GangaJi

What is it about this river? The universal love of her waters binds North India to itself, her followers eternally crowd her holy banks to caress her freezing, dirty flow, because it is she who represents eternal purity and truth. Some say that natrual minerals and herbs flow in her waters, which can be scientifically proven to be inherantly pure and purifying. That if you keep a vial of the dirtiest Banarsi ganga water, in fifteen years, it will be as clean as mineral water. She feeds 80 percent of Indian farms, the breadbasket of south asia, she feeds in immense population.

Her waters eternally flow down Shiva's locks, she is his eternal soulmate and parasite, he is her eternal prison, in which her immense power is contained, because only he can contain her. Alone, she would wash away our dirty society, leaving only pure, conciousless nature, pure being. But her trickle down Siva's matted locks keeps her confined to these banks, where all may come to be united wtih her. ANd while shiva contains her, she cools his firey wrath, the supreme power of his tapas which would otherwise destroy us all.

How does this river have such a strong personality, that all, even forgeiners, who spend time on her banks fall in love? Is it all cultural, if we worship an object does it gain importance, only and forever in our heads? Or is there something inherant in her beauty and her waters?

I'm going to go take a bath in her, before it gets too cold.