THE BIRTH OF THE GANGES
There came a sage whose name was Bhagīratha: he stayed in a forest of Himalaya practising terrible austerities. For a thousand years he remained with arms upraised, with four fires burning around, and with the sun blazing upon him. At last Brahma had compassion upon him. The Lord of All came to that sage and told him he could ask a boon as a reward for his austerities.
Then the sage said, "The boon I ask is that King Sagara's sixty thousand sons win to Indra's heaven. Their ashes lie far down in the earth. And until a water which is not the water of earth flows over the ashes and purifies them they cannot win to heaven." The Lord of All was pleased with what the sage asked, and the boon was granted.
And so Brahma promised that Gangā would descend upon earth. Now Gangā was the daughter of Himalaya, the Lord of Snow, and she had held herself back from leaving the heaven-world. She would leave at Brahma's command, but her downward rush would be so terrible that the earth would be dashed to pieces by it. Only one
But Shiva, knowing what Gangā would have done, smiled to himself. He would shame her for her arrogance. He made her streams wander through the locks and clusters of his hair. For seasons and seasons Ganga wandered through them as through the forests of Himalaya, and she was made ashamed by her powerlessness to reach the earth.
Then the sage, not seeing the river come down, prayed to Shiva once more, and once more went through awful austerities. Shiva, for the sake of Bhagīratha, allowed Gangā to make her way through the locks and clusters of his hair and come down upon the earth.
In seven streams she descended. The Gods came in their golden chariots to watch that descent upon earth, and the flashing of their chariots made it seem as if a thousand suns were in the sky. Fish of all kind and colours, dolphins of every shape and hue, flashed in the river. And sages and saints came and purified themselves in the water, for the stream that had wandered upon Shiva's head made even the wicked pure. The Gladdener, the Purifier, the Lotus-clad, the Fair