Is Ganges river back flow in Varanasi?

[chownah]

[img]http://www.africanwater.org/images ... .jpg[/img]

Notice the change of direction near Varanasi. That is what the clerics in the video in the OP mean by the Ganges flowing "backward" afaik.

Thanks for bringing this. It seems that you have found the place of interest in the video which the OP presented. Can you tell me the time stamp so I can go look at it?...please?
chownah

[Coëmgenu]

[img]http://www.africanwater.org/images ... .jpg[/img]

Notice the change of direction near Varanasi. That is what the clerics in the video in the OP mean by the Ganges flowing "backward" afaik.

Thanks for bringing this. It seems that you have found the place of interest in the video which the OP presented. Can you tell me the time stamp so I can go look at it?...please?
chownah

Start at @ approx 32:40 when the cleric speaks of the Ganges "flow[ing] back toward the north".

[SarathW]

[quoteNotice the change of direction near Varanasi. That is what the clerics in the video in the OP mean by the Ganges flowing "backward" afaik.][/quote]

Good one C.
Perhaps there is a mountain blocking the flow downwards.

[chownah]

[img]http://www.africanwater.org/images ... .jpg[/img]

Notice the change of direction near Varanasi. That is what the clerics in the video in the OP mean by the Ganges flowing "backward" afaik.

Thanks for bringing this. It seems that you have found the place of interest in the video which the OP presented. Can you tell me the time stamp so I can go look at it?...please?
chownah

Start at @ approx 32:40 when the cleric speaks of the Ganges "flow[ing] back toward the north".

THanks for that. Now I see why I missed it. THe video is primed to start at 33:01 which is AFTER this explanation.

I have been looking at google earth and it seems that there are many many places where the ganages river flows towards the north and that this is not very unique at all.

Also, it seems that the river referenced in the folk tale was not the ganges river anyway but the Neranjara River. I looked at wikipedia and found:

The Lilajan River (also known by its older name: Niranjan River and also mentioned as Nilanjan River) flows through the Chatra and Gaya districts in the Indian states of Jharkhand and Bihar. Some people refer to this river as the Falgu River.

So I found the falgu river on google earth and discovered that is nowhere near varanasi...it is way over by bodh gaya (quite a ways) and as far as I could see it never comes anywhere near varanasi.

It seems that the video (talking about the ganges near varanasi) has nothing to do with the folk tale (having to do with the neranjara river by bodh gaya).

chownah

[chownah]

[quoteNotice the change of direction near Varanasi. That is what the clerics in the video in the OP mean by the Ganges flowing "backward" afaik.]

Good one C.
Perhaps there is a mountain blocking the flow downwards.
[/quote]
From the wikipedia article on varanasi:

Varanasi is located at an elevation of 80.71 metres (264.8 ft)[35] in the centre of the Ganges valley of North India,

To the best of my knowledge there are no mountains in the centre of the ganges valley.....am I mistaken?
chownah

[SarathW]

Sorry, I do not know the geography of India.

[Coëmgenu]

[quoteNotice the change of direction near Varanasi. That is what the clerics in the video in the OP mean by the Ganges flowing "backward" afaik.]

Good one C.
Perhaps there is a mountain blocking the flow downwards.

From the wikipedia article on varanasi:

Varanasi is located at an elevation of 80.71 metres (264.8 ft)[35] in the centre of the Ganges valley of North India,

To the best of my knowledge there are no mountains in the centre of the ganges valley.....am I mistaken?
chownah

The river almost always flows southward. It always flows downhill.

The river turns and flows northward (but downhill!) at Varanasi. This is why some Hindus this that Varanasi is special. Because the Ganges flows northward here, and it very rarely flows northward, it is believed to be "special", for right or wrong.

[binocular]

What has any of this have to do with the story of the Buddha's bowl floating upstream?

Is Ganges river back flow in Varanasi?

Is this the support for the story that Buddha's alms bowel went up word the Ganges river?

But when the Bodhisatta had finished eating that milk-rice, he took the golden vessel, and said: “If I shall be able to-day to become a Buddha, let this pot go up the stream; if not, let it go down the stream!” and he threw it into the water. And it went, in spite of the stream, eighty cubits up the river in the middle of the stream, all the way as quickly as a fleet horse. And diving into a whirlpool it went to the palace of Kāḷa Nāgarāja (the Black Snake King); and striking against the bowls from which the three previous Buddhas had eaten, it made them sound “Killi killi!” and stopped as the lowest of them. Kāḷa, the Snake King, hearing the noise, exclaimed: “Yesterday a Buddha arose, now to-day another has arisen,” and he stood praising him in many hundred stanzas.
(Nidānakathā, tr. Th. Rhys Davids pp. 187-8)

[Coëmgenu]

What has any of this have to do with the story of the Buddha's bowl floating upstream?

I think the OP misunderstood the cleric and though that he was claiming that the river flowed "backward" here. A river flowing "backward" would carry the Buddha's bowl upstream. This still does not address the specification that the Buddha's bowl went against the stream of the river. It is an understandable mistake IMO. The documentary is somewhat unclear.

[binocular]

I think the OP misunderstood the cleric and though that he was claiming that the river flowed "backward" here. A river flowing "backward" would carry the Buddha's bowl upstream. This still does not address the specification that the Buddha's bowl went against the stream of the river. It is an understandable mistake IMO. The documentary is somewhat unclear.

And yet several posters took it upon themselves to find a common-sensical explanation for how the Buddha's bowl could float against the stream. How come they did that?

[Coëmgenu]

I think the OP misunderstood the cleric and though that he was claiming that the river flowed "backward" here. A river flowing "backward" would carry the Buddha's bowl upstream. This still does not address the specification that the Buddha's bowl went against the stream of the river. It is an understandable mistake IMO. The documentary is somewhat unclear.

And yet several posters took it upon themselves to find a common-sensical explanation for how the Buddha's bowl could float against the stream. How come they did that?

IMO because they needed to believe that the Buddha's bowl floated against the stream of the river.

Some people need to believe in the Twin Miracle. Did it happen?

[binocular]

IMO because they needed to believe that the Buddha's bowl floated against the stream of the river.

You think Chownah, for example, needs to believe that the Buddha's bowl floated against the stream?

Some people need to believe in the Twin Miracle. Did it happen?

Well, I wouldn't know what that is like to feel such a need.

[Coëmgenu]

IMO because they needed to believe that the Buddha's bowl floated against the stream of the river.

You think Chownah, for example, needs to believe that the Buddha's bowl floated against the stream?

I haven't read the thread, to be truly honest. Perhaps he does. Perhaps he "needs" to believe in all of the miracles of the Buddha, including the Twin Miracle. I would not know. Perhaps I am the fool for prematurely judging various agents before having actually read their own words.

Some people need to believe in the Twin Miracle. Did it happen?

Well, I wouldn't know what that is like to feel such a need.

But did it happen? Regardless of if you feel a need, some others do.

It is that wild miracle that I talked to you about via PM about a year or two ago. The Buddha produces fire and water in crystalline union before an audience of former-Brahmins "for the purposes of their conversion" (示現教化) before starting the āgama-recension of the Fire Sermon.

[binocular]

But did it happen?

I think that question is: naive, or proof of lacking faith, or asked in bad faith.

It is that wild miracle that I talked to you about via PM about a year or two ago. The Buddha produces fire and water in crystalline union before an audience of former-Brahmins "for the purposes of their conversion" (示現教化) before starting the āgama-recension of the Fire Sermon.

I can't remember that exchange, sorry ...

[Coëmgenu]

But did it happen?

I think that question is: naive, or proof of lacking faith, or asked in bad faith.

It is that wild miracle that I talked to you about via PM about a year or two ago. The Buddha produces fire and water in crystalline union before an audience of former-Brahmins "for the purposes of their conversion" (示現教化) before starting the āgama-recension of the Fire Sermon.

I can't remember that exchange, sorry ...

Point is: it is a wild and unambiguously "magical" miracle of the Buddha. No "the river was interfered with by a mountain" that can explain it.

It is naive, lacking faith, asked in bad faith, dependent on the definition of "faith" in question. Some would say it is profound faith to say the Buddha did not perform the Twin Miracle, neither at the Gayāsīsa stupa as recorded in the Chinese & Sanskrit nor at the gates of Śrāvastī as in the Pāli. Some say that only by discarding falsehoods do we progress. Perhaps the Buddha, or more accurately "the Buddhisms", gives us a few extra falsehoods, like "the path" itself, to help us.