But I know no ground to expect that the
reverence[9] paid to the Ganges will diminish, unless education and
the concentration of capital in manufactures should work an important
change in the religious feelings and opinions of the people along the
course of that river; although this, it must be admitted, is a
consummation which may be looked for more speedily on the banks of
the Ganges than on those of a stream like the Nerbudda, which is
neither navigable at present nor, in my opinion, capable of being
rendered so. Commerce and manufactures, and the concentration of
capital in the maintenance of the new communities employed in them,
will, I think, be the great media through which this change will be
chiefly effected; and they are always more likely to follow the
course of rivers that are navigable than that of rivers which are
not.[10]
Notes:
1. Amarkantak, formerly in the Sohagpur pargana of the Bilaspur
District of the Central Provinces, is situated on a high tableland,
and is a famous place of pilgrimage. The temples are described by
Beglar in _A.S.R._, vol. vii, pp. 227-34, pl. xx, xxi.
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