Question

write an essay on ganga river

Answer 1

Explanation:

Known to be a sacred river, the river Ganga has a religious background in Hindu Mythology. According to ancient texts, King Bhagirath had ancestors who had committed huge sins. To cleanse his kingdom of the burden of their bad deeds, he meditated to bring Goddess Ganga to life. It was said that by bathing it in people could wash away their sins and attain salvation. However, the massive force of the river Ganga would have destroyed the earth, so Lord Shiva matted her onto his hair and she flowed from it in streams. Since goddess Ganga is known for liberating people from the cycle of life and death, people immerse the ashes of their loved ones in this holy river.

The river Ganga is formed by the union of two main tributaries known as Bhagirathi and Alaknanda at the place called Devprayag. The point where the river Bhagirathi and Alaknanda meet at Devprayag we call it the river Ganga. Bhagirathi originates from the Himalayan glacier Gangotri while Alaknanda rises from Nanda Devi, the northern peak of the Himalayas. Though Alaknanda and Bhagirathi are its two main tributaries, the Ganga also has three others that rise from the Himalayas, namely Mandakini, Dhauliganga, and Pindar. It is said that Ganga originally rose from Gaumukh, which is to the southeast of Gangotri.

Further, while flowing through the Indo-Gangetic Plains of India, it has several tributaries like the river Yamuna, Gomti, Kose, Sone, and Ghagra which is the largest one. The river Ganga meets the river Yamuna and the river Saraswati (the dead river) at the point called Triveni Sangam in Allahabad. After passing Devprayag, the river Ganga continues its journey towards Uttarakhand, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and lastly West Bengal. The river Ganga enters Bangladesh where it is joined by the river Mahananda, where it is called the Padma. The large delta of the river Ganga is in Bengal which is shared with river Brahmaputra (which lies mostly in Bangladesh).

The river Ganga is the second most polluted river in the world. In order to cleanse it, the Ganga Action Plan was formulated in 1986 which failed epically. However, the Namami Gange program is an ongoing cleaning initiative that has been successful in cleaning the water. The river Ganga has been threatened by pollution for decades now and it is crucial that we work diligently to prevent it from being damaged all the more. If we succeed in saving the river, we would succeed in saving many lives and eradicating other means of pollution too.