Ganga Quotes
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...the Ganga is more than a river. She is the Holy Mother. She is Ganga Ma.
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More Ganga Quotes
All the superior religions had their growth between the Ganga and the Euphrates.
swami vivekananda— The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 1, Lectures And Discourses, The Soul And God
The waters of the Ganga are roaring among His matted locks.
swami vivekananda— The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 8, Prose And Poems, "Shiva In Ecstasy"
Paris is the fountain-head of European civilisation, as Gomukhi is of the Ganga.
swami vivekananda— The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 5, Writings: Prose and Poems, The East and The West, France-Paris
Fool indeed is he, who, living on the banks of the Ganga, digs a little well for water. Fool indeed is the man who, coming to a mine of diamonds, begins to search for glass beads.
swami vivekananda— The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 4, Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga, The Need of Symbols The Need Of Symbols
Gita and Ganga constitute, between themselves, the essence of Hinduism: one its theory, and the other is practice.
swami vivekananda— “The Ganga A River Of Life”
See here, how fresh is the air, there is the Ganga, and the Sadhus (holy men) are practising meditation, and holding lofty talks! While the moment you will go to Calcutta, you will be thinking of nasty stuff.
swami vivekananda— The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 7, Conversations and Dialogues, XI.
As one of India ’s largest and most sacred pilgrimage centers, Benares (Varanasi) has been revered for centuries by Hindus , Muslims , Buddhists , and Jains , millions of whom come to visit its innumerable temples and shrines and come to bathe along a three-mile stretch of steps leading to the Holy Ganga (Ganges) River. Whether coming for salvation, prosperity, or healing, most of these pilgrims have sought some form of ritual purification – a means of unloading their troubles and sins upon stars and holy men, the river Ganga, and the many sacred tanks fed by her springs and tributaries.
— Ronald L. Barrett, in p.1 (Aghor Medicine: Pollution, Death, and Healing in Northern India (3 February 2008)])
The Ganga is the foremost of India’s seven sacred rivers, winding fifteen hundred miles from the glaciers of Himalayas through twenty nine cities and seventy towns of the northern Indian plains and exiting into the Indian Ocean through the great delta that feeds into the Bay of Bengal on the eastern coast.
V. K. Kumra— Aghor Medicine: Pollution, Death, and Healing in Northern India (2008, p. 39)
Pollution in the Ganga is like oil in water.
Ronald barrett— Aghor Medicine: Pollution, Death, and Healing in Northern India (2008, p. 45)
What need of expensive sacrifices , Or of difficult penances ? Worship Ganga, asking for happiness and good fortune , and she will bring you heaven and salvation .
— Padma Purana (V.60.39), in The Ganges in Myth and History (1 January 2001), p.14
With the Holy Mother as the centre of inspiration , a Math is to be established on the eastern bank of the Ganga... On the other side of the Ganga a big plot of land will be acquired, where unmarried girls or Brahmacharini widows will live; devout married women will also be allowed to stay now and then. Men will have no concern with this Math.
— Vivekananda, in The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 7/Conversations And Dialogues/XVIII
I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganga – astronomy, astrology, spiritualism, etc. It is very important to note that some 2500 years ago at the least Pythagoras went from Samos to the Ganga to learn geometry.
Francis M. Voltaire— "What is India?" (5 May 2014)
Just as Banaras is a prototype for sacred India , her sacred features are prototypes for the divine roles of the city as a whole. Foremost among these features are the Ganga and the two famous cremation grounds ( Shmashans ) along her banks. Pilgrims commonly say that Banaras is like the Mother Ganga, who accepts and purifies anyone and anything that come to her and transforms them into herself… each of these features, - the Ganga, the Shmashans and the city as a whole – functions as a kind of cosmic sink, a sacred dumping ground…
— Ronald L. Barrett, in p.29, 34 (Aghor Medicine: Pollution, Death, and Healing in Northern India (3 February 2008)])
Much of Delhi’s regional importance came from the location in the watershed between the Ganga and the Indus river systems...In the sixth century BC, Delhi formed part of the Kuru kingdom, one of the Mahajanapadas or ‘great states.’ In the Buddhist documents of that period, Indapatta (identified with Indraprastha) is mentioned as the capital of the Kuru state.
A.G. Krishna Menon— "Delhi: A Heritage City: 20 Walks through History" (p. 9)
The competitive advantage of Patna lies in its being the state capital and its central location. It is the centre for all higher order services in the state education , health and the political centre... Patna’s location on the banks of the River Ganga ensures that there is abundant water and fertile soil in the region.
— Urban, in "City Development Plan (2010-30), Patna"
Alarmed by the famine of 1770, captain John Garstin built this huge granary Golghar for the British army in 1786. The massive structure is 29 m high and the walls are 3.6 m wide at the base. The winding stairway around this monument offers a brilliant panoramic view of the city and the Ganga flowing by.
— Bihar State Tourism Development Corporation, in "Destinations: Patna"
Those who bathe at Ganga at least once in its pure water are protected from thousands of dangers forever and get rid of sins of generations and are purified immediately.
Brahmanandpuranam— Brahmanandpuranam, in The Ganga A River Of Life
In discussing the unlimited grace of the Ganga, Eck cites a common Indian saying that “no child is too dirty to be embraced by its mother”. Indeed mother Ganga embraces everyone and everything that is put into her (or that she enters).
Ronald barrett— Aghor Medicine: Pollution, Death, and Healing in Northern India (3 February 2008, p. 48)
When Ganga was brought to Haridwar, then all the Gods asked: ’We wash all sins, but who will wash us?’ Ganga said this to Lord Vishnu: ’Lord Vishnu Bhagwan, tell us, what should we do?’ Then the Lord said: ‘As many sadhus and saints are living in this world, every time they will bathe in Ganga, all your sins will be washed away [automatically].
— A tale narrated to Eck, in p.46
I would never have imagined the River Ganga could get like this, with stinking water, green and brown colored. It's pure toxic muck.
Joshua Hammer— In “A Prayer for the Ganges (November 2007)”
What need of expensive sacrifices , Or of difficult penances ? Worship Ganga , asking for happiness and good fortune , and she will bring you heaven and salvation.
— Padma Purana (v.60.39), in The Ganges in Myth and History, (1 January 2001), p.14
Hinduism is like the Ganga,, pure and unsullied at its source but taking in its course the impurities in the way. Even like the Ganga it is beneficent in its total effect. It takes a provincial form in every province, but the inner substance is retained everywhere.
Mahatma Gandhi— "My Religion: What I value in Hinduism"
Patna has been one of the oldest continuously inhabited riverine cities in the world situated at the southern bank of river Ganga.
— Nancy Nancy, in Thesis synopsis-Patna: A historic riverine city more, academia.edu, 2013
Whether you bathe in the Ganga for a thousand years or live on vegetable food for a like period, unless it helps towards the manifestation of the Self , know that it is all of no use
— Vivekananda, in The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 7/Conversations And Dialogues/XVII
Even the most hardened atheist of a Hindu will find his heart full of feelings he has never felt before the first time he reaches the bank of the Ganga.
Rampratap Tripathi— Devi: Goddesses of India (p.139)
Although any point along the Ganga can serve as a pilgrimage site, a number of especially powerful thirthas (sacred crossings) along her banks allow pilgrims to cover multiple spiritual bases with a single visit. Banaras is the largest and most visited of these thirthas, presenting itself as Kashi (“the luminous”), an otherworldly abode that rests Shiva’s trident and grants instant liberation to all who die within its boundaries.
— Skanda Purana (IV.I.28:80), p.40 (Aghor Medicine: Pollution, Death, and Healing in Northern India (3 February 2008)])
Eck describes the creative power of the Ganga as “liquid Shakti ”, evidenced by the fertility of fields along her banks and her position as a second consort and active principle of Shiva .
— In P.48 (Aghor Medicine: Pollution, Death, and Healing in Northern India (3 February 2008)])
The age in which true history appeared in India was one of great intellectual and spiritual ferment. Mystics and sophists of all kinds roamed through the Ganga Valley, all advocating some form of mental discipline and asceticism as a means to salvation; but the age of the Buddha, when many of the best minds were abandoning their homes and professions for a life of asceticism, was also a time of advance in commerce and politics. It produced not only philosophers and ascetics, but also merchant princes and men of action.
— Arthur Llewellyn Basham in The Wonder that was India (1954)
