See footage documenting the magnificent Padma river

STEEPED in vibrancy and antiquity, these daring photos doc the Padma, a significant river flowing via Bangladesh that makes up the final leg of the journey of the river Ganges. They’re taken from The Nice Padma E-book: Life and instances of an epic river by Kazi Khaleed Ashraf, which units out to color a complete image of the land, water and folks of the Padma, a phrase meaning lotus flower in Sanskrit.

Ranging from the Himalayas, the Ganges ends its 2500-kilometre journey within the Bengal delta, the place it turns into referred to as the Padma (proven in the primary picture). That is the most important river delta on this planet and is a wealthy end result of not solely waterways, but in addition historical past and tradition, formed by the river’s circulate.

Ashraf writes in his introduction of how, previously, “perhaps a greater attention was given to the origins” of the Ganges within the mountains, “not to how it ends in the sea”. His e book, which incorporates a preface from writer Amitav Ghosh, “takes off where others have stopped short”, he writes.

The photographs above reveals (high to backside): a fraction of a map by Venetian cartographer Fra Mauro from the 1420s, suggesting a delta within the Ganges area; mangoes being transported to market in Chapai Nawabganj, referred to as Bangladesh’s capital of the mango; a ship market within the nation’s Manikganj district (pictured above).

The Nice Padma E-book is out now.