The Sanskrit Epics

by Delphi Classics

  Libations that they long to see.

  Let Gangá with her holy wave

  The ashes of the heroes lave,

  That so my kinsmen may ascend

  To heavenly bliss that ne’er shall end.

  And give, I pray, O God, a son,

  Nor let my house be all undone.

  Sire of the worlds! be this the grace

  Bestowed upon Ikshváku’s race.”

  The Sire, when thus the king had prayed,

  In sweet kind words his answer made.

  “High, high thy thought and wishes are,

  Bhagírath of the mighty car!

  Ikshváku’s line is blest in thee,

  And as thou prayest it shall be.

  Gangá, whose waves in Swarga196 flow,

  Is daughter of the Lord of Snow.

  Win Śiva that his aid be lent

  To hold her in her mid descent,

  For earth alone will never bear

  Those torrents hurled from upper air;

  And none may hold her weight but He,

  The Trident wielding deity.”

  Thus having said, the Lord supreme

  Addressed him to the heavenly stream;

  And then with Gods and Maruts197 went

  To heaven above the firmament.

  Canto XLIV. The Descent Of Gangá.

  THE LORD OF life the skies regained:

  The fervent king a year remained

  With arms upraised, refusing rest

  While with one toe the earth he pressed,

  Still as a post, with sleepless eye,

  The air his food, his roof the sky.

  The year had past. Then Umá’s lord,198

  King of creation, world adored,

  Thus spoke to great Bhagírath: “I,

  Well pleased thy wish will gratify,

  And on my head her waves shall fling

  The daughter of the Mountains’ King!”

  He stood upon the lofty crest

  That crowns the Lord of Snow,

  And bade the river of the Blest

  Descend on earth below.

  Himálaya’s child, adored of all,

  The haughty mandate heard,

  And her proud bosom, at the call,

  With furious wrath was stirred.

  Down from her channel in the skies

  With awful might she sped

  With a giant’s rush, in a giant’s size,

  On Śiva’s holy head.

  “He calls me,” in her wrath she cried,

  “And all my flood shall sweep

  And whirl him in its whelming tide

  To hell’s profoundest deep.”

  He held the river on his head,

  And kept her wandering, where,

  Dense as Himálaya’s woods, were spread

  The tangles of his hair.

  No way to earth she found, ashamed,

  Though long and sore she strove,

  Condemned, until her pride were tamed,

  Amid his locks to rove.

  There, many lengthening seasons through,

  The wildered river ran:

  Bhagírath saw it, and anew

  His penance dire began.

  Then Śiva, for the hermit’s sake,

  Bade her long wanderings end,

  And sinking into Vindu’s lake

  Her weary waves descend.

  From Gangá, by the God set free,

  Seven noble rivers came;

  Hládiní, Pávaní, and she

  Called Naliní by name:

  These rolled their lucid waves along

  And sought the eastern side.

  Suchakshu, Sítá fair and strong,

  And Sindhu’s mighty tide — 199

  These to the region of the west

  With joyful waters sped:

  The seventh, the brightest and the best,

  Flowed where Bhagírath led.

  On Śiva’s head descending first

  A rest the torrents found:

  Then down in all their might they burst

  And roared along the ground.

  On countless glittering scales the beam

  Of rosy morning flashed,

  Where fish and dolphins through the stream

  Fallen and falling dashed.

  Then bards who chant celestial lays

  And nymphs of heavenly birth

  Flocked round upon that flood to gaze

  That streamed from sky to earth.

  The Gods themselves from every sphere,

  Incomparably bright,

  Borne in their golden cars drew near

  To see the wondrous sight.

  The cloudless sky was all aflame

  With the light of a hundred suns

  Where’er the shining chariots came

  That bore those holy ones.

  So flashed the air with crested snakes

  And fish of every hue

  As when the lightning’s glory breaks

  Through fields of summer blue.

  And white foam-clouds and silver spray

  Were wildly tossed on high,

  Like swans that urge their homeward way

  Across the autumn sky.

  Now ran the river calm and clear

  With current strong and deep:

  Now slowly broadened to a mere,

  Or scarcely seemed to creep.

  Now o’er a length of sandy plain

  Her tranquil course she held;

  Now rose her waves and sank again,

  By refluent waves repelled.

  So falling first on Śiva’s head,

  Thence rushing to their earthly bed,

  In ceaseless fall the waters streamed,

  And pure with holy lustre gleamed.

  Then every spirit, sage, and bard,

  Condemned to earth by sentence hard,

  Pressed eagerly around the tide

  That Śiva’s touch had sanctified.

  Then they whom heavenly doom had hurled,

  Accursed, to this lower world,

  Touched the pure wave, and freed from sin

  Resought the skies and entered in.

  And all the world was glad, whereon

  The glorious water flowed and shone,

  For sin and stain were banished thence

  By the sweet river’s influence.

  First, in a car of heavenly frame,

  The royal saint of deathless name,

  Bhagírath, very glorious rode,

  And after him fair Gangá flowed.

  God, sage, and bard, the chief in place

  Of spirits and the Nága race,

  Nymph, giant, fiend, in long array

  Sped where Bhagírath led the way;

  And all the hosts the flood that swim

  Followed the stream that followed him.

  Where’er the great Bhagírath led,

  There ever glorious Gangá fled,

  The best of floods, the rivers’ queen,

  Whose waters wash the wicked clean.

  It chanced that Jahnu, great and good,

  Engaged with holy offerings stood;

  The river spread her waves around

  Flooding his sacrificial ground.

  The saint in anger marked her pride,

  And at one draught her stream he dried.

  Then God, and sage, and bard, afraid,

  To noble high-souled Jahnu prayed,

  And begged that he would kindly deem

  His own dear child that holy stream.

  Moved by their suit, he soothed their fears

  And loosed her waters from his ears.

  Hence Gangá through the world is styled

  Both Jáhnavi and Jahnu’s child.

  Then onward still she followed fast,

  And reached the great sea bank at last.

  Thence deep below her way she made

  To end those rites so long delayed.

  The monarch reached the Ocean’s side,


  And still behind him Gangá hied.

  He sought the depths which open lay

  Where Sagar’s sons had dug their way.

  So leading through earth’s nether caves

  The river’s purifying waves,

  Over his kinsmen’s dust the lord

  His funeral libation poured.

  Soon as the flood their dust bedewed,

  Their spirits gained beatitude,

  And all in heavenly bodies dressed

  Rose to the skies’ eternal rest.

  Then thus to King Bhagírath said

  Brahmá, when, coming at the head

  Of all his bright celestial train,

  He saw those spirits freed from stain:

  “Well done! great Prince of men, well done!

  Thy kinsmen bliss and heaven have won.

  The sons of Sagar mighty-souled,

  Are with the Blest, as Gods, enrolled,

  Long as the Ocean’s flood shall stand

  Upon the border of the land,

  So long shall Sagar’s sons remain,

  And, godlike, rank in heaven retain.

  Gangá thine eldest child shall be,

  Called from thy name Bhágirathí;

  Named also — for her waters fell

  From heaven and flow through earth and hell —

  Tripathagá, stream of the skies,

  Because three paths she glorifies.

  And, mighty King, ’tis given thee now

  To free thee and perform thy vow.

  No longer, happy Prince, delay

  Drink-offerings to thy kin to pay.

  For this the holiest Sagar sighed,

  But mourned the boon he sought denied.

  Then Anśumán, dear Prince! although

  No brighter name the world could show,

  Strove long the heavenly flood to gain

  To visit earth, but strove in vain.

  Nor was she by the sages’ peer,

  Blest with all virtues, most austere,

  Thy sire Dilípa, hither brought,

  Though with fierce prayers the boon he sought.

  But thou, O King, earned success,

  And won high fame which God will bless.

  Through thee, O victor of thy foes,

  On earth this heavenly Gangá flows,

  And thou hast gained the meed divine

  That waits on virtue such as thine.

  Now in her ever holy wave

  Thyself, O best of heroes, lave:

  So shalt thou, pure from every sin,

  The blessed fruit of merit win.

  Now for thy kin who died of yore

  The meet libations duly pour.

  Above the heavens I now ascend:

  Depart, and bliss thy steps attend.”

  Thus to the mighty king who broke

  His foemens’ might, Lord Brahmá spoke,

  And with his Gods around him rose

  To his own heaven of blest repose.

  The royal sage no more delayed,

  But, the libation duly paid,

  Home to his regal city hied

  With water cleansed and purified.

  There ruled he his ancestral state,

  Best of all men, most fortunate.

  And all the people joyed again

  In good Bhagírath’s gentle reign.

  Rich, prosperous, and blest were they,

  And grief and sickness fled away.

  Thus, Ráma, I at length have told

  How Gangá came from heaven of old.

  Now, for the evening passes swift,

  I wish thee each auspicious gift.

  This story of the flood’s descent

  Will give — for ’tis most excellent —

  Wealth, purity, fame, length of days,

  And to the skies its hearers raise”

  Canto XLV. The Quest Of The Amrit.

  HIGH AND MORE high their wonder rose

  As the strange story reached its close,

  And thus, with Lakshmaṇ, Ráma, best

  Of Raghu’s sons, the saint addressed:

  “Most wondrous is the tale which thou

  Hast told of heavenly Gangá, how

  From realms above descending she

  Flowed through the land and filled the sea.

  In thinking o’er what thou hast said

  The night has like a moment fled,

  Whose hours in musing have been spent

  Upon thy words most excellent:

  So much, O holy Sage, thy lore

  Has charmed us with this tale of yore.”

  Day dawned. The morning rites were done

  And the victorious Raghu’s son

  Addressed the sage in words like these,

  Rich in his long austerities:

  “The night is past: the morn is clear;

  Told is the tale so good to hear:

  Now o’er that river let us go,

  Three-pathed, the best of all that flow.

  This boat stands ready on the shore

  To bear the holy hermits o’er,

  Who of thy coming warned, in haste,

  The barge upon the bank have placed.”

  And Kuśik’s son approved his speech,

  And moving to the sandy beach,

  Placed in the boat the hermit band,

  And reached the river’s further strand.

  On the north bank their feet they set,

  And greeted all the saints they met.

  On Gangá’s shore they lighted down,

  And saw Viśálá’s lovely town.

  Thither, the princes by his side,

  The best of holy hermits hied.

  It was a town exceeding fair

  That might with heaven itself compare.

  Then, suppliant palm to palm applied,

  Famed Ráma asked his holy guide:

  “O best of hermits, say what race

  Of monarchs rules this lovely place.

  Dear master, let my prayer prevail,

  For much I long to hear the tale.”

  Moved by his words, the saintly man

  Viśálá’s ancient tale began:

  “List, Ráma, list, with closest heed

  The tale of Indra’s wondrous deed,

  And mark me as I truly tell

  What here in ancient days befell.

  Ere Krita’s famous Age200 had fled,

  Strong were the sons of Diti201 bred;

  And Aditi’s brave children too

  Were very mighty, good, and true.

  The rival brothers fierce and bold

  Were sons of Kaśyap lofty-souled.

  Of sister mothers born, they vied,

  Brood against brood, in jealous pride.

  Once, as they say, band met with band,

  And, joined in awful council, planned

  To live, unharmed by age and time,

  Immortal in their youthful prime.

  Then this was, after due debate,

  The counsel of the wise and great,

  To churn with might the milky sea202

  The life-bestowing drink to free.

  This planned, they seized the Serpent King,

  Vásuki, for their churning-string,

  And Mandar’s mountain for their pole,

  And churned with all their heart and soul.

  As thus, a thousand seasons through,

  This way and that the snake they drew,

  Biting the rocks, each tortured head,

  A very deadly venom shed.

  Thence, bursting like a mighty flame,

  A pestilential poison came,

  Consuming, as it onward ran,

  The home of God, and fiend, and man.

  Then all the suppliant Gods in fear

  To Śankar,203 mighty lord, drew near.

  To Rudra, King of Herds, dismayed,

  “Save us, O save us, Lord!” they prayed.

  Then Vishṇu, bearing shell, and mace,

  And discus, sho
wed his radiant face,

  And thus addressed in smiling glee

  The Trident wielding deity:

  “What treasure first the Gods upturn

  From troubled Ocean, as they churn,

  Should — for thou art the eldest — be

  Conferred, O best of Gods, on thee.

  Then come, and for thy birthright’s sake,

  This venom as thy first fruits take.”

  He spoke, and vanished from their sight,

  When Śiva saw their wild affright,

  And heard his speech by whom is borne

  The mighty bow of bending horn,204

  The poisoned flood at once he quaffed

  As ‘twere the Amrit’s heavenly draught.

  Then from the Gods departing went

  Śiva, the Lord pre-eminent.

  The host of Gods and Asurs still

  Kept churning with one heart and will.

  But Mandar’s mountain, whirling round,

  Pierced to the depths below the ground.

  Then Gods and bards in terror flew

  To him who mighty Madhu slew.

  “Help of all beings! more than all,

  The Gods on thee for aid may call.

  Ward off, O mighty-armed! our fate,

  And bear up Mandar’s threatening weight.”

  Then Vishṇu, as their need was sore,

  The semblance of a tortoise wore,

  And in the bed of Ocean lay

  The mountain on his back to stay.

  Then he, the soul pervading all,

  Whose locks in radiant tresses fall,

  One mighty arm extended still,

  And grasped the summit of the hill.

  So ranged among the Immortals, he

  Joined in the churning of the sea.

  A thousand years had reached their close,

  When calmly from the ocean rose

  The gentle sage205 with staff and can,

  Lord of the art of healing man.

  Then as the waters foamed and boiled,

  As churning still the Immortals toiled,

  Of winning face and lovely frame,

  Forth sixty million fair ones came.

  Born of the foam and water, these

  Were aptly named Apsarases.206

  Each had her maids. The tongue would fail —

  So vast the throng — to count the tale.

  But when no God or Titan wooed

  A wife from all that multitude,

  Refused by all, they gave their love

  In common to the Gods above.

  Then from the sea still vext and wild

  Rose Surá,207 Varuṇ’s maiden child.

  A fitting match she sought to find:

  But Diti’s sons her love declined,

  Their kinsmen of the rival brood

  To the pure maid in honour sued.

  Hence those who loved that nymph so fair

  The hallowed name of Suras bear.

  And Asurs are the Titan crowd

  Her gentle claims who disallowed.