Water

PREFACE

The India International Centre (IIC) held ‘The Festival of Water’ from 16 to 22 February in 2004. This festival was a part of a series of programmes on the sea, organised by them in 2003. The intention was to widen the scope of awareness on water, an essential element for life on this planet, especially as water, or the lack of it, has become an issue of great concern in the twenty-first century.

Water has been a primal element in the shaping of cultures, the first sustaining element for life on earth—be it plant, animal or human. From time immemorial, countless myths have evolved around water as the source of life. In the mythological and symbolic world, the regenerative traditions of water have been internalised. All religious traditions ...