Indian Antiquary Vol 50

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 81

MARCH, 1921)
THE EARLY COURSE OF THE GANGES
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to offer her the homage due to her sacred character, especially as she is connected with the Hindu Triad. She is considered to be the holiest of the holies. The benefits, which she confers upon agriculture by bringing fertility and moisture to the soil, upon the products of which the bulk of the people depend for their livelihood, and the facility she affords to distribute the products of the land and industries along her banks to different marts of the country as a trade route of upper India, in fact, the only means of communication during the pre-railway days, entitle her to the highest veneration. But it is very difficult to understand why she has been represented in the ancient works
of the Hindus as having been brought down from heaven by BhagiLegend of the
ratha, a descendant of Sagara of the Solar Dynasty, though perGanges : an alle ory.
haps, long before Bhagiratha was born, we find her existing as a river. She is mentioned in the Rig Veda159 in what is called the Nadi-Stuti. Bhagiratha's name does not appear in the Rig Veda though indeed the name of " Bhagiratha Aikshvâka (descendant of Iskhvâku ')" is mentioned in the Jaiminiya Upanishad Brahmana (IV, 6, 1, 2), 160 yet it does not appear that he was in any way associated with the Ganges : he is mentioned there as an ally of the Kuru-Pañchâlas. Vaivasvata Manu, the founder of the town of Ayodhyâ was a remote ancestor of Bhagiratha and was said to have brought down the Ganges from heaven, 161 and yet we find that Gaigâ (the Ganges) was existing as a river at the time. of Vaivasvata Manu who placed the monster fish, an incarnation of Vishnu, in that river. 162 We may therefore conclude that the legend of the Ganges as related in the Ramayana is an allegory, based upon an historical fact regarding the condition of the Ganges at the time of Sagara, king of Ayodhyâ. The river probably commenced to silt up during his reign, especially at the mouth, as is indicated by the story of his employing his sixty thousand sons, who, I think, represent the labourers employed at the time to remove the silt which had raised the bed there with a view to find out the stolen sacrificial horse which is an allegorical representation of the absorbed river. Kapilâsrama indicated, as it does now, the position of the mouth of the Ganges, or rather of its principal outlet. We may conceive that at the time of Sagara, the mouth of the river had been blocked up with silts and sands, and that its body had shrunk, interfering with its navigability, and causing swamps and stagnant pools of water, in karious parts of the channel. We have, at this distance of time, no means of ascertaming the cause which led to the deterioration of the river. Perhaps it had been brought about by the diversion of large volumes of water through irrigation channels in various parts of the country through which the river flowed, or perhaps some other natural causes had been at work. Whatever may have been the cause, it took five generations of the royal house of Ayodhya, from Sagara to Bhagiratha, to reclaim the silted-up river, remove the block of drainage and restore its navigation; and it was reserved for Bhagiratha to achieve full success in the end—& circumstance which bestowed upon him the proud title of being the second father to Ganga Devî who was thenceforth called Bhagirathi.163
169 Rig Veda, X, 76, 6. 100 Vedic Index of Names and Subjects, vol. 2, p. 93. 161 Ramdyana, Adi, chs. 6-6. 103 Mahdbhdrata, Vans P., ch. 187, vs. 19, 2).
165 Ramdyana, Adi, ch. 44,