ancestors and descendants. By hearing of Ganga, by wishing to repair to
that river, by drinking its waters, by touching its waters, and by
bathing in them a person rescues both his paternal and maternal races. By
seeing, touching, and drinking the waters of Ganga, or even by applauding
Ganga, hundreds and thousands of sinful men become cleansed of all their
sins. They who wish to make their birth, life and learning fruitful,
should repair to Ganga and gratify the Pitris and the deities by offering
them oblations of water. The merit that one earns by bathing in Ganga is
such that the like of it is incapable of being earned through the
acquisition of sons or wealth or the performance of meritorious acts.
Those who, although possessed of the physical ability, do not seek to
have a sight of the auspicious Ganga of sacred current, are, without
doubt, to be likened to persons afflicted with congenital blindness or
those that are dead or those that are destitute of the power of
locomotion through palsy or lameness. What man is there that would not
reverence this sacred stream that is adored by great Rishis conversant
with the Present, the Past, and the Future, as also by the very deities
with Indra at their head. What man is there that would not seek the
protection of Ganga whose protection is sought for by forest recluses and
householders, and by Yatis and Brahmacharins alike? The man of righteous
conduct who, with rapt soul, thinks of Ganga at the time when his
life-breaths are about to leave his body, succeeds in attaining to the
highest end. That man who dwells by the side of Ganga up to the time of
his death, adoring her with reverence, becomes freed from the fear of
every kind of calamity, of sin, and of kings. When that highly sacred
stream fell from the firmament, Maheswara held it on his head. It is that
very stream which is adored in heaven.[239] The three regions, viz.,
(Earth, Heaven, and the nether place called Patala) are adorned by the
three courses of this sacred stream. The man who uses the waters of that
stream becomes certainly crowned with success. As the solar ray is to the
deities in heaven, as Chandramas is to the Pitris, as the king is to
human beings, even such is Ganga unto all streams.[240] One who becomes
bereaved of mother or father or sons or spouses or wealth does not feel
that grief which becomes one's, when one becomes bereaved of Ganga. One
does not obtain that joy through acts that lead to the