The Legend of the Ganges

(Story of the descent of Ganga (the Ganges) condensed from the epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata.)

In ancient times lived Sangara, a virtuous King of Ayodhya. He had two wives, but no children. As he and his consorts longed for children, the three of them went to the Himalayas and practiced austerities there. When they had been thus engaged for one hundred years, a Brahman ascetic of great power granted this boon to Sangara, King of Ayodhya (modern Oudh), that one of the wives should have a son who should perpetuate his race, and the other should be the mother of sixty thousand manly and high-spirited sons. In due time the promised son was born, and was named Asamanja; the younger wife then bore a gourd. From this gourd, when it burst open, came forth sixty thousand tiny sons, who were fostered during their helpless infancy by keeping them in jars filled with clarified butter.

When his numerous sons had grown to man's estate, the King, their father, determined to offer a horse sacrifice, a token of supreme sovereignty, which no king could offer without heirs to perpetuate his kingdom. In accordance with this resolution, a horse was, in the usual way, set free to wander where it listed, attended for its protection by mighty warriors of King Sangara's army. But the horse, in spite of all due vigilance, was stolen away.

The sixty thousand sons of the King of Ayodhya there-upon commenced, at their father's request, a diligent search for the missing animal. They scoured the world in vain, and then set about a vigorous search in the inner world, digging downwards some sixty thousand feet. In these subterranean explorations they committed great havoc amongst the dwellers in the underworld; but they persevered in their quest, and finally, in the southern quarter, came upon a huge elephant resembling a hill. This colossal elephant, named Verupaskha, supported the entire earth upon his head, and caused earthquakes whenever, from fatigue, he happened to move it.

Going around this mighty beast, the sons of Sangara continued their search, and at last found the stolen horse; but quite close to it, on guard, was the eternal Vasudeva, upon which they rushed with blind and ignorant fury. Uttering a tremendous roar, Vasudeva instantly reduced them all to ashes.

As the princess did not return home, Sangara became alarmed and sent his grandson, Asamanjasson, to search for tidings of them. This heroic prince, after an eventful journey, at last reached the spot where the missing horse was detained, and there found the ashes of his sixty thousand uncles. Being desirous of making the usual oblation of water to the ashes of his deceased relatives, Asamanjasson looked about for water, but could find none. However, he met in these nether regions Suparna, a maternal uncle, "resembling the wind," and from him learned that the sixty thousand dead princes would be translated to heaven if only the waters of Ganga could be brought down from the celestial regions to lave their dust.

Seeing there was nothing he could do for the remains of his dead relatives, the young prince took the horse, and returning with it to Ayodhya, helped to complete Sangara's sacrifice.

Sangara died after a reign of thirty thousand years. His successor reigned and practiced austerities for thirty-two thousand years, and left his kingdom to Dilipa, whose constant thought was how he could bring Ganga down from heaven to resuscitate his dead ancestors; but though he performed numerous sacrifices during his reign of thirty thousand years, he made no progress. But his son, Bhagiratha, earnestly devoted himself to obtain the wished-for boon. "Restraining his senses and eating once a month, and surrounding himself with five fires and with arms uplifted, he for a long lapse of years performed austerities at Gokara." Brahma, pleased at last with Bhagiratha's asceticism, appeared before him and granted his wish, advising him to invoke the aid of Siva to accomplish it, as the earth would not be able to sustain the direct shock of the descent of Ganga from the celestial regions.

To obtain the assistance of Siva, Bhagiratha spent one whole year in adoring that god, who at the end of that period was graciously pleased to say: "O foremost of men, I am well pleased with thee. I will do what will be for thy welfare. I will hold the mountain's daughter on my head."

Upon this the beautiful Ganga, daughter of the god Himalaya, precipitated herself upon the head of Siva, thinking to reach the earth without delay; but Siva, vexed by her thought of haste, caused her to wander for many a year amongst the tangles of his long hair. It was only when Bhagiratha had recourse to fresh austerities that Siva "cast Ganga off in the direction of the sea." The beautiful, divine princess then flowed over the joyful earth, to the delight of mankind and the admiration of the celestials, who witnessed her wonderful descent from the sky.

After flooding the earth with her life-giving waters, Ganga then followed the chariot of Bhagiratha, and having reached the sea, entered the underworld, where the ashes of the sixty thousand sons of Sangara lay. Her sanctifying waters flowed over their earthly remains, and their spirits at last ascended to heaven.

About two miles above Gangoutri a pilgrim shrine, as near the source of the river as can be reached, is the "Cow's Mouth," about which the natives have numerous fables. It is a rock, projecting out of the middle of the stream, which to Hindu fancy resembles the head of a cow with open mouth. If one needed any proof that the Ganges was the gift of God, this stationary emblem of the god Siva would remove all doubts, for the cow is almost as sacred as the Ganges itself.

So ends the legend of the birth and earthly source of the great river, the sacred river, into whose heaven-descending water millions upon millions of men and women crowd annually to have their sins washed away. For seventy thousand years, according to the Hindu legend, the rulers of the Indian plains have prayed and fasted and implored the god Himalaya to bestow upon them this life-giving, life-preserving, soul-purifying river Ganges. No wonder this gift of the gods is sacred to them.

Making every allowance for Oriental exaggeration, the Ganges is indeed "the daughter of the Himalayas." Traced to its source, the waters flow out of a cave of ice at the end of a great glacier. Before it escapes from the mountain region it has meandered for eight hundred miles through Himalayan valleys in as many minute streams. But to the Hindus the sacred river of India is born, as it were, from the head of Siva.