Story of River Ganga

How did Ganga descend on Earth?

In ancient times there was a king whose name was Sagar. Sagar was a majestic and powerful king and King Sagara was performing the Ashwamedha Yagya. During Yagya he came to know that his Ashwamedha horses were stolen by Lord Indra and Lord Indra tied the horse to Kapil Muni's hermitage. Lord Indra did this because he was very fearful of the result and outcome of this Yagya or Yajna . King Sagar sent his 60000 sons in search of the horses .

When they found that the horses were tied up in Kapil Muni’s Hermitage they thought it was captured by Him so they planned to attack Kapil Muni.

When they prepared to attack the meditating Kapil Muni at the same time, the eyes of Kapil Rishi, absorbed in penance, opened and he got angry. A flame rose in the eyes of the sage and burnt Sagar's 60 thousand sons to ashes in a moment. There was one more son of king Sagar his name was Anshuman. When Anshuman came to know about this, he went to Rishi Kapil and humbly asked how the soul of his brother would get salvation. 

Then Kapil Rishi told that if the water of the Ganges is sprinkled on their ashes, then they will get salvation. Ansuman tried his best to help his  deceased brothers to get the salvation but unfortunately he  failed  .

Who was Bhagirath?

Later Ansuman’s grand sons King Bhagiratha took the initiative to do penance for the peace of the souls of his ancestors. In order to save the ancestors, Bhagirath did severe penance and finally Mother Ganga had to accept his prayer to come to earth.

Now the biggest challenge for him was, how to bring river Ganga on earth , The current of the Ganges was so strong if it could fall directly on earth then it could lead to destruction. Then Bhagirath again did penance to Lord Shiva. Lord Shiva was pleased with Bhagirath's penance and agreed to help Bhagirath. 

After this Lord Shiva took the Ganges in his hair and sent only one stream of it to the earth. Thats why we also call Lord shiva as Gangadhar. And then King Sagar's 60 thousand sons were got the salvation.

It is also said that when Mother Ganga was pleased with Bhagirath, and she said that no one can handle my velocity and earth will be destructed by such velocity .All these things Bhagirath told to Shiv ji and As soon as Ganga started descending from heaven to earth, Shiva imprisoned her in his hair to remove her pride. 

She apologized to Shiva. Then Shiva dropped her into a small puddle from Jata, from where the Ganges flowed in seven streams. These are Nalini, Hridini, Pavani, Sita, Chakush, Sindhu and Bhagirathi

Bhagirathi became the Ganges and was considered to be salvation in Hinduism.

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