Our human civilisation have a very close relationship with rivers. Most of the ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, India were based next to the Euphrates, Nile, Saraswati, Yangtze, Indus, Mekong, etc. And when the river died, many of the civilisations died as well, such as the Indus Valley Civilisation. It is no wonder that most of the river were considered to be divine, giving life to humans, animals and plants. Nile was considered to be ruled by(Hapi) Hapy, a river god. A hymn to him goes like this
Homage to thee, O Hapi.
Thou appearest in this land
And thou comest in peace to make Egypt to live.
Thou art the Hidden One
And the guide of the darkness
On the day when it is thy pleasure to lead the same.
Thou art the waterer of the fields which Ra has created,
Thou givest life unto all animals,
Thou makest all the land to drink unceasingly
As thou descendest on thy way from the heavens.
Now that just shows how venerated he was!
Then we have Ganga, Jamuna, Brahmaputra, Saraswati, Narbada, all river goddesses or gods.
Here's an example of how somebody is addressing Ganga.
I come to you as a child to his mother.
I come as an orphan to you, moist with love.
I come without refuge to you,
giver of sacred rest.
I come a fallen man to you, uplifter of all.
I come undone by disease to you,
the perfect physician.
I come, my heart dry with thirst, to you, ocean of sweet wine.
Do with me whatever you will.
EUPHRATES was a River-God of Assyria in west Asia (modern Turkey and Iraq), and as we can see in the enclosed story, Baiji was the Goddess of the Yangtze. And she was killed by man.
My river goddess was killed. My goddess has been stopped by walls in the shape of dam's, she has been diverted by canals, she has been polluted by man who dumped chemicals into it. She has been made stinky by man dumping his feces into it. She has been made sterile by so many pollutants that fish literally gasp for breath in it. Her womb is drying up because of the glaciers melting away. My goddess has turned from a silt laden, life giving river into a foul smelling, full of sludge geographical entity. My goddess's sea mouths are retreating in the face of ever rising sea water. Once my goddess dies, the river dies. When the river dies, man dies.
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
China dolphin believed extinct
By
Hannah Belcher
In Video
Click to watch Al Jazeera's report [AFP]They call her the Goddess of the Yangtze - the Baiji dolphin has navigated China's longest river for millions of years. According to Chinese legend, this prehistoric freshwater mammal was a river god. It hasn't been seen since 2002. In December last year a concerned group of international scientists searched the Yangtze for six weeks ... using visual and acoustic surveys. They covered the dolphin's nearly 1,700km range, stretching from Yichang to Shanghai. August Pfluger, chief executive of the the Baiji Org Foundation, said: "We didn't see any animals in the river. "And if there are maybe one or two or three left in the river, I don't think, we don't believe, they have any chance to survive." An international team of marine biologists announced the Baiji is likely to be extinct and could be the first dolphin or whale to be wiped out by human activity. China's economic growth has had a huge impact on the country's biggest waterway. Marine biologists believe the nearly blind Baiji has fallen victim to the increased shipping, overfishing, development and pollution. Scientists hope the Baiji's disappearance is a major warning sign to governments to act quickly to save other threatened mammals, especially in shallow waters. "We have to rethink our fresh water strategies, we have to find a way towards a sustainable way to treat the ocean and of course the fresh water resources in general," Pfluger said.
"And I think we should take the loss of the Baiji as a warning signal to really go ahead with these issues." Many who live along the Yangtze river and revered the Baiji dolphin, say a part of China's soul has gone forever.
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