The Significance of the Ganga

Interview with a Brahmin river guide
at the sangam, Allahabad

This fort [ancient fort by the sangam] was built by Akbar, one of the Mughal emperors. It was built here because of the beautiful view. During Akbar’s time, he had an army here, and also servants. It is now in the hands of the Indian army. There’s an ancient banyan tree growing over the wall of the fort, and we can see roots coming down over the outside of the wall. This tree is as old as the fort.

The river is holy because it came here through the thapasya of the rishis. Thapasya is when people put forth effort. For example, Muslims remember the name of Allah, remembering him for one year, ten years, or whatever. [You do this] until you get peace in your mind, once you get the darshan. This present age is the Kali Yug. The thapasya [which brought the river to Allahabad] took place in another age, the Satya Yug. The name of the rishi was Bhagirathi.

Anyone who bathes in the river, and has a sickness, will be cured. Where the river originates in the mountains there are medicinal roots and herbs which give the river healing properties. The water is good for skin diseases too. This is why our people do puja to the river. If you get up before sunrise, bathe in this river and drink its water, your mind will be cleansed and your body will be healed of all disease. I have not personally experienced healing from the river because I have not had any sickness, but I have seen with my own eyes, those who have been healed by this river. It is not just hearsay. If you take the water of any ordinary river and store it in a container, within a week or a month, it will go bad. There will be organisms in it. You keep this water for 100 years, or 50 years, and it will not go bad or have a bad smell.

[A question asked by the interviewers, who had witnessed on two occasions the partially-burned remains of dead bodies in the river: “Why are dead bodies thrown in the river?”] Dead bodies are not put in here. You don’t see any, do you? They don’t put dead bodies in the river. They bring only the bones, and they have a puja done. One of the pujas done at the river is for departed loved ones, parents in particular. This puja is called pind dan, offered to spirits of ancestors by their nearest surviving relatives. This pind dan is done for people who have died sometime back, but can also be done for people who have just died, and whose bones are now being brought to the river. They will do it for the father, then for the grandfather, several generations. In that way, they feel they are covering their whole family. This puja gives peace to the soul of the departed relative.

Another puja that happens here is the worship of the river itself. For the puja of the river, the Ganga puja, the offering is a mixture of milk, flour and coconut. This mixture of three items corresponds to the three rivers which meet at this point — two real, and one mystical, the Sarasvati. Two rivers come from the Himalayas. The Ganga comes from Haridwar via Kanpur. The Yamuna comes from Delhi, Agra, and Mathura. The Sarasvati runs underground, it comes from here only. It starts here and ends here.

The worship ceremony has to be done by a Brahmin priest who is given a donation for his services. It involves chanting some words from the Vedas before putting the offering into the river. The ritual has to be performed by a Brahmin priest, because others don’t have knowledge and experience of the Vedas. Sadhus do not do pujas. Sadhus are simply people who ask for things — “give me gold, give me silver.”

[We asked the Brahmin to tell us about the Kumbh Mela, and he said, “I’ll be glad to do it, for a donation.”] Allahabad is one of the four sites of the Kumbh Mela, the greatest bathing festival of the Hindu religion. The story behind this festival is that one day, the devtas and the rakshas were churning the sea. This produced 14 different types of nectars. The best out of all these was the nectar called amrith, because drinking it would confer immortality. The devtas and rakshas began to fight with one another over the amrith, of which only one vessel-full was available. Finally, they reached a compromise.

The god Vishnu came and said, “Why are you fighting over this? We have worked together to get this amrith out of the sea. Both devtas and rakshas have equal authority over it. Vishnu made the rakshas and the devtas sit in separate rows, saying that he was going to divide the amrith among them equally. He gave amrith to the devtas and he gave an intoxicating drink to the rakshas. Two rakshas, Rahu and Ketu, didn’t drink it. Vishnu took the amrith and began to run away, with Rahu and Ketu chasing him in order to get some of the nectar. While he was running, some of the nectar spilled at Haridwar in Uttar Pradesh, some at Nasik in Maharashtra, and some at Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh. The remaining nectar, Vishnu brought to Prayag and dumped it here. At these four places, the Kumbh Mela takes place. The Kumbh Mela takes place only once every 12 years, with the four sites taking turns at hosting it. The last one was held in 1989 in Allahabad. The next one will be held in Ujjain in the year 2001.

There are 2,000 Brahmin priest families that live by the river here in Allahabad.

[At the sangam itself we can see the swiftly flowing Yamuna joining the more sluggish Ganga. During the rainy season, the waters of both rivers look somewhat muddy, but in other seasons, the rivers are of different colors — the Yamuna green and the Ganga a pale, whitish hue. In the middle of the Ganga side of the sangam stands a large statue of Shiva coming out of the water.]