Water is a cleanser for the body and the soul, you can see how important water is in all religions, also water is vital to our health and wellbeing. The next time you have rain, don’t curse it, look at it for what it is and how important it is for the survival of people all around the world, the difference between Life and Death is often determined by rainfall.

Some faiths use water especially prepared for religious purposes holy water in some Christian denominations, amrita in Sikhism and Hinduism). Many religions also consider particular sources or bodies of water to be sacred or at least auspicious; examples include Lourdes in Roman Catholicism, the Jordan River (at least symbolically) in some Christian churches, the Zamzam Well in Islam and the River Ganges (among many others) in Hinduism.

Ritual washing

Faiths that incorporate ritual washing (ablution) include Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism, Islam The Baha i Faith, Shinto, Taoism and the Rastafari movement.  Immersion (or aspersion or affusion ) of a person in water is a central sacrament of Christianity (where it is called baptism); it is also a part of the practice of other religions, including Judaism (mikvah) and Sikhism (Amrit Sanskar). In addition, a ritual bath in pure water is performed for the dead in many religions including Judaism and Islam. In Islam, the five daily prayers can be done in most cases after completing washing certain parts of the body using clean water (wudu). In Shinto, water is used in almost all rituals to cleanse a person or an area (e.g., in the ritual of misogi. 

Immersion of deities

Ganesh Chaturthi in Mumbai, India

In Hinduism, statues of Durga and Ganesh are immersed in rivers at the final stages of the festivals Durga Puja and Ganesh Chaturthi  respectively.

In Christianity, the baptism of Jesus is an important moment in Christian theology, and is the third most important feast of the Church, following Easter and Pentecost Its feast, called Theophany or Epiphany, is celebrated on January 6th.

Water deities

Water deities are usually a focus of worship at specific springs or holy wells, but there are also more abstract ocean  deities, and deities representing “water” as an abstract element, such a Abans  in Zoroastrianism.

Example for local tutelary water deities include Celtic Sulis , worshipped at the thermal spring at Bath, or Ganges in Hinduism, personified as a goddess. The Hindu goddess Saraswati originated as a personification of the Saraswati River in the Rigveda, but became a more abstract deity of wisdom in Hinduism. African examples include the Yoruba river goddess Oshun, the Lgbo lake goddess  Ogbuide, (Uhammiri), or the Igbo river goddess, Ldemili (Achebe).

Namaste

Mark