Haridwar, a holy city by the Ganges on the plain of north India. Pilgrims come here to perform various rites : purification by the sacred waters of the Ganges ; the scattering of funeral ashes in the water ; the fire ceremony in honour of the river god ... Next, the pilgrims climb extremely difficult paths into the high mountains toward the sources of the Ganges. They attend the ancient temples of Badrinath, Kedarnath and Gangotri, where age-old rites are performed to the gods of the hindu pantheon. The last stage of the pilgrimage takes the pilgrims by a yet more exhausting path to the true source of the Ganges, Gaumuk, where it emerges from beneath a glacier descending from the high summits of the Himalaya.