Les pérégrinations à travers l'Inde d'Alain Carayol, sous le charme du Gange, la rivière sacrée, à travers des photographies de la population vivant au bord de l'eau. ©Electre 2024

The Ganges occupies a unique place in history. Is there any river as associated with its country as the Ganges is with India?

Is there any river more loved by its people than the Ganges by the people of India?

For a long time, everyone considered the Ganges as 'the River of the World.

In Ancient times - as far back as the 5th century BC - Ctesias, a Greek historian in the Persian court who worked for Darius, wrote of a holy river "bearing all kinds of good things." Two centuries later, the Greek Ambassador Megasthenes, sent by his king to Chandragupta Maruya, the founder of the first Indian dynasty, describes the Ganges in these terms: "This river gushes out of a fountain like thunder, it flees through steep mountains and becomes a peaceful lake when it reaches the plain."

The Ganges has also inspired poets. In the Aeneid, Virgil compares the wild tumultuous river to an army on the march. Ovid speaks of a tawny India bordered by the Ganges.

In the 3rd century, Chinese monks begin to look for the fundamental Buddhist texts and in the 7th century, the most famous of them, Hiuen-Tsang, writes: "The river is blue and broad. Many marvelous and harmless creatures live in it. The water has a smooth and pleasant taste. The sand is extremely fine. In Indian texts, people call it the 'Water of Bliss'. It is said that those who bathe in its waters are purified of all their sins. Those who drink it or simply rinse their mouth wash away all the misfortunes that threaten them. Those who drown in it are reborn among the gods. A multitude of men and women gather on its banks."

In the Middle Ages, people still believed that the large river was at the end of the earth. The Church fathers thought that it was the Physon, the river of Eden, and that Paradise is just a little further East.

Even Christopher Columbus, fascinated by the holy river, believed that he would easily find it when he arrived in the New World. Over the centuries, many have been obsessed by the Ganges.

I am no exception. Every time I travel through India, I am under its spell. The Ganges remains for me only one of many enigmas and remains cloaked in mystery.