Page 16 - Sugam Sarita

and the Yangtse.

With five tributaries that were split between India and Pakistan after
Partition, the Indus or Sindhu begins its journey in what is now
Pakistan. The subcontinent’s most imposing feature is the huge
river Indus, which also served as the birthplace of its first known

civilization. This civilization thrived in the Indus Valley and spanned
a wide span of the surrounding areas. The Ganga and Yamuna are the
other two main northern rivers, and their significance has expanded
from being purely utilitarian—fertilizing valleys—to becoming

metaphors for Indian culture on the cultural and religious levels. The
Saraswathi, which was once thought to be another huge northern
river, is believed to have submerged.

In South India, the Krishna, Godavari and Kaveri are represented as

something that transcends the simple reality of flowing water and
becomes a part of the enduring philosophy that permeates their
existence. The river itself becomes a metaphor for life itself because
of its various moods, changeability, mutability, and permanence.

The wide expanse of the river is compared to the calming flow of
a mother’s love, which is all-accepting and forgiving in its nature.
The river also symbolises the flowing path of human life, with its
eventual conclusion in the wide seas of the sea, in both folk poetry

and religious tradition. The tradition of dispersing cremated remains
in the Ganga or any other sacred river, which dates back thousands of
years, reflects the Indian people’s unwavering faith in these bodies of
water and their ability to carry souls from one life to the next through

Karma and the river’s all-encompassing embrace.

For many years, freshwater has been viewed as a natural, asocial
substance that can be objectively known and, to maximise its

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