SNANA
- This is the Hindu ritual of bathing in
sacred waters.
- As the most sacred of rivers, bathing
in the ganga takes an archetypical role in the
charter of this ritual performance.
- There are very few ritual acts that
are considered more powerful or more auspicious than bathing in the ganges
at Kashi.
- Bathing can perform numerous functions;
one of the primary functions is the expiation of sins.
- It
can also serve in a salvific function carrying the dead from this shore to the
next.
- The water itself
is worshiped. The Ganges is seen as a mother figure, the river of heaven, and
a goddess in her own right.
- These
waters are liquid power-creative, destructive, cleansing. The Ganges is liquid
life. She is liquid knowledge. She is liquid energy.