Photo essay: River Ganges flows with history and prophecy for India

Smoke rises from chimneys of leather tanneries in Kanpur, an industrial city on the banks of the river Ganges, India, Tuesday, June 23, 2020. Kanpur city produces an estimated 450 million liters of municipal sewage and industrial effluent daily, much of which flowed directly into the Ganges until recently. Today that number is lower, though it's not clear by how much, after a Ganges cleanup project closed some drains and diverted industrial pollution to treatment plants. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

Today, little of the ancient construction remains, except for mounds of rubble that tannery workers pick through for bricks to build shanties atop what was once the fortress of the great King Yayati. | Above: A worker drinks water as processed rawhide are laid to dry at a tannery in Kanpur. And Kanpur, where Yayati built his fort, is a city known for its leather tanneries and the relentless pollution they pump into the River Ganges.

For more than 2,735kms, from the Gangotri Glacier in the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, the Ganges flows across the plains like a timeline of India's past, nourishing an extraordinary wealth of life. It has seen empires rise and fall. It has seen too many wars, countless kings, British colonials, independence and the rise of Hindu nationalism as a political movement. | Above: A holy man meditates near Gaumukh, a snout of the Gangotri Glacier at an altitude of 4000 meters in Uttarakhand.

In India, the Ganges is far more than just a river. It is religion, industry, farming and politics. It is a source of water for millions of people, and an immense septic system that endures millions of gallons of raw sewage. | Above: Hindu pilgrims walk on a pontoon bridge before dawn at Sangam, the confluence of rivers Ganges, Yamuna, and mythical Saraswati during Magh Mela, a festival that attracts millions of pilgrims every year, in Prayagraj.

To Hindus, the Ganges is "Ganga Ma" — Mother Ganges — and a center of spiritual life for more than a billion people. Every year, millions of Hindus make pilgrimages to the temples and shrines along its shores. To drink from it is auspicious. For many Hindus, life is incomplete without bathing in it at least once in their lifetime, to wash away theirs sins.

But all is not well with the Ganges. Pollution has left large sections of it dangerous to drink. Criminal gangs illegally mine sand from its banks to feed India's relentless appetite for concrete. Hydroelectric dams along the river's tributaries, needed to power India's growing economy, have infuriated some Hindus, who say the sanctity of the river has been compromised. | Above: Women wash their household items by a drainage flowing into the river Ganges in Varanasi.

And over the past 40-some years, the Gangotri Glacier — source of almost half the Ganges' water — has been receding at an increasingly frightening pace, now losing about 22 meters (yards) per year.

For millennia, the Gangotri's glacial melt water has ensured the arid plains get enough water, even during the driest months. The rest comes from Himalayan tributaries that flow from the colossal chain of mountains. | Above: The confluence of Alaknanda and Bhagirathi rivers, which is officially accepted as the start of the River Ganges, is illuminated at twilight in the town of Devpraya.

As the Ganges flows across the plains, its once clean and mineral-rich water begins collecting the toxic waste from the millions of people who depend on it, becoming one of the most polluted rivers in the world. | Above: Funeral pyres burn at Manikarnika Ghat, one of the oldest and most sacred place for Hindus to be cremated, on the banks of river Ganges in Varanasi.

Millions of liters (gallons) of sewage, along with heavy metals, agricultural pesticides, human bodies and animal carcasses, are dumped into the Ganges every day. | Above: Mourners wait for the cremation of their loved ones at the flooded Manikarnika Ghat, one of the most sacred places for Hindus to be cremated, on the banks of river Ganges in Varanasi.

At times, officials try to fix things but vast stretches of it remain dangerously unhealthy. Still, to Hindus, the river remains religiously pure.

Every year, tens of thousands of Hindus bring the bodies of their loved ones to be cremated at the Ganges, in the city of Varanasi. A Hindu who dies in the city, or is cremated alongside it, is also freed from that cycle of birth and death.

After Varanasi, the Ganges continues its eastward journey through endless farmland as it nears the coast, eventually splitting off into ever-smaller rivers in the great wilderness of her delta.

The biggest river, the Hooghly, heads south towards the sea, passing through Kolkata, the largest city in eastern India. Once the capital of the British raj, known as Calcutta, today the seething metropolis is home to nearly 15 million people. Eventually, its waters spill into the Bay of Bengal.

Up near the Gangotri glacier, a genial Hindu holy man who goes by the name Mouni Baba and spends much of his life in silent meditation sees all of mankind reflected in the river. "Human existence is like this ice," he said. | Above: Mouni Baba fetches water from a stream at the feet of Mount Shivling in Tapovan, at an altitude of 4500 meters in Uttarakhand.

"It melts and becomes water and then merges into a stream. The stream goes into a tributary which flows into a river and then it all ends up in an ocean. Some (rivers) remain pure while others collect dirt along the way. Some (people) help mankind and some become the cause of its devastation," said Baba. | Above: A crowd gathers for a prayer ceremony dedicated to the river Ganges in Varanasi.

Devotees take ritualistic dips alongside elephants at the confluence of river Ganges and river Gandak to mark the beginning of the centuries old Sonpur mela, the largest cattle fair in Asia, in the state of Bihar.

A man carries a bucket of water while people wash utensils, brush their teeth and bathe in the polluted waters of the river Hooghly, a distributary of the river Ganges, in the backdrop of the landmark Howrah Bridge in Kolkata, in West Bengal.

Hindu women walk on silt, deposited by monsoon floods, along the banks of the river Ganges to perform daily morning rituals in Varanasi.

An elderly Hindu woman sits in solitude inside an ashram meant for those who come to die and attain salvation in Varanasi.

Hindu devotees prepare to immerse an idol of goddess Durga in the river Hooghly, a distributary of the river Ganges, in Kolkata.

A Hindu pilgrim is stranded on a mobile toilet after high tide submerged the camping area for pilgrims on the eve of Makar Sankranti festival on Sagar Island, an island lying in the Ganges delta.

A worker who helps cremate bodies sits by the body of an elderly man, wrapped and weighed down by a large rock, before throwing the body into the river Ganges as per his final wish, on the banks of river Ganges in Varanasi.

Hindu pilgrims spend the night huddled together after being forced by high tide to flee from their camps on the eve of Makar Sankranti festival on Sagar Island, an island in the Ganges delta.

People prepare to cremate the body of a Hindu woman on the banks of the river Ganges on the outskirts of Varanasi.

Hindu pilgrims arrive to takes holy dips before sunrise during Makar Sankranti festival on Sagar Island, an island in the Ganges delta.

A fisherman boat moves past a floating hotel on the river Hooghly, a distributary of the river Ganges, in Kolkata.

The Milky Way glows above the 6856 meters tall Bhagirathi peaks as seen from Tapovan, at an altitude of 4500 meters in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand. Bhagirathi peaks feed the Gangotri Glacier, one of the origins of the river Ganges, whose glacial melt water has ensured the arid plains get enough water, even during the driest months.