Ganga As Perceived by Some Ganga Lovers Mother Ganga's Rights Are Our Rights
Ganga as Perceived by Some Ganga Lovers Mother Ganga’s Rights Are Our Rights Pujya Swami Chidanand Saraswati Nearly 500 million people depend every day on the Ganga and Her tributaries for life itself. Like the most loving of mothers, She has served us, nourished us and enabled us to grow as a people, without hesitation, without discrimination, without vacation for millennia. Regardless of what we have done to Her, the Ganga continues in Her steady fl ow, providing the waters that offer nourishment, livelihoods, faith and hope: the waters that represents the very life-blood of our nation. If one may think of the planet Earth as a body, its trees would be its lungs, its rivers would be its veins, and the Ganga would be its very soul. For pilgrims, Her course is a lure: From Gaumukh, where she emerges like a beacon of hope from icy glaciers, to the Prayag of Allahabad, where Mother Ganga stretches out Her glorious hands to become one with the Yamuna and Saraswati Rivers, to Ganga Sagar, where She fi nally merges with the ocean in a tender embrace. As all oceans unite together, Ganga’s reach stretches far beyond national borders. All are Her children. For perhaps a billion people, Mother Ganga is a living goddess who can elevate the soul to blissful union with the Divine. She provides benediction for infants, hope for worshipful adults, and the promise of liberation for the dying and deceased. Every year, millions come to bathe in Ganga’s waters as a holy act of worship: closing their eyes in deep prayer as they reverently enter the waters equated with Divinity itself.
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