Bhagiratha and the River

Long, long ago, a king discovered a great sorrow in his family’s past. Thousands of his ancestors had died all at once, far back in time, and because of the angry way they had died, their souls could find no rest. They were caught somewhere between the earth and the sky, and they could not move on.

The king, whose name was Bhagiratha, could not bear it. “There must be a way,” he said. And he learned that there was, but that it was almost impossibly hard. Only the touch of the sacred river Ganga, the great river that flowed through the heavens, could set his ancestors free. He would have to bring the heavenly river all the way down to earth.

So Bhagiratha gave up his comfortable palace. He went alone to the mountains, and he prayed. Not for a day, or a month, or a year. He prayed for a very, very long time, through burning summers and freezing winters, never giving up, until at last the river herself heard him.

But Ganga was worried. “I am enormous,” she said. “If I fall straight from the sky to the earth, my waters will come crashing down so hard that I will crack the whole world to pieces. Who could soften such a fall?”

There was one who could. The great god Shiva agreed to help. He stood at the very spot where the river would land, and as Ganga came thundering down out of the heavens, Shiva caught her in the thick locks of his hair. Her crashing waters wound and slowed through his hair, and at last trickled out softly, gentle enough now to touch the earth without harm.

And then Bhagiratha walked. He walked ahead of the river, and the great Ganga followed him, winding across the whole land, over plains and through valleys, all the way to his waiting ancestors, and on to the sea. As her gentle waters touched them, the trapped souls were freed at last, and they rose and went peacefully on their way.

To this day the river Ganga flows across the land, and people still bless the patient king who would not give up until he had brought her down from the sky. Even now, when someone takes on an enormous, almost impossible task, people call it a Bhagirath effort.