Introduction
According to Hindu mythology, the Ganges river of India - the goddess Ganga - came down to the earth from the skies. The descent was precipitated when Vishnu, the preserver of worlds, took three giant strides across the Underworld, the Earth, and the Heavens, and his last step tore a crack in the heavens.
As the river rushed through the crack, Shiva, the god of destruction, stood waiting on the peaks of the Himalayas to catch it in his matted locks. From his hair, it began its journey across the Indian subcontinent.
Whatever one makes of this myth, the Ganges does, in fact, carry extraordinary powers of both creation and destruction in its long descent from the Himalayas. At its source, it springs as melted ice from an immense glacial cave lined with icicles that do look like long strands of hair. From an altitude of nearly 14,000 feet, it falls south and east through the Himalayan foothills, across the plains of northern India, and down to the storm-lashed Indo-Bangladesh delta, where it empties out into the Indian Ocean (Sampat, 1996).
Although some Hindu's along the Ganges believe that the river is clean, most know and understand that the Ganges is extremely polluted, but it has so much religious meaning to them, they don't care. Another reason the people don't really push for the river to be cleaned is because many people in India want the Ganges environment protected, but they just don't want to do it themselves (Everett, 2001)
The origins of the Mela in Ganges are clouded in legend. It was first recorded by a Chinese pilgrim, Huan Tsang, on a visit to India in AD629. The origins lie in Hinduism's creation myths that describe the earliest days of the universe. The demi-gods were under the influence.......
