22 March - World Water Day 2006: Water and Culture

Men and women bathing in the Ganges, India © Thomas Cluzel

Just as water provides the impetus for birth and life in creation myths, it also plays a central role in many religions and associated practices throughout the world. The source of life, it represents birth and rebirth.

Cleansing properties of water

Water cleans the body, and by extension, purifies it. These two main qualities confer a highly symbolic - even sacred - status to water. Water is therefore a key element in ceremonies and religious rites. As such, water is often used in religious rituals, as it symbolizes cleanliness and purity. Not only does water wash away external signs of dirtiness, in many cultures, it also erases spiritual difficulties. Through contact with or immersion in water, believers can cleanse themselves of wrong-doing, or simply rid themselves of signs of the secular world, and prepare themselves to enter the religious and spiritual realm.

This contact with water can occur in various ways, depending on the culture and the objective: in Christianity, for example, immersion in water is seen as a symbolic rebirth wherein the believer is cleansed of all sins through the power of Jesus (who is called 'the living water' in the Bible).

Cleansing is one of the most important properties of water in religious practices, and ablutions before prayer, weddings, or other ceremonies is common across the world. However, other cultures view water differently: in Hinduism all water is used to cleanse, in fact all water is sacred, and holy places are usually located on the banks of rivers, which are viewed as particularly sacred. It is believed that those who bathe in the Ganges River - the most sacred of rivers - and those who leave some part of themselves on the left bank will reach paradise before being reincarnated.

Funeral rites and water

Funeral in the Ganges, India © Thomas Cluzel

Although water is intrinsically linked to life, vitality and fertility, it is also intimately linked to death. The absence of water kills as fast as any disease; and even when communities are prepared for natural disasters, floods, droughts, famines, and landslides can still wreak havoc that can be overcome only with great difficulty. Water brings both life and death, and it is fitting that water is a common element in the death rites of civilizations across the planet.

In many cultures, water is used not only to purify the dead body for the afterlife (often, this process is also a symbol of rebirth), but also to cleanse those who have come in contact with the body, an equally important rebirth into the land of the living after contact with the land of the dead. Water features strongly in the funeral rites in Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism and Islam, to name but a few religions.

Healing and protecting water

Baptism in the Jordan River © Swynk

From the earliest times, healing cults have been associated with water sources. Evidence exists of religious worship at numerous springs in western Europe, during the Neolithic period and the Bronze Age. Linked to the water's purifying element is the belief in water's intrinsic healing and protecting properties. Used in blessing ceremonies and naming ceremonies water is sprinkled around an abode, for instance, to protect the household from evil. The healing properties of water are sometimes thought to be an inherent supernatural power of water itself. At one time, some Christians hung an amulet filled with holy water at the entrance to their house to prevent evil spirits from entering.

Washing in sacred waters is said to provide healing from ills ranging from arthritis to blindness, and pilgrims travel the world over to immerse themselves in these waters. This is the case of Lourdes, in France, where millions of people every year gather to bathe in or collect some of the water from hot springs that is said to have healing properties. Over the decades, hundreds of miracles have been reported, 67 of which have been officially recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. The healing properties of water are also professed by practitioners of hydrotherapy, which is a treatment of disease through the use of water, such as baths and compresses.

Destructive force of water

Water is not seen only as a bringer of life, but also as a destructive force to be reckoned with. With creation stories come stories of destruction: nearly all cultures have some version of the great flood story, wherein water symbolizes both death and rebirth. In these stories, human, animal and plant life is all but wiped out from the Earth through a great flood that covers all the land, and only through acts of contrition on humankind's part, or forgiveness on the part of the respective deities, is total extinction averted.

Water spirits

Shinto Priests Initiation Ceremony, Japan © Swynk

In many cultures, water, like many other natural elements, is imbued with a spirit, or a life force. The spirit, a physical manifestation of water, can appear in human, animal or supernatural forms. Serpents are perhaps one of the most common forms assumed by a water spirit, particularly in Africa, whereas Europe and North America favour the mermaid, with the torso of a woman and the tail of a fish. The mermaid is usually linked to the ocean, but she also appears in the freshwater mythology of some civilizations.

In some cultures, the spirit does not take on a recognizable form: instead, the spirit - which was sometimes thought in such cultures to be malevolent - would wait in the body of water for potential victims and kill or curse them. The Shinto religion is especially known for its belief in water spirits, or suijin: they are found in lakes, ponds, springs, wells and even irrigation waterways. The suijin take the form of snakes, dragons, eels, turtles, fish and the mythical kappa. One suijin is said to manifest itself as a water-cleansing bacteria that is present in sewage water!