Sacred waters

[1] These organic bodies of water have attained religious significance not from the modern alteration or blessing, but were sanctified through mythological or historical figures.

It tends to be a central element in the creations accounts of almost every culture with mythological, cosmological, and theological myths.

Since the river waters are as both inherently pure themselves and having major purificatory qualities,[11][12] people come to bathe in them, drink from them, leave offerings for them, and give their physical remains to them.

The Ganges is said to purify the soul of negative karma, corporeal sins, and even impurities from previous lives.

Purity and pollution exist upon a continuum where most entities, including people, can become sacred and then become stagnated and full of sin once again.

It is presumed that if a deceased person is cleansed by the Ganges, it will help liberate their soul, or expedite the number of lives they need to achieve this.

[15][16] In the traditional funerary ceremony, a dead person is placed upon a funeral pyre until the body becomes cremated, then the ashes are sent upon the river.

[18] Manu, the mythic law giver, gave directives and prohibitions regarding the river: “impure objects like urine, feces, spit; or anything which has these elements, blood, or poison should not be cast into the water”.

[20] As the Ganges River remains interwoven into daily existence, Hindus are vulnerable to urban contamination.

The famous Sacred Cenote at Chichen Itza proves to be important with the many findings of artifacts and skeletal remains.

In January 2002 Peabody proposed and was granted the right to use thirty-two percent more Navajo Aquifer (Naquifer) water than they had already been using.

[24] Watery places have been considered holy in Germanic cultures since the Nordic Bronze Age and used for diverse religious purposes, such as depositions of items such as the Dejbjerg wagon, the Gundestrup cauldron and the Vimose comb.

[29][30] Bog bodies found in Germanic areas, such as the Grauballe Man, have often been interpreted as sacrifices, however alternative, but not mutually exclusive, proposals include that the person was executed as a punishment, that it was a form of normal burial or that they were placed there after death to stop them from coming back as a harmful being such as a draug.