"The Ganges is above all the river of India ... descend to the river on ghats, or steps), millions of Hindus converge each year to bathe in the sacred waters and cremate their dead.

In the mornings in Varanasi, the air on the banks of the Ganges fills with the scent of burning bodies. On the steps of the Manikarnika ghat—the holiest of the city’s stepped riverbanks ...

Sacred sites are increasingly popular as the government promotes pilgrimages and Instagram influencers help make religion ...

India’s spiritual heritage is a vibrant mosaic, with sacred cities that resonate with devotion, history, and divine energy.

Tour guide Mahesh Banguru steps back onto shore and says ... A few hours' drive down the Ganges, in the isolated, hardscrabble village of Chausa, an older man is sitting by the river.

But it’s past time for small steps. The National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world, funded Explorer Sara Hylton’s reporting along the Ganges ...

India's holy Ganges begins as a crystal clear river high in the icy Himalayas but pollution and excessive usage transforms it into toxic sludge in places on its journey through burgeoning cities ...

The Ganges river in India is more than 2,500km long and has the most populated river basin in the world. Hundreds of millions of people and a huge range of wildlife rely on the river Ganges. But ...

The ghats, or steps leading into a body of water, at Varanasi, India’s holiest city in Uttar Pradesh, are crowded with people, some bathing in the Ganges River, others performing ceremonies on ...

Crumbling palaces and temples give way to the ghats – the steps that lead down to the river ... burning on the funeral pyres by the Ganges means bypassing the cycle of rebirth and going direct ...

The Ganges River, also known as the Ganga, is a sacred and revered body of water in India. It is considered to be a holy river by Hindus and is believed to have the power to wash away sins and ...

That cremation along the banks of the sacred Ganges on the steps of this ghat alone can liberate one’s soul from the endless cycle of death and rebirth is entrenched in the Hindu psyche.