A sweeping, interdisciplinary history of the world's third-largest river, a potent symbol across South Asia and the Hindu diaspora Originating in the Himalayas and flowing into the Bay of Bengal, the Ganges is India's most important and sacred river. In this unprecedented work, historian Sudipta Sen tells the story of the Ganges, from the communities that arose on its banks to the merchants that navigated its waters, and the way it came to occupy center stage in the history and culture of the subcontinent. Sen begins his chronicle in prehistoric India, tracing the river's first settlers, its myths of origin in the Hindu tradition, and its significance during the ascendancy of popular Buddhism. In the following centuries, Indian empires, Central Asian regimes, European merchants, the British Empire, and the Indian nation-state all shaped the identity and ecology of the river. Weaving together geography, environmental politics, and religious history, Sen offers in this lavishly illustrated volume a remarkable portrait of one of the world's largest and most densely populated river basins.

Travel along the shores of the Ganges and glimpse the past and future of the people who live there.

The Ganges is one of the most complex yet fascinating river systems in the world. The basin is characterized by a high degree of heterogeneity from climatic, hydrological, geomorphological, cultural, environmental and socio-economic perspectives. More than 500 million people are directly or indirectly dependent upon the Ganges River Basin, which spans China, Nepal, India and Bangladesh. While there are many books covering one aspect of the Ganges, ranging from hydrology to cultural significance, this book is unique in presenting a comprehensive inter-disciplinary overview of the key issues and challenges facing the region. Contributors from the three main riparian nations assess the status and trends of water resources, including the Himalayas, groundwater, pollution, floods, drought and climate change. They describe livelihood systems in the basin, and the social, economic, geopolitical and institutional constraints, including transboundary disputes, to achieving productive, sustainable and equitable water access. Management of the main water-use sectors and their inter-linkages are reviewed, as well as the sustainability and trade-offs in conservation of natural systems and resource development such as for hydropower or agriculture.

‘Slowly Down the Ganges’ is seen as a vintage Newby masterpiece, alongside ‘A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush’ and ‘Love and War in the Apennines’. Told with Newby's self-deprecating humour and wry attention to detail, this is a classic of the genre and a window into an enchanting piece of history.

‘The Ganges: Cultural, Economic, and Environmental Importance’ is a geographical, cultural, economic, and environmental interpretation of the Ganga River. The Ganga River originates from Gaumukh- situated in the high Himalaya, flows through the world’s biggest fertile alluvial plain, and inlets into the Bay of Bengal at Ganga Sagar. It makes a unique natural and cultural landscape and is believed to be the holiest river of India. The Hindus called it ‘Mother Ganga’ and worship it. The towns/cities, situated on its bank, are world-famous and are known as the highland and valley pilgrimages. The water of the Ganga is pious, and the Hindus use it on different occasions while performing the rituals and customs. This book is unique because no previous study which presents a complete and comprehensive geographical description of the Ganga has been composed. This book presents the historical and cultural significance of the Ganga and its tributaries. Empirical, archival, and observation methods were applied to conduct this study. There are a total of 10 chapters in this book such as ‘Introduction’, ‘the Ganga Basin’, ‘Geography of the Ganga Basin’, ‘the Ganges System: Ganga and its Tributaries’, ‘Ganga between Gaumukh and Uttarkashi’, ‘the Major Cultural Towns’, ‘Major Fairs and Festivals’, ‘Economic Significance of the Ganga’, ‘Environmental Issues’, and ‘Conclusions’. The contents of the book are enriched by 89 figures, 15 tables, and substantial citations and references.

'A Bend in the Ganges is one of the three best novels of 1964.' - E.M. Forster India, 1939. Gian, a Gandhian pacifist, commits a murder; Debi-dayal, an ardent revolutionary, is caught while setting fire to a British plane. Both men are sent to the Andamans penal colony. In the beehive life of the prison, they work in opposite camps-pro-British and anti-British. During World War II, when the Japanese take over the islands, all the convicts suddenly find themselves free. Gian and Debi manage to return to India only to get sucked into the violence of Partition. An epic saga of a nation in transition, A Bend in the Ganges, now available in a stunning new edition, depicts the cataclysmic events leading up to Partition and the conflict that arises between ideologies of violence and non-violence.

India is killing the Ganges, and the Ganges in turn is killing India. The waterway that has nourished more people than any on earth for three millennia is now so polluted with sewage and toxic waste that it has become a menace to human and animal health. Victor Mallet traces the holy river from source to mouth, and from ancient times to the present day, to find that the battle to rescue what is arguably the world's most important river is far from lost. As one Hindu sage told the author in Rishikesh on the banks of the upper Ganges (known to Hindus as the goddess Ganga): "If Ganga dies, India dies. If Ganga thrives, India thrives. The lives of 500 million people is no small thing." Drawing on four years of first-hand reporting and detailed historical and scientific research, Mallet delves into the religious, historical, and biological mysteries of the Ganges, and explains how Hindus can simultaneously revere and abuse their national river. Starting at the Himalayan glacier where the Ganges emerges pure and cold from an icy cave known as the "Cow's Mouth" and ending in the tiger-infested mangrove swamps of the Bay of Bengal, Mallet encounters everyone from the naked holy men who worship the river, to the engineers who divert its waters for irrigation, the scientists who study its bacteria, and Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist prime minister, who says he wants to save India's mother-river for posterity. Can they succeed in saving the river from catastrophe - or is it too late?