21/07/2019
Aeons ago, long before the exploits of the Pandavas or the rule of Ram, King Sakara of Ayodhya made up his mind to perform a horse sacrifice, the greatest of the Vedic fire sacrifices. A horse was set loose to roam the kingdoms of the earth. If it came home unmolested, the king could count himself overlord of all the kingdoms it had wandered through and mark his triumph with the sacrifice of the horse.
King Sakara was wise and valiant; there was no earthly ruler who could thwart his ambition. But Indra, god of the sky, grew jealous of Sakara’s hubris and hid the horse away. Sakara’s sons followed the horse, and eventually they found it deep underground, in a place where the sage Kapila was engrossed in meditation. The sage resented the disturbance and turned the princes to ashes with his glare.
Years later, Sakara’s great-grandson Bhagiratha resolved to rescue the spirits of the incinerated princes so that they might at last find peace. The only way to do this was to bring the heavenly river Ganga down to earth to wash their ashes. Bhagiratha travelled to Gangotri and sat there in meditation for millennia, until Ganga finally consented to come to earth. To spare the earth from the full force of her fall, the river goddess tumbled down through the matted locks of Shiva’s hair, and became the myriad rivers of Garhwal and Kumaon. She touched the ground first at Gangotri, and from there Bhagiratha led her on until she flowed over his ancestors’ ashes and brought them salvation.
That is why the strand of Ganga that flows through Gangotri is called the Bhagirathi and is venerated above all others as the true source of the Ganga. Were it not for this story, a commission of geographers might sit for eternity without agreeing which of the Garhwal rivers is Ganga’s source.
