The belief that the divine is embedded in nature is part of the spiritual discourse of the religions of antiquity. Nature has been worshipped in one form or the other in different cultures of the world. In India, rivers are considered sacred, purifying, life-giving, and redeeming. The corporeality of the rivers is subsumed and often modified by its metaphorical, mystical, and transcendental associations. The Ganga (Ganges), the Yamuna, the Sarasvat?, the Narmada, and other major and minor rivers of India are narrativized within a sacred discourse. The myths, rituals, and belief systems surrounding river worship in India are woven into the syncretic and composite cultural mosaic. However, the contemporary realities of globalization and environmental crises raise quite a few questions regarding the paradoxical nature of this sacred discourse. This essay explores the cultures of river worship in India in its scriptural as well as quotidian forms and attempts to understand the tangible and intangible issues contributing to its continuance and to locate the interface between religious discourse and environmental ethics
