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Ganges River

Hindus belief that the Ganges River is Mother Ganga seems very strange to me.  It is hard for me to understand that they worship an objuect such as a river.  The river symbolizes life and they make offerings to the river itself.  For Hinduism Mother Ganga is the center of their religious world.  The pilgrimages that the Hindu people take all involve a circular journey and involve the Ganges River.  These pilgrimages involve the idea of Mandala, circular world view, by having the pilgrims take a circular path to represent how their lives are not linear.  There are five different paths that pilgrims can take that have five different lengths.  In the two shortest pilgrimages there are 72 different shrines that are visited.  This number must symbolize an important concept in the Hindu religion.  Hinduism has very interesting ideas in the religion and the Ganges River is a large base of the religion and is as important as Vishnu, Shiva, and Brahma.