This is the 5th of a series of threads on luminaries of the Sūryavanśa/Raghuvanśa dynasty. The previous threads are linked at the end of this one.
After detailing illustrious Solar monarchs, today we look at a man who struck at something deeper, and strived at something higher, transcendent.
Bhagīratha Aikṣvāku.
From Sagara’s tale in the previous thread, recall the dynastic imperative to bring Gaṅgā back to the earth. Bhagīratha’s chapter helps us penetrate through history and approach itihāsa proper.
It shows us the multi-layered nature of our civilizational memory. For in the prelude to Bhagīratha’s tale we must note not one but three Gaṅgās.
The first resided in the sky as the Milky Way, Ākāśa Gaṅgā. The second sat in the lap of mount Meru, the Hema Gaṅgā. The third was brought to earth by two people, Bhagīratha and Gotama.
And so on Prithvī she is called Bhāgīrathī and Gautamī. Historical discovery, exploration and excavation underpin both tales.
Some generations before Bhagīratha, the Āṅgirasa sage Dīrghatamās in north Bihar was set adrift the Gaṅgā, likely modern Kosi.
He flowed downstream to the great delta, discovering where Gaṅgā met the ocean. Here he adopted the name Gotama, and this path of the Gaṅgā is thus called Gautamī.
The northern Gaṅgā, known today at places as Bhāgīrathī, Jahnāvī or Alakanandā, was never fully explored - till Bhagīratha.
Like Sagara, he finds no mention in Vedic literature. But like Sagara again, he’s a celebrated hero in the Purāṇas.
Bhagin is a word for prosperous or fortunate, and ratha in this context is the spiritual chariot of one’s own mind.
Most literally Bhagīratha translates to ‘he with a prosperous mind.’ But in the alternate interpretation, he is ‘the chariot that takes one towards prosperity.’
This evidences Sanskrit and itihāsa’s magical multiplicity. Through his arduous undertaking, not only did Bhagīratha transcend to the light himself, he brought others to it as well.
It reflects to us the spiritual milieu of his era, and in its turning of the mind inwards it represents a tradition different but kindred to core Vedic ritualism.
Bhagīratha’s life exemplifies many values later considered ideal by Buddha and Mahāvīra, and carries strands of classical Hinduism such as devotion and penance that build atop earlier legends of Prahlāda and Dhruva.
Civilizational and dhārmika continuity stares blatantly at us, a sanātana pravāha.
The traditional account of his life is such- distraught at his failure to fulfill the directive of his ancestors, to return the ashes of Sagara’s 60,000 sons to their homeland, Bhagīratha undertakes severe penance that lasts hundreds of years.
At the end of this, pleased with his devotion, the goddess Gaṅgā grants him a boon.
This is the Ākāśa Gaṅgā, the intangible Gaṅgā of the Sky, a veritable Deity. He requests her to return to the earth, to wash over his ancestors’ ashes.
But Gaṅgā reminds him of her power, of the sheer force with which she would land.
So Bhagīratha begins his penance again, and after hundreds of years elapse he gains the pleasure of Śiva, who grants him a boon too.
Śiva relents to accepting Gaṅgā on his head, where his matted hair will dampen her flow and allow her to land on earth gracefully.
This is the Hema Gaṅgā, the sheet of snow covering Meru, the great Pamir Knot from which flow all the rivers of the then-known world.
From the lap of Śiva at mount Kailāsa the great river falls into the Himālaya, where it takes the name of Bhāgīrathī in honor of the one who brought her here.
But strong indeed was her flow, and she initially wiped out the āśrama of sage Jahnu, who swallowed her up.
Bhagīratha had to make one last propitiation, and when Jahnu finally released her the river was called Jahnāvī, which is how she is remembered in the Ṛgveda.
Free at last, she flows as the Gaṅgā across the ashes of Bhagīratha’s ancestors, the 60,000 sons of Sagara.
In the bhautika loka the legend is an expedition tale.
His ‘hundreds of years’ of penance refer to the many years it would have taken him to explore the Himālaya and Meru, to find the ultimate source of the Gaṅgā.
The description of this is in vivid detail.
From Śiva’s hair (Meru) Gaṅgā first falls into Pātāla (Tibet?/Mount Kailāsa?), from where Śiva lifts her up and deposits her in the Himālaya.
From this great range she falls into Bhāratavarṣa, where she runs south before turning east from the middle.
Running east for a long distance she turns south again and eventually meets the ocean. In the northern end she is called Bhāgīrathī, in the southern she is Gautamī.
In this the Gaṅgā is at first metaphysical, the Ākāśa Gaṅgā. She is then a geological composite, the Hema Gaṅgā that is the mother of all rivers.
Finally she is Bhāgīrathī and Gautamī, named after the men who ‘brought’ her to Bhāratavarṣa.
Bhagīratha’s will carved mountains, forcing God (Śiva) to yield Goddess (Gaṅgā) to him. This wasn’t without collateral damage.
The Gaṅgā’s northern parts were inhabited by the Kanyākubjas, descendants of Jahnu. Their dynasty broken by Haihayas, their small towns were subject to flooding once the Gaṅgā returned to its erstwhile flow.
The generations-long effort started by Sagara could have involved the digging of canals and channels to ensure both- 1) perennial rivers that supported farming and irrigation, and 2) stable streams less susceptible to flooding.
Support for this comes in the flowering of organized agriculture in the Gangetic Plains in the following centuries.
Already accustomed to wetland rice cultivation for many millennia, by the mid 3rd millennium BC we see a variety of barley, wheat, rice, lentils and beans being cultivated all-round the year.
Under an Aryan invasion/migration scenario, the Gaṅgā tale is interpreted as Bhagīratha leading the Aikṣvākus to the Gangetic Plains.
Thus, he does not bring the Gaṅgā to earth but rather brings his people to the Gaṅgā.
Apart from the inherent problems with AIT, this interpretation has to explain why Sagara, Bhagīratha and their immediate descendants do not feature in the Ṛgveda if they were a part of the invading Aryans!
But transcending the worldly, Bhagīratha’s is a story that takes us to the adhidaivika and ādhyātmika.
It’s place in aitihāsika memory is to give us an epitome of tapas, of sādhanā and of sheer perseverance.
At these levels we put aside material queries on the Gaṅgā, or speculations over hydro-engineering. Instead we turn to the image of one man, alone on a cold mountain beside half-frozen waters.
What takes a person there? What could they do of such a journey? What might be gained and learned, and what self-application does it require of us?
These are the more fundamental questions itihāsa compels that we ask, and by asking them we are turned to the dhārmika core - bhakti, devatā, saṅgharśa, svadharma, pitṛ ṛṇa and more.
And this is the true objective of Indian civilizational memory.