Ayodhya the birthplace of Lord Rama. The town is full monasteries and ashrams. The legend of the fish incarnation of Vishnu is connected to this scared city. It is in Uttar Pradesh - and lies east to Lucknow the capital of Uttar Pradesh

India revers its rivers more than any other nation-a respect and reverence borne out of seeing these rivers as sacred manifestations of goddesses sent to earth to help humanity.

The sacred rivers are-The Ganga flowing from the Himalayas from Shivas hair locks through the states of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal . Ganga the symbol of Goddess Ganga rides a sauras(swan) holding a water pot, bejeweled in a red saree. Ganga water is imbued with power to grant purity and salvation to whom soever chooses to drink it or bathe in it. Again it depends on the attitude you bring to your very simple acts of drinking and bathing.

At Prayag (Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh) lies the most holy of the Gangas confluence's. Here lies the confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna and the Saraswati It is also the site for the Kumbh Mela and the Maha Kumbh Mela. The site for the Mela every 3 year for the first and every 12 year for the second rotates between Haridwar on the river Ganga in the upper reaches, Allahabad(Prayag) down stream onto Ujjain in mid India and Nasik in the West.

Godavari, Cauvery, Narmada and the Sindhu (Indus) are the other 4 sacred rivers.

Goddess Jamuna rides a turtle and presides over river Yamuna which flows for 1380 km following the same route as the Ganga forming a parallel stream. The sacred places along the Yamuna are Vrindavan and Mathura. After Agra-the Yamuna tapes off into the ravines, at Prayag, the Yamuna merges with the Ganga together with the third mystical stream the Sarswati. Goddess Narmada-a Yogini stands on a crocodile. Clean and unpolluted. Narmada is gentle and blue flowing 1250 km from Madhya Pradesh to Gujrat. The holy Narmada is as frequented as the Ganga, whereas in the case of the Ganga pilgrims walk up and down the length of the river. In case of the Narmada-pilgrims perform a circumambulation from Baroach - to Amarkantak and then back down the other side of the river. This ancient route is now half disrupted and the rest threatened by the ill-conceived Narmada dam. Halfway down the river lies the Omkareshwar said to resemble the sacred aum in its curvature. It is a favorite tirtha for pilgrims next to Haridwar. Canvery Goddess stands in a red saree pouring water from the water pot-The river is 764 km from the source to the sea. The shortest of the7 rivers, it is often referred to as the Ganga of the south. Along her lower course are a series of temple towns,--Mysore, Srirangam Bhagmandalam. Godavari runs across the Maharastrian plateau beginning from the Sahyadris hills. It travels for1450 km to reach the Bay of Bengal. At Trimbakeshwar near Nasik which is in the rivers path is the site of one of the twelve Jyotir lingas. Nasik is also the site of the Kumbh mela.

Nanded a sacred tirth to the Sikhs is also situated on the banks of the Godavri. In Andhra Pradesh, on the banks of the Godavri is the temple of Ramappa north of Warangal famed for its musical stone temple of Ramappa . The source of the Indus lies in Tibet and its flow in Pakistan. In India we can see the river in Ladakh. With the Indus in Pakistan-the Ganga has become irrevocably the holy stream of India.

.......Back