Libations that they long to see.
Let Gangá with her holy wave
The ashes of the heroes lave,
That so my kinsmen may ascend
To heavenly bliss that ne’er shall end.
And give, I pray, O God, a son,
Nor let my house be all undone.
Sire of the worlds! be this the grace
Bestowed upon Ikshváku’s race.”
The Sire, when thus the king had prayed,
In sweet kind words his answer made.
“High, high thy thought and wishes are,
Bhagírath of the mighty car!
Ikshváku’s line is blest in thee,
And as thou prayest it shall be.
Gangá, whose waves in Swarga196 flow,
Is daughter of the Lord of Snow.
Win Śiva that his aid be lent
To hold her in her mid descent,
For earth alone will never bear
Those torrents hurled from upper air;
And none may hold her weight but He,
The Trident wielding deity.”
Thus having said, the Lord supreme
Addressed him to the heavenly stream;
And then with Gods and Maruts197 went
To heaven above the firmament.
Canto XLIV. The Descent Of Gangá.
THE LORD OF life the skies regained:
The fervent king a year remained
With arms upraised, refusing rest
While with one toe the earth he pressed,
Still as a post, with sleepless eye,
The air his food, his roof the sky.
The year had past. Then Umá’s lord,198
King of creation, world adored,
Thus spoke to great Bhagírath: “I,
Well pleased thy wish will gratify,
And on my head her waves shall fling
The daughter of the Mountains’ King!”
He stood upon the lofty crest
That crowns the Lord of Snow,
And bade the river of the Blest
Descend on earth below.
Himálaya’s child, adored of all,
The haughty mandate heard,
And her proud bosom, at the call,
With furious wrath was stirred.
Down from her channel in the skies
With awful might she sped
With a giant’s rush, in a giant’s size,
On Śiva’s holy head.
“He calls me,” in her wrath she cried,
“And all my flood shall sweep
And whirl him in its whelming tide
To hell’s profoundest deep.”
He held the river on his head,
And kept her wandering, where,
Dense as Himálaya’s woods, were spread
The tangles of his hair.
No way to earth she found, ashamed,
Though long and sore she strove,
Condemned, until her pride were tamed,
Amid his locks to rove.
There, many lengthening seasons through,
The wildered river ran:
Bhagírath saw it, and anew
His penance dire began.
Then Śiva, for the hermit’s sake,
Bade her long wanderings end,
And sinking into Vindu’s lake
Her weary waves descend.
From Gangá, by the God set free,
Seven noble rivers came;
Hládiní, Pávaní, and she
Called Naliní by name:
These rolled their lucid waves along
And sought the eastern side.
Suchakshu, Sítá fair and strong,
And Sindhu’s mighty tide — 199
These to the region of the west
With joyful waters sped:
The seventh, the brightest and the best,
Flowed where Bhagírath led.
On Śiva’s head descending first
A rest the torrents found:
Then down in all their might they burst
And roared along the ground.
On countless glittering scales the beam
Of rosy morning flashed,
Where fish and dolphins through the stream
Fallen and falling dashed.
Then bards who chant celestial lays
And nymphs of heavenly birth
Flocked round upon that flood to gaze
That streamed from sky to earth.
The Gods themselves from every sphere,
Incomparably bright,
Borne in their golden cars drew near
To see the wondrous sight.
The cloudless sky was all aflame
With the light of a hundred suns
Where’er the shining chariots came
That bore those holy ones.
So flashed the air with crested snakes
And fish of every hue
As when the lightning’s glory breaks
Through fields of summer blue.
And white foam-clouds and silver spray
Were wildly tossed on high,
Like swans that urge their homeward way
Across the autumn sky.
Now ran the river calm and clear
With current strong and deep:
Now slowly broadened to a mere,
Or scarcely seemed to creep.
Now o’er a length of sandy plain
Her tranquil course she held;
Now rose her waves and sank again,
By refluent waves repelled.
So falling first on Śiva’s head,
Thence rushing to their earthly bed,
In ceaseless fall the waters streamed,
And pure with holy lustre gleamed.
Then every spirit, sage, and bard,
Condemned to earth by sentence hard,
Pressed eagerly around the tide
That Śiva’s touch had sanctified.
Then they whom heavenly doom had hurled,
Accursed, to this lower world,
Touched the pure wave, and freed from sin
Resought the skies and entered in.
And all the world was glad, whereon
The glorious water flowed and shone,
For sin and stain were banished thence
By the sweet river’s influence.
First, in a car of heavenly frame,
The royal saint of deathless name,
Bhagírath, very glorious rode,
And after him fair Gangá flowed.
God, sage, and bard, the chief in place
Of spirits and the Nága race,
Nymph, giant, fiend, in long array
Sped where Bhagírath led the way;
And all the hosts the flood that swim
Followed the stream that followed him.
Where’er the great Bhagírath led,
There ever glorious Gangá fled,
The best of floods, the rivers’ queen,
Whose waters wash the wicked clean.
It chanced that Jahnu, great and good,
Engaged with holy offerings stood;
The river spread her waves around
Flooding his sacrificial ground.
The saint in anger marked her pride,
And at one draught her stream he dried.
Then God, and sage, and bard, afraid,
To noble high-souled Jahnu prayed,
And begged that he would kindly deem
His own dear child that holy stream.
Moved by their suit, he soothed their fears
And loosed her waters from his ears.
Hence Gangá through the world is styled
Both Jáhnavi and Jahnu’s child.
Then onward still she followed fast,
And reached the great sea bank at last.
Thence deep below her way she made
To end those rites so long delayed.
The monarch reached the Ocean’s side,
And still behind him Gangá hied.
He sought the depths which open lay
Where Sagar’s sons had dug their way.
So leading through earth’s nether caves
The river’s purifying waves,
Over his kinsmen’s dust the lord
His funeral libation poured.
Soon as the flood their dust bedewed,
Their spirits gained beatitude,
And all in heavenly bodies dressed
Rose to the skies’ eternal rest.
Then thus to King Bhagírath said
Brahmá, when, coming at the head
Of all his bright celestial train,
He saw those spirits freed from stain:
“Well done! great Prince of men, well done!
Thy kinsmen bliss and heaven have won.
The sons of Sagar mighty-souled,
Are with the Blest, as Gods, enrolled,
Long as the Ocean’s flood shall stand
Upon the border of the land,
So long shall Sagar’s sons remain,
And, godlike, rank in heaven retain.
Gangá thine eldest child shall be,
Called from thy name Bhágirathí;
Named also — for her waters fell
From heaven and flow through earth and hell —
Tripathagá, stream of the skies,
Because three paths she glorifies.
And, mighty King, ’tis given thee now
To free thee and perform thy vow.
No longer, happy Prince, delay
Drink-offerings to thy kin to pay.
For this the holiest Sagar sighed,
But mourned the boon he sought denied.
Then Anśumán, dear Prince! although
No brighter name the world could show,
Strove long the heavenly flood to gain
To visit earth, but strove in vain.
Nor was she by the sages’ peer,
Blest with all virtues, most austere,
Thy sire Dilípa, hither brought,
Though with fierce prayers the boon he sought.
But thou, O King, earned success,
And won high fame which God will bless.
Through thee, O victor of thy foes,
On earth this heavenly Gangá flows,
And thou hast gained the meed divine
That waits on virtue such as thine.
Now in her ever holy wave
Thyself, O best of heroes, lave:
So shalt thou, pure from every sin,
The blessed fruit of merit win.
Now for thy kin who died of yore
The meet libations duly pour.
Above the heavens I now ascend:
Depart, and bliss thy steps attend.”
Thus to the mighty king who broke
His foemens’ might, Lord Brahmá spoke,
And with his Gods around him rose
To his own heaven of blest repose.
The royal sage no more delayed,
But, the libation duly paid,
Home to his regal city hied
With water cleansed and purified.
There ruled he his ancestral state,
Best of all men, most fortunate.
And all the people joyed again
In good Bhagírath’s gentle reign.
Rich, prosperous, and blest were they,
And grief and sickness fled away.
Thus, Ráma, I at length have told
How Gangá came from heaven of old.
Now, for the evening passes swift,
I wish thee each auspicious gift.
This story of the flood’s descent
Will give — for ’tis most excellent —
Wealth, purity, fame, length of days,
And to the skies its hearers raise”
Canto XLV. The Quest Of The Amrit.
HIGH AND MORE high their wonder rose
As the strange story reached its close,
And thus, with Lakshmaṇ, Ráma, best
Of Raghu’s sons, the saint addressed:
“Most wondrous is the tale which thou
Hast told of heavenly Gangá, how
From realms above descending she
Flowed through the land and filled the sea.
In thinking o’er what thou hast said
The night has like a moment fled,
Whose hours in musing have been spent
Upon thy words most excellent:
So much, O holy Sage, thy lore
Has charmed us with this tale of yore.”
Day dawned. The morning rites were done
And the victorious Raghu’s son
Addressed the sage in words like these,
Rich in his long austerities:
“The night is past: the morn is clear;
Told is the tale so good to hear:
Now o’er that river let us go,
Three-pathed, the best of all that flow.
This boat stands ready on the shore
To bear the holy hermits o’er,
Who of thy coming warned, in haste,
The barge upon the bank have placed.”
And Kuśik’s son approved his speech,
And moving to the sandy beach,
Placed in the boat the hermit band,
And reached the river’s further strand.
On the north bank their feet they set,
And greeted all the saints they met.
On Gangá’s shore they lighted down,
And saw Viśálá’s lovely town.
Thither, the princes by his side,
The best of holy hermits hied.
It was a town exceeding fair
That might with heaven itself compare.
Then, suppliant palm to palm applied,
Famed Ráma asked his holy guide:
“O best of hermits, say what race
Of monarchs rules this lovely place.
Dear master, let my prayer prevail,
For much I long to hear the tale.”
Moved by his words, the saintly man
Viśálá’s ancient tale began:
“List, Ráma, list, with closest heed
The tale of Indra’s wondrous deed,
And mark me as I truly tell
Ere Krita’s famous Age200 had fled,
Strong were the sons of Diti201 bred;
And Aditi’s brave children too
Were very mighty, good, and true.
The rival brothers fierce and bold
Were sons of Kaśyap lofty-souled.
Of sister mothers born, they vied,
Brood against brood, in jealous pride.
Once, as they say, band met with band,
And, joined in awful council, planned
To live, unharmed by age and time,
Immortal in their youthful prime.
Then this was, after due debate,
The counsel of the wise and great,
To churn with might the milky sea202
The life-bestowing drink to free.
This planned, they seized the Serpent King,
Vásuki, for their churning-string,
And Mandar’s mountain for their pole,
And churned with all their heart and soul.
As thus, a thousand seasons through,
This way and that the snake they drew,
Biting the rocks, each tortured head,
A very deadly venom shed.
Thence, bursting like a mighty flame,
A pestilential poison came,
Consuming, as it onward ran,
The home of God, and fiend, and man.
Then all the suppliant Gods in fear
To Śankar,203 mighty lord, drew near.
To Rudra, King of Herds, dismayed,
“Save us, O save us, Lord!” they prayed.
Then Vishṇu, bearing shell, and mace,
And discus, sho
wed his radiant face,
And thus addressed in smiling glee
The Trident wielding deity:
“What treasure first the Gods upturn
From troubled Ocean, as they churn,
Should — for thou art the eldest — be
Conferred, O best of Gods, on thee.
Then come, and for thy birthright’s sake,
This venom as thy first fruits take.”
He spoke, and vanished from their sight,
When Śiva saw their wild affright,
And heard his speech by whom is borne
The mighty bow of bending horn,204
The poisoned flood at once he quaffed
As ‘twere the Amrit’s heavenly draught.
Then from the Gods departing went
Śiva, the Lord pre-eminent.
The host of Gods and Asurs still
Kept churning with one heart and will.
But Mandar’s mountain, whirling round,
Pierced to the depths below the ground.
Then Gods and bards in terror flew
To him who mighty Madhu slew.
“Help of all beings! more than all,
The Gods on thee for aid may call.
Ward off, O mighty-armed! our fate,
And bear up Mandar’s threatening weight.”
Then Vishṇu, as their need was sore,
The semblance of a tortoise wore,
And in the bed of Ocean lay
The mountain on his back to stay.
Then he, the soul pervading all,
Whose locks in radiant tresses fall,
One mighty arm extended still,
And grasped the summit of the hill.
So ranged among the Immortals, he
Joined in the churning of the sea.
A thousand years had reached their close,
When calmly from the ocean rose
The gentle sage205 with staff and can,
Lord of the art of healing man.
Then as the waters foamed and boiled,
As churning still the Immortals toiled,
Of winning face and lovely frame,
Forth sixty million fair ones came.
Born of the foam and water, these
Were aptly named Apsarases.206
Each had her maids. The tongue would fail —
So vast the throng — to count the tale.
But when no God or Titan wooed
A wife from all that multitude,
Refused by all, they gave their love
In common to the Gods above.
Then from the sea still vext and wild
Rose Surá,207 Varuṇ’s maiden child.
A fitting match she sought to find:
But Diti’s sons her love declined,
Their kinsmen of the rival brood
To the pure maid in honour sued.
Hence those who loved that nymph so fair
The hallowed name of Suras bear.
And Asurs are the Titan crowd
Her gentle claims who disallowed.