{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry044.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry044.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry044.htm","text":"The Lord of life the skies regained:\n The fervent king a year remained\n With arms upraised, refusing rest\n While with one toe the earth he pressed,\n Still as a post, with sleepless eye,\n The air his food, his roof the sky.\n Tho year had past. Then Um\u00e1's lord, \u00a03b\n King of creation, world adored,\n Thus spoke to great Bhagirath: 'I\n Well pleased thy wish will gratify,\n And on my head her waves shalll fling\n The daughter of the Mountains' King!\n He stood upon the lofty crest\n \u00a0\u00a0 That crowns the Lord of Snow,\n And bade the river of the Blest\n \u00a0\u00a0 Descend on earth below.\n Him\u00e1laya's child, adored of all,\n \u00a0\u00a0 The haughty mandate heard,\n And her proud bosom, at the call,\n \u00a0\u00a0 With furious wrath was stirred.\n Down from her channel in the skies\n \u00a0\u00a0 With awful might she sped\n With a giant's rush, in a giant's size.\n \u00a0\u00a0 On S'iva's holy head.\n 'He calls me,' in her wrath she cried,\n \u00a0\u00a0 'And all my flood shall sweep\n And whirl him in its whelming tide\n \u00a0\u00a0 To hell's profoundest deep.\n He held tne river on his head,\n \u00a0\u00a0 And kept her wandering, where,\n Dense as Himalaya's woods, were spread\n \u00a0\u00a0 The tangles of his hair.\n \n \n \n No way to earth she found, ashamed,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Though long and sore she strove,\n Condemned, until her pride were tamed,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Amid his locks to rove.\n There, many lengthening seasons through,\n \u00a0\u00a0 The wildered river ran:\n Bhagirath saw it, and anew\n \u00a0\u00a0 His penance dire began.\n Then S'iva, for the hermit's sake,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Bade her long wanderings end,\n And sinking into Vindu's lake\n \u00a0\u00a0 Her weary waves descend.\n From Gang\u00e1, by the God set free,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Seven noble rivers came;\n Hl\u00e1din\u00ed, P\u00e1van\u00ed, and she\n \u00a0\u00a0 Called Nalin\u00ed by name:\n These rolled their lucid waves along\n \u00a0\u00a0 And sought the eastern side.\n Suchakshu, S\u00edt\u00e1 fair and strong,\n \u00a0\u00a0 And Sindhu's mighty tide-- \u00a01\n These to the region of the west\n \u00a0\u00a0 With joyful waters sped:\n The seventh, the brightest and the best,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Flowed where Bhag\u00edrath led.\n On S'iva's head descending first\n \u00a0\u00a0 A rest the torrents found:\n Then down in all their might they burst\n \u00a0\u00a0 And roared along the ground.\n On countless glittering scales the beam\n \u00a0\u00a0 Of rosy morning flashed,\n Where flsh and dolphins through the stream\n \u00a0\u00a0 Fallen and falling dashed.\n Then bards who chant celestial lays\n \u00a0\u00a0 And nymphs of heavenly birth\n Flocked round upon that flow to gaze\n \u00a0\u00a0 That streamed from sky and earth.\n The Gods themselves from every sphere,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Incomparably bright,\n Borne in their golden cars drew near\n \u00a0\u00a0 To see the wondrous sight.\n The cloudless sky was all aflame\n \u00a0\u00a0 With the light of a hundred suns\n Where'er the shining chariots came\n \u00a0\u00a0 That bore those holy ones.\n So flashed the air with crested snakes\n \u00a0\u00a0 And fish of every hue\n As when the lightning's glory breaks\n \u00a0\u00a0 Through fields of summer blue.\n And white foam-clouds and silver spray\n \u00a0\u00a0 Were wildly tossed on high,\n Like swans that urge their homeward way\n \u00a0\u00a0 Across the autumn sky.\n Now ran the river calm and clear\n \u00a0\u00a0 With current strong and deep:\n \n \n Now slowly broadened to a mere,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Or scarcely seemed to creep.\n Now o'er a length of sandy plain\n \u00a0\u00a0 Her tranquil course she held:\n Now rose her waves and sank again,\n \u00a0\u00a0 By refluent waves repelled.\n So falling first on S'iva's head,\n Thence rushing to their earthly bed,\n In ceaseless fall the waters streamed,\n And pure with holy lustre gleamed.\n Then every spirit, sage, and bard,\n Condemned to earth by sentence hard,\n Pressed eagerly around the tide\n That S'iva's touch had sanctified.\n Then they whom heavenly doom had hurled,\n Accursed, to this lower world,\n Touched the pure wave, and freed from sin\n Resought the skies and entered in\n And all the world was glad, whereon\n The glorious water flowed and shone,\n For sin and stain were banished thence\n By the sweet river's influence.\n First, in a car of heavenly frame,\n The royal saint of deathless name,\n Bhag\u00edrath, very glorious rode,\n And after him fair Gang\u00e1 flowed.\n God, sage, and bard, the chief in place\n Of spirits and the N\u00e1ga race,\n Nymph, giant, fiend, in long array\n Sped where Bhag\u00edrath led the way;\n And all the hosts the flood that swim\n Followed the stream that followed him.\n Where'er the great Bhag\u00edrath led,\n There ever glorious Gang\u00e1 fled,\n The best of floods, the rivers' queen,\n Whose waters wash the wicked clean.\n \u00a0\u00a0 It chanced that Jahnu, great and good,\n Engaged with holy offering stood;\n The river spread her waves around\n Flooding his sacrificial ground.\n The saint in anger marked her pride,\n And at one draught her stream he dried.\n Then God, and sage, and bard, afraid,\n To noble high-souled Jahnu prayed,\n And begged that he would kindly deem\n His own dear child that holy stream.\n Moved by their suit, he soothed their fears\n And loosed her waters from his ears.\n Hence Gang\u00e1 through the world is styled\n Both J\u00e1hnavi and Jahnu's child.\n Then onward still she followed fast,\n And reached the great sea bank at last.\n Thence deep below her way she made\n To end those rites so long delayed.\n The monarch reached the Ocean's side,\n And still behind him Gang\u00e1 hied.\n He sought the depths which open lay\n Where Sagar's sons had dug their way.\n So leading through earth's nether caves\n The river's purifying waves.\n \n \n Over his kinsmen's dust the lord\n His funeral libation poured.\n Soon as the flood their dust bedewed,\n Their spirits gained beatitude,\n And all in heavenly bodies dressed\n Rose to the skies' eternal rest.\n \n \n Then thus to King Bhag\u00edrath said\n Brahm\u00e1, when, coming at the head\n Of all his bright celestial train,\n He saw those spirits freed from stain:\n 'Well done! great Prince of men, well done!\n Thy kinsmen bliss and heaven have won.\n The sons of Sagar mighty-souled,\n Are with the Blest, as Gods, enrolled,\n Long as the Ocean's flood shall stand\n Upon the border of the land,\n So long shall Sagar's sons remain,\n And, godlike, rank in heaven retain.\n Gang\u00e1 thine eldest child shall be.\n Called from thy name Bh\u00e1girath\u00ed;\n Named also--for her waters fell\n From heaven and flow through earth and hell--\n Tripathag\u00e1, stream of the skies.\n Because three paths she glorifies,\n And, mighty King, 'tis given thee now\n To free thee and perform thy vow.\n No longer, happy Prince, delay\n Drink-offerings to thy kin to pay,\n For this the holiest Sagar sighed,\n But mourned the boon he sought denied.\n Then Ans'um\u00e1n, dear Prince! although\n No brighter name the world could show,\n Strove long the heavenly flood to gain\n To visit earth, but strove in vain.\n Nor was she by the sages' peer,\n Blest with all virtues, most austere,\n Thy sire Dilipa, hither brought,\n Though with fierce prayers the boon he sought.\n But thou, O King, earned success,\n And won high fame which God will bless.\n Through thee, O victor of thy foes,\n On earth this heavenly Gang\u00e1 flows,\n And thou hast gained the meed divine\n That waits on virtue such as thine.\n Now in her ever holy wave\n Thyself, O best of heroes, lave:\n So shalt thou, pure from every sin,\n The blessed fruit of merit win.\n Now for thy kin who died of yore\n The meet libations duly pour.\n Above the heavens I now ascend:\n Depart, and bliss thy steps attend.'\n \n \n Thus to the mighty king who broke\n Hie foemens' might, Lord Brahm\u00e1 spoke,\n And with his Gods around him rose\n To his own heaven of blest repose.\n The royal sage no more delayed,\n \n \n \n But, the libation duly paid,\n Home to his regal city hied\n With water cleansed and purified.\n There ruled he his ancestral state,\n Best of all men, most fortunate.\n And all the people joyed again\n In good Bhag\u00edrath's gentle reign.\n Rich, prosperous, and blest were they,\n And grief and sickness fled away.\n Thus, R\u00e1ma, I at length have told\n How Gang\u00e1 came from heaven of old.\n Now, for the evening passes swift,\n I wish thee each auspicious gift.\n This story of the flood's descent\n Will give--for' tis most excellent--\n Wealth, purity, fame, length of days,\n And to the skies its hearers raise.'\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n54:1b Heaven.\n54:2b Wind-Gods.\n54:3b S'iva.\n55:1 The lake Vindu does not exist. Of the seven rivers here mentioned two only, the Ganges and the Sindhu or Indus, are known to geographers. Hl\u00e1din\u00ed means the Gladdener, P\u00e1van\u00ed the Purifier, Nalin\u00ed the Lotus-Clad, and Suchakshu the Fair-eyed.","title":"BOOK I: Canto XLIV.: The Descent of Gang\u00e0.","type":"page"}