APPENDIX
The Story of the Descent of Ganga (the Ganges), as related in the “Ramayana”
In ancient times lived Sangara, a virtuous king of Ayodhya. He had two wives but no children. As he and his consorts longed for offspring, the three of them went to the Himalayas and practised austerities there. When they had been thus engaged for a hundred years, a Brahman ascetic of great power granted this boon to Sangara; that one of his wives should give birth to 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 elder wife bore the promised son, who was named Asamanja, and the younger wife agourd. From thisgourd, 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 ahorse-sacrifice. 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 Sangara’s army.
Now it came to pass that one day Vasava, assuming the form of a Rakshasa, stole the horse away. The sixty thousand sons of the King of Ayodhya thereuponcommenced, at their father’s command, a diligent search for the missing animal. They scoured the world in vain for the stolen horse and then set about making a rigorous search in the bowels of the earth, digging downwards some sixty thousandyojanas. In these subterranean explorations they committed great havoc amongst the dwellers in the under-world; but they persevered in their quest and presently, in the Southern Quarter, came upon a huge elephant resembling a hill. This colossal elephant, named Verupaksha, supported the entire earth upon his head and caused earthquakes whenever he happened to move his head from fatigue. Going round this mighty beast, the sons of Sangara continued their search in the interior of the earth. They at last found the stolen horse and observed, quite close to it, “the eternal Vasudeva in the guise of Kapila,” upon whom they rushed with blind but impotent fury; for he, uttering a tremendous roar, instantly reduced them all to ashes.
As the princes did not return home Sangara became alarmed for their safety and sent his grandson—Asamanja’s son—to look for tidings of them. This heroic prince, following the traces they had left of their eventful journey, at length reached the spot where the missing horse was detained and there discovered also the ashes of his sixty thousand uncles. Being piously desirous of making the usual oblations of water to the ashes of his deceased relatives, Asamanja’s son looked about for water but could find none. However, he met, in these nether regions, Suparna, a maternal uncle of his, “resembling the wind,” and from him he 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 that he could do for themanes of his dead relatives, the young prince took the horse, and returning with it to Ayodhya helped to complete Sangara’s sacrifice.
Sangara himself died after a reign of thirty thousand years. Ançumat, who succeeded him, practised rigid austerities, “on the romantic summit of Himavat,” for thirty-two thousand years, and left the kingdom to Dilipa, whose constant thought was how he should bring Ganga down from heaven for the benefit of his dead ancestors; but though he performed numerous sacrifices during his long reign of thirty thousand years, he made no progress in this matter. Dilipa’s son, Bhagiratha, earnestly devoted himself to the same object, and practised severe austerities with the view of obtaining 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 time performed austerities at Gokara.” Brahma, pleased with the king’s asceticism, appeared before him and granted his wish, advising him, at the same time, 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 a whole year in adoring that god, who at the end of that period was graciously pleased to say to the king: “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 Ganga precipitated herself from the heavens upon Siva’s head, arrogantly thinking to reach the earth without delay, but Siva, vexed by her proud thought, 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 Vindu lake,” and she flowed in manychannels over the joyful earth, to the delight and admiration of the celestials who witnessed her wonderful descent from the sky.
Ganga, following the royal ascetic Bhagiratha, flooded with her waters the “sacrificial ground of the high-souled Jahna of wonderful deeds, as he was performing a sacrifice.” The saint drank up her waters in a rage. When this occurred the deities andGandharvasbegan to worship the angry Jahna, who, being propitiated by their attentions, allowed the river to flow off through his ears. Proceeding again in the wake of Bhagiratha’s chariot, Ganga, having reached the ocean, entered the under-world where the ashes of the sixty thousand sons of Sangara still lay. Her sanctifying waters flowed over their earthly remains and their spirits ascended to heaven.
Such is the history of the most sacred river of the Hindus, into whose heaven-descended waters millions upon millions of men and women crowd annually to have their sins washed away.