Ākāśagaṅgā

Ākāśagaṅgā is the Gaṅgā of svarga (the world of the devas). She is the holy and purifying river of the devas, and her stream makes all three worlds holy. In the Svargārohaṇa Parva of the Mahābhārata she is the river in which Yudhishṭhira, having reached svarga, bathed to cast off his human body.

Bathing in her waters took from him the mānusha-bhāva (the mortal condition), together with grief, weariness and every trace of enmity. It clothed him in a divine form fit to live among the devas.

She is not the earthly Gaṅgā that flows upon the earth. She is also not the Ākāśagaṅgā-tīrtha of Veṅkaṭādri. She is the divine stream that runs through the deva-loka (world of the devas) itself.

The river of the devas

The devas, led by Indra, and Dharma himself in bodily form came to Yudhishṭhira in svarga. The illusion of naraka had melted away. Indra then pointed out the divine river to him: “Here is the river of the devas, holy, purifying the three worlds, the Ākāśagaṅgā. Bathe in her and go forward.”

Dharma in bodily form gave the same counsel. He asked his son to behold the Gaṅgā that flows through the three worlds.

The ṛshis praise her, and she is known as pāvanī (the purifier). Her waters carry the power to strip away all that binds a being to mortal life.

The Mahābhārata, Svargārohaṇa Parva, Chapter 3, tells this.

The shedding of the human body

Yudhishṭhira entered the holy stream, together with Dharma and all the dwellers of svarga. He plunged into the Ākāśagaṅgā, praised by the ṛshis and honoured by the devas. There he laid down his mānusha-deha (human body) and rose again in a divine form.

He was free of hostility, and his sorrow was wholly quenched. He bathed a second time in her waters and came out shining with dharma, without enmity and without grief.

Only after this bath was he fit to go to the places where his brothers, his kinsmen and the great warriors had taken their appointed places. In the parva the river is thus the means of passing from the mortal state to the divine state.

The Mahābhārata, Svargārohaṇa Parva, Chapter 3, tells this.

Not the same as other Gaṅgās

The Ākāśagaṅgā of the Svargārohaṇa Parva is the divine channel of the Gaṅgā moving through the worlds of the devas. She is not the earthly Gaṅgā, whose descent makes Bhārata holy, and she is not the Ākāśagaṅgā-tīrtha upon Veṅkaṭādri. Here she is spoken of as the deva-nadī (river of the devas) that flows in svarga. She purifies the three worlds and receives those who have finished their earthly course.

The Mahābhārata, Svargārohaṇa Parva, Chapter 3, tells this.

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Svargārohaṇa Parva, Chapter 3