The Ganga in Mythologies - The Ganga: Water Use in the Indian Subcontinent - page 3

In course of time, the fame and sacredness of the Ganga reached the Western
world. She figured in the imagination of poets, writers and travellers. In poetry, T
S Eliot, Heine, Andrew Marvell, and Goethe, to name a few, referred to her with
reverence. Roman and Italian poets - Virgil, Ovid and Dante - also mentioned the
Ganga. Hart Henry in a long poem narrated the mythology of the Ganga's descent
on the earth to revive King Sagara's 60,000 sons and deliver their souls for ascent to
heaven. I quote a stanza from the long poem.
Ganga, whose waves in heaven flow
Is daughter of the lord of snow?
Win Siva that his aid be lent
To hold her in her mid-descent,
For earth alone will never bear
Those torrents hurled from upper air.
Columbus on his fourth voyage to the New World heard the natives of Panama
speak of the great river, The Ganga which lay 10 days' journey ahead from the
coast. Megasthenes described the Ganga as the largest river of the world. Ptolemy's
account and the graphic, showing the descent of the river on earth influenced and
attracted geographists. Alexander imagined the river to be the farthest limit of the
earth and while invading India, aspired to reach it. She figured in the translations
and commentaries of ancient Indian texts by Max Mueller, William Jones etc. In
New Testament, the tale of river Physon in the Garden of Eden has strange simi-
larity with the Hindu mythology of the Ganga's descent on earth, giving rise to the
hypothesis that the Ganga and the Physon was the same river. It persisted throughout
the Middle Ages until the end of the 15th century and was held by Saint Augustine,
Saint Ambrosa and Saint Jerome.
The Ganga mythology not only described her descent on earth but narrated her
journey to the sea also. Great engineers like Travernier (1666), Bernier (1669),
Rennel (1760), Sherwill (1857), Fergusson (1863) and Reaks (1919) drew many
conclusions from, and laid great importance on, the incidents narrated in the
mythologies about the Ganga and other sacred Indian rivers as well as from the
views of learned men on them. The place where the Ganga merged with the Yamuna
and Saraswati near Allahabad is called 'Juktabeni' i.e., three plaits of holy hair tied
together and the place where its two tributaries - Yamuna and Saraswati - come out
of the Bhagirathi at Triveni inWest Bengal is called 'Muktabeni', i.e., the 'plaits sep-
arated'. The diversion of the Ganga to the Padma was caused, according to Captain
Sherwill, by the collapse of the left bank, which he attributed to another legend in
the Ramayana. A sage, Jahnu drank up the Ganga in retaliation of her washing away
his holy copper utensils when she was following Bhagirath. He entreated the angry
sage who pleased with his prayers, let her out through his thigh (hence Jahnabi,
another name of the Ganga) and allowed her to flow again.
According to another mythology, Bhagirath was tired in his long journey from
Haridwar and when he stopped for eating, the Ganga who had also stopped heard
sound from a shell and taking it to be that from Bhagirath's conch-shell, followed the
former which was actually blown by Padmavati, after whom the diversion was called
the Padma. Seeing she was diverting, Bhagirath blew his conch-shell, at which real-
izing her mistake, the Ganga returned to follow him southward. In Chandi Mangal,