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The 'Sacred Rivers': Simon Reeve reveals the spiritual side of the Ganges, the Nile and the Yangtze

Photo: rlsbb.com

'In a new three-part series for BBC Two, belief, history, ecology and travelogue combine as adventurer Simon Reeve discovers stories from parts of the world that cannot be grasped without understanding the vast influence of their rivers. This series demonstrates that the world’s most sacred rivers don’t just flow through countries, they define them.'

“Outside a small hillside shrine at Gish Abay in the lush highlands of Ethiopia a large crowd had gathered under the sweltering midday sun. They were waiting patiently by a shack with a tin roof for Orthodox priests to bless them with water from an unimpressive little stream. But as it dribbles through a grassy meadow and tumbles down a rocky hill, hundreds of other trickles and torrents join it, and the stream is transformed into the mighty Nile.

I was visiting Gish Abay, revered by millions as the source of the world’s longest river, while filming Sacred Rivers, a new TV series for which I travelled the length of the Nile, the Yangtze and the Ganges.

The three journeys were rollicking adventures and an opportunity to explore remote and magnificent areas of the world, while having my brain fed with stories about the cultures, religions and countries that have emerged along some of our greatest rivers. They were also eye-opening experiences and often extremely moving.

Hundreds of pilgrims had travelled from across Ethiopia to the source of the Nile, either to give thanks for the holy waters, or to seek good fortune or healing for a depressing list of ailments. There was both wailing and joy. One young woman told me, with the certainty of the pious, that her kidney infection had just been cured by contact with the water.

The shrine at the source is underwhelming, but the veneration of the water made absolute sense to me. The Nile is life-giving. In the arid regions of north-eastern Africa, human existence would be virtually impossible without it. The same is true of the Ganges and Yangtze. Rivers have helped to shape the development of human civilisation. What could be more normal than to thank and praise God or the gods for the magical, mysterious gift of a river that has nurtured and sustained vast numbers of humans for aeons of time?

 

The Ganges: India’s holiest river – and its new leisure class

Photo: totalbhakti.com

From the foothills of the Himalayas I travelled more than 1,000 miles along the Ganges, the holiest river in India, to the Indian Ocean. I began my journey at the small mountain town of Devprayag with a blessing from a dope-smoking holy man who has renounced worldly goods to live a simple life of contemplation in a cave close to the river. His mobile phone only rang a couple of times while we filmed with him.

From Devprayag I travelled south-west, white-water rafting along the river. The Ganges is regarded as a living goddess by Hindus, but in modern India it’s not just seen as something to be worshipped. There are now around 250  million middle-class Indians, and on their holidays they’re discovering the joys of rafting, boating, and lazing around on pristine Himalayan river beaches.

My Ganges trip took me through a stunning region of India, and forced me to confront my own difficult relationship with the country. I’ve travelled extensively in India on previous TV journeys, and I’ve been deeply affected by the poverty and suffering that I’ve seen. But by the time I arrived in Rishikesh, a yoga centre ever since the Beatles visited, I felt I was seeing the India of brochures: the India that tie-dyed backpackers with blissed-out smiles make all the fuss about. When someone suggested a stay in a simple ashram I was an easy convert.

Farther downriver, at the point where the Ganges enters the plains of northern India, I saw my first arti prayer ceremony, with priests and worshippers gathering on the banks of the Ganges to pay homage to the great goddess.

The next day we travelled another 200 miles to Varanasi, the holiest Hindu city, a place of faith for 30 centuries. Hindus believe that to die within the city or to have one’s ashes scattered in the river here is to escape the cycle of reincarnation and achieve eternal liberation. Dozens of bodies were burning next to the river. It was one of the most astonishing places I have visited.

But my favourite stop on this journey was farther east. Abhra took me to a poor, remote village where locals have built a large statue with a passing resemblance to Sachin Tendulkar, cricketer and national hero. The villagers have even recorded a devotional song to their new demigod.

Yangtze: A river shaped by an emperor’s dragons

Photo: vodomir.ua

As the ocean-going freighter bore down on me relentlessly, like an arthritic rhino, I began to wonder whether the busy river port of Wuhan in central China had been the ideal place to take a dip in the powerful Yangtze river.

Swimming around close to shore with a local club in Wuhan, I had been carried into the main Yangtze shipping lane by both the current and the mad idea that I could emulate the antics of Chairman Mao, who famously swam across the river in Wuhan, and used it as a piece of Putinesque macho propaganda to support his quasi-religious right to rule the nation.

As I pottered along, dodging ships that use the Yangtze to travel hundreds of miles inland, a giant block of driftwood hammered into my legs below the murky surface. That encouraged me to summon a burst of energy. I hauled myself to the far side of the river and crawled out next to a ferry. “There are easier ways across,” shouted one passenger.

I relished my journeys along the Nile and Ganges, but my trip along the Yangtze was a real revelation. My travels in China have been limited. I was refused access to the country while following the Tropic of Cancer for a TV series a few years ago. So following the Yangtze was my first real opportunity to see inside the new superpower, and learn a little more about what the Chinese think and believe.

I started my journey at the first bend in the river in the far south west of China, near the old city of Lijiang, with a pretty heart dating back to the fifth century that reminded me of Bruges. At the first bend a geological quirk means the Yangtze, which is heading south and out of China, hits hard limestone mountains, turns back on itself and flows east across the country, taking water and life to hundreds of millions of people.

According to legend, it was a mythical emperor who used an army of supernatural dragons to shape the geography here and turn the Yangtze. The local Naxi people, one of China’s many ethnic minorities, revere the river. Some even frown upon throwing stones into the fragile river.

I travelled east from Lijiang to a gorge close to the river that hides the Dazu rock carvings, some of the few religious artefacts in China not to have been destroyed during communist rule. There are more than 50,000 breathtaking statues hewn out of the rock at Dazu, some dating back to AD650.

Before this journey I shared the clichéd outsider’s view of China as a soulless place of production lines. But the Dazu statues are a stunning representation of an ancient belief system stretching back thousands of years. The teachings of Taoism, Buddhism, and the philosopher Confucius are depicted in the Dazu rock carvings.

East from Lijiang I took a cruise and went to a new mega-church. As modern China searches for purpose and meaning that neither communism nor capitalism seems able to provide, there has been an astonishing revival of religion and belief. By some estimates there could be 400 million Christians in China in 30 years’ time, making it the biggest Christian nation on Earth. This stunning growth may help to guide the future of this great power, and could affect the direction all of us take in the future.

The Nile: The life-giving force at the heart of Africa

Photo: egyptdailynews.com

Two great tributaries form the world’s longest river: the White Nile running north from Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile, which begins in Ethiopia, where I began my journey from source to sea.

Think of the Nile and you invariably think of Egypt, pharaohs and pyramids. But it’s actually Ethiopia that provides almost 90 per cent of the total flow of the Nile.

With a BBC team I followed the Blue Nile from Gish Abay to the far north-west of Ethiopia, and the vast waters of beautiful Lake Tana, an inland sea covering more than 1,000 square miles, also considered by some to be the source of the Blue Nile.

Fishermen on the lake still use boats made from papyrus, which grows all the way along the river Nile and played a major role in all of the civilisations that grew up on its banks. A local boatbuilder called Girma let me paddle around in one of his new creations, and although papyrus boats are as stable as a bowl of jelly, to my amazement I managed to avoid a watery dip.

Across the lake I stopped at the 700-year-old monastery of Ura Kidane Mehret, one of dozens in the area. Inside, vivid wall paintings tell the story of Ethiopia’s spectacular religious heritage. According to legend a Lake Tana monastery was also the resting place of the Ark of the Covenant. Many Ethiopians believe it’s still in the country.

Heading north into Sudan, I saw the meeting point of the two Niles, the extraordinary spectacle of Khartoum’s ''whirling dervishes’’, and took a long drive into the desert to a region once home to the ancient Nile civilisation now known as Nubia.

Nubia developed along the river 5,000 years ago, and stretched from northern Sudan into southern Egypt. It is still little-known, but there are more pyramids in Sudan than in Egypt, and at Nuri there is a royal cemetery containing pyramids for 20 kings and 54 queens of the Nubian kingdom known as Kush.

Climbing the ruined side of the pyramid belonging to Taharqa, the greatest of all Kushite pharaohs – who ruled not only Sudan but the whole of Egypt as well – was a breathtaking experience.

Standing on top of Jebel Barkal, a lone 90m-high outcrop once considered the holiest site in Nubia partly because of its proximity to the Nile, I could see clearly why so many people worship our sacred rivers. Around me there was desert. Beyond the river, there was desert. But along the riverbanks, there was life.

Religions often developed out of a desire to explain and understand the forces of nature and creation. At Nuri there could not have been a clearer representation of the powerful gift of a river. “

See the original article:

Sacred Rivers: Simon Reeve on three great journeys - Telegraph

Watch the videos:

Sacred Rivers is a three-part series with Simon Reeve on BBC Two. The first programme will be on the Nile, followed by the Ganges, and concluding with the Yangtze.

Sacred Rivers With Simon Reeve | Season 1 Episode 1 | Full Episode - YouTube  The Nile

(Adventurer Simon Reeve travels from source to sea along the world's longest river, the Nile. His journey will take him from the holy source of the Blue Nile in the Ethiopian highlands, through the desert of Sudan and onwards through Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea. The life-giving river has forged some of our earliest civilisations and influenced some of our greatest religions. But with populations along its banks rising fast, Nile countries are demanding an ever-greater share of the sacred waters, threatening the stability of the entire region.)

Sacred Rivers With Simon Reeve | Season 1 Episode 2 | Full Episode - YouTube    The Ganges

(Simon Reeve follows the sacred waters of the Ganges from source to sea, exploring how India's economy has affected its religious culture.
Along the way he meets westerners in Rishikesh seeking spiritual enlightenment, takes a holy dip in the fast-flowing waters at Haridwar and discovers how the river is being severely polluted in Kanpur. While there Simon hears allegations that holy cows are secretly being slaughtered to fuel a booming leather trade. Finally, at Sagar Island in the Indian Ocean, Simon wonders how long India's age-old sacred river can survive its economic boom

Sacred Rivers With Simon Reeve | Season 1 Episode 3 | Full Episode - YouTube   The Yangtze

(Simon travels along the Yangtze, discovering a revival of religious faith in China.
Starting his journey at the first bend in the Yangtze, Simon follows the river to Dazu where he sees 50,000 ancient and exquisite rock carvings, some of the only religious artefacts not to have been destroyed under communist rule.)