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Narada had heard the tale of the Earth, and one river would not let him rest. “Now tell me the tale of Ganga,” he asked Shri Narayana. “How did that best of rivers, Sureshvari, who is Vishnu’s own nature and is known as Vishnupadi herself, go to Bharatavarsha in ancient days by Sarasvati’s curse? In which yuga, prayed to by whom, sent by whom? I wish to hear that auspicious episode in order; it destroys sin and gives merit.” Narayana told him. He told him of King Sagara and his sixty thousand sons, of Bhagiratha’s tapas and the river’s coming down, of what Shri Krishna promised her at that hour and how she is to be meditated on and praised, the whole excellent Gangopakhyana that gives merit and moksha, and when it was done he asked what more Narada wished to hear. Narada had the question ready. “Why, where and how did Ganga appear, she who moves by three paths and purifies all the worlds? And what did those who were present there do? Tell it in detail.” The story Narayana answered with begins in Goloka, on a festival night.
The rasa-circle of Goloka and the song of Shiva
Once, on the night of the full moon of Kartika, Goloka was keeping the Radha-mahotsava, the great festival of Radha. Shri Krishna had worshiped Radha with the full rite and taken his seat in the rasa-mandala, and Brahma and the gods, Shaunaka and the rishis, gladly worshiped that same Radha whom Krishna had worshiped, and stayed in their places. Then Sarasvati, Krishna’s own singer, took up the vina and sang a lovely song, her tala and her svara faultless. The gifts came one after another. Brahma, pleased, gave her a necklace of the best jewels; Shiva a gem so rare that the whole universe held no second; Krishna the Kaustubha, best of jewels; Radha a fine necklace of priceless stones; Narayana a lovely garland; Lakshmi gold earrings set with precious jewels. Mulaprakriti, whom the worlds know as Vishnumaya, Ishvari, Durga, Narayani and Ishana, gave her the rarest gift of the night, brahma-bhakti, devotion to Brahman itself; Dharma gave a dharmic mind and great fame in the world; Agni a cloth pure as fire; Pavana anklets set with jewels.
Then Shankara, urged again and again by Brahma, sang a sweet song about Shri Krishna, a song with the power to swell the joy of the rasa. The gods heard it and were enchanted, and they sat like painted puppets. When awareness came back to them, and it came back with great difficulty, they saw the whole ground of the rasa-mandala filled with water, and Radha and Krishna nowhere in it. Every gopa and gopi, every god and every dvija wept aloud. Brahma, by meditation, understood Krishna’s whole purpose: Krishna, with Radha, had become liquid. Brahma and all the gods praised the supreme lord and asked one boon of him. “Show us your form.” A bodiless voice answered, clear and sweet, heard by everyone. “I am Shri Krishna, the Self of all, and this Radha, my shakti, is gracious to devotees. We two have taken this body of water. What have you to do with my body and Radha’s? Manus, men, munis and Vaishnavas purified by my mantras will come to my abode and see me. If you too wish to see my real form directly, keep Shiva here and do as I order.” The order was for Brahma. He was to have Shiva, guru of the world, compose a special shastra, a limb of the Veda, full of mantras, stotras, dhyanas and rites never heard before, giving every desired fruit. That shastra, holding Krishna’s mantra, kavacha and stotra, was to be kept carefully secret, so that sinners would stay turned away from him; yet if among hundreds and thousands one meritorious worshiper of his mantra was found, the mantra was to be given to him, since a shastra kept wholly secret would have been composed for nothing. Without it no one could reach his world; and yet, the voice went on, if everyone in turn became a dweller of Goloka, Brahma’s universe would stand empty of beings. So in each creation Brahma was to make five kinds of people, the sattvika and the rest, some to stay on earth and some in heaven. “If Shiva makes a firm vow in the assembly of the gods to compose the tantra-shastra, he will quickly see my form directly.” The voice fell silent, and Brahma gladly carried the word to Shiva. Shiva, best of knowers, took Ganga-water into his hand. “To keep my vow I will compose the excellent tantra-shastra, the essence of the Vedas, full of the mantra-groups of Vishnumaya. Whoever takes Ganga-water in his hand and makes a false vow goes to the hell Kalasutra and stays there for the lifetime of Brahma.” The moment Shankara said this in the assembly of the gods, Krishna appeared there with Radha. The gods praised Purushottama in joy, and the festival began again. In due time Shiva composed the tantra-shastra, the lamp of liberation. This, Narayana said, is the very secret and rare episode: Ganga, liquid, appeared from Goloka, born of the bodies of Radha and Krishna; she gives bhoga and she gives moksha; Krishna established her in place after place, and in every universe this Ganga, who is Krishna’s own nature, is worshiped.
Radha’s anger
When that was told, Narada asked where Ganga goes once five thousand years of Kali have passed. She came to Bharata by Sarasvati’s curse, Narayana said, and when the curse’s term ends she goes back to Vaikuntha by Hari’s will; so does Sarasvati, who is Bharati, and so does Lakshmi, who flows in Bharata as the river Padmavati. Ganga, Sarasvati and Lakshmi are Hari’s three wives, and with Tulasi the Vedas count four. Narada’s next question opened the heart of the story. “How did Ganga, born from Vishnu’s lotus feet, come to be in Brahma’s kamandalu, and how was she known as Shiva’s beloved? And how did she become Narayana’s beloved? Tell me.” In ancient times, Narayana said, liquid Ganga dwelt in Goloka; born of the bodies of Radha and Krishna, she is their portion and of their nature. The presiding goddess of that water took a form matchless in the world, in the fullness of fresh youth, with every ornament on her. Her face was a lotus opened at autumn noon, smiling and very lovely; her color was molten gold, her luster the autumn moon’s; she was soft in radiance, very kind, pure sattva through and through. Her curling hair held a malati garland, chandana and dots of sindura marked her forehead, her lower lip was the bandhuka flower and her teeth ripe pomegranate seeds, and she wore two fire-pure cloths with girdles. Full of desire, she sat down beside Krishna, very shy, drawing her cloth across her face, and with unblinking eyes she drank the beauty of the Lord’s face and did not stop. Her face bloomed with joy, longing for a union she had never had, her hair stood on end, and the Lord’s beauty had all but taken her senses from her. Then Radhika came and sat down there, and thirty crores of gopis came with her. Her luster was crores of moons; her face and her eyes had gone red as red lotuses with anger; her color was the yellow champaka; her gait was slow as a rutting elephant king’s. Her soft reddened feet, adorned with the arghya Krishna himself had offered them, came down slowly from a vimana of the best jewels, and rishis served her with the wind of white chamaras. Sindura burned in the middle of her forehead like a lit lamp; her curling locks carried a garland of parijata flowers, and she shook them, trembling herself, her red lips trembling in anger, and went and sat on a jeweled throne beside Krishna with the crowds of her friends. Krishna saw her, rose respectfully, and with a startled smile began to speak sweet words. The gopas, very frightened, bowed their heads to Radhika and praised her with devotion, and Krishna praised her too. Ganga rose at once and praised Radhika at length and, frightened, asked after her welfare with great humility. She stood bowed in fear; her throat, her lips and her palate were dry. By meditation she took refuge at Krishna’s lotus feet. Krishna saw Ganga on the lotus of his heart and gave the frightened goddess fearlessness, and holding the boon of the Lord of all, her mind grew calm. Only then did Ganga look at Radha on the high seat, lovely past all seeing, blazing with brahma-tejas. That eternal goddess creates countless Brahmas at the start of creation and is always like a maiden of twelve years in fresh youth; none in the universe equals her in form or quality; she is calm, without beginning or end, sati, pure, the best of all beauties. She is Krishna’s ardhangini, half his body, his equal in tejas and age and luster, and as Mahalakshmi she is worshiped by Vishnu together with Lakshmi. Unborn, she is mother of the world, dearer to Krishna than life, the presiding goddess of his life, honored, proud and lovely. Ganga looked at Raseshvari Radhika and was not satisfied, and drank her beauty with unblinking eyes.
Radha’s reproach
Then Radha, calm and gentle by nature, smiled and spoke to Krishna in a sweet voice. “Who is this lovely one sitting beside you, smiling, looking at your smiling lotus face out of the corner of her eye, full of desire? She covers her face with her cloth and looks at your form again and again, her hair on end, and she keeps fainting. And you look at her with desire too, and laugh. While I live, how has such an ill-conducted woman come into Goloka? And you keep up your misconduct again and again. I am of womankind, soft by nature, and out of love I forgive you. You are a lampata, Vrajeshvara. Take this beloved you want so much and leave Goloka now; otherwise it will not go well with you.” Then she called up old matters, one by one. “Once before I saw you with Viraja in the sandal forest, and at my friends’ word I forgave you then. At the mere sound of me you hid, and Viraja gave up that body and took the form of a river. That goddess still exists as a river, your good fame made visible, a crore yojanas wide and four times as long. When I had gone home you went back to her and wept loudly, calling ‘Viraje! Viraje!’ Then that siddha-yogini came up out of the water by her yoga and gave you her darshan as a lovely woman in a body, with her ornaments on. You placed your tejas in her, and in time the seven oceans were born from her. In the same way I saw you with the gopi Shobha in the Champaka forest. At my sound you hid; Shobha left her body and went into the orb of the moon, and her body became most beautiful and radiant. Then, grieving, you divided that tejas and gave it to jewels and gold and fine gems, to the lotus faces of women, to the king, to new shoots and flowers and ripe fruit and crops, to the adorned palaces of kings, to new leaves and to milk. In the same way I saw you with the gopi Prabha in Vrindavana. At my sound you hid at once; Prabha gave up her body and went into the orb of the sun, and her body became a fierce tejas. Weeping, you divided it lovingly and gave it places: that tejas, which came out of your eyes through shame and fear of me, went to Agni, to the yakshas, to kings and gods, to the devotees of Vishnu, to the nagas, to Brahmin munis and ascetics, to fortunate women and to famous men; and you wept much. In the same way I once saw you with the gopi Shanti in the rasa-mandala. It was spring, in a jewel palace lit with jewel lamps; you sat with her on a bed of flowers, and she gave you tambula and you took it lovingly. At my sound you hid at once, and Shanti in fear gave up her body and merged into you. Her body became the best of qualities, and weeping you shared it out: some into the nikunja, some into Brahmins, some merged into me, some to Lakshmi who is pure sattva, some to the worshipers of your mantra, to the Shaktas, to ascetics, to Dharma, to the righteous. And I once saw you with the gopi Kshama, lying in bliss and past knowing on a bed fragrant with flowers and sandal, absorbed in play with that sleeping beauty. I arrived and woke Kshama, and I woke you. Remember it. Then I took your yellow cloth, your lovely flute, your vanamala, the Kaustubha and your priceless jewel earrings, and later, at my friends’ loving request, I gave them back. You turned dark then, from shame and from sin. From shame Kshama gave up her body and went into the earth; her body became the best of qualities, and weeping you divided her lovingly among many: Vishnu and the devotees of Vishnu, dharmic men and Dharma, the weak, ascetics, gods and pandits. I have told you all this. What more would you hear? You have many more great qualities, but I do not know them all.”
The vanishing of the water and the cry of the gods
Having said this to Krishna, red-lotus-eyed Radha turned to speak to the shamed and chaste Ganga, whose face was downcast, and at that moment Ganga, a siddha-yogini herself, understood the whole secret by yoga, vanished from the middle of the assembly, and entered her own water. Radha knew it by yoga, and she began to lift the water-form of Ganga, present everywhere, in her cupped hands and drink it down. Ganga knew that too; she entered Shri Krishna’s lotus feet and took refuge there. Radha searched for her through Goloka, Vaikuntha, Brahmaloka and everywhere, and nowhere saw her. Then water failed everywhere, and the world showed itself a dry globe of mud strewn with the dead bodies of the creatures of the water. Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Ananta, Dharma, Indra, Chandra, Surya, the Manus, the munis and the siddhas all went to Goloka, their throats and lips and palates dry, and with heads bowed and eyes full of tears they praised Krishna. They saw him in the rasa-mandala, made of light, on a jewel throne, fanned with white chamaras by the gopalas, watching the gopis dance and sing, resting on the breast of Radha, chewing the tambula she gave him; glad and amazed, they told their wish to four-faced Brahma. Brahma, with Vishnu on his right and Mahadeva on his left, went toward Krishna and Radha, and what he saw there he had never seen. Everything in the rasa-mandala was Krishna. Every figure wore the same dress and sat on the same kind of seat; every one was a two-armed Krishna with a flute, a vanamala, a peacock feather in his crown and the Kaustubha; all were equal in quality, ornament, form, tejas, age and luster, and Brahma could not tell who was being served and who was serving. One moment Krishna became pure light and the next he sat embodied on his seat, so that in a single instant Brahma saw both his formless and his formed aspects. One instant Krishna was without Radha, the next Radhika sat on every seat beside him; Brahma saw Krishna in Radha’s form and Radha in Krishna’s, and could not tell who was female and who was male. Then Brahma meditated on Krishna in the lotus of his heart, saw him with the eye of meditation, and praised him, settling the doubt of female and male in many ways. By the Lord’s order he opened his eyes, and there was the one Krishna on Radhika’s breast, surrounded by his parshadas, adorned by the gopis. Brahma and the gods bowed and praised him, and Krishna, who knew their wish, spoke. “Welcome, Brahma. Come, Kamalapati. Come here, Mahadeva; may you always be well. You have come to take Ganga, and Ganga, frightened, has taken refuge at my lotus feet. When she was near me Radhika saw her and made ready to drink her, and so she came into my presence. I will certainly give her to you, but first free her from fear.” Lotus-born Brahma smiled, bowed his head, praised Radhika with his four mouths, and put his request to her. “From your body and Krishna’s, turned to liquid when you were enchanted by the sound of Shankara’s music, this Ganga appeared in the rasa-mandala. So, being a portion of you and of Krishna, like your own dear daughter, let Ganga take your mantra and worship you. Then the four-armed lord of Vaikuntha, Shri Hari, will be her husband, and when by one kala of herself she goes down to the earth, the salt ocean will be her husband too. As she is in Goloka, so let her be everywhere. You are her mother, and she is your daughter for good.” Radha laughed and accepted everything. Then Ganga came out from the tip of the nail of the big toe of Krishna’s foot, and all of them honored her there, and she stood calm in their midst. Brahma put some of her water in his kamandalu, and moon-crested Shiva held some on his head. Then Brahma gave Ganga the Radha-mantra, with Radha’s stotra, kavacha, dhyana and the whole order of her worship as the Samaveda teaches them, and Ganga worshiped Radha by those rules and set out for Vaikuntha with Narayana. Krishna, laughing, kept Brahma a moment longer for a hard and subtle account of time. “You who have come here are the only ones alive, here in Goloka beyond the wheel of time. The kalpa has ended and the whole universe is flooded; the Brahmas and the other gods of the other universes have merged into me, and except for Vaikuntha everything is under water. Go and create Brahmaloka and the other worlds again, and then Ganga will go there. Much of your time has passed; who knows how many Brahmas have ended and how many are yet to be.” Radhika’s lord went into the inner apartments, Brahma and the gods set to the work of creation, and Ganga went to every place where Krishna had ordered her to stay.
The descent into Vaikuntha and onto the earth
How Ganga became Vishnu’s wife Narada had never heard. When Ganga had gone to Vaikuntha, Narayana told him, Brahma came there too, reached Vishnu with Ganga beside him, bowed, and put her case himself. “The liquid goddess Ganga, born of the bodies of Radha and Krishna, is here now in fresh youth and of good nature, pure sattva, free of anger and of ego. Born of Krishna’s body, she wishes to choose no husband except him. But Radha is there, very proud, and that radiant Radha was ready to drink her; greatly afraid, Ganga wisely entered Krishna’s lotus feet. I saw the globe of the brahmanda dry everywhere and went to Goloka, and Krishna brought her out from the tip of his toenail. I gave her the Radhika-mantra, filled the brahmanda with her water, bowed to Radha and Radha’s lord, and brought her here. Accept this Sureshvari Ganga by gandharva marriage. You are the supreme rasika among the gods and this Ganga is a rasika too; the union of a gifted woman with a gifted man is auspicious. Mahalakshmi is angry with a man who refuses a maiden who has come to him of her own accord, and she leaves him; there is no doubt of it. The wise never insult Prakriti. All men are born of Prakriti, and women are kalas of Prakriti; you alone, Jagannatha, are nirguna and beyond Prakriti. Krishna himself stayed two-armed Krishna with half his body and with the other half became four-armed, and Radha, born of Krishna’s left side, divided in two: from her right portion she stayed Radha herself, and from her left she became Kamala. So Ganga wants you as her husband, because she was born of your own body. Like Prakriti and Purusha, the body of woman and man is one.” Brahma handed Ganga to Hari and left. Shri Hari took Ganga’s hand, anointed with flowers and sandal, and accepted her as his wife by the gandharva rite, and sported gladly with her. So Ganga, who had gone to the earth, came back to her own place, and because she came from Vishnu’s lotus feet she became known as Vishnupadi. In her first love-play with rasika Hari, from an excess of bliss, Ganga fainted. Sarasvati saw it and was unhappy from then on; though Lakshmi forbade her again and again, Sarasvati always envied Ganga, and Ganga never returned it. In the end Vishnu’s beloved Ganga, angered, cursed Sarasvati to go to Bharatavarsha. So Hari had three wives with Ganga, and afterward, with Tulasi, four. How Ganga herself came down to Bharata, by Sarasvati’s earlier curse, by the Lord’s command and by a king’s tapas, Narayana had told Narada at the very start, when he first asked for her tale. Sagara, king of kings in the solar line, had two wives, Vaidarbhi and Shaivya. Shaivya bore a handsome son, Asamanja. Vaidarbhi, wishing for a son, worshiped Shankara and conceived by his boon, and when a full hundred years had passed she bore a lump of flesh; she looked at it and wept aloud, until Shankara came to her in the form of a Brahmin and divided the lump into sixty thousand equal parts, and every piece became a son of great strength, their bodies outshining the midday sun of summer. By the curse of the sage Kapila all of them were burned to ash, and Sagara wept and went away into the deep forest. His son Asamanja did tapas to bring Ganga down, and after a hundred thousand years of it he died; Asamanja’s son Anshuman did tapas a hundred thousand years more, and he too died. Anshuman’s son was Bhagiratha, a great devotee and a Vaishnava beyond age and beyond death, and to bring Ganga he did tapas for a hundred thousand years and saw Shri Krishna with his own eyes: bright as crores of summer suns, two-armed, a flute in his hand, a kishora in a cowherd’s dress, in a cloth pure as fire, his face gently smiling, praised by Brahma and Vishnu and Mahesha, the witness of all, beyond Prakriti. The king bowed again and again and praised him, his hair standing on end as he sang, and won the boon he wanted, the deliverance of his ancestors. Krishna turned to Ganga. “By the force of Sarasvati’s curse go quickly to Bharatavarsha, and by my command purify all the sons of Sagara. Touched by the wind that has touched you, they will be purified, take my form, mount divine chariots and reach my world, and be established as my parshadas.” Ganga bowed and asked him the thing that troubled her. “By Bharati’s former curse, by your command and by Bhagiratha’s tapas I go now to Bharatavarsha. But the sins that sinners give me by bathing in me: how will those sins of mine be destroyed? And how long must I stay in Bharata, and when shall I reach Vishnu’s supreme abode again?” He knew all her wishes, he said. In Bharata the salt ocean, his own portion, would be the husband of her river form; for five thousand years of Kali she must stay on the land of Bharata by Sarasvati’s curse; the dwellers of Bharata would worship her and praise her with the stotra Bhagiratha composed. “Whoever says ‘Ganga, Ganga’ even from a hundred yojanas away is freed of all sins and reaches Vishnuloka.” As for the sin she would take on from the bathing of thousands of sinners, the mere touch of the devotees of Mulaprakriti, the Devi Bhuvaneshvari, would destroy it. Then Shri Hari told Bhagiratha to praise and worship Ganga, and Bhagiratha did, with the dhyana and the stotra of the Kauthuma shakha, and the two of them bowed to Shri Krishna, and the Lord vanished. Bhagiratha took Ganga with him to the place where Sagara’s sons had been burned to ash, and at the touch of the wind that had touched her the sons of Sagara went at once to Vaikuntha. Because Bhagiratha brought her, she became famous as Bhagirathi; and because she came from Vishnu’s lotus feet she is Vishnupadi, worshiped in every universe.
Source: Shrimad Devi Bhagavata Mahapurana (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)