Ganges Quotes
More Ganges Quotes
The waves belong to the Ganges, not the Ganges to the waves. A man cannot realize God unless he gets rid of all such egotistic ideas as "I am such an important man" or "I am so and so". Level the mound of "I" to the ground by dissolving it with tears of devotion.
ramakrishna— p. 385 (The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1942))
The waves belong to the Ganges, not the Ganges to the waves. A man cannot realize God unless he gets rid of all such egotistic ideas as "I am such an important man" or "I am so and so". Level the mound of "I" to the ground by dissolving it with tears of devotion.
— Ramakrishna, as quoted in The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1942) as translated by Swami Nikhilananda, p. 385
Can my fond heart, on such a feeble proof,Embrace a faith, abhorred by him I love?I see too plainly custom forms us all;Our thoughts, our morals, our most fixed belief,Are consequences of our place of birth:Born beyond Ganges, I had been a Pagan;In France, a Christian; I am here a Saracen :'Tis but instruction, all! Our parents' handWrites on our heart the first faint characters,Which time, re-tracing, deepens into strength,That nothing can efface, but death or Heaven.
aaron hill— Zara, Act I, Sc. 1.
Chittaranjan Das: I believe that Bengal has a message for the world. Keshub Chunder Sen delivered that message. Again and again that message has been delivered on the banks of the Ganges, and again and again will that message be delivered and redelivered in a fuller and yet fuller manner till we listen, till the world listens.
keshub chunder sen— Speech delivered at the Overtoun Hall, Kolkata in January 1917.
It was a major port on the Ganges before the British and Calcutta. After the Battle of Bihar (1765), the East India Company took charge and installed a puppet Raj, and Patna became capital of Bihar Province under the British Raj.
Nancy Nancy— "Thesis synopsis-Patna: A historic riverine city more"
The Lord is so kind that He has spread the river Ganges throughout the universe so that by taking bath in that holy river everyone can get released from the reactions of sins , which occur at every step.
— Srimad Bhagavatam (3.5.41), in Srimad-Bhagavatam - Prabhupada
I will lay my bones by the Ganges that India might know there is one who cares.
— Alexander Duff, in Passage to the Unreached, p.137
There are few things on which Hindu India , diverse as it is, might agree. But of the Ganges, India speaks with one voice. The Ganges carries an immense cultural and religious meaning for Hindus of every region and every sectarian persuasion.
— Gangavatarana, in Journal of Religious Studies, Volumes 22-23 (1993), p.126
I am the shark among the fishes, and the Ganges (Jahnavi) among the rivers.
— Lord Krishna, in Bhagavad Gita, in Tat Tvam Asi: The Universal Massage in the Bhagavadg?t? (1 January 1998), p.425
Ganges water is considered by many to be blessed, and has for centuries served as an essential component of Hindu ceremonies, from childbirth to death -- when ashes are often scattered in the river after cremations.
— Thilaka Ravi, in “ Most Polluted 'Sacred' River Ganges Causes Concern (26 January 2010)”
Ganges water is well known for its extraordinary resilience and recuperative capacity,
— Thilaka Ravi, in “ Most Polluted 'Sacred' River Ganges Causes Concern (26 January 2010)”
The Mississippi , the Ganges, and the Nile , those journeying atoms from the Rocky Mountains, the Himmaleh, and Mountains of the Moon, have a kind of personal importance in the annals of the world. The heavens are not yet drained over ...
— Henry David Thoreau (1873), in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, p.16
One should not be amazed ... that this Ganges is really Power , for is she not the Supreme Shakti of the Eternal Shiva, taken in the form of water? This Ganges, filled with the sweet wine of compassion , was sent out for the salvation of the world by Shiva, the Lord of the Lords. Good people should not think this Triple-Pathed River to be like the thousand other earthly rivers, filled with water.
— Ganga Mahatmay, Kashi Khanda, p.48 (Aghor Medicine: Pollution, Death, and Healing in Northern India (3 February 2008)])
A Prayer for the Ganges. Across India, environmentalists battle a tide of troubles to clean up a river revered as the source of life .
— Joshua Hammer, in In A Prayer for the Ganges (November 2007)
Ganges water is well known for its extraordinary resilience and recuperative capacity .
— Thilaka Ravi, in “ Most Polluted 'Sacred' River Ganges Causes Concern (26 January 2010)”
Popular traditions in Benaras, [however], tend to associate with entire month of Kartik with rasa lila episodes. Participants in Kartik puja, the Hindu woman perform on the banks of the Ganges River throughout the month, consider it to be a version of the rasa lila transfigured into a form appropriate for human woman, and enacted each year in celebration of the earthly rasa lila of ancient times.
— Gavin Flood, in The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism (17 April 2008), p.333
It is said that the sands of the Ganges and drops of water in the ocean can be counted but not the merits resulting from the recitation of this mantra.
— By Alex Studholme quoted in "What is a mantra?"
The remote dwellers upon the Ganges distinctly made known that future life about which Moses is silent or obscure, and that unity and Omnipotence of the Creator which were unknown to the polytheism of the Greek and Roman multitude, and to the dualism of Mithraic legislators, while Vyasa perhaps surpassed Plato in keeping the people tremblingly alive to the punishment which awaited evil deeds.
— General Joseph Davey Cunningham, (1812-1851) author of A history of the Sikhs, from the origin of the nation to the battles of the Sutlej.
It will no longer remain to be doubted that the priests of Egypt and the sages of Greece have drawn directly from the original well of India, that it is to the banks of the Ganges and the Indus that our hearts feel drawn as by some hidden urge.
— Friedrich Mejer, English statesman[ ]
You should see the sun on the Ganges. It's amazing.
— Who: Matt Kowalski
— Source: Gravity
— Note: Character kills himself by detaching from Ryan Stone to avoid pulling her out to space with him, and says this as he is gazing at the Earth for the last time.
I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges, - astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc. It is very important to note that some 2,500 years ago at the least Pythagoras went from Samos to the Ganges to learn geometry...But he would certainly not have undertaken such a strange journey had the reputation of the Brahmins' science not been long established in Europe.
— Francois Voltaire, Lettres sur l'origine des sciences et sur celle des peuples de l'Asie (first published Paris, 1777), letter of 15 December 1775.
The atmosphere of devotion which hangs above the river is improbable in strength ; stronger than in any church that I have ever visited. Every Christian priest would do well to sacrifice a year of his theological studies in order to spend his time on the Ganges ; here he would discover what piety is.
— Klaus K. Klostermaier, in Hinduism: A Short History, p.30
For India's devout Hindus, the sacred River Ganges is always clean and always pure – even if its waters are a toxic mix of human sewage, discarded garbage and factory waste.
Thilaka Ravi— Most Polluted 'Sacred' River Ganges Causes Concern (26 January 2010)
There is a common saying that even a single droplet of Ganges water carried one’s way by the breeze will erase the sins of many life times in an instant.
— Eck(1983), quoted in p. 47
And again, Subhuti, suppose a woman or a man were to renounce all their belongings as many times as there are grains of sand in the river Ganges; and suppose that someone else, after taking from this discourse on dharma but one stanza of four lines would demonstrate it to others. Then this latter on the strength of that would beget a greater heap of merit , immeasurable and incalculable.
— Buddha, in Wisdom Beyond Words: The Buddhist Vision of Ultimate Reality (2000), p.51
