One year ago, Congress defunded public media. Now that we're 100% community funded, please become a sustaining member or increase your existing membership today.
In Himalayas, Ganges Began with Divine Help
Listen
0:00
The Ganges River is 1,500 miles long from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal. The river's water is the lifeblood for more than 600 million people in India and Bangladesh.
The Ganges River — Ganga in Hindi — is the lifeblood of more than 600 million people in India and Bangladesh.
Farmers depend on the river for their crops. Millions depend on its water for washing, cooking, drinking and to carry away their waste. And many worship the Ganges as a goddess, whose waters will cleanse them of sin and help them attain moksha, or salvation, by carrying their ashes to heaven.
Yet the Ganges is under great threat from pollution and a rapidly modernizing India, whose appetite for water far outstrips the river's capacity.
In the first of a six-part series, independent producer Julian Crandall Hollick travels deep into the Himalayas in search of the source of the Ganges. His journey begins in the tiny village of Bhaironghati, where villagers take a two-foot high statue of the goddess Ganga and prepare to take her to her summer temple at Gangotri. That's where, Hindus believe, the river came down to Earth in a lock of hair.
As the ceremony to install the goddess gets under way in Gangotri, Hollick hears the story about how Hindus believe the Ganges descended from heaven.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. 9(MDA1OTI3MjQ5MDEyODUwMTE2MzM1YzNmZA004))
One year ago, Congress voted to defund public media, eliminating a critical $1.7 million from our budget every year going forward. But they couldn’t silence us, and we’re not going anywhere. LAist is now 100% community funded and that means we’re taking our future into our own hands and turning to you to keep local reporting strong.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief
