Bhagīratha and the Descent of Gaṅgā
The Vana Parva of the Mahābhārata (Chapters 108 and 109) tells how King Bhagīratha brought the celestial river Gaṅgā down from svarga to earth. Three generations of his family had tried and failed. Bhagīratha succeeded through his great tapas (austerity). Gaṅgā flowed over the ashes of the sixty thousand sons of Sagara and freed them. The ṛshi Lomaśa tells this account to Yudhishṭhira as they visit the holy tīrthas (pilgrimage places).
Three generations of tapas that did not succeed
The sixty thousand sons of King Sagara lay as ashes deep in the earth, and their ātmās (souls) were not set free. The ṛshi Kapila’s fiery glance had burned them before their time and without the proper rites. Kapila had said that only the water of the celestial Gaṅgā, the divine river that flows in the highest svarga, could purify their ashes and give them moksha (liberation).
Aṃśumān, the grandson of Sagara, spent his whole life in tapas to bring Gaṅgā down, but he did not succeed. His son Dilīpa also gave his whole life to this tapas and also failed. Three generations had tried and the work was still undone. The souls of the sixty thousand princes waited in the realm between, unable to cross. (Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapter 108)
Bhagīratha’s great tapas
Dilīpa’s son was Bhagīratha. He took up his father’s vow and his family’s unfinished wish. He left the kingdom in other capable hands and went to the Himālaya. There he did tapas of a strength never seen before. He stood on one foot with his arms raised, surrounded by five fires. This form of tapas is called pañcāgni. He kept it up for thousands of years. His body grew thin. He ate only fallen leaves. He bore heat and cold with no shelter. All the force of his tapas was aimed at one purpose: his love for his ancestors and their liberation. (Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapter 109)
Brahmā was moved by Bhagīratha’s great tapas. He appeared before him and offered him a vara (a boon). Bhagīratha asked for Gaṅgā to come down to earth. Brahmā agreed, but he gave a warning. When Gaṅgā comes down from the sky, her force is so great that the earth cannot take it. A celestial river falling from the sky would break the surface of the earth. Only one could receive Gaṅgā first and soften her fall, and that was Śiva. Bhagīratha must please Śiva as well. (Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapter 109)
Śiva receives Gaṅgā
Bhagīratha did more tapas, this time for Śiva. Śiva was pleased and agreed to receive Gaṅgā on his head. When the celestial river came down, a white and roaring flood of huge force, she fell on Śiva’s matted hair. Śiva’s jāṭā (matted locks) spread as wide as a forest and took Gaṅgā in completely. She was lost in the maze of his locks and could not find a way out. (Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapter 109)
Bhagīratha asked once more. This time he asked Śiva to let Gaṅgā go from his locks so that she could reach the earth. Śiva was pleased with Bhagīratha’s steady devotion. He parted his locks and let Gaṅgā go in seven streams. One stream, the Bhāgīrathī, followed Bhagīratha toward the south. The king rode his chariot ahead of her and led her, by the power of his puṇya (merit), toward the ashes of his ancestors.
Gaṅgā flows over the ashes
Bhagīratha led Gaṅgā across the earth, past mountains, plains and forests. She went down through the passages that Sagara’s sons had dug in their long search for the horse. The divine waters reached the depths of the earth and flowed over the heap of ashes, all that was left of Sagara’s sixty thousand sons. The moment Gaṅgā’s cleansing waters touched the ashes, liberation came, and the sixty thousand souls were set free.
Gaṅgā had done her work of freeing his ancestors. Where she met the ocean, that place became one of the greatest tīrthas in all creation. It is called Gaṅgāsāgara, where the river meets the sea. (Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapter 109)
The seven streams
The Mahābhārata says that Śiva let Gaṅgā go in seven streams. Three flowed east and three flowed west. The seventh, the Bhāgīrathī, the stream that followed Bhagīratha, flowed south toward the ocean. These seven streams of the one celestial Gaṅgā became the holy rivers of Bhārata. The Bhāgīrathī follows Bhagīratha’s own route and carries his name to this day. It is the holiest of them all. (Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapter 109)
Why this account matters
The tradition holds up Bhagīratha’s tapas as the highest example of śraddhā toward one’s ancestors. This is a devoted care for forebears that goes beyond what duty alone asks. It lasted a whole lifetime of giving himself, for the sake of those who could no longer help themselves. The word bhāgīratha-prayatna, meaning an effort as great as Bhagīratha’s, has come into the language for steady striving that succeeds against all odds.
Sources
- Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapter 108 (the three generations that did not succeed)
- Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapter 109 (Bhagīratha’s tapas, Brahmā’s vara, Śiva and Gaṅgā, the seven streams, Gaṅgāsāgara)