The Art of Spirituality

         Once upon a time there was king called Sagara who was so jobless that he had Sixty thousand Son’s. One day he thought of performing a ritual for the betterment of his kingdom, one of the things that he needed to complete the rituals included a sacrificial Horse which was stolen by lord Indra who envied Sagara for his Stamina I guess, so Sagara sent his sixty thousand son’s on his earth in search of a horse. eventually they found a horse standing next to sage Kapila who was a powerful man and mistook him as the horse thief so they started insulting the sage and when the sage opened his eyes with anger all the sixty thousand son’s were burnt to death. since then the souls of the son’s of the Sagara started wandering as ghost as the final rites had not been carried out. After Bhagiratha, one of the relative of Sagara learnt about this so he prayed to Lord Brahma and requested him to sent Ganga on earth so that Ganga’s water can cleanse the souls of Sagara’s son’s and send them to Heaven.

         Lord Brahma agreed and ordered Ganga to descend down to Earth, Feeling offended Ganga grew out with rage and decided to flood entire Earth as she fell from heaven, witnessing this Bhagiratha prayed to Lord Shiva for justice and requested him to save humans from this situation. Lord Shiva casually captured Ganga around his hairs and started letting her down in small streams and finally placed her down on earth to clear the unfortunate soul’s.This is how Ganga was born according to Indian mythology.

  The birth of Ganga not only +1ed the list of 32,000 Indian God’s but also started an everlasting tradition. A tradition that has now become the face of India,  face of faith & face of Spirituality.The Ganga Aarti is a must see event in the list of ‘things to see in India’. Its one of the most oldest and flamboyant event that can be witnessed around 1000’s of Ghats in the entire India. Varanasi, Haridwar & Rishikesh are famous destination to witness this ritual.

          My trip to Varanasi gave to a chance to perceive this unique ceremony. We had an option to choose between 100 ghats of Varanasi to view this event since Ganga Aarti takes place at every ghat at same time and is followed by same procedure.We were directed toward the popular Dashawamedha Ghat, Ganga Aarti starts at 18.30 IST and ends by 19.30 IST. The entire ceremony is divided into various sections which are dedicated to Goddess Ganga and others related to her. The ritual is performed by the Brahmin Poojari’s or Priest of temples and each Ghat has its own set of Poojari’s who are dedicated to Aarti at that Ghat.

         The Aarti is backed up by holy songs and chants which are very pleasant to hear, at Dashawamedha ghat the lead singer is Vijay Shankar who resembles the famous Bollywood singer Sonu Nigam and is quiet good at his job. The Aarti is performed in a choreographed manner and looks more like a dance, thanks to the perfect Co-ordination among the Poojari’s. Huge burning Lamps are circled around in a clockwise manner facing the Ganga while chanting holy mantras and after the Aarti is completed devotees cup their hands around the flames of Lamp and touch it to their foreheads to get the blessing from Goddess Ganga. God Shiva is also worshiped during the rituals you know why !