India's holiest river, the Ganges, winds some 1,550 miles through the country, from its headwaters in the Himalayan glaciers past the villages and cities of the Gangetic Plain to the Delta's thousand fingers in the Bay of Bengal. Aldo Pavan and his camera trace the route of this sacred river, capturing its beauty and its many different phases and moods. The photographs, all of which were taken specially for this volume, portray the vast range of humanity found on the banks of the Ganges: pilgrims, sadhus, fishermen, farmers, weavers, merchants, hairdressers and snake charmers, as well as others whose lives are governed by the rhythm of the water's flow. Each chapter begins with a map of the area it portrays, followed by an essay describing the region; all the images are accompanied by detailed captions. In these pictures there is more than the conventionally beautiful; in them we are brought face to face with Loknadi, the river of the world.