Haridwar
Haridwar is a city and municipal corporation in the Haridwar district of Uttarakhand, India. With a population of 228,832 in 2011, it is the second-largest city in the state and the largest in the district.
The city is situated on the right bank of the Ganges river, at the foothills of the Shivalik ranges. Haridwar is regarded as a holy place for Hindus, hosting important religious events and serving as a gateway to several prominent places of worship. Most significant of the events is the Kumbha Mela, which is celebrated every 12 years in Haridwar. During the Haridwar Kumbh Mela, millions of pilgrims, devotees, and tourists congregate in Haridwar to perform ritualistic bathing on the banks of the Ganges to wash away their sins to attain moksha.
According to Puranic legend, Haridwar, along with Ujjain, Nashik, and Prayag, is one of four sites where drops of amrita, the elixir of immortality, accidentally spilled over from a kumbha (pitcher) while being carried by the celestial bird Garuda during the Samudra Manthana, or the churning of the ocean of milk. Brahma Kund, the spot where the amrita fell, is believed to be located at Har ki Pauri (literally, "footsteps of the Lord") and is considered to be the most sacred ghat of Haridwar. It is also the primary centre of the Kanwar pilgrimage, in which millions of participants gather sacred water from the Ganges and carry it across hundreds of miles to dispense as offerings in Shiva shrines. Today, the city is developing beyond its religious importance with the fast-developing industrial estate of the State Industrial Development Corporation of Uttarakhand (SIDCUL), and the close by township of Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), as well as its affiliated ancillaries.
Haridwar presents a kaleidoscope of Indian culture and development. In sacred writings, it has been differently specified as Kapilsthan, Gangadwar and Mayapuri. It is additionally a passage for the Chota Char Dham (the four principal pilgrim destinations in Uttarakhand). Subsequently, Shaivites (devotees of Shiva) and Vaishavites (devotees of Vishnu) call the city Hardwar and Haridwar, respectively, Har meaning Shiva and Hari, Vishnu.
The modern name of the town has two spellings: Haridwar and Hardwar. Each of these names has its own connotation.
In Sanskrit, the liturgical language of Hinduism, Hari means "Vishnu", while dwar means "gateway". So, Haridwar translates to "The Gateway to Vishnu". It earns this name because it is typically the place where pilgrim's start their journey to visit a prominent temple of Vishnu – Badrinath.
Similarly, Hara could also mean "Shiva". Hence, Hardwar could stand for "Gateway to Shiva". Hardwar is also a typical place to start a pilgrim's journey in order to reach Mount Kailash, Kedarnath, the northernmost Jyotirlinga and one of the sites of the smaller Char Dham pilgrimage circuit – all important places for worship for Hindus.
According to legend, it was in Haridwar that Goddess Ganga descended when Shiva released the mighty river from the locks of his hair. The River Ganga, after flowing for 253 km from its source at Gaumukh at the edge of the Gangotri Glacier, enters the Gangetic Plain for the first time at Haridwar, which gave the city its ancient name, Gangadwára.
In the annotations to her poetical illustration Hurdwar, a Place of Hindoo Pilgrimage, Letitia Elizabeth Landon provides information on this name derivation, and also the story of the supposed origin of the 'River Ganges'. The accompanying plate is engraved from a painting by Samuel Prout
The city is situated on the right bank of the Ganges river, at the foothills of the Shivalik ranges. Haridwar is regarded as a holy place for Hindus, hosting important religious events and serving as a gateway to several prominent places of worship. Most significant of the events is the Kumbha Mela, which is celebrated every 12 years in Haridwar. During the Haridwar Kumbh Mela, millions of pilgrims, devotees, and tourists congregate in Haridwar to perform ritualistic bathing on the banks of the Ganges to wash away their sins to attain moksha.
According to Puranic legend, Haridwar, along with Ujjain, Nashik, and Prayag, is one of four sites where drops of amrita, the elixir of immortality, accidentally spilled over from a kumbha (pitcher) while being carried by the celestial bird Garuda during the Samudra Manthana, or the churning of the ocean of milk. Brahma Kund, the spot where the amrita fell, is believed to be located at Har ki Pauri (literally, "footsteps of the Lord") and is considered to be the most sacred ghat of Haridwar. It is also the primary centre of the Kanwar pilgrimage, in which millions of participants gather sacred water from the Ganges and carry it across hundreds of miles to dispense as offerings in Shiva shrines. Today, the city is developing beyond its religious importance with the fast-developing industrial estate of the State Industrial Development Corporation of Uttarakhand (SIDCUL), and the close by township of Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), as well as its affiliated ancillaries.
Haridwar presents a kaleidoscope of Indian culture and development. In sacred writings, it has been differently specified as Kapilsthan, Gangadwar and Mayapuri. It is additionally a passage for the Chota Char Dham (the four principal pilgrim destinations in Uttarakhand). Subsequently, Shaivites (devotees of Shiva) and Vaishavites (devotees of Vishnu) call the city Hardwar and Haridwar, respectively, Har meaning Shiva and Hari, Vishnu.
The modern name of the town has two spellings: Haridwar and Hardwar. Each of these names has its own connotation.
In Sanskrit, the liturgical language of Hinduism, Hari means "Vishnu", while dwar means "gateway". So, Haridwar translates to "The Gateway to Vishnu". It earns this name because it is typically the place where pilgrim's start their journey to visit a prominent temple of Vishnu – Badrinath.
Similarly, Hara could also mean "Shiva". Hence, Hardwar could stand for "Gateway to Shiva". Hardwar is also a typical place to start a pilgrim's journey in order to reach Mount Kailash, Kedarnath, the northernmost Jyotirlinga and one of the sites of the smaller Char Dham pilgrimage circuit – all important places for worship for Hindus.
According to legend, it was in Haridwar that Goddess Ganga descended when Shiva released the mighty river from the locks of his hair. The River Ganga, after flowing for 253 km from its source at Gaumukh at the edge of the Gangotri Glacier, enters the Gangetic Plain for the first time at Haridwar, which gave the city its ancient name, Gangadwára.
In the annotations to her poetical illustration Hurdwar, a Place of Hindoo Pilgrimage, Letitia Elizabeth Landon provides information on this name derivation, and also the story of the supposed origin of the 'River Ganges'. The accompanying plate is engraved from a painting by Samuel Prout
Map - Haridwar
Map
Country - India
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Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago. Their long occupation, initially in varying forms of isolation as hunter-gatherers, has made the region highly diverse, second only to Africa in human genetic diversity. Settled life emerged on the subcontinent in the western margins of the Indus river basin 9,000 years ago, evolving gradually into the Indus Valley Civilisation of the third millennium BCE. By, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused into India from the northwest. (a) (b) (c), "In Punjab, a dry region with grasslands watered by five rivers (hence ‘panch’ and ‘ab’) draining the western Himalayas, one prehistoric culture left no material remains, but some of its ritual texts were preserved orally over the millennia. The culture is called Aryan, and evidence in its texts indicates that it spread slowly south-east, following the course of the Yamuna and Ganga Rivers. Its elite called itself Arya (pure) and distinguished themselves sharply from others. Aryans led kin groups organized as nomadic horse-herding tribes. Their ritual texts are called Vedas, composed in Sanskrit. Vedic Sanskrit is recorded only in hymns that were part of Vedic rituals to Aryan gods. To be Aryan apparently meant to belong to the elite among pastoral tribes. Texts that record Aryan culture are not precisely datable, but they seem to begin around 1200 BCE with four collections of Vedic hymns (Rg, Sama, Yajur, and Artharva)."
Currency / Language
| ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
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| INR | Indian rupee | ₹ | 2 |
| ISO | Language |
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| BN | Bengali language |
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