Gaṅgā Upākhyāna in the Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa

The Gaṅgā Upākhyāna is the account of Gaṅgā in the Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa. It fills chapters 10 to 12 of the Prakṛti Khaṇḍa. It tells of Gaṅgā’s divine birth, her coming to earth through the tapas (austerity) of King Bhagīratha, the events in Goloka before her earthly form, and her marriage to Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa.

This account begins in Goloka, not on earth. The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa says Gaṅgā is a river of liquid divine light that rose from the shared radiance of Rādhā and Śrī Kṛshṇa. Chapter 34 of the Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa gives a second account of her origin, told at the end of this account.

Gaṅgā’s origin in Goloka

The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa teaches that Gaṅgā is no ordinary river of the Himālaya. Her first home is Goloka, the supreme abode of Śrī Kṛshṇa. In Goloka, Rādhā and Kṛshṇa stood together in their first shining form, and liquid light flowed from their joined presence. This river of light took the form of Gaṅgā. She flowed through Brahmaloka, Vaikuṇṭha and the svarga lokas before any human being existed to seek her waters.

The Purāṇa gives her birthday in Goloka as Kārtika Paurṇamī, the full-moon night of the month of Kārtika. In the Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa this is the most sacred of all full-moon nights. (Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, chapter 10)

King Sagara and his sons

The account on earth begins with the great king Sagara of the Ikshvāku line. Sagara had two queens, Śaibya and Vaidarbhī. Śaibya had a son, Asamañja, born of a righteous line. Vaidarbhī had conceived a lump of flesh (māṃsapiṇḍa). Bhagavān Śiva gave it his grace, and sixty thousand sons were born from it at the same time. These sons were strong, proud, and devoted to the glory of their father. (Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, chapter 10)

Sagara wished to perform the Aśvamedha yajña (fire ritual) and let a sacred horse roam the earth. The horse vanished near the āśrama of the great ṛshi Kapila Maharshi. Sagara sent his sixty thousand sons to look for it. They came to Kapila’s āśrama and found the horse near it. They wrongly thought the ṛshi had stolen it. They surrounded him with drawn weapons and broke his samādhi (deep meditation) with noise and insults.

Kapila Maharshi woke from his deep meditation, full of the fire of tapas, and opened his eyes. His gaze fell on the sixty thousand sons, and they were burnt to ash at once. (Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, chapter 10)

Generations of tapas

The news of the death of his sons reached Sagara. He was overcome with grief and died of sorrow soon after.

Asamañja wished to free the ashes of his brothers from the world of suffering. He did tapas for one lakh years and died before he reached his aim. His son Dilīpa did tapas for one lakh years with the same wish and also died without finishing the task. Dilīpa’s son Aṃśumān did the same for one lakh years and died as well. For generation after generation the ashes of Sagara’s sons lay without the rites, and their ātmās could not reach the higher worlds. (Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, chapter 10)

At last Bhagīratha, a later descendant of Sagara, succeeded. He did tapas for one lakh years, and his austerity was deeper and sterner than that of all who came before him. It was so pure that it moved both Brahmā and Śrī Kṛshṇa. (Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, chapter 10)

Bhagīratha’s vara

When the long tapas ended, Śrī Kṛshṇa appeared before Bhagīratha in his form as a cowherd, his most natural and tender form. He asked Bhagīratha to name his vara (boon).

Bhagīratha asked that the celestial river Gaṅgā come down to earth. Then he could offer tarpaṇa (offerings of water) to his ancestors and free the ātmās of Sagara’s sons from their wandering. Kṛshṇa gave him the vara. (Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, chapter 10)

Gaṅgā’s worry

Kṛshṇa called Gaṅgā and told her to go to earth. Gaṅgā spoke her worry. She said:

“O Bhagavān Kṛshṇa, I am pure. But on earth I must take in the pāpa of all who bathe in me. In time the pāpa of countless people full of pāpa will dirty my waters. How shall I stay pure? How shall I bear the weight of the world’s karma?”

Kṛshṇa answered her: “The bhaktas (devotees), who are truly devoted to me with a sincere heart, will enter your waters again and again. Their presence and devotion will make you pure. When a true bhakta touches your waters, all the pāpa that others have left in you will burn away. You will be made new again and again by this cleansing.”

Gaṅgā was comforted by this promise and agreed to go down. (Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, chapter 10)

Bhagīratha’s praise and the descent

Bhagīratha then praised Gaṅgā with a stotra (hymn of praise) called the Kauthumokta stotra. It is a hymn of deep devotion. It honours Gaṅgā as a form of Mūla Prakṛti, as the purifier of all worlds, and as the holy river that joins this world of mortals to the worlds above.

Bhagavān Śiva took the first rush of her flow on his matted hair to break the force of her fall. Gaṅgā came down to earth and flowed to the place where the ashes of Sagara’s sixty thousand sons lay. Her holy waters touched them, and at once their ātmās were made pure. They rose out of their wandering and reached the higher worlds. The tapas of Bhagīratha had borne fruit. (Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, chapter 10)

The quarrel in Goloka between Rādhā and Gaṅgā

Chapter 11 of the Prakṛti Khaṇḍa goes back to Goloka. It tells what happened there before Gaṅgā took her earthly form.

In Goloka, Śrī Kṛshṇa was sitting close to Gaṅgā. He was talking with her and honouring her as one of his dearest. Rādhā saw this and was filled with jealousy. She went up to Gaṅgā, and in the heat of that meeting she began to drink all the water, all the celestial flow that Gaṅgā was, so that her rival would be gone.

This frightened the other devas and Brahmā. Brahmā stepped in as peacemaker. He calmed Rādhā and honoured both devīs, and the quarrel ended.

Then, to find a place of her own, Gaṅgā came forth from the pādāṅgushṭha, the tip of the right foot of Bhagavān Vishṇu. For this reason she is called Vishṇupadī, she who came from Vishṇu’s foot. (Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, chapter 11)

Gaṅgā’s marriage to Nārāyaṇa

In chapter 12 Brahmā brought Gaṅgā to Vaikuṇṭha, the supreme abode of Śrī Nārāyaṇa. There, with Brahmā present as the head of the gathering, Śrī Nārāyaṇa accepted Gaṅgā in a gāndharva marriage, a union of free consent. Gaṅgā became one of the devī consorts of Nārāyaṇa, and her place in the divine order was set.

The chapter also tells that Sarasvatī, another consort linked with the realm of Vishṇu, felt jealous when Gaṅgā came. This was like the jealousy of Rādhā in Goloka. (Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, chapter 12)

Gaṅgā Māhātmya

The tenth chapter of the Prakṛti Khaṇḍa also holds a long Gaṅgā Māhātmya, a description of Gaṅgā’s spiritual power:

A single dip in Gaṅgā destroys the pāpa of this life and of countless earlier births.
A single drop of Gaṅgā’s water, touched to the lips of a dying person, brings his moksha (liberation).
To die at Vārāṇasī on the bank of Gaṅgā is the surest path to moksha, because Bhagavān Śiva himself whispers the tāraka-mantra in the ear of everyone who dies there.
Gaṅgā is a direct door between the world of mortals and the higher worlds. She rises from the tip of Vishṇu’s foot, falls through the matted hair of Śiva, and flows over the earth to the sea. In this way she joins Vaikuṇṭha, Kailāsa and Bhūloka in one unbroken holy thread.
Those who cannot reach Gaṅgā in person, but speak her name with devotion and faith, receive the puṇya (merit) of having bathed in her.

(Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, chapter 10)

Another account in the Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa

Chapter 34 of the Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa gives a different account of Gaṅgā’s origin. Bhagavān Śaṅkara played a divine instrument (jantra) at Vaikuṇṭhaloka. The joy of the music was so great that every being present took the form of Rudra. The tears of joy that Śaṅkara himself shed in his devotion became the river Gaṅgā. She thus rose from the tears of bliss of Bhagavān Śiva at Vaikuṇṭhaloka. In the Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, by contrast, Gaṅgā rose from the joined radiance of Rādhā and Kṛshṇa in Goloka.

The five names of Gaṅgā

Chapter 34 gives five chief names of Gaṅgā, each with its meaning:

Bhāgīrathī: she who was brought to earth by King Bhagīratha through his great tapas.
Gaṅgā: she who came from Vaikuṇṭhaloka.
Jāhnavī: the muni Jahnu drank her whole flow in anger, then let her out through his knee (jānu).
Bhīshmasuhṛ: she is the dear friend (suhṛ) of Bhīshma.
Tripathagāminī: she who flows through three worlds, svarga, mṛtyu (the earth) and pātāla.

Gaṅgā’s power to free, by nearness

The chapter lists a growing power to free from pāpa according to how near one comes to Gaṅgā:

Darśana (seeing Gaṅgā) removes the pāpa of many lives.
Sparśa (touching her waters) removes the pāpa of seven lives.
Snāna (bathing in her) removes the pāpa of a hundred lives.
Pāna (drinking her water) removes the pāpa of a thousand lives.

Gaṅgā in the Kali Yuga

The text says that Gaṅgā’s full māhātmya (greatness) lasts for 5,000 years in the Kali Yuga. The power of the vigrahas (sacred images) and of the Purāṇas lasts 10,000 years in the Kali Yuga.

The three Gaṅgās

Chapter 34 names the three forms of this one holy river in the three worlds:

Mandākinī: the Gaṅgā of svarga.
Gaṅgā, also called Alakānandā: the Gaṅgā of the earth, Bhūloka.
Bhogāvatī: the Gaṅgā of pātāla, the world below.

Ākāśagaṅgā at Vaikuṇṭhaloka

The celestial river at Vaikuṇṭhaloka, from which Gaṅgā came down, is 1,000 yojanas deep and one lakh yojanas long. (Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, chapter 34)

Sources

Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakṛti Khaṇḍa, chapters 10 to 12
Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Janana Khaṇḍa, chapter 34