Ganga Dussehra

Culture of origin: Hindu · Cultural

Holiday sources: Hinduism

Ganga Dussehra, also Gangavataran, celebrates the day the Ganges is believed to have come down from heaven to earth. Devotees gather on its banks, above all at Haridwar, Varanasi, Garhmukteshwar, Rishikesh, Prayagraj and Patna, to bathe and offer aarti to the river; dasha means "ten" and hara "destroy", and bathing in these ten days is believed to rid one of ten sins. In a year with a leap month of Jyeshtha it falls in the leap month, as Drik Panchang keeps it.