Today it’s a most beautiful Sunday of my life on Ganges. It’s a cloudy day. There were rains in night. I am on ‘cruise on Ganges’ moving south and east towards Kolkata. There is vast expanse of mesmerising Ganga or Hooghly river. Both sides of River have history of last 3000 years of Civilisation.
I am experiencing a very diffferent feeling. The knowledge creation, knowledge Abstraction and knowledge application for better Humanity has happened here thru these waters. From Budha to Mahaveer or the sages and authors of Vedas / Upanishads all flown thru these waters or banks of these Ganges. Varanasi to Pataliputra to VarDhaman nagar have witnesssed the growth and decline of Humanity.
During last 6 hundred years, the banks of Ganges have seen the Portuguese coming for trading in early 1500s, followed by British, followed by Dutch, followed by French and then followed by Danish. Five European cultures and their knowledge also helped this region to grow.
The banks of Ganga learnt the design of 46 alphabets of Devanagari script which made the documentation of knowledge possible. It helped in developing sophisticated algorithms of constructing words and sentences, which we called Sanskrit Language. It was to document the ‘Sanskriti’ (संस्कृति) thru out the human development process. It saw the understanding of Farming and clothing. It saw the innovation of Converting a roadside plant with fibre like fruit to convert into threads. Then it started wiring threads into weaving which then forms the basis of Clothing. These clothing then started innovating with colours, prints and embroidery. The 700 Threads per inch became finest form of artistry and many such innovations have come around Ganga and continuing.
