“There is a saying that the Ganges grants us salvation. This culture will end if the people stop going to the river, and if the culture dies the tradition dies, and the faith dies.”

History
In a country where practically everything in nature is venerated, the Ganges is most holy. Considering the
magnitude of her life-sustaining force, it’s no wonder: her mighty course from the mountains to the sea creates a river basin 200 to 400 miles wide that supports nearly half a billion people. According to Hindu mythology, the Ganges was once a river of heaven that flowed across the sky. Long ago, she agreed to fall to earth to aid a king named Bhagiratha, whose ancestors had been burned to ash by the angry gaze of an ascetic they had disturbed during meditation. Only the purifying waters of Ganges, flowing over their ashes, could free them from the earth and raise them up to live in peace in heaven. So that the earth would not be shattered by the impact of her descent, Lord Shiva caught Ganges in his hair as she cascaded down from heaven to the Himalyas. Ganges then followed Bhagiratha out of the mountains, across the plains to the sea, where she restored his dead ancestors and lifted them to paradise.

As the Ganges brought to life the ashes of Bhagiratha’s ancestors, so all Hindus believe that if the ashes of their dead are deposited in the river, they will be ensured a smooth transition to the next life, or freed from the cycle of  death and rebirth. Hindus may travel great distances to scatter the ashes of loved ones in the Ganges.
 

 Hindus
also believe that the Ganges’ divine waters purify those who immerse themselves in her. It is even said that a
single drop of Ganges water, carried by the wind over a great distance, can cleanse a lifetime of sins. In cities
along the river, daily dips are an important ritual among the faithful. Many cities are considered sacred and serve as pilgrimage sites: Gangotri, where the river originates from a glacial cave; Sagar Island, where the Ganges drains into the sea and once restored the ancestors of Bhagiratha; Varanasi, the holiest of cities along the river’s course and the most auspicious place to die; and Allahbad, the site of the most important festival in the Hindu religious calendar, Kumbh Mela. In 2001, some 20 million people bathed in the Ganges at Allahbad at the most auspicious moment of this festival.