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King Sagara ruled a large, powerful kingdom, but he was not satisfied with only his empire. He sought to conquer all the kingdoms around him and all the kingdoms around those. Ultimately, he wanted to rule the world. King Sagara was lazy though. He did not want to spend all the time it would take to use his armies to subjugate the surrounding lands. To minimize the amount of time he would have to spend conquering and focus on the holdout kingdoms, the king sent a white horse to travel through all kingdoms and each king would have to choose whether to fight or give up his crown.
The great god Indra watched from far above and saw the horse making its way through many kingdoms. He saw how many kings were giving up their thrones to Sagara, and he turned green with jealousy. He did not want Sagara to rule the world, so he kidnapped the horse. Now Indra had a horse, and he did not know what to do with it. He thought and he came up with the idea to kill it. He grabbed a sword and walked out to the horse. He looked at the majestic white stallion and realized that it would be horrible to kill the horse. He thought that he should direct his anger at Sagara and not the horse. He decided to place the horse at the ashram of the sage named Kapila.
The king was enraged when he heard that the horse had been taken. He commanded his sixty sons to search far and wide for the horse. The sons found the horse at the ashram of Kapila. Thinking that Kapila had stolen the horse, the sons entered his dwelling, where he was meditating, and began to assault him. Kapila, roused from his meditation, turned towards the group of sons and glared at them. The sons looked into the eyes and saw a fiery anger. Then they burst into flames, and their ashes blew into the wind. Anshuman, the grandson of King Sagara, was waiting outside the dwelling. He heard the screams of his dad and uncles inside and rushed to help them. He got there to see nothing but piles of ashes. He fell to his knees and looked up at Kapila. He begged him for forgiveness. Kupila told him that the only road to forgiveness was to purify the souls of the fallen by bathing them in the water of Ganga.
Anshuman told his father Sagara of this and immediately they began to prepare. They knew that the only way to bring Ganga down was to ask Brahma to do so. Sagara performed a tapasya to gain the favor of Brahma and enlist his help. Sagara failed and the ritual took so long that he died, so the task fell to Anshuman. Anshuman also performed a tapasya, but he also failed. Only the grandson of Anshuman, Bhagiratha, was able to please Brahma. Brahma then told Ganga that she would have to descend to earth. The problem was that Ganga quite liked where she was, so she refused to go. Ganga threatened to destroy the earth. Brahma enlisted Shiva’s help. When Ganga rained down on the earth, Shiva stood below her and absorbed into his vast hair. Shiva then released Ganga slowly and created the great rivers of India. Her presence purified the souls of all the dead, and to this day bathing in the Ganges cleanses the soul.
The Birth of Ganga, Source
Author's Note:
The Ganges is one of the main rivers that flows through India. It holds a special place in the mythological history of India. It, of course, has its own mythological story. The story of Ganga is one that involves the gods very heavily, and thus involves a large amount of emotion and all the normal things that happen when gods interact with the mortal world. This story is less a story about flooding and more a story about averting a disastrous flood. This I think is important because for many years agricultural civilizations relied on the controlled flooding of rivers to irrigate cropland. Similarly, the controlled birth of Ganga mirrors the controlled flooding utilized to irrigate cropland. The other similarity is that the irrigation of crops parallels the salvation of souls because agriculture was the lifeblood of civilization for years. This story shows how the nature of water is twofold, and it takes the power of a god to control the temper of a powerful river. Also, it is very cool because to this day people still bathe in the river to cleanse their souls and attempt to reach nirvana. This is such a cool practice that I just had to include the story.
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