107-512: Pataliputra ( IAST : Pāṭaliputra ), adjacent to modern-day Patna , Bihar , was a city in ancient India , originally built by Magadha ruler Ajatashatru in 490 BCE, as a small fort ( Pāṭaligrāma ) near the Ganges river. Udayin laid the foundation of the city of Pataliputra at the confluence of two rivers, the Son and the Ganges . He shifted his capital from Rajgriha to Pataliputra due to
214-568: A macron ). Vocalic (syllabic) consonants, retroflexes and ṣ ( / ʂ ~ ɕ ~ʃ/ ) have an underdot . One letter has an overdot: ṅ ( /ŋ/ ). One has an acute accent : ś ( /ʃ/ ). One letter has a line below: ḻ ( / ɭ / ) (Vedic). Unlike ASCII -only romanisations such as ITRANS or Harvard-Kyoto , the diacritics used for IAST allow capitalisation of proper names. The capital variants of letters never occurring word-initially ( Ṇ Ṅ Ñ Ṝ Ḹ ) are useful only when writing in all-caps and in Pāṇini contexts for which
321-571: A skandhāvāra , or camp, where Dharmapala stayed while on a campaign or tour. While Pataliputra is mentioned in contemporary sources, archaeologists have not found any evidence from the Pala period at Pataliputra. At least at Kumrahar, there are no traces of human settlement until the 1600s. In a fanciful 1559 book about world geography, the Italian Caius Julius Solinus briefly mentions a powerful Indian kingdom of Prasia with
428-652: A water sharing dispute arose between India and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) after India declared its intention to build the Farakka Barrage. The original purpose of the barrage, which was completed in 1975, was to divert up to 1,100 m /s (39,000 cu ft/s) of water from the Ganges to the Bhagirathi-Hooghly distributary to restore navigability at the Port of Kolkata . It was assumed that during
535-472: A "water fort, or jaldurga ". Its position helped it dominate the riverine trade of the Indo-Gangetic plains during Magadha 's early imperial period. It was a great centre of trade and commerce and attracted merchants and intellectuals, such as the famed Chanakya , from all over India. Two important early Buddhist councils are recorded in early Buddhist texts as being held here, the second session of
642-638: A capital at Palibotra. Afterwards, Sher Shah Suri made Pataliputra his capital and changed the name to modern Patna. Though parts of the ancient city have been excavated, much of it still lies buried beneath modern Patna. Various locations have been excavated, including Kumhrar , Bulandi Bagh and Agam Kuan . During the Mauryan period, the city was described as being shaped as parallelogram, approximately 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) wide and 15 kilometers (9 miles) long. Its wooden walls were pierced by 64 gates. Archaeological research has found remaining portions of
749-422: A detailed account of its splendour, referring to it as "Palibothra": " Megasthenes says that on one side where it is longest this city extends ten miles in length, and that its breadth is one and threequarters miles; that the city has been surrounded with a ditch in breadth 600 feet, and in depth 45 feet; and that its wall has 570 towers and 64 gates." - Arrian "The Indica" Strabo in his Geographia adds that
856-433: A font, etc. It can be enabled in the input menu in the menu bar under System Preferences → International → Input Menu (or System Preferences → Language and Text → Input Sources) or can be viewed under Edit → Emoji & Symbols in many programs. Equivalent tools – such as gucharmap ( GNOME ) or kcharselect ( KDE ) – exist on most Linux desktop environments. Users of SCIM on Linux based platforms can also have
963-666: A new channel. This new main channel of the Brahmaputra is called the Jamuna River. It flows south to join the Ganges-Padma. During ancient times, the main flow of the Brahmaputra was more easterly, passing by the city of Mymensingh and joining the Meghna River. Today this channel is a small distributary but retains the name Brahmaputra, sometimes Old Brahmaputra. The site of the old Brahmaputra-Meghna confluence, in
1070-539: A population of about 150,000–400,000. The city is estimated to have had a surface of 25.5 square kilometers, and a circumference of 33.8 kilometers, and was in the shape of a parallelogram and had 64 gates (that is, approximately one gate every 500 meters). Pataliputra reached the pinnacle of prosperity when it was the capital of the great Mauryan Emperors , Chandragupta Maurya and Ashoka. "They surpass in power and glory every other people, not only in this quarter, but one may say in all India, their capital being Palibothra,
1177-410: A religious iconoclast himself, asked for a handful of his ashes to be thrown into the Ganges. "The Ganga", he wrote in his will, "is the river of India, beloved of her people, round which are intertwined her racial memories, her hopes and fears, her songs of triumph, her victories and her defeats. She has been a symbol of India's age-long culture and civilization, ever-changing, ever-flowing, and yet ever
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#17327649322491284-509: A sacred river to Hindus along every fragment of its length. All along its course, Hindus bathe in its waters, paying homage to their ancestors and their gods by cupping the water in their hands, lifting it, and letting it fall back into the river; they offer flowers and rose petals and float shallow clay dishes filled with oil and lit with wicks (diyas). On the journey back home from the Ganges, they carry small quantities of river water with them for use in rituals; Ganga Jal, literally "the water of
1391-435: A sage, Kapila , whose intense meditation has been disturbed by the sixty thousand sons of King Sagara . Livid at being disturbed, Kapila sears them with his angry gaze, reduces them to ashes, and dispatches them to the netherworld. Only the waters of the Ganges, then in heaven, can bring the dead sons their salvation. A descendant of these sons, King Bhagiratha , anxious to restore his ancestors, undertakes rigorous penance and
1498-458: A thousand years, and the site seems to have been abandoned. One likely contributing factor was a shift in the course of the Ganges. As early as Faxian's visit around the year 400, he wrote that Pataliputra was one yojana (about 10 km) south of the Ganges. The Varāha Purāṇa , from post-Gupta times, indicates that the confluence of the Gandak and the Ganges was then about 10 km north of
1605-610: A traditional account of a disastrous flood on the Son River destroying Pataliputra at some point. This account describes this flood as happening during the month of Bhādrapada , or September, after 17 days and nights of heavy rain. The flooding on the Son apparently caused the Ganges to overflow as well, and Pataliputra was inundated on multiple sides. The account describes widespread destruction in Pataliputra, although it also says that
1712-618: A very large and wealthy city, after which some call the people itself the Palibothri, - nay, even the whole tract along the Ganges. Their king has in his pay a standing army of 600,000 foot-soldiers, 30,000 cavalry, and 9000 elephants : whence may be formed some conjecture as to the vastness of his resources." Megasthenes , in Indica The city prospered under the Mauryas and a Greek ambassador, Megasthenes , resided there and left
1819-562: Is 625 km (388 mi) long, with a drainage basin of 25,820 km (9,970 sq mi). The Hooghly River empties into the Bay of Bengal near Sagar Island . Between Malda and the Bay of Bengal, the Hooghly river passes the towns and cities of Murshidabad , Nabadwip , Kolkata and Howrah . After entering Bangladesh, the main branch of the Ganges river is known as the Padma . The Padma
1926-593: Is a trans-boundary river of Asia which flows through India and Bangladesh . The 2,525 km (1,569 mi)-long river rises in the western Himalayas in the Indian state of Uttarakhand . It flows south and east through the Gangetic plain of North India , receiving the right-bank tributary, the Yamuna , which also rises in the western Indian Himalayas, and several left-bank tributaries from Nepal that account for
2033-801: Is about 1,080,000 km (420,000 sq mi), of which 861,000 km (332,000 sq mi) is in India (about 80%), 140,000 km (54,000 sq mi) in Nepal (13%), 46,000 km (18,000 sq mi) in Bangladesh (4%), and 33,000 km (13,000 sq mi) in China (3%). Sometimes the Ganges and Brahmaputra–Meghna drainage basins are combined for a total of about 1,600,000 km (620,000 sq mi) or 1,621,000 km (626,000 sq mi). The combined Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna basin (abbreviated GBM or GMB) drainage basin
2140-653: Is also used for major e-text repositories such as SARIT, Muktabodha, GRETIL, and sanskritdocuments.org. The IAST scheme represents more than a century of scholarly usage in books and journals on classical Indian studies. By contrast, the ISO 15919 standard for transliterating Indic scripts emerged in 2001 from the standards and library worlds. For the most part, ISO 15919 follows the IAST scheme, departing from it only in minor ways (e.g., ṃ/ṁ and ṛ/r̥)—see comparison below. The Indian National Library at Kolkata romanization , intended for
2247-782: Is by setting up an alternative keyboard layout . This allows one to hold a modifier key to type letters with diacritical marks. For example, alt + a = ā. How this is set up varies by operating system. Linux/Unix and BSD desktop environments allow one to set up custom keyboard layouts and switch them by clicking a flag icon in the menu bar. macOS One can use the pre-installed US International keyboard, or install Toshiya Unebe's Easy Unicode keyboard layout. Microsoft Windows Windows also allows one to change keyboard layouts and set up additional custom keyboard mappings for IAST. This Pali keyboard installer made by Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (MSKLC) supports IAST (works on Microsoft Windows up to at least version 10, can use Alt button on
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#17327649322492354-741: Is different ways to determine the river's length, its discharge , and the size of its drainage basin . The name Ganges is used for the river between the confluence of the Bhagirathi and Alaknanda rivers, in the Himalayas, and the first bifurcation of the river, near the Farakka Barrage and the India-Bangladesh Border. The length of the Ganges is frequently said to be slightly over 2,600 km (1,600 mi) long, about 2,601 km (1,616 mi), 2,525 km (1,569 mi) or 2,650 km (1,650 mi). In these cases
2461-476: Is eventually granted the prize of Ganges's descent from heaven. However, since her turbulent force would also shatter the earth, Bhagiratha persuades Shiva in his abode on Mount Kailash to receive the Ganges in the coils of his tangled hair and break her fall. The Ganges descends, is tamed in Shiva's locks, and arrives in the Himalayas. She is then led by the waiting Bhagiratha down into the plains at Haridwar, across
2568-555: Is home to approximately 140 species of fish, 90 species of amphibians , and also reptiles and mammals , including critically endangered species such as the gharial and South Asian river dolphin . The Ganges is the most sacred river to Hindus . It is worshipped as the goddess Ganga in Hinduism . The Ganges is threatened by severe pollution . This not only poses a danger to humans but also to many species of animals. The levels of fecal coliform bacteria from human waste in
2675-783: Is joined by the Jamuna River , the largest distributary of the Brahmaputra . Further downstream, the Padma joins the Meghna River , the converged flow of Surma-Meghna River System taking on the Meghna's name as it enters the Meghna Estuary, which empties into the Bay of Bengal. Here it forms the 1,430 by 3,000 km (890 by 1,860 mi) Bengal Fan , the world's largest submarine fan , which alone accounts for 10–20% of
2782-522: Is longer than its main outlet via the Meghna River, resulting in a total length of about 2,704 km (1,680 mi), if taken from the source of the Bhagirathi, or 2,321.50 km (1,442.51 mi), if from Haridwar to the Hooghly's mouth. In other cases the length is said to be about 2,304 km (1,432 mi), from the source of the Bhagirathi to the Bangladesh border, where its name changes to Padma . For similar reasons, sources differ over
2889-836: Is spread across Bangladesh, Bhutan , India, Nepal, and China. The Ganges basin ranges from the Himalaya and the Transhimalaya in the north, to the northern slopes of the Vindhya range in the south, from the eastern slopes of the Aravalli in the west to the Chota Nagpur plateau and the Sunderbans delta in the east. A significant portion of the discharge from the Ganges comes from the Himalayan mountain system. Within
2996-403: Is the high point of the Ganges basin. The other peaks over 8,000m in the basin are Kangchenjunga , Lhotse , Makalu , Cho Oyu , Dhaulagiri , Manaslu , Annapurna and Shishapangma . The Himalayan portion of the basin includes the south-eastern portion of the state of Himachal Pradesh, the entire state of Uttarakhand, the entire country of Nepal and the extreme north-western portion of
3103-576: Is used in Hindu ritual and is therefore present in all sacred waters. Despite this, nothing is more stirring for a Hindu than a dip in the actual river, which is thought to remit sins, especially at one of the famous tirthas such as Varanasi , Gangotri , Haridwar , or the Triveni Sangam at Prayagraj . The symbolic and religious importance of the Ganges is one of the few things that Hindus, even their skeptics, have agreed upon. Jawaharlal Nehru,
3210-686: The Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta ( Sutta 16 of the Dīgha Nikāya ), Pāṭaliputta was the place "where the seedpods of the Pāṭali plant break open". Another tradition says that Pāṭaliputra means the son of Pāṭali , who was the daughter of a certain Raja Sudarsan. As it was originally known as Pāṭali-grāma (" Pāṭali village"), some scholars believe that Pāṭaliputra is a transformation of Pāṭalipura , " Pāṭali town". Pataliputra
3317-1027: The Bay of Bengal . The Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna system is the second-largest river on earth by discharge . The main stem of the Ganges begins at the town of Devprayag , at the confluence of the Alaknanda , which is the source stream in hydrology on account of its greater length, and the Bhagirathi , which is considered the source stream in Hindu mythology . The Ganges is a lifeline to tens of millions of people who live in its basin and depend on it for their daily needs. It has been important historically, with many former provincial or imperial capitals such as Pataliputra , Kannauj , Sonargaon , Dhaka , Bikrampur , Kara , Munger , Kashi , Patna , Hajipur , Kanpur , Delhi , Bhagalpur , Murshidabad , Baharampur , Kampilya , and Kolkata located on its banks or those of its tributaries and connected waterways. The river
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3424-680: The Hooghly River . Just before the border with Bangladesh the Farakka Barrage controls the flow of Ganges, diverting some of the water into a feeder canal linked to the Hooghly for the purpose of keeping it relatively silt-free. The Hooghly River is formed by the confluence of the Bhagirathi River and Ajay River at Katwa , and Hooghly has a number of tributaries of its own. The largest is the Damodar River , which
3531-718: The Indo-Gangetic Plain . The Indo-Gangetic Plain is geologically known as a foredeep or foreland basin . Major left-bank tributaries include the Gomti River, Ghaghara River, Gandaki River and Kosi River; major right-bank tributaries include the Yamuna River, Son River, Punpun and Damodar. The hydrology of the Ganges River is very complicated, especially in the Ganges Delta region. One result
3638-514: The Kaimur Range and contributes an average flow of about 187 m /s (6,600 cu ft/s). After the Tamsa, the 625 km (388 mi) long Gomti River joins, flowing south from the Himalayas. The Gomti contributes an average annual flow of about 234 m /s (8,300 cu ft/s). Then the 1,156 km (718 mi) long Ghaghara River (Karnali River), also flowing south from
3745-610: The Mahabharata , in one of its popular ślokas , says, "If only (one) bone of a (deceased) person should touch the water of the Ganges, that person shall dwell honoured in heaven." As if to illustrate this truism, the Kashi Khanda (Varanasi Chapter) of the Skanda Purana recounts the remarkable story of Vahika , a profligate and unrepentant sinner, who is killed by a tiger in the forest. His soul arrives before Yama ,
3852-490: The Pala Dynasty (8th-12th centuries). When Faxian visited the city in 400 A.D, he found the people to be rich and prosperous; they practised virtue and justice. He found that the nobles and householders of the city had constructed several hospitals in which the poor of all countries, the destitute, the crippled and the diseased can get treatment. They could receive every kind of help gratuitously. Physicians would inspect
3959-722: The Second Buddhist council in the reign of Ashoka , 35 years after the first session held in Vaisali and the Third Buddhist council . Jain and Hindu sources identify Udayabhadra , son of Ajatashatru , as the king who first established Pataliputra as the capital of Magadha. The Sangam Tamil epic Akanaṉūṟu mentions Nanda kings ruling Pataliputra. Girnar fifth Major Rock Edict of Ashoka mention Patliputra: (M).They are occupied everywhere, both in Pățaliputra and in
4066-464: The Shraddha rites. Hindus also perform pinda pradana , a rite for the dead, in which balls of rice and sesame seed are offered to the Ganges while the names of the deceased relatives are recited. Every sesame seed in every ball thus offered, according to one story, assures a thousand years of heavenly salvation for each relative. Indeed, the Ganges is so important in the rituals after death that
4173-598: The Vishnupadi , which until now had been circling the cosmic egg. Flowing out of the vault, she plummets down to Indra's heaven, where she is received by Dhruva , once a steadfast worshipper of Vishnu, now fixed in the sky as the Pole star . Next, she streams across the sky forming the Milky Way and arrives on the moon. She then flows down earthwards to Brahma 's realm, a divine lotus atop Mount Meru , whose petals form
4280-652: The largest cities in the world . As per the Greek diplomat, traveler and historian Megasthenes , during the Mauryan Empire ( c. 320 –180 BCE) it was among the first cities in the world to have a highly efficient form of local self government . The location of the site was first identified in modern times in 1892 by Laurence Waddell , published as Discovery of the Exact Site of Asoka's Classic Capital . Extensive archaeological excavations have been made in
4387-488: The 729 km (453 mi) long Kosi River , join from the north flowing from Nepal, contributing about 1,654 m /s (58,400 cu ft/s) and 2,166 m /s (76,500 cu ft/s), respectively. The Kosi is the third largest tributary of the Ganges by discharge, after Ghaghara (Karnali) and Yamuna. The Kosi merges into the Ganges near Kursela in Bihar . Along the way between Prayagraj and Malda , West Bengal ,
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4494-669: The Achaemenid palaces and Persepolis and may have used the help of foreign craftmen. Which may be the result of the formative influence of craftsmen employed from Persia following the disintegration of the Achaemenid Empire after the conquests of Alexander the Great . The city also became a flourishing Buddhist centre boasting a number of important monasteries. It remained the capital of the Gupta dynasty (3rd–6th centuries) and
4601-743: The Alaknanda, Dhauliganga , Nandakini , Pindar , Mandakini and Bhagirathi. Their confluences, known as the Panch Prayag , are all along the Alaknanda. They are, in downstream order, Vishnuprayag , where the Dhauliganga joins the Alaknanda; Nandprayag , where the Nandakini joins; Karnaprayag , where the Pindar joins; Rudraprayag , where the Mandakini joins; and finally, Devprayag, where
4708-595: The Bhagirathi joins the Alaknanda to form the Ganges. After flowing for 256.90 km (159.63 mi) through its narrow Himalayan valley, the Ganges emerges from the mountains at Rishikesh , then debouches onto the Gangetic Plain at the pilgrimage town of Haridwar . At Haridwar, a headworks diverts some of its water into the Ganges Canal , which irrigates the Doab region of Uttar Pradesh , whereas
4815-416: The Brahmaputra, and the Surma-Meghna river system. In full flood only the Amazon is larger. The Indian subcontinent lies atop the Indian tectonic plate , a minor plate within the Indo-Australian Plate . Its defining geological processes commenced seventy-five million years ago, when, as a part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana , it began a northeastwards drift —lasting fifty million years—across
4922-431: The Ganges flow at Farakka was less than 2,000 m /s (71,000 cu ft/s) then India and Bangladesh would each receive 50% of the water, with each receiving at least 1,000 m /s (35,000 cu ft/s) for alternating ten-day periods. However, within a year the flow at Farakka fell to levels far below the historic average, making it impossible to implement the guaranteed sharing of water. In March 1997, flow of
5029-401: The Ganges in Bangladesh dropped to its lowest ever, 180 m /s (6,400 cu ft/s). Dry season flows returned to normal levels in the years following, but efforts were made to address the problem. One plan is for another barrage to be built in Bangladesh at Pangsha , west of Dhaka . This barrage would help Bangladesh better utilize its share of the waters of the Ganges. The Ganges is
5136-478: The Ganges river passes the towns of Chunar , Mirzapur , Varanasi , Ghazipur , Ara , Patna , Chapra , Hajipur , Mokama , Begusarai , Munger , Sahibganj , Rajmahal , Bhagalpur , Ballia , Buxar , Simaria , Sultanganj , and Farakka . At Bhagalpur, the river begins to flow south-southeast and at Farakka, it begins its attrition with the branching away of its first distributary , the 408 km (254 mi) long Bhāgirathi-Hooghly , which goes on to become
5243-424: The Ganges". The Ganges is the embodiment of all sacred waters in Hindu mythology . Local rivers are said to be like the Ganges and are sometimes called the local Ganges. The Godavari River of Maharashtra in Western India is called the Ganges of the South or the 'Dakshin Ganga'; the Godavari is the Ganges that was led by the sage Gautama to flow through Central India. The Ganges is invoked whenever water
5350-444: The Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna are given separately, at about 16,650 m /s (588,000 cu ft/s) for the Ganges, about 19,820 m /s (700,000 cu ft/s) for the Brahmaputra, and about 5,100 m /s (180,000 cu ft/s) for the Meghna. The maximum peak discharge of the Ganges, as recorded at Hardinge Bridge in Bangladesh, exceeded 70,000 m /s (2,500,000 cu ft/s). The minimum recorded at
5457-426: The Ganges, and are granted instant salvation. If the death has occurred elsewhere, salvation can be achieved by immersing the ashes in the Ganges. If the ashes have been immersed in another body of water, a relative can still gain salvation for the deceased by journeying to the Ganges, if possible during the lunar "fortnight of the ancestors" in the Hindu calendar month of Ashwin (September or October), and performing
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#17327649322495564-434: The Greeks ". The city of Pataliputra was formed by fortification of a village by Haryanka ruler Ajatashatru , son of Bimbisara . Its central location in north eastern India led rulers of successive dynasties to base their administrative capital here, from the Nandas , Mauryans , Shungas and the Guptas down to the Palas . Situated at the confluence of the Ganges , Gandhaka and Son rivers, Pataliputra formed
5671-413: The Himalaya, the Ganges basin spreads almost 1,200 km from the Yamuna-Satluj divide along the Simla ridge forming the boundary with the Indus basin in the west to the Singalila Ridge along the Nepal-Sikkim border forming the boundary with the Brahmaputra basin in the east. This section of the Himalaya contains 9 of the 14 highest peaks in the world over 8,000m in height, including Mount Everest which
5778-446: The Himalayas of Tibet through Nepal joins. The Ghaghara (Karnali), with its average annual flow of about 2,991 m /s (105,600 cu ft/s), is the largest tributary of the Ganges by discharge. After the Ghaghara confluence, the Ganges is joined from the south by the 784 km (487 mi) long Son River , which contributes about 1,008 m /s (35,600 cu ft/s). The 814 km (506 mi) long Gandaki River , then
5885-408: The Hindu tradition, she is also considered the vehicle of ascent , from earth to heaven. As the Triloka-patha-gamini , (Sanskrit: triloka = "three worlds", patha = "road", gamini = "one who travels") of the tradition, she flows in heaven , earth , and the netherworld , and, consequently, is a "tirtha" or crossing point of all beings, the living as well as the dead. It is for this reason that
5992-432: The Lord of Death, to be judged for the afterworld. Having no compensating virtue, Vahika's soul is at once dispatched to hell . While this is happening, his body on earth, however, is being picked at by vultures, one of whom flies away with a foot bone. Another bird comes after the vulture, and in fighting him off, the vulture accidentally drops the bone into the Ganges below. Blessed by this event, Vahika, on his way to hell,
6099-460: The Transliteration Committee of the Geneva Oriental Congress , in September 1894. IAST makes it possible for the reader to read the Indic text unambiguously, exactly as if it were in the original Indic script. It is this faithfulness to the original scripts that accounts for its continuing popularity amongst scholars. Scholars commonly use IAST in publications that cite textual material in Sanskrit, Pāḷi and other classical Indian languages. IAST
6206-1461: The area of Sanskrit studies make use of free OpenType fonts such as FreeSerif or Gentium , both of which have complete support for the full repertoire of conjoined diacritics in the IAST character set. Released under the GNU FreeFont or SIL Open Font License , respectively, such fonts may be freely shared and do not require the person reading or editing a document to purchase proprietary software to make use of its associated fonts. Ganges Uttar Pradesh : Bijnor , Fatehgarh , Kannauj , Hardoi , Bithoor , Kanpur , Lucknow ( Gomti tributary), Prayagraj , Mirzapur , Varanasi , Ghazipur , Ballia , Kasganj , Farrukhabad , Narora Bihar : Begusarai , Bhagalpur , Patna , Vaishali , Munger , Khagaria , Katihar Jharkhand : Sahibganj West Bengal : Murshidabad , Palashi , Nabadwip , Shantipur , Kolkata , Serampore , Chinsurah , Baranagar , Diamond Harbour , Haldia , Budge Budge , Howrah , Uluberia , Barrackpore Delhi : ( Yamuna ) tributary Rajshahi Division : Rajshahi , Pabna , Ishwardi Dhaka Division : Dhaka , Narayanganj , Gazipur , Munshiganj , Faridpur Chittagong Division : Chandpur , Noakhali 43,900 m /s (1,550,000 cu ft/s) The Ganges ( / ˈ ɡ æ n dʒ iː z / GAN -jeez ; in India: Ganga , / ˈ ɡ ʌ ŋ ɡ ɑː / GUNG -ah ; in Bangladesh: Padma , / ˈ p ʌ d m ə / PUD -mə )
6313-429: The bulk of its flow. In West Bengal state, India, a feeder canal taking off from its right bank diverts 50% of its flow southwards, artificially connecting it to the Hooghly River . The Ganges continues into Bangladesh, its name changing to the Padma . It is then joined by the Jamuna , the lower stream of the Brahmaputra , and eventually the Meghna , forming the major estuary of the Ganges Delta , and emptying into
6420-406: The city walls were made of wood. These are thought to be the wooden palisades identified during the excavation of Patna. "At the confluence of the Ganges and of another river is situated Palibothra, in length 80, and in breadth 15 stadia . It is in the shape of a parallelogram, surrounded by a wooden wall pierced with openings through which arrows may be discharged. In front is a ditch, which serves
6527-412: The city was rebuilt afterwards. A third possible contributing factor is deliberate destruction by invading Hunas in the early 500s. A thick layer of ashes found at the 80-pillar hall at Kumrahar suggests that the building may have been destroyed by fire, possibly corroborating this theory. Pataliputra seems to have recovered somewhat by the early Pala period. The Khalimpur plate of Dharmapala , from
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#17327649322496634-460: The consumer edition since XP. This is limited to characters in the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP). Characters are searchable by Unicode character name, and the table can be limited to a particular code block. More advanced third-party tools of the same type are also available (a notable freeware example is BabelMap ). macOS provides a "character palette" with much the same functionality, along with searching by related characters, glyph tables in
6741-536: The convention is to typeset the IT sounds as capital letters. For the most part, IAST is a subset of ISO 15919 that merges the retroflex (underdotted) liquids with the vocalic ones ( ringed below ) and the short close-mid vowels with the long ones. The following seven exceptions are from the ISO standard accommodating an extended repertoire of symbols to allow transliteration of Devanāgarī and other Indic scripts , as used for languages other than Sanskrit. The most convenient method of inputting romanized Sanskrit
6848-408: The diseases, and order them food, drink, and medicines. When Xuanzang visited Pataliputra in the year 637, he found the city in ruins. He wrote that the old city had been completely deserted for many years, and all that was left was a small walled town by the bank of the Ganges, home to no more than about 1,000 people. According to Rajeshwar Prasad Singh, this small town had probably been built after
6955-477: The dome was visible, and even that was in precarious condition, he wrote. Of the Kukkuṭārāma monastery on the southeast side of the city, only the foundation remained. Pataliputra's decline had probably begun well before Xuanzang's time. At least at Kumrahar, archaeological evidence seems to suggest a gradual decline beginning in the 300s, with fewer and less elaborate structures between this period and c. 600. After that, there are no traces of human activity for
7062-439: The early 800s, gives a vivid description of Pataliputra as a river port and royal encampment. It describes the crowds of boats, elephants, horses, and "limitless foot-soldiers of all the kings of Jambudvīpa assembled to render homage" to Dharmapala. B. P. Sinha interpreted this inscription to mean that Pataliputra was Dharmapala's capital, but A. S. Altekar disputed this, saying that the inscription only refers to Pataliputra as
7169-407: The earthly continents. There, the divine waters break up, with one stream, the Bhagirathi, flowing down one petal into Bharatavarsha (India) as the Ganges. It is Shiva , however, among the major deities of the Hindu pantheon, who appears in the most widely known version of the avatarana story. Told and retold in the Ramayana , the Mahabharata and several Puranas , the story begins with
7276-446: The end of the 18th century, the course of the lower Brahmaputra changed dramatically, significantly altering its relationship with the Ganges. In 1787 there was a great flood on the Teesta River , which at the time was a tributary of the Ganges-Padma River. The flood of 1787 caused the Teesta to undergo a sudden change course, an avulsion , shifting east to join the Brahmaputra and causing the Brahmaputra to shift its course south, cutting
7383-457: The foot of Gangotri Glacier at Gomukh , at an elevation of 4,356 m (14,291 ft) and was mythologically referred to as residing in the matted locks of Shiva ; symbolically Tapovan, which is a meadow of ethereal beauty at the feet of Mount Shivling, just 5 km (3.1 mi) away. Although many small streams comprise the headwaters of the Ganges, the six longest and their five confluences are considered sacred. The six headstreams are
7490-407: The global burial of organic carbon . The Ganges Delta , formed mainly by the large, sediment-laden flows of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers, is the world's largest delta, at about 64,000 km (25,000 sq mi). It stretches 400 km (250 mi) along the Bay of Bengal . Only the Amazon and Congo rivers have a greater average discharge than the combined flow of the Ganges,
7597-400: The largest of which merge with other large rivers before themselves joining the Bay of Bengal. But this current channel pattern was not always the case. Over time the rivers in Ganges Delta have often changed course , sometimes altering the network of channels in significant ways. Before the late 12th century the Bhagirathi-Hooghly distributary was the main channel of the Ganges and the Padma
7704-740: The latter's central location in the empire. It became the capital of major powers in ancient India, such as the Shishunaga Empire ( c. 413 –345 BCE), Nanda Empire ( c. 460 or 420 – c. 325 BCE ), the Maurya Empire ( c. 320 –180 BCE), the Gupta Empire ( c. 320 –550 CE), and the Pala Empire ( c. 750 –1200 CE). During the Maurya period (see below), it became one of
7811-423: The locality of Langalbandh , is still considered sacred by Hindus. Near the confluence is a major early historic site called Wari-Bateshwar . In the rainy season of 1809, the lower channel of the Bhagirathi, leading to Kolkata, had been entirely shut; but in the following year it opened again and was nearly of the same size as the upper channel but both however suffered a considerable diminution, owing probably to
7918-428: The magnificence of Ecbatana is to be compared with them. (...) In the parks, tame peacocks and pheasants are kept." - Aelian in " De Natura Animalium " Under Ashoka, most of wooden structure of Pataliputra palace may have been gradually replaced by stone. Ashoka was known to be a great builder, who may have even imported craftsmen from abroad to build royal monuments. Pataliputra palace shows decorative influences of
8025-476: The main flow of the Ganges to shift to the southeast and the Padma River. By the end of the 18th century, the Padma had become the main distributary of the Ganges. One result of this shift to the Padma was that the Ganges now joined the Meghna and Brahmaputra rivers before emptying into the Bay of Bengal. The present confluence of the Ganges and Meghna was formed very recently, about 150 years ago. Also near
8132-514: The mountains which stretch along the northern frontier, traverse the level country, and not a few of these, after uniting with each other, fall into the river called the Ganges. Now this river, which at its source is 30 stadia broad, flows from north to south, and empties its waters into the ocean forming the eastern boundary of the Gangaridai , a nation which possesses a vast force of the largest-sized elephants." (Diodorus II.37). In 1951
8239-458: The nectar of the gods which then plunges to the earth and waters it with sustenance. In the Vaishnava version of the myth, the heavenly waters were then a river called Vishnupadi ( Sanskrit : "from the foot of Vishnu"). As Vishnu as the avatar Vamana completes his celebrated three strides —of earth, sky, and heaven— he stubs his toe on the vault of heaven, punches open a hole and releases
8346-466: The new communication opened below the Jalanggi on the upper channel. Discharge of the Ganges River at Farakka Barrage (period from 1998/01/01 to 2023/12/31): The first European traveller to mention the Ganges was the Greek envoy Megasthenes (ca. 350–290 BCE). He did so several times in his work Indica : "India, again, possesses many rivers both large and navigable, which, having their sources in
8453-403: The old city's destruction, as opposed to being a surviving part of the old town. Xuanzang wrote that most of the city's old historic buildings had been destroyed, and only their foundation walls remained. One building he noted in particular was an old stupa that was said to be the first of the 84,000 stupas built by Ashoka. Its foundation had sunken into the ground so that only the ornamental top of
8560-749: The opportunity to install and use the sa-itrans-iast input handler which provides complete support for the ISO 15919 standard for the romanization of Indic languages as part of the m17n library. Or user can use some Unicode characters in Latin-1 Supplement, Latin Extended-A, Latin Extended Additional and Combining Diarcritical Marks block to write IAST. Only certain fonts support all the Latin Unicode characters essential for
8667-420: The outlying [......] and whatever other relatives of mine (there are). (N). These Mahamatras of morality [......] whether one is eager for morality [......]. (0). For the following purpose has this rescript on morality been written [......]. -Major Rock Edict No.5, Girnar, E. Hultzsch translation During the reign of Emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE, it was one of the world's largest cities, with
8774-479: The plains first to the confluence with the Yamuna at Prayag and then to Varanasi, and eventually to Ganges Sagar (Ganges delta), where she meets the ocean, sinks to the netherworld, and saves the sons of Sagara. In honour of Bhagirath's pivotal role in the avatarana , the source stream of the Ganges in the Himalayas is named Bhagirathi, (Sanskrit, "of Bhagiratha"). As the Ganges had descended from heaven to earth in
8881-533: The present location. Since Pataliputra derived a lot of its prosperity from river-based commerce, being separated from the river probably dampened its economy. A general decline in international trade toward the end of the Gupta period would have had a similar effect. A catastrophic flood likely also devastated the city at some point in the late 500s. A later Jain work, the Titlhogali Painniya , records
8988-445: The purpose of defence and of a sewer for the city." - Strabo , "Geographia" Aelian , although not expressly quoting Megasthenes nor mentioning Pataliputra, described Indian palaces as superior in splendor to Persia 's Susa or Ecbatana : "In the royal residences in India where the greatest of the kings of that country live, there are so many objects for admiration that neither Memnon 's city of Susa with all its extravagance, nor
9095-444: The region. The seasonality of flow is so acute it can cause both drought and floods . Bangladesh, in particular, frequently experiences drought during the dry season and regularly suffers extreme floods during the monsoon. In the Ganges Delta, many large rivers come together, both merging and bifurcating in a complicated network of channels . The two largest rivers, the Ganges and Brahmaputra, both split into distributary channels,
9202-471: The right side of the keyboard instead of Ctrl+Alt combination). Many systems provide a way to select Unicode characters visually. ISO/IEC 14755 refers to this as a screen-selection entry method . Microsoft Windows has provided a Unicode version of the Character Map program (find it by hitting ⊞ Win + R then type charmap then hit ↵ Enter ) since version NT 4.0 – appearing in
9309-636: The river Ganges begins at the confluence of the Bhagirathi and Alaknanda rivers in the town of Devprayag in the Garhwal division of the Indian state of Uttarakhand. The Bhagirathi is considered to be the source in Hindu culture and mythology, although the Alaknanda is longer, and therefore, hydrologically the source stream. The headwaters of the Alakananda are formed by snow melt from peaks such as Nanda Devi , Trisul , and Kamet . The Bhagirathi rises at
9416-409: The river near Varanasi are more than 100 times the Indian government's official limit. The Ganga Action Plan , an environmental initiative to clean up the river, has been considered a failure which is variously attributed to corruption , a lack of will in the government, poor technical expertise, poor environmental planning , and a lack of support from religious authorities. The upper phase of
9523-414: The river's source is usually assumed to be the source of the Bhagirathi River, Gangotri Glacier at Gomukh and its mouth being the mouth of the Meghna River on the Bay of Bengal. Sometimes the source of the Ganges is considered to be at Haridwar, where its Himalayan headwater streams debouch onto the Gangetic Plain. In some cases, the length of the Ganges is given by its Hooghly River distributary, which
9630-567: The river, however, can achieve the same results by bathing in any nearby body of water, which, for the true believer, takes on all the attributes of the Ganges. The karunasiri is an old theme in Hinduism with a number of different versions of the story. In the Vedic version, Indra , the Lord of Svarga ( Heaven ) slays the celestial serpent, Vritra , releasing the celestial liquid, soma , or
9737-477: The river, whose course has been roughly southwest until this point, now begins to flow southeast through the plains of northern India. The Ganges river follows a 900 km (560 mi) arching course passing through the cities of Bijnor , Kannauj, Farukhabad , and Kanpur . Along the way it is joined by the Ramganga , which contributes an average annual flow of about 495 m /s (17,500 cu ft/s) to
9844-490: The river. The Ganges joins the 1,444 km (897 mi) long River Yamuna at the Triveni Sangam at Prayagraj (previously Allahabad), a confluence considered holy in Hinduism. At their confluence the Yamuna is larger than the Ganges contributing about 58.5% of the combined flow, with an average flow of 2,948 m /s (104,100 cu ft/s). Now flowing east, the river meets the 400 km (250 mi) long Tamsa River (also called Tons ), which flows north from
9951-486: The romanisation of all Indic scripts , is an extension of IAST. The IAST letters are listed with their Devanagari equivalents and phonetic values in IPA , valid for Sanskrit , Hindi and other modern languages that use Devanagari script, but some phonological changes have occurred: * H is actually glottal , not velar . Some letters are modified with diacritics : Long vowels are marked with an overline (often called
10058-554: The same Ganga." In late May or early June every year, Hindus celebrate the karunasiri and the rise of the Ganges from earth to heaven. The day of the celebration, Ganga Dashahara , the Dashami (tenth day) of the waxing moon of the Hindu calendar month Jyeshtha , brings throngs of bathers to the banks of the river. A dip in the Ganges on this day is said to rid the bather of ten sins (dasha = Sanskrit "ten"; hara = to destroy) or ten lifetimes of sins. Those who cannot journey to
10165-559: The same place was about 180 m /s (6,400 cu ft/s), in 1997. The hydrologic cycle in the Ganges basin is governed by the Southwest Monsoon . About 84% of the total rainfall occurs in the monsoon from June to September. Consequently, streamflow in the Ganges is highly seasonal. The average dry season to monsoon discharge ratio is about 1:6, as measured at Hardinge Bridge . This strong seasonal variation underlies many problems of land and water resource development in
10272-471: The size of the river's drainage basin. The basin covers parts of four countries, India, Nepal , China , and Bangladesh; eleven Indian states, Himachal Pradesh , Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh , Bihar, Jharkhand , Punjab , Haryana, Rajasthan , West Bengal, and the Union Territory of Delhi . The Ganges basin, including the delta but not the Brahmaputra or Meghna basins,
10379-416: The state of West Bengal. The discharge of the Ganges also differs by source. Frequently, discharge is described for the mouth of the Meghna River, thus combining the Ganges with the Brahmaputra and Meghna. This results in a total average annual discharge of about 38,000 m /s (1,300,000 cu ft/s), or 42,470 m /s (1,500,000 cu ft/s). In other cases the average annual discharges of
10486-404: The story of the avatarana is told at Shraddha ceremonies for the deceased in Hinduism, and Ganges water is used in Vedic rituals after death . Among all hymns devoted to the Ganges, there are none more popular than the ones expressing the worshipper's wish to breathe his last surrounded by her waters. The Gangashtakam expresses this longing fervently: O Mother! ... Necklace adorning
10593-550: The then unformed Indian Ocean. The subcontinent's subsequent collision with the Eurasian Plate and subduction under it, gave rise to the Himalayas, the planet's highest mountain ranges. In the former seabed immediately south of the emerging Himalayas, plate movement created a vast trough , which, having gradually been filled with sediment borne by the Indus and its tributaries and the Ganges and its tributaries, now forms
10700-487: The transliteration of Indic scripts according to the IAST and ISO 15919 standards. For example, the Arial , Tahoma and Times New Roman font packages that come with Microsoft Office 2007 and later versions also support precomposed Unicode characters like ī . Many other text fonts commonly used for book production may be lacking in support for one or more characters from this block. Accordingly, many academics working in
10807-454: The vicinity of modern Patna. Excavations early in the 20th century around Patna revealed clear evidence of large fortification walls, including reinforcing wooden trusses. In the Sanskrit language, "Pāṭali-" refers to the pāṭalī tree ( Bignonia suaveolens ), while "-putrá" (पुत्र) means "son". One traditional etymology holds that the city was named after the plant. Indeed, according to
10914-460: The vicinity of the village towards the end of the Buddha's life; this generally agrees with archaeological evidence showing urban development occurring in the area no earlier than the 3rd or 4th Century BCE. In 303 BCE, Greek historian and ambassador Megasthenes mentioned Pataliputra as a city in his work Indika. Diodorus , quoting Iambulus mention that the king of Pataliputra had a " great love for
11021-510: The wooden palisade over several kilometers, but stone fortifications have not been found. IAST The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST ) is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that emerged during the 19th century from suggestions by Charles Trevelyan , William Jones , Monier Monier-Williams and other scholars, and formalised by
11128-541: The worlds! Banner rising to heaven! I ask that I may leave of this body on your banks, Drinking your water, rolling in your waves, Remembering your name, bestowing my gaze upon you. No place along her banks is more longed for at the moment of death by Hindus than Varanasi, the Great Cremation Ground, or Mahashmshana . Those who are lucky enough to die in Varanasi, are cremated on the banks of
11235-402: The worst dry season the Ganges flow would be around 1,400 to 1,600 m /s (49,000 to 57,000 cu ft/s), thus leaving 280 to 420 m /s (9,900 to 14,800 cu ft/s) for the then East Pakistan. East Pakistan objected and a protracted dispute ensued. In 1996 a 30-year treaty was signed with Bangladesh. The terms of the agreement are complicated, but in essence, they state that if
11342-467: Was also called Kusumapura (city of flowers). The Pataliputra is mentioned in early Buddhist text Mahaparinibbana Sutta but no mention of Pataliputra in written sources prior to the early Jain and Buddhist texts (the Pali Canon and Āgamas ), where it appears as the village of Pataligrama and is omitted from a list of major cities in the region. Early Buddhist sources report a city being built in
11449-482: Was only a minor spill-channel. The main flow of the river reached the sea not via the modern Hooghly River but rather by the Adi Ganga . Between the 12th and 16th centuries, the Bhagirathi-Hooghly and Padma channels were more or less equally significant. After the 16th century, the Padma grew to become the main channel of the Ganges. It is thought that the Bhagirathi-Hooghly became increasingly choked with silt, causing
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