Gaṅgā Carita in the Devī Bhāgavata

The Devī Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa tells the Gaṅgā Carita in Skanda 9, Chapters 11 to 13. Sagara’s sixty thousand sons were burned to ash by the muni Kapila. King Bhagīratha did a lakh (a hundred thousand) years of tapas (austerity) and saw Śrī Kṛshṇa in his two-armed form as a cowherd boy. Kṛshṇa told Gaṅgā to go down to Bhāratavarsha, because of the śāpa (curse) of Bhāratī. Śiva took her in his matted locks, and she flowed gently onto the earth. She freed all the ancestors, and in the end she went back to Vaikuṇṭha. The account also gives the dhyāna (meditation) form of Gaṅgā Devī.

Sagara’s sons and Kapila

King Sagara of the solar line had two wives, Vaidarbhī and Śaibhyā. Śaibhyā bore one handsome son, Asamañjasa. Vaidarbhī had worshipped Śiva and received his vara (boon). From her was born a single lump of flesh (māṃsa-piṇḍa). Śiva himself came in the form of a brāhmaṇa and divided the lump into sixty thousand parts. From these were born sixty thousand strong and brilliant sons of Sagara.

These sixty thousand sons were full of pride and power. They proudly disturbed the meditation of the muni Kapila, and the fire of his gaze burned them to ash in an instant. Sagara heard of the disaster. Grief overcame him and he went to the forest. The burned sons lay in ash without the proper last rites (antyeshṭi) and without the cleansing water of Gaṅgā. They were held in that impure state between death and liberation.

Bhagīratha’s tapas

Asamañjasa tried a lakh of years of tapas to bring Gaṅgā to earth for the freeing of the sixty thousand ancestors. He died before he finished. His son Bhagīratha then took up the same tapas. The Devī Bhāgavata calls him a Mahābhāgavata (a great devotee of Bhagavān Vishṇu). He was wise, a firm Vaishṇava, and unwearying in devotion. Bhagīratha too did a full lakh of years of hard austerities.

At the end of this tapas, in the burning heat of a summer that blazed like a crore of suns, Bhagīratha had the direct darśana (sight) of Śrī Kṛshṇa Paramātmā.

Kṛshṇa’s darśana

Śrī Kṛshṇa appeared before Bhagīratha in his two-armed (dvi-bhuja) form. He was the flute-bearing Muralī-mohana, the divine cowherd boy (gopakiśora), beautiful and bright. He wore fire-cleansed garments and jewelled ornaments. His face glowed with a gentle, lasting smile, and his eyes were full of grace (bhaktānugraha-rūpaḥ, the form of grace to devotees). He is described as sarva-svatantra, wholly self-ruling, Parabrahman in his fullest form (paripūrṇatama). Brahmā, Vishṇu, Śiva and all the munis praise him. He is unattached (nirlipta), his presence is like pure consciousness, and he is wholly filled with grace toward his devotees.

Bhagīratha bowed down again and again and sang a divine stotra (hymn of praise). Kṛshṇa was moved by Bhagīratha’s centuries of tapas and his pure devotion. He gave Bhagīratha the vara he sought: that all his ancestors would be freed.

Gaṅgā’s descent and Bhāratī’s curse

Kṛshṇa then turned and told Gaṅgā Devī directly: “O Sureśvarī Gaṅgā Devī, go to Bhāratavarsha (India), because of Bhāratī’s śāpa.”

This points back to an account told earlier in the Devī Bhāgavata. Gaṅgā, whom the Purāṇa names as Vishṇu’s own śakti (power) in river form, came to earth through a śāpa spoken by Bhāratī (Sarasvatī). The three river-devīs had quarrelled in the presence of Vishṇu. So Gaṅgā’s coming to earth had two purposes: to carry out Bhāratī’s śāpa and, at the same time, to free Bhagīratha’s ancestors.

Gaṅgā Devī agreed and began her descent. But her celestial force was too great to fall straight onto the earth, and its fall would have broken the world. So Śiva took her in the matted locks (jaṭā) of his hair. From there she flowed gently out in many streams onto the holy land of Bhāratavarsha.

The freeing of the ancestors

Bhagīratha led the flow of the holy Gaṅgā to the place where Sagara’s sixty thousand sons lay in ash. The moment Gaṅgā’s holy waters touched the ashes, the sixty thousand ancestors were fully cleansed of all pāpa (sin) and set free. They reached Vaikuṇṭha and lived there in the presence of Śrī Hari. The old wrong was put right. Those who had been held in suffering between death and liberation, for want of the right rites, were freed by the power of Gaṅgā’s cleansing waters.

Bhagīratha’s name lives for ever as the king whose great devotion and tapas brought the river of liberation to earth. Because Gaṅgā came down to earth by Bhagīratha’s effort, she is called Bhāgīrathī. That name for the river has lasted through all time.

The dhyāna form of Gaṅgā Devī

Chapter 13 gives the full dhyāna (meditation) form of Gaṅgā Devī. She is to be pictured as follows:

• She sits on a crocodile (makara). Her skin is white and as bright as the full moon.
• She holds a water-pot (kalaśa) in one hand and a white lotus in the other.
• She is decked with all divine jewels and wears white garments.
• The flowing waters of her holy stream surround her.
• Her face shines with compassion for all who seek her.

Those who meditate on Gaṅgā Devī in this form and recite her dhyāna-śloka are cleansed of all the pāpa they have gathered and reach liberation.

Gaṅgā’s return to Vaikuṇṭha

Gaṅgā Devī did what she came to do on earth. She freed Sagara’s sons, made the holy land of Bhāratavarsha pure, and gave a tīrtha (holy place) of liberation to countless generations to come. After this she went back to Vaikuṇṭha and took her place again at the feet of Śrī Hari. Her presence on earth goes on as a tīrtha for ever, because of this divine origin and this work of freeing. The waters of the Gaṅgā carry in them the freeing power of Vishṇu’s śakti, active for all time.

Sources

• Devī Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, Skanda 9, Chapters 11–13