"One who moves swiftly", the river Ganga, known to the west by its anglicised name, "Ganges", is one of India"s seven sacred rivers. The river arises from an ice-bed 13,800" above sea level.
To the early Aryans, the Ganga was worshipped as one of several river goddesses. As they moved eastwards and settled along the river, it became the source of sustenance for a vast area. Ganga gradually became the primary river goddess, subject of numerous legends, and endowed with fabulous qualities.
The principle centres for the worship of the Ganga are Gangotri, the source of the river; Haridwar, where she comes down to the plains; Allahabad, where she joins the Yamuna; Varanasi, the holy city; and Sagara Island in her estuary where she finally flows into the Bay of Bengal.
Ganga is supposed to be the daughter of the Himalayas and the goddess Mena. According to the Puranas, the heavenly Ganga flows from Vishnu`s toe. Ganga sometimes assumed a human form. In one such appearance, she married King Shantanu and was the mother of Bhishma, grandsire to the warring Pandava and Kaurava clans.
The account of her birth on the earth appears in the Ramayana. According to the epic, Sagara was a mighty king of Ayodhya. He decided to perform the Ashvamedha in a bid to become king of the gods. He appointed his 60,000 sons to follow the horse. Meanwhile Indra, fearing the loss of his throne, disguised himself as a demon and scared away the horse. When Sagara`s sons discovered this, they set out to locate the horse. During their search, they disrupted Sage Kapila`s sacrifices. The sage cursed them and they were burnt to ashes.
With no news from his sons, Sagara sent his grandson, Anshuman, to look for the horse. In the course of his search, he came upon the ashes of his father and uncles. When he discovered the reason for their destruction, Anshuman appeased Sage Kapila, who agreed to modify his curse.
He told Anshuman that the souls of his uncles would be sanctified properly if the Ganga with her purifying touch, flowed over their ashes. Meanwhile Anshuman found the horse and returned it to Sagara, who completed his sacrifice.
Sagara, Anshuman, and Anshuman`s son Dilip, all made unsuccessful attempts to liberate their kinsmen from Kapila`s curse. Eventually the task came to Dilip`s son, Bhagiratha.
By practicing severe austerities, Bhagiratha obtained a boon from Brahma to allow Ganga to come down to earth. However Brahma warned Bhagiratha that Ganga would not want to leave heaven and therefore descend in a rage. The earth would not be able to sustain the impact of her fall and could well disintegrate. Bhagiratha then prayed to Shiva, who agreed to sustain her descent on his head.
Accordingly, Brahma told Ganga to go down to earth, which she resented. She swept down in fury, bent on destruction, but Shiva caught her in the coils of his hair and held her fast. When her anger subsided, he let her flow into the Vishnu Lake. In one of its seven streams, Ganga followed Bhagiratha and flowed over the ashes of Sagara"s sons, releasing their souls.
According to the Agni Purana, any place where the Ganga flows becomes sacred. It is believed that even hardened criminals and sinners will go to heaven if?they worship the Ganga. The waters of the Ganga are graced with extraordinary properties of purification and do not stale even after months of preservation. Accordingly, the Dravidian ritual of the "holy" dip in sacred waters was institutionalised for the Ganga. Even today, she continues to draw millions of devotees to her banks, while her waters are carried back in small, sealed pots and reverentially placed in innumerable household shrines across India, that are considered specially blessed by the presence of "Gangajala".