Explore India's Architectural Riches

THERE IS NO SUNRISE MORE mystical than one on India’s Ganges river. It begins with the morning mist, which hangs so low and often so dense it diffuses the rising sun into an otherworldly scrim of mauves, oranges, and yellows.

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It muffles sounds: As the small villages of West Bengal come to life along its banks and people begin their day’s work—buzzing around on motorbikes, hammering brass, coaxing a reluctant cow—the human sounds disperse around the river like the murmurings of gods.

It even bears an earthy perfume of dust and sweetly decaying river wrack that hits the senses like incense. On this river that is sacred to hundreds of millions of Hindus, and that connects them to their neighboring Muslims and other sectarians, every sunrise feels like a divine hand descending into the water.