Ganga, The River Maid

Far away, in the vast range of mountains that guard Aryavarta against invasions from the north, the great God Shiva lay asleep. Around Him rose the sky-piercing, snowcapped peaks of the mighty Himalayas; and as He slept, His tangled hair, storm tossed, winddriven, was played with by King Frost, and the snow maidens and ice-maidens of His court hung ice-drops on the hairs of head and face. And Shiva slept for many a hundred years, for He was weary; and while He slept the Sun bazed down on the vast plains and slopes and valleys of His land and burned up cruelly the green herbs and glorious trees, for there were at that time no rivers to water the arid soil; and the people cried aloud to Shiva for water, and Shiva slept.

Now in the mountains there lived a great King, King Himavat, with his fair wife Mena, mother of winged Mainaka, and of a lovely maiden, whom they named Ganga. As Ganga one day wandered through her father's snowy realm, she came to a beautiful ice-cavern that she had never seen berfore. Long icicles hung from the glittering walls; pillars of ice held up the lofty roof; and as she stood at the mouth, peeping in timidly, a ray of sunlight flashed past her into the cavern, and painted its seven colors on point; and arch, and shaft. Ganga clapped, her white hands with delight, and ran into the cavern; and there she stayed, while they searched for her high and low, and never dreamed of looking in the tangles of Shiva's hair, wherein the exquisite, ice-cavern had been formed. At last Himavat and Mena went to look for her, and chid her gently for her mischief when they found her; but when she showed them the fairy cavern they forgave her, and the three made there for many a year.

But one day Himavat returned from a journey, and his heart was heavy and his face sad. "What ails you, King and husband?" whispered Mena quietly, and Ganga nestled on her father's knee, and wound her soft arms round his neck. And the King spoke:

"The land suffers grievously for want of water, the crops are shrivelled, the cattle are wasting, men and women try in vain to still the moaning of their little ones. Shiva sleeps and heeds not the misery, and there is no help in Gods for men".

He paused, and no woed broke the silence; yet hush! surely a soft breeze whispered, through the ice-cavern; from Ganga's golden hair dropped sweet water, as the ice-wreath wherewith she had crowned herself slowly melted round her head. Himavat looked at her and covered his face, and she whispered in his ears: "Is there no help for men?"

Then he raised his heavy eyes, tear-laden, and looked upon his child: "Aye, Ganga, there is help, but it is hard to win. If a maiden pure as ice and white as snow would leave her home, and go and dwell for ever in the sultry plains, then from her life freely given would flow life for the perishing people, and her name would be sacred and beloved by all in Aryavarta."

And Ganga knew that her great father bad her take this work on her fair shoulders; but she turned away and hid herself in the recesses of her ice-cavern, and would not go forth. And ever the cry of ther dying people went up to sky like burnished brass, and their wail reached Ganga in her cavern; but still she would not move.

And her father bade her go; and her mother, weeping, prayed her to give life for men; still Ganga would not move. But one day Himavat came in, with a child dying in his arms; the soft skin was blistered with the heat, the little lips black and parched, the mouth open, the eyes fixed and glassy; and Himavat laid the child on Ganga's lap, and said: "It dies of thirst." As Ganga bent over the little face, a drop of water fell from her hair on the parched lips, and the rose-red color flashed back into them, and the baby opened its eyes an laughed for joy. Ganga sprang to her feet: "Aye, I will go, father, mother, I will go to save the perishing people, and to bring joy to the little ones who die for lack of water."

And the beauty of a great sacrifice came into her face, as she turned to the mouth of the ice-cavern, where she had dwelt in her innocent but selfish joy. And as she left the cavern there was a change, and the fair storm melted away, and the golden-bright hair and white hands vanished, and a stream of pured soft water, with white flicks foam, danced over a bed of golden-bright sand, and the water whispered as it ran: "I am Ganga,Ganga, and I go to bless the thirsty plains, and to carry life to those dying for my stream".

And wherever Ganga turned, flowers sprang up to welcome her, and stately trees bowed over her waters, and fainting cattle grew strong as they stood knee-deep in her shallows, and children romped and played with her wavelets, and strong men bathed in her torrents, and fair women laved their bodies in her pools. And Ganga the Maiden became Ganga the Mother, giver of life and joy and fertility to the broad plains of Aryavarta.

So the life that was given became the source of life throughout the great Hindu land; and as she rolls ever towards the sea, Ganga murmurs to herself: "To give oneself for others is duty; to spread happiness around one's steps for others to gather up is truest joy."

And to this day the Hindu, dying afar off from the sacred river, prays that his ashes may be thrown into Ganga's red-brown depths; and dying lips cry with their last breath: "Ganga, Ganga"; and dying eyes fix their last look on Ganga's broad pure stream.

Source: THE INDIAN THEOSOPHIST, Oct./2006