Ganga, elder daughter of Himavan

Classical

Ganga and Parvati are sisters in Valmiki.

After a night on the bank of the Sona river, Vishvamitra wakes the young princes at dawn. Night is over, he says, the east is bright, time to get up. Rama rises, finishes his morning rites, and asks how they will cross the deep, sandbanked Sona, since there is no boat. Vishvamitra says he will take the same route as the great sages.

They travel on, enjoying the forests, and by about midday they come to the Ganga, the best of rivers, honored by sages. Her water is pure and swans and saarasa birds live on it, and everyone is glad. They camp on the bank, bathe, offer water to the ancestors, make their fire offerings, and eat what is left of the sacred offering. Then they sit around Vishvamitra.

Rama is pleased and makes a request. Tell me about the Ganga, he says, the river that flows through three realms: how did she go through all three worlds and end up at the ocean, the lord of rivers?

Vishvamitra agrees. He begins with a family. Himavan, king of the mountains and a rich source of minerals, has a wife named Mena, daughter of Mount Meru. They have two daughters: Ganga, the elder, and Uma, the younger.

Now the gods needed something done, a purpose that would benefit the three worlds. They came to Himavan and asked for his elder daughter, who was meant to flow through three realms. Himavan gave her to them for the good of the worlds, a purifier who goes where she wishes. The gods took her with them and returned to heaven, satisfied.

Then Vishvamitra turns to the younger daughter. Uma did severe penance, and Himavan, moved by her austerity, gave her in marriage to Rudra, a unique god with no equal, honored throughout the world. So Himavan's two daughters, Vishvamitra says again, are Ganga and Uma, both revered.

He then explains what he meant by the Ganga's three courses. Her journey through three realms began with her rise into the sky, where the sinless, water-bearing daughter of the mountain became the river of the gods, Devaganga, the heavenly Ganga. The translator's note adds that the three courses are usually understood as the Ganga in the Himalayas, the heavenly Mandakini, and the Jahnavi on earth, and records that commentators differ on how the sequence should be read.

That is where the sarga stops, and Rama's question is only half answered: the river is in heaven, and the next chapters will have to bring her down. But the chapter does something important. It makes the Ganga a person, a daughter in a mountain family, with a sister who becomes the wife of Shiva. The river and the goddess are the same figure, and the gods ask for her as one asks for a person.

This is the first part of a longer story, which continues with Uma and Shiva and then with the efforts to bring the Ganga down to earth. Valmiki is using the moment on the riverbank to give Rama, and the listener, an account of the river that is about to carry them across.

Who: Ganga, Himavan, Mena, Uma, Vishvamitra

Bound to

Uma's curse: gods' wives shall bear no children causes

Bhagiratha brings Ganga down causes

Places: Ganga river

Where this comes from

valmiki · Valmiki Ramayana, Bala Kanda (valmikiramayan.net translation) sarga 35 (Sanskrit page with English)
read for this telling · valmikiramayan.net Valmiki Ramayana Bala Kanda sarga 35

See it on the tree · All stories

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