soma, the sacred liquor, and therefore is regarded as the heavenly physician, soma being a panacea. He is servant of Agni the god of light and of Varuna the divine judge. He is omnipresent: in the heavens, in the air and in the waters. He is the keeper of heaven’s secrets and acts as messenger between gods and men. He is gorgeously clothed and carries shining weapons. For wife he has the spirit of the clouds and waters, Apsaras, and by her became father of the first mortals, Yama and Yami. He is the tutelary deity of women and presides over marriage ceremonies. In their collective capacity the Gandharva share the duties allotted to the single deity. They live in the house of Indra and with their wives, the Apsaras, beguile the time by singing, acting and dancing. Sometimes they are represented as numbering twelve, sometimes twenty-seven, or they are innumerable. In Hindu law a Gandharva marriage is one contracted by mutual consent and without formality.
GANDÍA, a seaport of eastern Spain, in the province of
Valencia; on the Gandía-Alcóy and Alcira-Denia railways.
Pop. (1900) 10,026. Gandía is on the left bank of the river
Alcóy or Sérpis, which waters one of the richest and most populous
plains of Valencia and enters the Mediterranean Sea at the small
harbour of Gandía (El Grao), 3 m. N.E. The chief ancient
buildings of Gandía are the Gothic church, the college, founded by
San Francisco de Borgia, director-general of the order of Jesus
(1510–1572), and the palace of the dukes of Gandía—a title held
in the 15th and 16th centuries by members of the princely house
of Borgia or Borja. A Jesuit convent, the theatre, schools and
the palace of the dukes of Osuna, are modern. Besides its manufactures of leather, silk, velvet and ribbons, Gandía has a thriving
export trade in fruit, and imports coal, guano, timber and flour.
In 1904, 400 vessels, of 200,000 tons, entered the harbour.
GANDO, a sultanate of British West Africa, included in the
protectorate of Nigeria, situated on the left bank of the Niger
above Borgu. The sultanate was established, c. 1819, on the death
of Othman Dan Fodio, the founder of the Fula empire, and its
area and importance varied considerably during the 19th century,
several of the Fula emirates being regarded as tributaries, while
Gando itself was more or less dependent on Sokoto. Gando in
the middle of the century included both banks of the Niger
at least as far N.W. as Say. The districts outside the British
protectorate now belong to France. Since 1884 Gando has been
in treaty relations with the British, and in 1903 the part assigned
to the British sphere by agreement with France came definitely
under the control of the administration in Nigeria. Gando now
forms the sub-province of the double province of Sokoto. The
emir was appointed under British authority after the conquest of
Sokoto in 1903. Since that date the province has been organized
for administration on the same system as the rest of the protectorate of Northern Nigeria. Provincial and native courts of justice have been established, roads have been opened, the slave trade has been abolished, and the country assessed under the new scheme for taxation. British garrisons are stationed at Jegga
and Ambrusa. The chief town is Gando, situated on the Sokoto, the first considerable affluent of the Niger from the east, about 60 m. S.W. of the town of Sokoto.
GANESA, or Ganesh, in Hindu mythology, the god of wisdom
and prudence, always represented with an elephant’s head possibly
to indicate his sagacity. He is the son of Siva and Parvati. He is
among the most popular of Indian deities, and almost every act,
religious or social, in a Hindu’s life begins with an invocation to
him, as do most books. He typifies not the wisdom of knowledge
but that worldly wisdom which results in financial success, and
thus he is particularly the god of the Hindu shopkeeper. In his
divine aspect Ganesa is ruler over the hosts of heaven, the spirits
which come and go to do Indra’s will.
GANGES (Ganga), a great river of northern India, formed by
the drainage of the southern ranges of the Himalayas. This
mighty stream, which in its lower course supplies the river
system of Bengal, rises in the Garhwal state, and falls into the
Bay of Bengal after a course of 1500 m. It issues, under the name
of the Bhagirathi, from an ice cave at the foot of a Himalayan
snow-bed near Gangotri, 10,300 ft. above the level of the sea.
During its passage through the southern spurs of the Himalayas it receives the Jahnavi from the north-west, and subsequently the Alaknanda, after which the united stream takes the name of the Ganges. Deo Prayag, their point of junction, is a celebrated place of pilgrimage, as is also Gangotri, the source of the parent stream. At Sukhi it pierces through the Himalayas, and turns south-west to Hardwar, also a place of great sanctity. It proceeds by a tortuous course through the districts of Dehra Dun, Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Bulandshahr and Farukhabad, in which last district it receives the Ramganga. Thus far the Ganges has been little more than a series of broad shoals, long deep pools and rapids, except, of course, during the melting of the snows and throughout the rainy season. At Allahabad, however, it receives the Jumna, a mighty sister stream, which takes its rise also in the Himalayas to the west of the sources of the Ganges. The combined river winds eastwards by south-east through the United Provinces, receiving the Gumti and the Gogra. The point of junction with both the Gumti and the Gogra has more or less pretension to sanctity. But the tongue of land at Allahabad, where the Jumna and the Ganges join, is the true Prayag, the place of pilgrimage, to which hundreds of thousands of devout Hindus repair to wash away their sins in the sacred river. It is here that the great festival called the Magh mela is held.
Shortly after passing the holy city of Benares the Ganges enters Behar, and after receiving an important tributary, the Sone from the south, passes Patna, and obtains another accession to its volume from the Gandak, which rises in Nepal. Farther to the east it receives the Kusi, and then, skirting the Rajmahal hills, turns sharply to the southward, passing near the site of the ruined city of Gaur. By this time it has approached to within 240 m., as the crow flies, from the sea. About 20 m. farther on it begins to branch out over the level country, and this spot marks the commencement of the delta, 220 m. in a straight line, or 300 by the windings of the river, from the Bay of Bengal. The main channel takes the name of the Padma or Padda, and proceeds in a south-easterly direction, past Pabna to Goalanda, above which it is joined by the Jamuna or main stream of the Brahmaputra. The vast confluence of waters rushes towards the sea, receiving further additions from the hill country on the east, and forming a broad estuary known under the name of the Meghna, which enters the Bay of Bengal near Noakhali. This estuary, however, is only the largest and most easterly of a great number of mouths or channels. The most westerly is the Hugli, which receives the waters of a number of distributary channels that start from the parent Ganges above Murshidabad. Between the Hugli on the west and the Meghna on the east lies the delta. The upper angle of it consists of rich and fertile districts, such as Murshidabad, Nadia, Jessore and the 24 Parganas. But towards its southern base, resting on the sea, the country sinks into a series of great swamps, intercepted by a network of innumerable channels. This wild waste is known as the Sundarbans, from the sundari tree, which grows in abundance in the seaboard tracts.
The most important channel of the Ganges for commerce is the Hugli, on which stands Calcutta, about 90 m. from the mouth. Beyond this city the navigation is conducted by native craft,—the modern facilities for traffic by rail and the increasing shoals in the river having put an end to the previous steamer communication, which plied until about 1860 as high up as Allahabad. Below Calcutta important boat routes through the delta connect the Hugli with the eastern branches of the river, for both native craft and steamers.
The Ganges is essentially a river of great cities: Calcutta, Monghyr, Patna, Benares and Allahabad all lie on its course below its junction with the Jumna; and the ancient capitals, Agra and Delhi, are on the Jumna, higher up. The catchment basin of the Ganges is bounded on the N. by a length of about 700 m. of the Himalayan range, on the S. by the Vindhya mountains, and on the E. by the ranges which separate Bengal from Burma. The vast river basin thus enclosed embraces 432,480 sq. m. According to the latest calculations, the length of the main stream of the Ganges is 1540 m., or with its longest affluent, 1680; breadth at true entrance into the sea, 20 m.; breadth of channel in dry season, 1¼ to 2¼ m.; depth in dry season, 30 ft.; flood discharge, 1,800,000 cub. ft. per second; ordinary discharge, 207,000 cub. ft.; longest duration of flood, about 40 days. The average fall from Allahabad to Benares is 6 in. per mile; from Benares to Calcutta, between 4 and 5 in.; from Calcutta to the sea, 1 to 2 in. Great changes take place from time to time in the river-bed, which alter the face of the country. Extensive islands are thrown up, and attach themselves to the mainland, while the river deserts its old bed and seeks a new channel, it may be many miles off. Such changes are so rapid and on so vast a scale, and the corroding power of the current on the bank so irresistible, that in Lower Bengal it is considered perilous to build any structure of a large or permanent character on its margin. Many decayed or ruined cities attest the changes in the river-bed in ancient times; and within our own times the main channel which formerly passed Rajmahal has turned away from it, and left the town high and dry, 7 m. from the bank.
The Ganges is crossed by six railway bridges on its course as far as Benares; and another, at Sara in Eastern Bengal, has been sanctioned.
