only thing missing was a slave driver with a whip, though in his place sat a PWD contractor,

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smoking a cigarette and picking burrs out of his nylon socks” (149). This depiction creates a defined picture of the struggle through which the Garhwali people go. While industry has brought non-agricultural jobs to the region in great numbers, it seems the workers themselves are cruelly exploited. And, with push towards industry in Garhwal, the intimate relationship once held between the people of Garhwal and the specific brand of Hinduism practiced in the region breaks apart. The purpose of the paths that wind through the Himalayas is no longer just for transporting pilgrims. Rather, they serve as channels through which wealth might penetrate the historically untouched, unscathed region of Garhwal. ● Sustainable Development, Conservation of Environment and the role of Culture and Hinduism in maintaining the health of Garhwal landscape ● Ganga for the future ● What does this mean in the international context? ● Future of conserving bodies of water ● Of spiritual places on Earth? Future of sustainable development for India/Garhwal How to develop without harming environment To a certain extent, the government has attempted to curb the levels of damage that development has done unto the ecology of Garhwal. “In early 1985, the Indian government launched the Ganga Action Plan (GAP)—its first major attempt to systematically control and monitor the pollution of this significant river…

● Context vs content ● Surrounding the river vs. what’s in the river ● Why is it called Ganga ma? ● How does Ganga bring salvation? ● Ganga permeates all aspects of life

● Subsystems (all Ganga)

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Bibliography

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