Unveiling the counternarratives of Ganga: Ganga as goddess in the Sundarbans

Abstract

ABSTRACT The upper-caste Hindu communities in India portray the river Ganga as a deity associated with death and salvation. These mythical narratives overshadow the less imaginative, more experiential, and ambivalent emotions upheld by the riverine communities living around the Ganga. To understand the interplay between the contextual realities of these communities and the conceptualisation of Ganga, the article analyses select oral narratives of the riverine communities of the Sundarban Delta in West Bengal. It focuses on how the belief of Ganga as a goddess is materialised through ‘memorates’ within the vulnerable riverine ecology of the Sundarbans. The article highlights the intersections between the symbolic and material aspects of the river interacting with the economic and social realities of people thereby creating a counternarrative to the representation of the river in the Vedas and the Puranas.