Wikipedia Trail: From Ganga to Samsara

For this Wikipedia trail, I started with Ganga, who is the river Ganges personified. She was mentioned in the first few pages of the Mahabharata and I was really curious to know more about her.

Hindus believe that bathing in her river lead to "liberation from the cycle of life and death", which is known as Moksha. I clicked on Moksha because I was really intrigued by that idea, and that led me to Nirvana.

A depiction of liberated souls at moksha from Wikipedia

Nirvana is a term I've heard of before but knew very little about. Basically, it's when a person doesn't have any suffering or any desires. It turns out this is actually another term for Moksha.

From there I clicked on the word Samsara. Coincidentally enough, I actually just found and listened to a song with this title the other day. I had no idea that it is a Sanskrit word meaning "wandering" or "world", and it emphasizes cyclical change. What a beautiful idea!