Gītā (River)
Gītā · gītā, “song”
Rajas has other meanings too: see all meanings of Rajas. Aśvattha has other meanings too: see all meanings of Aśvattha.
Gītā, whose name means “song”, is a river that joins the Gautamī Gaṅgā. It flowed from the body of Ilā when she took her holy bath in the Gautamī and King Ila became a man again by the grace of Devī Gaurī and Bhagavān Śiva. The art of song, which the Yakshiṇī Samā had taught her, left her and entered the Gaṅgā as this river, beside its sisters Nṛtyā (“Dance”) and Saubhāgyā (“Good fortune in marriage”). Brahmā tells Nārada its account in the Gautamī Māhātmya of the Brahma Purāṇa. A holy bath and dāna at its confluence with the Gaṅgā give the reward of the kingdom of the devas.
King Ila becomes Ilā
Brahmā tells Nārada of King Ila, born in the family of Vivasvān, who went to hunt in the forest and came to the Himavat. There he took over the jewelled cave of the Yaksha lord Samanyu and slew his Yakshas. Samanyu’s wife, the Yakshiṇī Samā, took the form of a hind and drew the king, lost in the hunt, into Umāvana, the forest of Umā. Long ago Devī Pārvatī had asked Bhagavān Śiva that every man except Śiva, Gaṇeśa, Kārtikeya and Nandin who entered that forest should become a woman, and Śiva had granted it. So Ila became Ilā.
The Yakshiṇī told Ilā not to grieve, and taught her all the arts of a woman: dance, song, graceful charm and playful ways. Ilā became the wife of Budha, the son of Soma, and bore him Purūravas, who would found the Candravaṃśa.
The vara at the Gautamī
When Purūravas learned of his mother’s sorrow, he asked his father how she could regain manhood. Budha answered that the śāpa could be removed only by the grace of Śambhu and Umā, and that Bhagavān Śiva dwells always with Umā at the Gautamī, removing śāpas and granting varas. So Purūravas went to the Gautamī-Gaṅgā, and Ilā and Budha followed him. They bathed, performed tapas for a short while, and praised Devī Gaurī and Śaṅkara, Budha first, then Ilā, then Purūravas.
The Devī asked what they wished, and Purūravas begged her to forgive King Ila, who had entered her forest unknowingly, and to grant him manhood. The Devī, who abides by the wish of Bhava, said “So be it”, and Bhagavān Śiva, ever devoted to the words of the Devī, said: “Let this king regain his manhood merely by taking a holy plunge here.”
How the Gītā arose
As Ilā took her holy dip, water flowed out from her body. Whatever she had received from the Yakshiṇī, dance, song, graceful charm and the rest, entered the waters of the Gaṅgā with that flow, and three rivers came forth: Nṛtyā, Gītā and Saubhāgyā. These too joined the Gaṅgā. Then Ila, a man once more, performed the Vājapeya yajña and founded a kingdom in Daṇḍaka, in the valley of the Sahya.
The confluence and its phala
The three confluences of Nṛtyā, Gītā and Saubhāgyā with the Gaṅgā are very holy. A holy bath and dāna there grant the reward of the kingdom of the devas.
Brahmā adds that sixteen thousand tīrthas arose on both banks of the Gautamī: where King Ila performed his yajñas, where he met his sons again after regaining manhood, and where the rivers born of the arts the Yakshiṇī gave joined the Gaṅgā. There Śambhu is called Ileśvara, and a holy bath, dāna and the like in these tīrthas give the fruit of all yajñas.
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 38
Sources
- Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 38